I have always had a fascination for Disney, but I could never get myself to start on a project. Finally I had the urge to begin a project. I chose to build the it's a small world attraction for its relative simplicity and iconic design. I started by printing out some templates I found online to the relative scale I wanted (HO Scale). I then used these to map out the layout of the board. Next I glued down a piece of foam core board cut to the dimensions of the board. Using a hot wire foam cutter, I shaped the canal and hill that the facade sits on. The model was then covered into paper mâché to even the slopes out sand give it a clean look.
Once dried, everything was painted, and ground foam was added. At this stage I began designing the facade structure in Pages, using relatively simple shapes. In retrospect, I wish I would've used something like a laser cutter or 3d printer to get more accurate shapes and more shapes that actually pop, instead of just designing it all in Pages to give the effect that it pops.
I toyed around with the idea of building some sort of representation of the Enchanted Tiki Room for about four months before I finally decided to move forward with detailed planning of the project. I knew I wanted to use an Arduino micro-controller to control the show, and I knew that I could find a number of nice 1:12 scale miniature birds on eBay. That was the basis for the project. I spent three weeks drawing up all the plans for the diorama and testing all the individual electronic components. I had my grandmother paint all of the detailed murals, and I enlisted my girlfriend to help with all of the tiki totems.
I framed the show building out of balsa wood, and the roof was built as one complete assembly to allow easy access to the model until it was finished.
interior walls were all covered in fabric that matched the texture of the walls of the actual show.
The window effects were created by sizing and cropping images of tropical islands. I ordered a dozen miniature palm trees and cut them to size to fit within the window shadow boxes. A blue LED was then placed in a corner of the shadow box to create the effect of night.
The ground was made by cutting tile shapes out of an egg carton, the tiles were then painted, the cracks were then filled with glue and painting a concrete color.
The center piece was made out of tiki necklace pendants, then decorated with flowers.
I drilled a hole through the base board so that a diffuser could be placed under the diorama to give the effect of fog.
All of the flowers and plants were purchased individually from eBay and Etsy, and then brought together to form all the floral elements of the show
The bird perches were built out of toothpicks and cocktail umbrellas. The circular perches were built out of evergreen plastic rods.
The show was programmed with an Arduino Mega, and an Arduino Uno was used to run the RGB LED lights. Four servo motors were used for each of the main host birds. The Chorus birds were all geared together to be controlled by two Lego Power Functions motors. I used Woodland Scenics just plug light system to control the main house lights of the show.
The show program consists of seven hundred lines of code, mainly consisting of for loops for the control of the servo motors.The audio was all set up on a playlist on my iPhone, and the show was started via remote control based off of specific audio queues.
This project could not have happened without the work of my girlfriend, who painted all the detailed tiki heads, and my grandmother, who painted all the intricate murals in the show.
My introduction into the world of modeling began with 1:400 scale airports. there was little skill needed to get started, and many accessories were available to make a great looking diorama for a relatively low cost. Jefferson International was my second attempt at an airport in this scale, and really my first airport where everything was seriously planned out and considered. I knew that I wanted to light the entire airport which took a considerable amount of time to plan out and even longer to build. I decided to give the airport a schedule based off of a real airport to add some realism to the nature of flights and aircraft on the ground. All of the aircraft that visit the airport are based off of Dulles International Airport in Washington D. C. The airport has 35 available parking stands with 19 available stands for wide-bodies, and 16 available stands for narrow-bodies. One terminal is designated for solely international arrivals, one terminal is split with one side being international carriers and the other being domestic carriers. One terminal is for the airport's hub airline, United, (with the exception of one gate for Alaska). The airport also includes a small regional terminal with four parking stands, a maintenance area with room for up to three aircraft, and a cargo area with three stands
As the airport has evolved over the years I have continued to add details such as hoses that attach from the ground service equipment to the aircraft, cones on the ramp, ground crew figures, and passengers. Below are a few pictures of the airport and some of the aircraft which fly into Jefferson.
The following shows the regional terminal:
The following shows the domestic side of the airport.
Below are some photos of the International Terminal with the Emirates A380.
Once dried, everything was painted, and ground foam was added. At this stage I began designing the facade structure in Pages, using relatively simple shapes. In retrospect, I wish I would've used something like a laser cutter or 3d printer to get more accurate shapes and more shapes that actually pop, instead of just designing it all in Pages to give the effect that it pops.
