In Which I Make a DIY Book Scanner

$500 diy book scanner kit

After I heard that there were attempts to commercialize a book scanner that consisted of two glasses, lights and cameras, I figured that somebody on the interwebs might have had some prototype that they would like to get rid of. What I found instead was a whole bunch of DIY book scanners, some as crappy as a piece of cardboard and a glass (like this one), some a little more complex, and some just crazy awesome (this beauty is a project from a non-profit. At $500, I can just imagine what they would have to sell it if they actually wanted to make money out of it. Anyway, it might just be the perfect graduation present *wink*).

Mine's not that great, but it does the job. It's pretty slow, but mostly because I don't have the awesome cameras that these guys have. I had to take the pictures with my cellphone, and for better quality I took them with a little app called TiniScan, which converts the picture into high contrast black and white images. That, of course, is awesome, but it does it as you're saving the picture, so it takes like 30 seconds to convert and save each image. The nice thing is that there isn't much post-editing.

In one of the scanners I saw online (and that now I can't find for the life of me), the glass thingy that flattens the book pages for better photographing were connected to a pole with rollers that went up and down, but I thought that was too complicated for me to do—I don't have the tools nor the skill required—, which is a bummer, because I really liked the idea. But as I was working on my computer at work I realized that the monitor stand did just that: go up and down at a distance of about 10 inches on a straight roller. I then went to the thrift store in my way home and found a monitor with a stand that didn't do exactly what the one at work did, but it did something similar, and it was good enough (it kind of bends down instead. See video below). I then built the glass box: I screwed two acrylic plates into two triangular pieces of wood (1/2 inch thick), then screwed one of the wood triangles to the monitor stand, and voila. I also made a base where to rest the book. That is still made of cardboard, but the wooden version is coming.

Since I don't have some fancy cameras to use, I built a rest/craddle for my cellphone on a piece of wood resting inside the glass box. I tried a tripod, but even when I shorten the legs all the way, they're still too far from the book, which messes up the image quality.

Lighting of course is very important, so I got a lamp with a halogen bulb and hung it from the ceiling above the scanner.

This is the final result:

The glass box with the cellphone rest

Glass box connected to monitor stand. The cardboard base is underneath it

Bottom view of glass box. The black sheet on the opposite
side of the page being photographed makes it easier to edit the images

The book on the cardboard base. The glass lowers into the book, flattening
the pages

The lowered glass flattening the book page

Cellphone on the rest/craddle

Halogen light on $3.00 lamp from Savers

The scanner in action. Sorry it's sideways. My iPad's tripod adapter is landscape, and Vine doesn't like that.

Here's my second book scanned. It's more like a pamphlet, so it's a short one. I OCR'd it, so it's text searchable.

Why I'm a Girl on Etsy

After I bought my first e-reader for Christmas (a now already old generation Barnes and Noble Nook), I was broke, but I still wanted a cover for it. I thought it would be pretty cool to hollow out a book and use it as a cover, so I looked online how to do that, and after a few months, I think I'm close to being decent. My first hollow book was ok. The Nook fitted well and it looked nice, especially because I gutted the newest Garrison Keillor book. Sad. I'm never doing that again.

I then found some cheap hard covers at Hastings ($1.00. Not bad) so I got a bunch and made some hollow books out of that. I then found brand new books at Barnes and Noble for $2.00, so I got some of those as well. I now use whatever looks nice and it's big enough. I had seen some leather journals at Ross and TJ Maxx that I thought would make nice Nook covers, but since I was looking for a journal for myself, it took me forever to find something I could carry around without feeling self-conscious, or without having to justify my sexual orientation. I finally found a really nice brown leather journal with a flap with snap-on buttons, which I got at once and proceed to destroy.

I kind of messed it up with that coin

As I kept going back to the store to find more of those awesome looking journals, I kept finding pink, flowery, cutesy journals that I wouldn't find myself dead carrying, but I figured that other people would like to, more specifically women, you know. So, once I had more hollowed out journals that I knew what to do with, I finally opened my Etsy store. Since my hollow books ended up being quite cutesy, I decided to make an equally cutesy banner, so I decided to conceal my name from it, and the fact that I'm a guy! Hey, it's all about the money. And the fact that it's a lot of fun to make these hollow books. So yeah, I'm a girl on Etsy.

See what I mean?

By the way, the store's address: http://www.etsy.com/shop/hollowbooks. Check it out. They're cheap!

Most of my hollowed books are journals, but I will do an actual book now and then. I thought it would be fun to look for interesting words as I carved, and then I put them together in a kind of MadLibs sort of way. This is what I came up with after butchering A Summer of Butterflies:

My Ghettified Google Voice Phone Mic and Speaker

Last week I couldn't find my phone, and I was hoping it was at home. I tried to call Meg to see if it was there, but since I didn't have my phone, I tried using my Google Voice, but I didn't have a microphone, so I still couldn't. I then saw my fake antique phone on top of my classroom cabinets and thought "How cool would it be to have an old phone receiver as my Google Voice mic/speaker, all in one?"

If you don't know Google Voice, well, it's pretty awesome. You can make free calls and text messages from your computer, and even get an unique phone number for free. I set it up to get messages from my students. They will never know my number again. Last time I made that mistake I ended up having to call the cops.

First step: I went to eBay and found a little computer mic with a female plug at the end, where you can hook up headphones. That way, I could gut an old phone and put a mic at one end and the mic at the other.

Step two: Go to Savers and find a crappy old phone. Wash (very important after shopping at Savers) and empty it out and unscrew the lid thingies (the old phones with round lid thingies are easy to open. No idea about the newer phones with square ones).

Step three: Tape both headphones to the speaker side of the phone receiver. I used good mics to make sure I'll be able to hear! Screw back on.

Step four: Plug the headphone to the mic. Tape the mic to the inside edge of the other end of the receiver. I would have taped it to the lid, but the mic was too wide for that, and it wouldn't have closed.

Important! Stuff the inside of the phone receiver with cotton, or you will be speaking in your own ear, which is pretty annoying.

Screw lid thingy back, plug phone.

Cost:

Mic: $1.89 (including shipping)
Crappy old phone: $2.99

Total: $4.88 (not including headphones)

If you want good sound, you should get a nicer mic and maybe use a little speaker instead of headphones for the ear piece. My cheap receiver doesn't sound great, but it looks pretty cool.

My Nook Case

I made this following some tutorial I found online. I didn't want to spend $30 on a case, so I tried this, and it turned out surprisingly well. I chose Pontoon because I love how it looks, but it was sad to gut it like that, so if anyone has an extra copy, I'll take it :-)

Tape Sculptures

I first saw these cool tape sculptures in Hi Fructose magazine a while ago. They were awesome. The guy made a bunch of babies out of tape and put them in random places and photographed people's reactions.

After reading a couple of tutorials, I tried my first sculpture: a clear cast of my hand. It didn't turn out very good thought. That one is my hallpass now.

I wanted to try it again, but I didn't have any clear plastic bags, which is what you tape on (otherwise I would have taped my hand, and I would still be scraping it out), so I tried with one of those white plastic bags with "thank you" in red letters, and since I didn't have any wide tape, I tried the regular thin scotch tape, and it worked great, because it gave the "sculpture" much greater detail, and the red letters gave it a creepy bloody effect.

It was pretty easy and fast to make. It took longer to write this than to make the hand.

Dolls

As a way to cope with my students' loveliness, I've had to figure out ways to relief stress. One of them is making dolls. I know, kind of fruty, huh? Oh well. Here's some of them.

This is my second "sympathy doll." The first one is somewhere in a dump.

My first sock doll. I like: I made it as I went. I had no idea what it was going to be. I came up with the cow idea mid way through finishing it. Besides, it doesn't look as terrible. I hate: since I didn't know what I was doing, I didn't plan. Therefore, the stitches are terrible. Also, the sock was old, so the overall quality is very poor.

My favorite one so far. It just looks clean overall, although it has some crappy stitches here and there.