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I am a Makr. I sit at night in front of the TV with my family with a moleskin, or another one of my project notepads and sketch ideas. Many of my conversations are of the “wouldn’t it be cool if _______” variety. Many of my ideas never leave my project pages. This one did. I think it is awesome. It is an enclosed zen garden built into an end table. The movement was inspired from a CNC or a 3D printer and actually started to use ramps 1.4 (a 3D printer Arduino shield) until I thought of a much easier way to build it. I wanted the end product to represent peacefulness. I wanted to bring some zen to my living room. I think that I did. Many of the things I build are not pretty, just the way it is. In the process of building this I never explained what exactly I was building to my wife. Just that it would be furniture that would be good-looking enough to want it in our house. To put this into context you should know that I share everything with my wife. She is my best friend. But on this project I simply promised her that the end result would be something that she would be proud to have in her living room. She knew it was an end table, but that was it. So I worked extra hard to make this end table look really nice for her. I have built 3D printers. I have also built some simple furniture (bookshelf, bench, etc.), but I have never built anything that combines technology into furniture. So I really thought this would be a fun project. I had the initial idea for this table about six months ago. The Tables and Desks contest (and all those beautiful black and yellow tools as prizes) inspired me to start this project.”

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