My Bio (The Mask Maker)

The Mask Maker

    During the late 70’s, long before the “Power Rangers” TV series, there was this five masked group TV series. They were the “Star Rangers”. It was a TV series hit during that period for the kids in parallel with the Voltes V TV series.

    I was one of those who admired their masks, their costumes, and their weapons. Me and my brother used to collect stickers of the Star Rangers back then. We had stickers ranging from small ones to big ones. We even bought a 45rpm Turntable disc of the Star Rangers’ theme song. I even fantasized of being one of them.

    During that time, to make my fantasy come to life, I assembled a group to play with and act as the Star Rangers. I, being the Red 1 (Red Ranger/Star 1), my friend (and “kinakapatid”) Allan being the Blue 2 (Blue Ranger/Star 2), my friend (and “kinakapatid”) Aweng (Darwin) being the Yellow 3 (Yellow Ranger/Star 3), my elder sister Nene (Aida) being the Pink 4 (Pink Ranger/Star 4), and my younger brother Nonoy (Chris) being the Green 5 (Green Ranger/Star 5).


    I made the masks for us to wear (I made the mask figures out of a perforated card board, colored it with ordinary crayons, and punched small holes in the eye portion to be able to see). I made also each of the weapons. Toy gun and whip for Red Ranger; bow and arrow for Blue Ranger; stick for Yellow Ranger; heart shaped earrings for Pink Ranger; and boomerang for Green Ranger.

    I organized some more of our friends to play as the villains. We used to play at the basketball court just a block away from our house (the basketball court floor was just made of soil back then). It was fun. We had a great time playing the Star Rangers. Go Rangers!!!

    Few years later, Lenten period, I made these Roman helmets made of carton and paper. I made it to play as Roman armies (I was inspired by the illustrations from the Bible that my father had bought for us. The Bible that we had was like a book with illustrations of the events in the Bible. It was just like reading from a compilation of “komiks”).

    During Lenten, you know, kids of my age used to play the portion in the Bible where Jesus is about to be crucified. One of my friends played as Jesus carrying the cross and others (including me) as Roman guards. To emphasize more the roles as Roman guards, I then made the helmets (some with the brush like thing on the top of the helmet that emphasizes the rank and some just a simple Roman helmet of lower rank). It was a short lived play since, as you know, our parents were not in favor of us playing such.

    It was in the 80’s when I started making masks not only just for playing but also for school programs. There was this school event in high school where me, my younger brother, and my elder sister were part of. I was on my 3rd year, my brother was on his 1st year, and my sister was on her 4th year.

    In that program, my younger brother needed a mask (the theme of their presentation was “The Superfriends, and he played as the “Black Vulcan”). Well, of course to save the day, I made his mask. Since I already know the technique of doing such (from the things I learned in making the Roman helmets), making it was easy that time around. The mask fitted very well on my brother’s head with its heavy black color with the yellow triangular like shapes on the forehead and on each ear. It’s like my brother was the real Black Vulcan when he was in full costume.

    Since I was in that event also (our theme was “Disneyland”, I played as one of Donald Duck’s nephews) and so as not to look for and buy the masks, I volunteered to make the masks for the Disney characters. I made the mask for Donald Duck & for his nephews, and the other Disneyland animals as well.

    Time passed by so fast. After about 25 yrs since the last time I made a mask, another mask was needed to be made. This time it’s for my son. My son needed a project about mask. He needed something unique and modern design aligned with the latest trend of computer games illustrations. During that time, there was this popular television fantasy series. I then made the mask patterned from that, a cyborg mask.

My Bio (A Wedding Message to MIchelle)

A Wedding Message to Michelle

 

Michelle,


    Well, what can I say....this is really it? Yes!!!


    The long time awaited fantasy of thy dream will come to life.


    Yes! It's a fantasy! It is all of women's fantasy.


    To be, with thee, walking on the red carpeted center aisle,
    gowned with the ceremonial wardrobe a woman would ask for.


    With inspiring songs of matrimonial melody and bundles of
    flowers arranged to match the theme of this very
    special occasion.


    To say...., Yes,....I do, as the symbol of the love, an
    everlasting love witnessed by the holiness of the Church.


    To be, with thy prince, like in the tale....to kiss as the
    ending part of the book, ....yet the beginning of
    being.....as one.


    Lady, be blessed, for thy fantasy is now the real thing.


 Michelle...


    Now that you are in the road to your new life,


    May you be binded with your partner in life with the
    blessings of our Almighty God. May your marriage
    flourish with good things and happiness.


    I wish you all the best....the best of everything.



Michelle!


    Ang long ng hair mo ha!


    Isa lang ang maipapayo ko that you will truly end the day 
    with Yes!!!


    that is........buckle up girl! ...and enjoy the ride!

 

Best Wishes,


'ger - ang poet na kalog

My Bio (For my Parents, A dedication of their Love)

For My Parents, A Dedication of their Love

    It was a rainy afternoon of early December of 1993. I saw this old calendar with pictures of different birds. I immediately felt like painting that day since I was mesmerized by the color combination and the details of the birds’ pictures (although I can’t really determine some of the colors especially those that are well blended with the other colors – I’m a color blinded painter). I also thought of what the painting would symbolize. It symbolizes me as I go to the different stages of my life from the present to the coming years ahead. That even it was raining, I still went to the Ever Gotesco mall to buy a one-half size illustration board. I only used half of it.

    On that same day, I started sketching the outline of the birds. With our water color set and colored pencil set (thanks to my sister, she bought these from Japan as gifts to us – my brother and I usually make some drawings on the letters that we sent our sister).

    One by one I painted the birds starting with the Toucan bird then followed by the red and yellow bigger parrots. Then the multicolored small parrots. And lastly, the white parrot head.

    As I remembered, one of my college classmates (Gilbert) witnessed how I did this painting when he paid a visit. It was about half finished that time.

    I finished the painting after two weeks. Looking on the painting, I noticed that the middle portion was somehow empty. I then added a small bird in the middle (but this time, I copied the bird from a live local Maya bird, watching from outside of our window as birds fly in and out of our neighbor’s roof).

    Once completely finished, I have it framed on a simple wooden frame that I made. I dedicated and gave it to my parents as a token of their love. I wrote the dedication at the back of the painting.

    Several years ago, our house was one of those houses that were burnt from a fire in our area. Luckily, this painting survived the fire and maybe the only living proof of my art works back then.

    Here’s the snap shot of the painting;

My Bio (Non-stop Machines)

Non-stop Machines

    I am very fascinated with different sciences, with technology, with the things that are built to aid the needs of the society.

    I was in my high school when I started building prototypes of the things that fascinate me.

    My brother used to buy reading materials (he reads a lot, likewise, he needs it for some additional knowledge that he could gain since he is representing the school on some academic quiz school competition). During my elementary years, my classmate (Rowena) and my brother (Chris) usually represent our school in this kind of competition (my classmate later on became our class valedictorian and eventually my brother as his class’ valedictorian as well).

    One of the magazines that my brother had captured my interest (if I’m not mistaken, that particular issue of the magazine had “The Incredible Hulk” actors featured in it as well, Lou Ferrigno the Hulk himself and Bill Bixby as Dr. David Bruce Banner).

    There was one section of the magazine that discusses about this search and development for non-stop machines. I was amazed knowing such things. I even made a prototype of one of those ideas. I picked to make the non-stop wheel powered by balls since I was curious with the mechanism behind the idea.

    In my amazement, I even studied the mechanics and the dynamics of the concept to the point where I did a lot of experiments. I tried different kinds of balls material (e.g. marbles, metal balls, and plastic balls) to test what is the best in keeping the machine to spin continuously. I also tried to make some adjustments on the position and angles of the ramps as well.

    Sad to say that the wheel idea is not truly a non-stop machine, and so as the other ideas listed in that magazine since that time some of the fundamental negative factors (like friction and gravity, although gravity plays a positive factor as well) are the fundamental obstacles why non-stop machine can’t be a non-stop machine.

    Being optimistic though, I think it is still possible to build a non-stop machine. It’s only a matter of using more of the positive factors to counter the negative factors.


    ....and I have some idea of it.

My Bio (Signal Tracker CKT1992)

Signal Tracker CKT1992

    After the taste of bagging the 1st prize (Electronic Combination Lock) from the UE campus 1991 exhibit competition, my enthusiasm in inventing drove me to think one step higher on my works in the field of electronics.

    Aside from the fascination on electronic circuits on gadgets, I thought of designing one that is useful for some industry like solar panel sunlight capturing optimization, or the radio wave capturing optimization, or some other applications where signal detection can be optimized.

    At that time, I read about some concept from a magazine of a sun tracker powered by a mechanical system. This triggered me to think of some electronic circuit to aid the tracking on its most efficient way.

    The device’s operation is that the surface (panel) of the device will face wherever would be the strongest signal there is (where the center portion of the panel be the strongest). The device was coupled with a robotic arm that rotates/revolves in any of the 180deg direction in zooming-in the strongest signal.

    As the UE campus 1992 exhibit competition is fast approaching, once again, I gathered my trusted schoolmates (ANT brigade) and offer this concept for them to again fund the realization (they needed to look for some more people about the size of the whole class to fund my design). The prize of course will be the exemption from the finals of one of the subjects (if the entry will win in any of the prizes).

    I tried to use the device as a solar tracker (since it was the easiest application I can think of to demonstrate its function). It is a perfect application since the sun as we know is a moving source of energy. Hence, to harness its optimum energy (this case the sunlight), a movable panel is needed that will automatically track the movement of the sun from sunrise to sunset. We used a spot light to mimic the sun. That, wherever the spot light points in any portion on the panel, the device looks for that strongest signal (in this case light) source.

    Due to the limited time to construct in time for the exhibit and limited fund for the materials and components to be used (since the IC and other semiconductor components are expensive, the most important component is quite vulnerable to static charge and easily can be damaged if not handled properly), I used scrap materials in building the mechanical portion of the device (e.g. used ball pens, used electrical wires, copper & aluminum foils, and plastic plates). On the electronic circuit side, I used the ever useful universal PCB board in mounting and wiring the semiconductor components. I used up four 4x5 PCB connected together in mounting all of the components in this prototype (of course this should be less if this will be done on a commercial way of producing the circuit).

    The circuit design idea and concept was 100% original (how and what components were used and circuitries coupled together to work as one to make it sensitive to even the minute change of signal for fast and accurate response). I conceptualized the design few months before the exhibit period though.

    We spent about a week long overnight stay in the campus in building the project. We spent two scary midnights inside the campus just to calibrate the sensitivity of the device as well.

    This entry won, but not the 1st prize. The 1st prize was bagged by my ANT brigade colleague and classmate, James (Electronic Hotel Utilities Activation Timing Control). ANT brigade Abel & Melvin had their entry as well (Electronic Arbiter for the Game of the Generals). I served as the circuit design consultant of these ANT brigade entries.

    I remembered at that time, I was told that a certain company was interested on my design and wanted to have it to be mass produced (and have the electronics to be miniaturized into a micro chip). I was not able to focus in dealing with the proposal that time since my focus was just to prove that my idea and design will work.

    Here were some of the working moments during the construction of the device. My deepest thanks to my ANT brigade colleagues, our professors Mr. Pineda & Mr. Galindo, and those individuals that funded, helped, and supported me to build the device.

 

My Bio (Audioless Communication)

Audioless Communication (Keypad & Display Aided Alphanumeric Wireless Two-Way Communication)

    It was in the morning of November of 1992. I was sorting my old notebooks so that I can dispose some of them. While doing it, there were many electronic gadgets that I’m thinking of designing at that time. I thought of making some gadgets in aiding carpentry works. I thought of making some laser guided electronic marker or electronic surface level indicator. While thinking of these things, suddenly, I saw my old notebook I used during my first year in college. I saw the front page of the notebook wherein my name was written on it in coded form (some kind of a Hebrew like writings).

    This coded writing was actually an alphanumeric code of some form of the 18th century Semaphore telegraph (Semaphore line) as communication instrument.

    I learned about this Semaphore line code during my first year in college when I was reading a book from the UE library. Since then, I usually wrote my name using this code on all of the cover page of my notebooks (sometimes on my books and on my test papers....and sometimes somewhere else). I even wrote the Semaphore codes on a piece of paper and have it my wallet.

    That moment, I just thought of the period when people that time use some poles that are joint together and use this to send visual messages in long distance communication. Each form made by swinging the connected poles corresponds to an alphanumeric letter. The instrument is being positioned on high places so that it can be seen from afar.

    I thought of telecommunication is possible without making use of the audio. I thought of someday people will communicate via this means. I thought of why not making this method to be by electronic means using a device (a keypad & display aided alphanumeric wireless two-way communication device) wherein the message will be keyed-in from a keypad with a display panel. The keyed message can be then sent via wireless medium and can be read from a display at the receiving end. Then communicate back and forth by just typing the alphanumeric character.


    I started drafting the idea on that same day. The idea that I’m thinking that time was just to use the principle of the calculator digit sequence display. The character will be keyed-in after the other forming the word then eventually forming phrases or sentence/s (via left-to-right character shift). To build a simple prototype, my initial idea was just to only use a calculator with just a seven segment LCD display capability. Then coupled it to another LCD display to widen the display up to 20 characters wide. That, after typing a word/phrase/sentence (in its digital form), a send button can be pressed and the stored data will then be sent serially as data stream via a wireless transmission (from the usual RF signal coded in binary digit code) and then be received and digitally translated at the receiving end (to be read via left-to-right serial scrolling of the message) and vise versa.

    I used so many scratch paper on this concept (I even skipped to have some hair cut too – as I recalled, one of my college classmates noticed my long hair and haggard appearance then) since I need to design a circuit that would fit with the alphanumeric binary code to be translated to become a seven segment readable characters (although some characters of the alphabet can’t be displayed as is since a seven segment display is limited of displaying all the letters in the alphabet). So as with the transmission concept, in making a simple digital signal stream to be sent via the RF signal and be decoded at the receiving end.

    On the other hand, due to lack of fund, I was not able to make the actual prototype.

    It is quite delighting and satisfying though that in just a few years, this idea would materialize and be used in many applications on electronic gadgets such as the SMS function of the cellular phone technology nowadays.