TRIP TO CHINA + JAPAN

Wow. Where to even start?

From December 22, 2014 to January 2, 2015, I spent overseas - one week roughly in China with family, one week roughly in Japan with Charles. It's been 10+ years since I've been back to China, and it was my first time in Japan. I pretty much underwent a mix of culture shock and sensory overload the entire time. (And then on the way back, a sort of reverse culture shock coming back into the states, haha)

The trip became more than just a family reunion, more than just a tourist's trip. It was a welcome break from the life back in Boston, a welcome change with a different perspective, and I wanted to share some of the stories I have of the places I had gone.

Warning: This will be an extremely long post!

TL;DR:

• I attended a huge birthday party for my 80 year old grandfather (on my mother's side), and visited my other grandparents (on my father's side) in the countryside!
• I rode the high speed rail from Beijing for the first time!
• I visited Todai (Tokyo University) for the first time!
• I attended Comiket for the first time! (Only the last day though)
• I went up Tokyo Sky Tree for the first time!
• Other places I visited in Japan: Akihabara, Meiji Shrine, Harajuku

For all the details though, read on! The post will be divided into the following sections:

China

I

Dec 22-28, 2014
High-speed rail

Visiting Grandparents on both sides of the family

The view outside my Hotel window in Beijing.

Picture taken at my grandpa's 80th birthday party-

Over a hundred attended!

The panorama from the roof of my Grandparent's (on my dad's side) house.

Yep, the roof. I climbed up with one of my Uncles. 8D

Tokyo

II
Dec 29, 2014

Todai
DMM.Make

Akihabara

AKIHABARAAAAAAAAA.

Yoshihiro-sensei demo-ing some very awesome circuitry magic.

Draw a circuit on a piece of photo paper with a special marker...and PRESTO.

Instant working circuit. Check the video out below!

TA-DA.

It's AWESOME.

Other projects the Todai students are working on!

III
Dec 30, 2014

Comiket

Tokyo Big Sight is in sight!

Titan spotted!

My favoraite Itasha spotted during the trip. : >

Zenbonsakura Miku!

A video compiled from smartphone recordings

I made during the Tokyo trip.

(Excuse the shakiness!)

IV

Dec 31, 2014

Tokyo Sky Tree

Tokyo Sky Tree, at 634m, or 2080ft, tall!

The tallest tower in the world and the 2nd tallest structure in the world!

The view from the Tembo deck of the tower.

V

Jan 1, 2015

Meiji Shrine

Harajuku

Kinokuniya

Meiji Shrine on New Years day afternoon-

(Still packed with lots of people, haha.)

Located in a beautiful park!

While walking through Harajuku, I noticed Pepper!

Of course I had to go in and try and say 'hi', hehe.

The famous Takeshita Street in Harajuku!

Charles and I bought some clothing here, hehe...

VI

1-2

Tokyu Hands

Homeward bound!

The view from our AirBnB room.

Last day in Tokyo!

Browsing through the megastore of Tokyu Hands.

Charles and I wanted to buy a lot of things here, haha.

They have a whole floor dedicated to DIY!

DRAGON 2020 MIKU FIGURE!

One of the things I bought in Tokyo!

CAUTION: LONG POST AHEAD!
Click below to read more about my trip!

RWBY SCYTHE V2 + DRAGON CON 2014

Wherein I talk about how I built RWBY transforming scythe version 2 and other Dragon Con 2014 shenanigans! There's quite a bit I want to share in this blogpost, so bear with me, this post is going to be really long!

l
RWBY Scythe V2

Above is a video of RWBY scythe deploying.

ll
Dragon Con 2014 fun

Ruby and her male counterpart!

Shenanigans!
Left to right: Me (Ruby), Alison (Blake),
Charles (Charles on a little electric bike), Jamo (Jayce).

CAUTION: LONG POST AHEAD!
Click below to read more!

BUILDING RWBY SCYTHE PART 3 + ANIME BOSTON 2014

So last I left off (in the previous post that I forgot to name 'Part 2' in the 'Building-RWBY-scythe-series-of-posts'), I was in the middle of prototyping. That version was unfortunately scrapped (though not entirely) for the con. In hindsight though, the size was a good reference for the next version. But! For now, let me tell you about the RWBY scythe I build for Anime Boston.

TL;DR:

• RWBY unfolding scythe unfolded manually, but broke before and during the con.
• This version was made of MDF (hardboard from Home Depot), aluminum tubes, two pairs of 3D printed parts, and two commercial steel drawer slides. It weighed ~22.5lbs.
• Next version is already in the works.
• I had fun at the con! Despite being sick and exhausted. Thank you, friends, for your support!

This is going to be a very very long post, divided into the following parts:

I

RWBY scythe build (Part 3)

Folded all together. (Minus the Tail pieces)

Unfolded. (Minus the Tail pieces)

Size comparison. This thing was too heavy for the size to be practical!

How the front mechanism was supposed to work, shown in my CAD.

II

Anime Boston 2014 report

My cosplay group! Thank you guys for being troopers!

Me unfolding it at the Con panel. Thanks for holding it stable for me, Tony! Er-- Brian!

The 18in lasercut MDF scythes I made for Charles and me for the Con on Sunday.

CAUTION: LONG POST AHEAD! 

Click below to read more!

SUN + RWBY + OTHER ARTS

Last December, after more than a year of not visiting family, I flew down to Florida for a week to meet up with the ol' crew again - mom and dad, along with some of my cousins and friends and families of friends. They had driven down to meet me there, ready for beaches and a Christmas without snow and cold, which Florida readily gave. The trip had been a long time coming, and seeing family again really brought back memories. I took the opportunity to catch up, to soak in the presence of the people who I had lived without for the past few years, to breathe in a salty air that was so unlike the air up north, to drink in the scenery of sky, water, and sand. A week's worth of family and sun rejuvenated me. It was more than enough - I was ready to go back and tackle the new year.

Happy 2014! Happy year of the horse!

There's a full lineup of things-to-happen this year - but I'll start with just updating on the things I've already worked on so far. This is a LONG and PICTURE-HEAVY post! Contents are below, click the 'Read more!' to read more!

In order of appearance:

I

An update on RWBY scythe

II

A recap of my week in Florida

III

A living-hinge book cover I designed

IV

Some speedpaints I did

Click below to read more!

MT WASHINGTON + D*C 2013

Around mid-September, I attended the Mt Washington Auto Road Alternative Energy Summit with Charles [etotheipiplusone] and friends, along with the MIT EV team. It was a gathering of mostly electric vehicles, ranging from home-grown motorcycles to commercial Model S's and Volts and Leafs, with a smattering or others, including steam and solar. A really cool bunch of people, a beautiful two days of nature, and lots of electric vehicles - Awesome! 

Above: The parking lot at the top of the AutoRoad.

There were a lot more motorcyclists than are shown here at the summit that day!

Above: View from the bottom camp grounds.

I took some panaromic shots, to try out the "Automate - Photomerge" feature in Photoshop - It's a pretty nifty tool!

Above: Panoramic view of the Summit grounds at the Mt. Washington AutoRoad.

Above: Panoramic view of the view on the road halfway up the mountains.

Warning: PICTURE HEAVY POST!
Click below to read more about my adventures at Mt Washington and Dragon*Con 2013!

CELTY + ANIME BOSTON 2013

At Anime Boston this year (2013), I cosplayed as the character Celty Sturluson, the modern take on a Dullahan from the anime "Durarara!!" (exclamations points included). Boy was this an adventure, from decision to materials to construction and then to actual physical cosplay. Let me break this down - what I did, what I would do next time, how it all went, etc. And hopefully, my documented experiences here would help inspire any future Celty cosplayers!

In truth, this isn't so much an instruction blog for how to make a Celty helmet and scythe, but more of a trial and error log, tips and advice column, and experimentation report from an amateur cosplayer. But I digress-

LET'S START!

WARNING: This is a VERY LONG and PHOTO HEAVY POST! Read on after the break!

TL;DR points:

• Start early! If you decide to make your own helmet and scythe, make sure you have the materials well ahead of time!
• Plan ahead! Working with Bondo requires an extraordinarily and painstakingly tedious amount of sanding, and any sort of paintwork needs time to dry!
• Have plenty of sleep and rest! It was interesting to note that most of my freehanding work did come in the late hours of the night and while they still managed to come out quite well, I do NOT recommend this method to others. Sleep is important, especially when working with tools and details!

(Read on!)

ARDUINO MUSIC GLOVE + MOTORAMA 2013

In the fall 2012 semester, I was part of a Media Lab (MAS) class that introduced Electronic Musical Interfaces. We went over a wide array of controllers and instruments - from sticks to handhelds to clothing to classical instruments to mixed and new breeds, using light, circuit noise, physical objects. As a final project for the class, we had to make a working musical controller, for which I decided to utilize the Arduino.

Above: Left glove to the left, and right glove to the right.

And yes, those are purple surgical gloves.

Above: Looks like I'm about to do some surgery!

Additionally! In February, just this past weekend (2/16-17), I attended the Motorama 2013 event in Harrodsburg, PA, for the sole purpose of Robot Conflicts - a Robot competition held there. I road-tripped down with 4 other guys, 3 of whom brought robots to compete. From what I've gathered, Motorama was a showcase of pimped out dirt bikes, go karts, and other wheeled vehicles that race for some prizes. It worked like a convention + fair + vehicle show, with tents of sponsored racers, 100+ vendors, a really really big carnival-style food court, and other such rooms and events. I only stuck around the Robot arena, so I didn't fully experience the event, but I didn't mind- The robot event alone was awesome enough!

Above: Charles, Dane, and Adam working on last minute adjustments on their robots.

Above: View of the audience from behind the robot combat stage.

There's another stand on the other side of the stage, but this side was always more populated.

Above: One of the highlights of my robot weekend - Charles' robot "Uberclocker Advance"

picking up other robots to bash against other robots.

Read more by clicking the link below!

OTAKON 2012

Warning: Long post ahead!
TL;DR - The Otakon 2012 trip was overall very successful!

This past weekend I went to Otakon 2012 as Shiina Mayuri (Mayushii) from Stein's Gate, and had a blast! There were definitely a lot more Okabe's (the main male character) than any of the girl characters, but I'm glad we managed to find all but one character from the cast!

Above: Julia (as Christina) and me (as Mayuri) with Okabe #2.

Above: So many Okabe's! This was perhaps less than half of the total

number of Okabe's we encountered over the weekend.

In addition to the Black Rock Shooter canvas, I also submitted 3 chinese-styled wallscrolls and 2 sketches to the Otakon 2012 Art show.

Above: BRS canvas (this has its own post - check it out! ^_^ )

Above: Wall scrolls submitted to Otakon 2012!

Above: Sketch of gender-bender Legend of Korra cast.

(The finished version had some breezy leaves floating throughout the pic as well.)

Above: Working photo of the Mako-Bolin sketch - I don't have a pic

of the finished version unfortunately!

To read more about my trip and submitted art, click below to read more!

OTAKON PREP (1) AND TOTEM

(AKA - One way to make a wall scroll, part 1.)

There are 4 asian-styled wall scrolls I'll be creating for Otakon 2012, and I'll be detailing how everything goes here. Since my ink cartridges arrived in the mail today, I thought I'd test out my transfer paper and spray-on adhesive. So I printed a dummy picture onto a sheet of the Lazertron "Iron on Inkjet Transfer Paper for White or Light coloured [sic] Textiles" and took it to MITERS to iron it onto some fabric.

Above: Transfer sheets, sharp scissors, fabric. Iron not shown.

Above: (Left) Original image on regular computer paper.

(Right) Image ironed onto off-white fabric.

As you could probably tell by the above pics, I did a botch job of ironing. Be sure to (1) have a clean iron, (2) iron the corners of the sheet as well, and (3) wait for the fabric to cool before trying to remove the back of the transfer paper! Note: The colors on the fabric are truer to the colors on my computer screen.

Next, I wanted to test out my two adhesive methods - spray on and fabric tape. Except, don't be like me - read all the instructions before starting. My major mistake? My transfer paper instructions told me, "DO NOT USE STEAM." On the other hand, my fabric tape instructions told me, "DO USE STEAM." But I didn't read that. Until I started wondering why my picture was bubbling and yellowing and the transfer sheen was starting to come off. Hmm.

So then I just applied my spray-on adhesive (after reading the full instructions), and things stuck.

Above: Adhesives and the dummy red fabric backing for testing.

Above: After applying the spray on adhesive.

Not the greatest job in the world, haha, but for a test run, it'll suffice.

Add some round dowels at the top and bottom, and voila - final prototype:

Above: Wrinkled and rough-edged, but still feasible.

So all in all, the effort was educational. I've tweaked my wall scrolls plan a bit and will try again after my final images are completed. If I get it right the next time around, maybe I'll write an Instructable on it.

~~~

In other news, I got to see Totem, the newest show by Cirque Du Soleil, a few days ago. And it was amaziiiiing! :D The stage mechanics, the acrobats and performers, the music, the costumes - they were all awesome. (But if I had to choose, my favorite act involved the duo on a single trapeze...)

Above: The Cirque Du Soleil tent. I came outside during intermission with some friends to try

and figure out where the performers went when they disappeared into the ceiling... MAGIC.

Above: Inside the tent before the show. The giant turtle shell structure actually

blocks the coolest part of the stage, in my opinion.

Check out their official website (CIRQUE DU SOLEIL - TOTEM) for more pics, videos and info! If you get the chance and are interested, do go and see it! :)