A fresh twist on doing hardware hack night is starting off with Japanese model kits! They’re a lot more interesting to me than anything offered in the United States, with much more detail and quirkiness. Six Sigma and corporate downsizing has made American toys much more generic and targeting only little kids (uncreative ones).
But once you get started on a Japanese diorama, the future is wide open! Just about any diorama can be enhanced with blinking lights, and the Japanese model train and figurine enthusiast group is among the best in the world.
I brought back my Showa-era cats in an alley kit back from a trip to Tokyo. It’s gorgeous, unique and has so many more details than anything I can find in America!
Can I do this?
Translation Magic
To be honest my Japanese is quite bad now, almost nonexistent despite taking Japanese intensely for a few years in college… so the all-Japanese instructions were quite intimidating. However compared to my college days, there’s no need to look up characters by radical in a big, thick dictionary. We can use just about any smartphone to do live translation!
Before and After!
A quick walk back to the tool area for more supplies. We’re working on organizing stuff even more for model kit building.
And for me, who usually gets stuck on my computer or tablet whenever I’m visiting the awesome hardware hack night, it was such a nice accomplishment to do basic model kit building with my hands. Analog is always the way to go when being creative!
I noticed that none of the rulers at SudoRoom are in metric. I’ll do my part and try to donate any metric rulers (so weird that the US doesn’t use metric especially for any hardware hack projects).
Learning: Get more Metric Rulers at SudoRoom
As I progress with my Japanese diorama kit, it’s so nice to work on something that’s not tied to a superhero sequel series, where real attention is paid to detail, and the kit definitely has soul! That is what is so great about Japan – they haven’t six sigma’ed their way out of passion even though a lot of the process works and comes from the cool car companies that are there.
When your project has soul it is even more fun to add motors, Blinky lights and other electronics to it!
Stay tuned as we add Blinky lights, vibes, and bring some Japanese flair to the SudoRoom in following episodes!