Friday, November 30, 2012

Gaming and Workshop Space plus Robots

 A post over on Big Lee's blog on his bookshelves has sparked an interest of mine - I'm always fascinated by the work spaces modelers create for themselves and I usually pick up a trick or two by looking at them.  I'm hoping to spark a series of post from fellow gaming bloggers to show their respective workshops - it might not gain the momentum of a "Stylish Blogger" or "Leibster Award" but one never knows! 
The first picture is of my workbench.  It's normally not this organized but does show my current fad of skirmish gaming with both Saga and Bolt Action.

 Obligatory close up of my Saga Vikings.  9 points, 5 of which I won through the Fall In Toys for Tots silent auction.  You can tell which ones are the "mercanaries" as they are well painted.  My stuff is hanging out in the back, hoping not to be noticed.  I did paint 2 of the 3 warlord figures in the front (the middle and right).


 On the other side are 7 points of Normans, sadly all painted by me.  Normans are my favorite faction to play and those lowly levy archers account for most of the damage wrought on a table top.

 There is some under the workbench storage, which has my bin for storing bases (lower left) and some bins on the right for storing bits and bobs.  You can see some wooden trays which were originally purchased to store various projects but I never really stuck with that plan.  Now they store odds and ends and serve as troop trays when I host the odd game.

 I am fortunate that the executive management of the household has allocated me some storage space next to my workbench.  I've got about 32 square ft of space which I need to re-organize and add more shelves.  From left to right, the plastic boxes hold my collections of 1/1200 Napoleonic naval, 28mm romans and dacians,  28mm colonial (in the pizza boxes) and 28mm war of 1812 in the blue boxes.  I used to have the 1/1200 Langton sailing ships out on display but our cat was intrigued by their rigging and would proceed to play with them on his own....

 A bit of a turn to the right shows more storage and the rolling tool cart that holds the rest of my hobby supplies.  Nestled between the blue boxes of War of 1812 stuff and the Viking hall are 6 points of Saga Welsh awaiting their turn in the painting que.

 Unfortunately, the painting que is moving slowly as we're in Robotics season and the first match is two weeks away!  The picture to the left is a scale model of this years playing feild which we use to plot strategy with our teammate (the game is played 2 vs 2.  This years game involved playing tick-tack-toe with plastic rings.  At the end of the game there are bonus points if one robot can lift the other off the ground.

 A picture of my gaming table, which is now a robot assembly area.  I coach two teams through my son's scout troop.  The bot in the picture is the younger scouts build (they're all middle schoolers).

 Here's my son's team robot.  The robots have to start the match fitting within a 18inch cube but can unfold to a larger size during the match.  The objective of the game is to grab the rings from a dispenser on the side of the field (right side of picture) and place them on the central scoring apparatus - you get points for each level and extra points for three in a row.  Of course the other side can try and block you.
The highest rungs are over 48 inches off the floor.  Sean's robot has a fairly sophistcated arm which can reach the high rung and has four points of articulation - we refer to them as the shoulder, elbow, wrist and finger joints.  The bot uses a 4 wheel drive chain-based drive system.

Lastly, the post from Big Lee that started it all was his bookcase.  Here's mine, it's not that impressive as most of my source books are electronic but it does hold my rules collection and some WI and Battlegames magazines

8 comments:

jmezz382 said...

Looks great. I wish my house allowed for the space that you have.

BTW your troops look great !

Broeders said...

The robot is quite impressive. I wouldn't know where to start building one that moves - let alone play TicTacToe

BigLee said...

Good looking workspace. I'd love a painting desk that big. One day maybe...

Thanks for the linkback btw.

Black Knight said...

Fantastic setup! Wish I had the room. Also the tow kids would be all over it!

DeanM said...

Great looking wooden shelf - the display on top is inspirational. Very organized layout overall. Best, Dean

Ian said...

You have a great place for your hobby and good to see the robotics continues to flurish

Ian

Jason Meyers said...

Great setup! I'm the same way when it comes to seeing how others set up their hobby space.

Here's my current setup that I posted back in June:

http://derfeldmarschall.blogspot.com/2012/06/der-feldmarschall-returns.html

Jason

Unknown said...

Nice layout!