The Pressures of Ideas

[Bast]

Bast had looked at the recipe lists of items mechanics had so far tried to make and succeeded, and although his first desire as a mechanic was to take things a part and look at them, he believed he could probably be selective in this manner and who knows he might actually make something useful.

So having looked at the few recipes he knew of he felt the thing he really wanted were traps. This was a fantasy world filled with dungeon crawling fun, and maybe it was thanks to growing up with Indiana jones movies and Zelda games but the idea of dungeons without traps just couldn’t recognize in his brain. So if they exist so do the mechanisms that activate them…so he wanted to make his own. And a new goal to break into dungeons to break open the mysteries of there traps was born…. or maybe it had always been there it is hard to say what students are thinking when they come up with a dream like this.

But he couldn’t really just head to a dungeon and strip search the traps and expect to learn their secrets… well he could but he would be lying to himself if he did. So he came to the conclusion as any might that he should start smaller, something more fundamental both to the traps he wanted to break and make but also so many other things, such as a weight measurer or a button. Yes he was going to research Pressure plates and how to make them. Well to be fair how to make them for industrial use and not simply two wires some tinfoil and card.

Sure most people he knew had done the experiment in schools that allowed students to use a hot glue gun under a teacher’s supervision. But he one didn’t have a hot glue gun and two wasn’t making a electrical circuit but wanting to make traps… though if he could add it to the battery and had a way to over load the battery or make it faulty on purpose…No to the task at hand pressure plates, if he could accurate pressure plates. But where to look, somewhere with standing scales would be brilliant but any mechanized button should do for something to look at for research on the matter.

Bast would have headed to a hospital or doctors these were the only buildings he could think should have scales on but he wasn’t sure how to get into such buildings or if they wouldn’t have been scavenged… maybe a supermarket might have some for weighing groceries, bakery might have one as well. Each thought gave him more places to look but where to start. When he really thought about it a button might even do for starts though he was pretty sure he could make that he wanted to test if his low level in the skill would break even this since it is not recopied but what could be he use, a doorbell.

Moving towards the closest buildings he searched the outside houses for any that didn’t simply use a doorknocker but had a bell. He found one checked if it worked… of cause it didn’t the electricity in the city wasn’t working. Knocking on the door to se if anyone lived here, and looked through the window just incase there was stuff inside and therefore this house was occupied and he would be vandalizing…well their wasn’t so he got down to breaking down the bell to look at fundamentals.

Well at least this worlds most basic mechanic was the same, ten more door knobs and he could tell though some used springs and coils of wire in some widely wasteful manners but at most simple it needed two pieces of metal and two screws for everything to connect to. But those that held any push used a coil of spring. And if pressure was to be controlled it would need something holding the push, so a spring or coil would be needed.

So he at least knew his primary school education was still correctly connected to this one, so now to try something a little bit more difficult and try and make it accurate. He needed some scales, if he can’t correctly test pressure he might as well just try and make the traps whole and not keep to his desire of a replaceable parts system. Bast turned questioning if the next destination for his game of disrepair research should be the closest old hospital, old supermarket or old aged bakery.

Word Count: 762

[Bast]

He had looked through a few old supermarkets but they kept to electronic sensors that ok he could kind of follow as he disrepair them coming up still in a vague manner on how it all worked, It seemed to for his first of these seemed to if his guess was right, the sensor operated according to what was either some sort of compensation of electro magnetic source or some one had been playing silly sods and he was fine with this he always thought it had something to do with two pressure valves and gas being equal on both sides and the electronics just read the equal pressure but this one seemed to be more about reading forces along wires which really was either electrical or he knew less about mechanics than even he thought he knew.

It seemed to attach via a closed loop with a indicator that was probably meant to read vibrations he supposed even without a electromagnet vibrations could be made but he wasn’t one hundred percent on how so at this moment he felt this information of using digital processing units and direct currents flowing along a loop to have the sensor change the vibrations of the wire seemed a bit above his levels could likely build he could break it a part but building and finding a replacement for the electricity as much as he knew of a mana battery design he didn’t trust it to work the same so he would have to go a bit more basic on this problem. Never mind he didn’t think he had the finesse to go around making any kind of filters for such checking normally so the making of this for a basic trap was obviously too complicated.



He tried a few more but he gave up on this line of the research pretty soon, he needed a simpler checker of weight than some electronic device he wasn’t trying to make the most accurate device possible just something accurate enough for his early traps, groaning he wondered off in search of an abandoned hospital or some where else people might weigh a human, he didn’t really think a hospital if supermarkets would be using basic stuff so really he needed something that would be sold for home convenience but this world might still have designs of a old world like ours that doesn’t mean it equipped the stores with such things…he’d been lucky with the bells and the electronic scales… was this all going to be a waste of time?



But where could he get old world commercial standards… walking past a lander grocery vendor he noticed the scales she was using, just the old seesaw approach for checking two things and putting the product on one side and little weights on the other…. It would work.



If he wanted the weights for a trap all he needed the plate to do was be more pressure than what he was to use to disguise the trap, so all he would need was an adjustable weight system on one side and then if something with equal or more weight came on to the other side triggers the event the plate is attached to. Yes yes he can do it that way…he hopes but hmmm how to adjust the wait… a pulley with notches in holding the weights above the weighed down plate.

But hmm he would need to make some drawings for this and do some fiddling hmm, to the store for some materials. He must play with this idea and find a balance…he must try and build a pressure plate.

Word Count: 605
TW:1367

[Bast]

Bast collected himself some of the worse paper he had every written on and he had used paper made from grass by a drunk student. Grass paper is never good but his was appalling but this paper this paper had its own league, for cheap paper the man who had made this was probably an artist, trying to do some modern art for this world by selling Bast these scraps for art to go on this modern art of piece that was worse paper than any should be able to make. But Bast made do and drew as he pleased, the drawings didn’t matter it was getting the ideas out of his head and trying to piece the puzzle together was fine with him.



He started with drawing the basic components of the pressure plate he felt would be needed, the trigger, the scales, the weight control and nearly forgot the actual connection to any circuit or trigger to the outside for the event. In fact this first design was completely idiotic not only did it take up space on the side but was too fiddly a design for the trigger never mind it would likely damage the scales each time even if the screw balance was changes for it to be off to one side to trigger it so they didn’t hit that would also make the pressure more fiddly with. This design was a no go as far as he was concerned.



His second was similar in shape and idea to TNT boxes as far as he could think but he had moved the scales design to have a upward push of the weights and a leaver moving them up and down to make it need more or less pressure to connect but really the design would only work for electronic connected designs. It worked but the extra coil design on the scale that the top was pulling up the bottom like a gym just felt wrong never mind that a wire connection button could be done so much simpler and that was this pressure plate in a nut shell. So sighing he scrapped it and moved onto the next design.



This just wasn’t going as planned in his thoughts, was he over thinking things trying to do too much, too little? Is it impossible to make a pressure plate for all situations does it have to be wire connections or a custom plate for those that don’t use such modern tech? He was about to give up when he could have it basically, both can use metal joints if you had two metal joints on side to side with screw sized holes in them you could either screw in an attached object that will react to the push of these moving joints or have the wire attached to metal that can surround the joint so when coming into to contact on both sides the metal conduction will complete the circuit. He was pleased with himself, for the most part. It meant using a second coil joint to hold up the plat so it came down evenly so the chance of slippage is reduced or timing of the sides split and jagged. Yes he liked it but now with this design he needed a way to hold the joints in place for when a person gets off the plates some activates will want the reaction to stay help not a brief click activate disconnect. So he needed a latch to hold it and for that he needed more research.



He got up after making a few ruff sketches of two screwed latches pincer holding down the would be moving screws but though they might work some professional insight might make something better so he went in search of door latches, suitcases and anything that held things under pressure that could be released really.


Word Count: 645
Total: 2012

[Bast]

Bast wanted to make sure his designs were the best he could create not simply that which he could draw but walking in to a hotel parlour he decided he would test the suitcases and nothing else and just finish his design and construct a prototype from there on. He found himself picking his way through broken suitcase after dust clogged mechanisms… small locks, spring activated and suitcase left wide open filled completely with ladies laundry all covered in solidified clear-ish stains that made them look far rougher and inflexible than they should be…never mind far more unsettling to look upon. So he left that ones’ latch un-touched even though he could plainly see the suit case was in good repair.



Cracking the locks was more difficult than he would have liked at times they were such little things and yet so complicated and weird with some needing tiny needle nudging and others breaking by axe and hammer because those number things were just making him annoyed at how much work he was doing to make something that was whole heartedly only a piece of a puzzle. Especially when breaking those locks helped him only get to the latch that he then had to delicately look over and take apart, put back together, repeat till he felt he understood it well enough to design. Bast found through this excavation that in truth he really only needed six screws and some metal to make a latch but for it to be useful for his purpose he would need at least a coil to spring it up neatly without it getting clunky and becoming only a few thwacks away from breaking after use. So after a quick check of a door frame auto shutter that cost him a few falls to the ground to unhinge, before he got to play break the mechanical parts he went off to the nearest place he could get tools and scrap.



Doodling on his way he thought about how to describe said objects for his plans they seemed obvious but everything in the systems had a description so for him to verify them as objects he would have to do the same or they would break as unclassified objects or end up classified as junk he was unsure which.



Latch

Description: A latch is an object that holds two opposing objects together under pressure. It allows for the release of said pressure and objects from each other with a pulling force; the amount of puling force needed to use for release and the amount of pressure the item can hold together depends on the quality of the materials used to make it.



Pressure Plate

Description: A Pressure plate is a switch that activates processes upon pressure being applied to it. A pressure plate locks said keyed inactions unless the latch is left open or adjusted to re-open the switch depending on its use adjusting the latch will determine how it works. Depending on the quality of the materials used will depend on how much pressure the plate can take and how many uses it can take before it will need maintenance or break.



As he played with the scrap and his designs Bast started to make a more accurate and precise measure meant of what was truly needed and noting things that any amount of thinking and drawing couldn’t result in creating for the plans.


Word count:569
Total Count:2580