The MultiTimer

Maker Faire 2017: The MultiTimer and Friends Aftermath

Thank you all for your interest! Especially those who now even take the effort to come to the website of course! Some afterthoughts:

• The friend of the MultiTimer is Joey with his awesome project. Whenever a song is played from iTunes, the orginal record artwork in shown a nice frame (a well hidden computer screen, powered by a raspberry pi zero).
  His project can be downloaded from his site. Check it out!
• Also a shoutout to another very very enthusiastic crew member Erica, shown here with a creation she made at our favorite booth. You are the MultiTimer's best friend!
• The game that was shown on the table is called Quoridor. It's a beautiful, elegant, easy explained game.
  I love it so much, I made a software version of the game that can be played with two players. Give it a try!
• The MultiTimer is in a mature state. Only time will tell if there will be a next generation. But, it is said that software projects are never finished, only abandoned. So, I am afraid we didn't see the end of my pet project yet. You can always contact me if you have any questions or requests about the MultiTimer or anything else for that matter! See you around!

Maker Faire 2017: The one minute drawing challenge

Thanks to all participants that allowed us to lure them into this challenge.
We were sorting and scanning and publishing, and it was all worth it! Have a look for yourself, go to the results!

Maker Faire 2017: The MultiTimer and Friends

Wow! It's the third time already we participate. How on earth can we make it interesting again? Luckily, as we are one year further, there is one year of extra story telling, adventures and...groundbreaking updates!
Because we are aware that not all people are MultiTimer aficionados, the friends of the MultiTimer prepared something very un-MultiTimery!

MultiTimer, the Next Generation: KEEP IT SIMPLE

Ah ah ah, yes, we all know the theory: keep it simple, keep it simple. Yet, again, as the functionality of the MultiTimer reached new stratospheric heights, fewer and fewer people were reading through the trilogy manual... Time for a radical change!
The biggest changes:

• Every player has his own button. This was the final and necessary step to have a timer that's really reliable, even if players forget to press their button in the heat of an exciting game!
• Setting up the timer became extremely easy. Advanced mode is only reachable for experienced users.

We have an online MultiTimer app!

Use a basic multitimer in your browser! In two easy steps you have set up your own multitimer. Use the spacebar to switch players. Try it now!

2016 New MultiTimers

The MultiTimer as an Arduino Uno shield: Because many people have an Arduino Uno lying around that isn't in use anyways. Finally, put it to good use!

The MultiTimer with an extra I/O board: 4 buttons and 4 relays give plenty of options! Let lamps light up in sequence, see which player is playing, and give every player a dedicated button (like on a real chess clock).
I am very happy with the changes. They work great! Unfortunately it's very quiet in enclosure land...

Maker faire 2016 Aftermath

Big fun! The tensegrity structure looked great and got a lot of attention. Glad we did it. It covered up for the "minimalistic" booth we had :). It got more attention than the MultiTimer itself, so, contact me if you want more information about it or about the MultiTimer!

Maker faire 2016

This year we're at the Maker Faire, at the PNE in Vancouver, again!
If you never went to the Maker Faire, you should definetly check it out on Saturday and Sunday (June 11th and 12th).
I was hesitating to join the Maker Faire because I don't have too many new things to show off. I realized I should though, because it gives me a bit of stress to create things. Now I have: The MultiTimer as an Arduino Shield, an optional I/O panel, and a renewed pcb. All this to procrastinate the work on what is the hardest: Making a nice enclosure that is easy to make a larger quantities.
This time I know the through meaning of a booth (I used to think it always meant a physical construction), so I will not build a little house. Instead, I made one of my favorite constructions of all time: A tensegrity structure. For the fun of it, I exchange the rods for TL-bulbs.
Also check out our fun browers apps in extra, make your own weather forecast, or practice your SET skills, or see my moving mazes in the lab.
Don't forget to contact me if you would like to have a MultiTimer! I have all the components ready and it is always fun knowing that people actually use it!

How the real MultiTimer works

When a player finishes his turn, he presses the next player button. When all players have played, a new round starts again with the first player, his count down timer restarts from where it was stopped the previous round. This is different from an hour glass, where the time for a turn is always the same.

Maker faire review.

The maker faire was a great event! I got lots of good reactions! And some critical feedback! Yippee, I was somebodies favorite (on the down side he called my super button an "upside down yoghurt container"): Search for Lode, or scroll through the pictures until you see the Red Button!

See it in action!

Hurray!! We will be at the Vancouver Mini Maker Faire the 6th and 7th of June 2015! There I will be showing of the possibilities of my MultiTimer. Proudly somewhere in the middle of the website !