Cyberbrick #5

It didn’t take long to make the forklift, and it was super fun. That last part is key!

Do you remember when you were a kid? Did you make model cars or model airplanes? I think I made this one (it’s long gone). I don’t remember much about it other than it was fun and I had to be very careful to avoid glue getting out of control. (Which I think I did.)

I also recall the cat ate a few parts. Some things are the same forever.

Anyway, my point is that we treat “fun” as “optional” or even with disdain but fun is good for ya! We’re now grown ass men and women. Unlike when we had kid sized finances, we can afford a basic level of fun shit. But most of us are failing to pursue enough “fun”. We’re busy at the office, or fretting over taxes, or doomscrolling on social media (which will genuinely fuck you up!).

Why not indulge in good clean stupid enjoyment? If you had fun gluing shit to other shit when you were 12, why are you denying yourself now that you’re… ahem… vintage age?

Of course, part of your “fun” activities will be due to unplanned circumstances. In my case I’m gluing shit to other shit because I just ain’t healthy enough to ride a dirtbike across Wyoming (what I was doing almost exactly one year ago). Is making a toy forklift as fun and wholesome and uplifting as crossing mountains solo on a little motorcycle? Hell no! Even so, it’s fun to build stuff and it’s better for ya’ than passively watching the idiot box.

The remote was surprisingly simple. It’s 2025, people have been making remote electronic shit for many decades and it’s easy now. Here’s the electronic bits.

Here’s the 3d printed bits:

Here’s the two together:

Poof! All of a sudden you’re done!*

I printed out some pallets because why not?

(*One caveat, you need to link the gadgets you’ve made to something that uses Bluetooth. You can use a computer but the universe assumes this will be your phone. The B0rg will not be denied. You link to both the remote and the forklift (sequentially, not simultaneously) via Bluetooth, download simple little, premade, pythonish, scripts to the forklift and the remote respectively, teach them to play nice with each other, and then you’re done programming. It took me half an hour total and someone who’s done it once before could do it in 5 minutes.)