The purpouse of this section is to show off projects that I’m proud of that show ingenuity and commitment.
Fully-Electric tricycle
This was a project for a Career and College Ready class, where you were to create something related to a career you chose. At the time I was a big fan of Tesla and Elon Musk, and decided to create an electric vehicle. It was made using parts from an old electric, motorized, cooler. One similar to the Cruzin Cooler. For the energy source I used 80 AA rechargeable batteries. For the most part, it worked okay however the holders used for the batteries were not suitable for the amount of power being used nor being on a very bumpy vehicle.
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic we had to transition to digital services at our church. In order to provide a better worship experience, we decided to all get together and record a few weeks worth of music. This then had to be edited together, have lyrics added, and have the audio mixed. All of which I did. Around this time I was essentially assigned the role of Production Manager. In this role I was responsible for nearly ever aspect of services. This includes running a/v equipment during services in addition to preparing videos during the week. At the time we would operate completely digitally, using NDI capabilities of Skype to have people speak live, then have pre-recorded worship and sermon which would then be played. Eventually we were able to run services live, but still with pre-recorded sections. Currently we still live-stream the services using a Blackmagic Design ATEM Mini Extreme video switcher with up to six cameras, a Behringer XR-18 for in-house audio, and Pro Tools running on a laptop for the live-stream audio. Most Sundays I will be operating both the live-stream audio and video switcher. Our sermons are still pre-recorded and consist of three videos – an intro, a scripture reading, and the sermon. during the week I assemble these three videos and prepare for the service.
Continuing from the last topic, during our live-streams there would occasionally be aspects that needed to be improved upon. One of these was indicating what camera was active during a live-stream to increase the connection someone watching might have. In this case we wanted to add tally lights. High-end production cameras have this sort of system built in – if you’ve seen any behind-the-scenes shot of a newscast or game show most cameras will have a red light on top. This indicates that the camera is active. I was able to find a guide online about how to create these using the video switcher we used. Because we connect our switcher to the internet in order to stream video we are able to connect an Arduino-based microprocessor to the same network and know what camera is active. Using the recommended hardware was fairly straightforward however the internal batteries on the devices would only last approximately 45 minutes of continuous use. As a result I decided to use some spare 18650 batteries I had laying around to extend the battery life. To do this I 3D printed a housing for the device, a battery, and a charging and control circuit for the battery. To charge the battery there is a standard Li-ion battery charger, and to charge the device there is a DC-DC buck converter. They worked perfectly, however we recently moved to a different location and don’t have access to a wired network so we are unable to continue using them.