Some sets I have created with Cotswold Collectibles were undersea sets. Scuba outfits with Sea Sled, rebreather, other gear.

Sets like Catastrophe in the Gulf.

Recently for a new set, I created a Dolphin Equipment Pack to fit on the back of a dolphin:

The Idea

Then I got to thinking. The Santa Noses I buy from Dollar Tree because of the flashing light electronics come in this wonderful red sphere, in two parts. One part is a half dome that I saw had great potential.

First, I looked up what some modern Undersea Drones look like, and found these:

The Concepts

So I started sketching concepts of an Remote Undersea Explorer unit, like those used to find the Titanic, and used around the world to explore under the ocean where humans can’t go.

I used this robot mower as a basic inspiration:

I liked that yellow hood, and the curved back. The yellow side control holders. Using these basic forms, I designed an undersea drone.

So I began sketching some ideas and basic shapes:

Then a little more refinement after I had some initial general shape ideas down:

I had initially thought of one rear thruster which steers, but I realized that can be done with the two main side thrusters. However, I would need a better way to tilt the drone, so two up/down engines seemed a better idea.

Then after building the first few fit prototypes I realized I’d want a small camera cluster underneath the face, a way to hold the finger light in place but be removable easily (the need for a sliding face piece to get access to the light) and landing gear. Note also “a grip nub” is part of this next sketch because my first couple of prints showed me that it was very hard to pull the tail back to turn the light off with nothing to grip. The louvered vents were not enough.

It also highlights my attempts to make a bracer for the finger light to make sure pulling the tail back only pulls the switch back, and not the whole light, which my first failed prototype made quite clear. (Ooops! This is why we iterate!)

Prototypes

First, this is a fit test. All shapes are basically in place. But no functionality as such.

The bubble is in place. The Dyson-like engine bells don’t rotate. The rear ones aren’t going to. Those are for tilt adjustment.

The front engines will rotate for maneuverability.

The goal is to use a finger light inside to light up the face bubble.

Then I needed to figure out a way to turn it on and off unclumsily. I thought of several ways to add a switch to flip the finger light’s switch, but they all seemed awkward. I already designed a casing that fits the finger light parts to make a 3D printed case and switch, but then it hit me:

I can slide the tail of the SQUID forward to push the switch as it sits inside the body. And pulling the tail back turns it off.

This required some clever designing. I had to brace the light at the back so the light wouldn’t slide forward when I pulled the tail back. That had to be anchored to the body. But I also needed a brace in front to hold the light as the tail pushed the switch forward.

It worked. Now it lights up.

But it’s still far from finished. Details.

Details and Refinements

I wanted to add some detail. Mainly inside the bubble I wanted an instrument array that you could see from outside. I also wanted landing legs, so it could sit without flopping over. And then some stripes on the engines. Also, under the main face, I wanted a camera and some other instrumentation.

I found these amazing solid resin bubbles that are intended to add water beads to crafts. These come in various sizes and make perfect camera lenses. The refractive qualities are astounding! I’m using one for the main camera, and while you can’t see it in this picture, there is a tiny one inside the secondary camera opening. I have adjusted the depth of that to make it more visible in later versions.

Update: Prototype Finished

After refining some fits, adding a pair of magnets to keep the face plate in place, but allow it to slide down to replace the Finger Light batteries, tightening the side engine fit, I am considering this now a completed project.

Here, you ca make out the instrument panel inside the dome:

The side engines swing freely. (The rear engines are not movable)

You can imagine the deep sea exploration light being quite powerful in dark depths.

We are now production-ready!

You can watch a video of the full construction of one unit here:

In 2014 at the Dallas GI Joe Convention I brought a diorama entry called Save the Endangered Pygmy Rhino. You can read about it here.

For 2024, Greg Brown asked me if we could revive the set to commemorate that original diorama, sold as a boxed set with cover art, the works.

So I set to work. Greg got some of the same Rhino, and got an outfit made. I updated a few pieces since the designs were old and imperfect. But nothing major had to be done.

The one thing we didn’t do was cut the horn off the rhino. My original set was intended as a conservation effort. Remove the rhino’s horn and put a prosthetic in place so poachers would have no reason to kill the rhino. The prosthetic included solar chargers, GPS and cameras to track poachers.

It wasn’t practical to cut the horns off these toy rhinos, so instead I created a tracking cuff that could be attached to the rhino’s horn. I used rhinestones as camera lenses.

The result was sold at the GI Joe show in 2024.

Here you see the final product.

As in the original Dallas Diorama, the set includes a tranquilizing bazooka with four tranq darts; a box to store the darts; an aerial surveillance drone; a drone charger/launcher/backpack; a control tablet; and two Rhino Horn Tracker cuffs.

For this set I used a larger drone than the one Cotswold has been offering for many years. This drone is the original design, and original scale. The backpack charger needed some small improvements, including my new harness. It also uses a shiny blue card-stock printed solar panel. The ammo box had improvements made too.

The box now has a vertical sliding holder to fit 2 Rhino Horn Tracker cuffs. You pull up on the rod and it brings up the trackers.

I had to make some revisions to the comic, since the whole story has changed. I updated the safari outfit, but also had to redraw parts that referred to the cutting off of the horn and replacing it with a prosthetic. Instead I show them just attaching the new tracking cuff. I also updated it with the Huxter Labs logo since that didn’t exist when I first made this comic. The original was an Adventure Team theme, for the 50th of GI Joe.

While my original Surveillance Drone is fairly popular, and I quite like it myself, with its rotating camera and fold-down landing gear, it is also harder to construct. For the Arctic Danger set I did with Cotswold in 2021, I designed a new drone, one that would fit inside a metal backpack, and be solid-state. No moving parts.

That was fairly successful, and we used a black and red version in the Spy Island: Aerial Assault Superset.

When in 2023 we decided to do a little focusing on RACCS, I finally got around to making a version that had legs, to make the RACCS more versatile. No longer would you have to attach it to an ATV or the Training Tower. Now you could make it a table using attachable legs:

So along with this, I thought it would be a very good idea to make a charging/launching station for this new drone, a bit like the charging/launching station I made for the original drone, which I originally used in the Save the Endangered Pygmy Rhino set, and revised last year for the Cotswold set of the same name.

So I made a new base, designed to snap to the RACCS platform. This base would have fold-out solar panels to charge an internal battery, which could then, in turn, charge the drone when it was docked.

I’m quite happy with how this turned out. The solar panels are printed squares on a shimmering blue paper, with a CRICUT-scoring to make the panels look real.

The two solar panels fold out flat. Each is offset vertically, so when you fold them up, they fit into a central area with a third solar panel. They fold nice and flat.

Here, you see the drone clips onto the base via two red clips. These snap nicely into place, and you can pull the drone off easily. The set comes with a yellow Wrist Controller.

Here you see the drone base with its solar panels out:

And again, on a RACCS Platform, ready to deploy!

When I first started in on making GI Joe Adventure Team gear sets, I began with a project that seemed fitting for the time. An Adventure Team Cyber Counter-Attack set. This would be a set of gear designed to counter a Cyber attack by a terrorist operation.

The concept is very old:

I’d say I sketched this up in 2013, not long after I got my first 3D printer. Or maybe even before.

Anyway, since then, this set has kind of sat dormant in my mind, but at the time, I actually had begun working on it.

As you can see from the concept, the Cyber EMP Grenade/Mine is intended to emit a blast of electromagnetic energy powerful enough to shut down any electronics in a region – the aim, to counter any Cyber Attack.

I did work on this EMP Grenade long ago. The design uses 3 magnets. One sits in the main body of the mine/grenade. Another sits on the end of a plunger, with a repulsing effect, so it acts like a spring. This allows you to push the plunger down as if there is a spring inside. This section acts like a grenade, and can be tossed.

Then the EMP Grenade can sit inside a cradle with another magnet inside that acts in two ways: It attracts the EMP Grenade to keep it in place in the cradle, and also the base magnet works to attach the mine to any metal surface for detonation later.

In 2023 Greg and I made a new set called Spy Island – Aerial Assault Superset, which included a Helijet in red/black, an Aerial Drone (with attachment), a drop canister, 3 EMP Grenade/Mines, and a wrist controller. The rest of the set is themed in black/red and together it made one gorgeous set!

The next item in the original (old) concept is an EMP Cannon. I did begin fleshing out some basic shapes in 3D but left it alone for many years.

This year, my brain got obsessed with it again, and I worked on a prototype of the EMP Cannon that I could use to help flesh out this original set, long abandoned.

So to cut a long story into a short clip, I did it:

These are not final pics. Though the only difference between this and the “final” so far, is that I actually cut the hexagonal light blue emitter into a backing, and a hex grid, so the grid itself is actually black.

Also, I intend to use an internal light (a finger light) to make it light up.

More on that as it develops.

The astute will note that to complete this set, I still have to make a pair of VR Goggles, and a control tablet. Though the control tablet is actually made, just not quite to the design in this concept:

Been a while since I posted anything new. This is because I’ve been very busy prototyping new ideas, and manufacturing items for Cotswold Collectibles.

Let’s review some of what I’ve been up to. You recently saw my Centrifuge, which I’m calling REACT: Remote Electromagnetic Analyzing Centrifugal Tester.

And SPIDER, the Surface-Penetrating Imaging and Dimensional Electromagnetic Radar.

Since then, I was tasked with making a blue and white version of my Underwater Sea Sled that I made a few years back to complete a Cotswold set, Catastrophe in the Gulf.

Greg wanted a blue/white set to go with an orange SCUBA suit but reflected the design aesthetics of an original GI Joe Sea Sled in blue and white.

Trust me, there’s white underneath!

With that, we wanted a shark or a dolphin to make a new set involving undersea exploration. We were trying to source a reasonably scaled and reasonably priced shark, but the only ones that seemed to be available were too small.

I did find a nice hammerhead shark (because hammerheads are my favorite!) which is large enough:

But in the end, we decided to go with a dolphin instead, because I managed to find a nice Dolphin at about 10 or so inches long, and we went with that. (We can save the shark for later.)

In the resurgence of GI Joe in the 2000s, Hasbro made a Dolphin Handler set, and man, that would have been ideal, but that’s impossible. (I have one, but I don’t know where. It’s in a bin somewhere. Fun figure. If you pinch the two pectoral fins together, the dolphin squeaks quite realistically!)

So along with the sea sled in blue/white, I created a dolphin gear pack that in some way is meant to resemble Darwin’s pack from Seaquest DSV.

So let’s start there:

Dolphin Equipment Pack

This dolphin backpack uses elements of the Sea Sled, bent and fitted to a backpack for a dolphin that has a hole for its dorsal fin, and a strap to hold it in place. I was toying with the idea of making a rebreather for the dolphin that covered its breathing hole but opted against it.

I went with prototyping in blue/yellow as Darwin’s pack was blue/yellow. In the set, we will use blue/white.

The strap, you might think, should go straight down under the dolphin’s belly, but no. That is more awkward to fit on. This way, you slip the strap under its chin, and pull the pack down over the dorsal fin and the tension holds it perfectly in place.

This is one of those things I’ve wanted to do for along time, and now it’s done. Coming to a set near you soon.

INTRODUCING – SPIDER

Surface-Penetrating Imaging and Dimensional Electromagnetic Radar

3D MODEL

This is the second prototype I’ve created within a month. (See my Centrifuge) While the details will remain sketchy for the moment due to some supply issues and details I want to update, the basic idea is a Ground Penetrating Radar that the Adventure Team can use to locate buried objects. In crime, searching for bodies is often a use. But for an Adventure Team, searching for underground buried dinosaur skeletons or buried statues might be a good use.

This has been an idea I have had for years. A GPR normally is a box that you’d push around with handles, but every time I think about it all I see is a lawn mower.

I spent a fair amount of time trying to come up with a handle system that would fold down over the body, and I had it all figured out, then I realized that this is the Adventure Team we’re outfitting, not some amateur or government organization. Huxter Labs would create an Autonomous Ground Penetrating Radar. No need for handles, any more than you’d need one for a remote control car.

As a detail, I added a heat sink to the top, to imply that the energy source needed to power the powerful ground penetrating radar needs a set of cooling vanes. (My Atomic Charger also has vanes, an homage to the Trouble Shooter radio.)

And when I designed it it really looked a lot like a spider. So I decided to call it the SPIDER. And to add some realism to the concept, I added a red hour-glass-like black widow marking. (These will act as a send/receive radio pair.)

COMPLICATION!

Dollar Tree, once again.

Last year I bought a couple of head lamps that were readily available at Dollar Tree. (This is where I say again that I should buy up about 40 of anything I see that I even remotely suspect I can use.)

So I prototyped this SPIDER to fit these head lamps:

Now Dollar Tree has none. NONE.

And I’ve visited quite a few around me. So I went online and ordered 48 to come to my nearby store. A week later, the order was cancelled claiming the local distribution center didn’t have enough in stock to fulfill the whole order. However, they made no attempt to inform me of whether they had ANY in stock anywhere. I figured since I used the “deliver to my local store” option, that they were only looking in the local distribution center. So I re-ordered with a shipping to my house option. Still waiting to see if that got through.

So the whole prototype is done and works, for this head lamp I may never be able to get anymore.

However, in a weird twist, a new version of this head lamp is making the rounds. They are easily found online, and so I ordered a bunch.

And how weird is this? I drop into a local store, and there they are on the shelf! Packs of two. So I bought a pack to test. And they are quite a bit smaller than the first ones, and rounder, and the real sticky problem is that they moved the switch.

The switch of the originals was on the side, making it simplicity itself to push a button into the body of my SPIDER and it would push the button perfectly.

The new one – the button is on bottom.

So I have to make a lever that you can push down, and it pushes UP on the button. This is fine. I can deal with that. It’s not a deal breaker.

And since it is smaller, I can compact the design a little if I wish.

UPDATE: Aug 18, 2024

I got an e-mail from Dollar Tree with a tracking number. Apparently, my second order worked, as not having it delivered to the store meant they didn’t have to rely on a local distro center! Here’s hoping I get the whole order. Then production can begin in earnest.

FEATURES

The lamp itself has 3 settings. Bright. (I mean don’t look directly into it bright. It hurts.) Less bright. And flashing. (Not great if you have epilepsy or are triggered by flashing lights, but you can quickly cycle through that setting to off).

The hinged top secures with magnets.

The body hinges up from the front to allow you easily remove the light, and change batteries (3xAAA).

The wheels are free-rolling, and feature the Huxter Labs logo on the hubs.

It will come with a control tablet. I may make a little carrying slot on the body for it.

This is the screen. If you need a copy of the sticker, download this and print it.

UPDATE: Oct 31, 2024

I initially prototyped this in red with two teal colors, which to me is a fine aesthetic. However, in keeping with Adventure Team theming, Greg asked for a yellow/black/red version and that’s what we’ll be producing for market.

This version is also quite nice. I loved the original red/teal theme, but as a long-time fan of the Adventure Team, the yellow/black is awesome!

Seen here, the SPIDER has its own more elaborate RACCS mount:

The unit comes with a very powerful light with three modes, as described above. Here it is lit:

For this item, I decided I wanted to get fancy. I wanted to do a very nice box.

Boxes cost. And brown boxes cost less than white boxes. But I was unwilling to compromise on this. I bought a bunch of white boxes that would fit the bill, and while they were twice as expensive, I didn’t care. I wanted it, and I got it.

Here are some pics of the box. The label is printed to attach over the box opening with a warning strip. This will, I hope, give the user a very unique unboxing experience, where they have to cut open the label to get at the SPIDER unit.

The cover is a rendering of the SPIDER Ground Penetrating Rader from the 3D model. It shows the control tablet, and features the Huxter Labs logo, and a list of contents.

The front overflap of the box is another 2 CGI renderings of the model, one from the side, and one inside the RACCS Mount that comes with the set. A QR code brings you to this web site.

Then you get a DIRE WARNING!!! This is mostly for fun, but also it is an actual warning to keep it away from kids.

My products are not intended for kids. They often contain small parts, and sometimes very powerful magnets that really – you need to not handle if you’re a kid.

And what would a Huxter Labs product be without a blueprint? (Well, I don’t do them for everything, but people do seem to enjoy them.)

For some time now, I have wanted to do some field medical equipment. Among others would eventually be an IV station, a portable X-Ray or mini MRI machine, and included in this was a centrifuge for separating out blood and other fluids. But it would also have uses in geology and other Adventure Team missions.

GOAL

My plan was to create a piece of equipment that definitely looked medical. I did a lot of web searching for medical centrifuges, and a surprising number were white and blue, and I had just gotten these lovely turquoise and teal filaments, and as the Huxter Labs logo is blue (though I lean towards turquoise sometimes) I thought I could make something quite lovely.

I wanted to spin these glass bottles I got for the Save the Endangered Rhino set I created in 2014, and recently revived as a whole new set with Cotswold Collectibles. I wanted the vials to fit into these buckets that would be hinged at the top to spin outward.

A centrifuge works by spinning very fast and causing centrifugal force to act as extra gravity that causes denser particles in a liquid to work their way to the outer part of the circle, while less dense particles are pushed towards the center. Just like gravity, but faster.

So I put the buckets on little hinges (clipped pieces of a paper clip) and they dutifully spun, and when the motor is turned off, they slowly spin and angle back down to rest.

POWER

Recently, Dollar Tree stocked some battery-operated mini-fans. These fans had a battery compartment for 2 AA batteries, a switch, and a quiet fast motor. For $1.25 per.

I bought a couple and started measuring out and planning. My first goal was to get the motor to fit into a chassis that would look fairly cool, be similar in theme to my previous Huxter Labs RACCS equipment, and still have room for the switch and battery leads, without having to rewire anything. I don’t like soldering, and if all of it is in place without alteration, that’s a huge win.

The first attempt used two AA batteries, but the bulk of the battery compartment I had to make (from scratch, to fit the metal spring, bump, and rear connector so two AAs can work together) and it worked fine after a fair amount of effort. Then I figured two AAAs would be smaller which would allow me to reduce the bulky base a bit.

And the battery would spin the motor for a while, but soon run out. So I thought of moving to a 9V battery, which should make the motor spin faster.

And that worked too, but for this centrifuge to actually (I mean for real) work, the spinning would have to be done over a fairly lengthy time, and batteries wear out too fast.

EUREKA! USB!

I could throw out the bulky batteries entirely if I could buy some USB-C sockets and allow people to power this thing by a USB-C cable.

USB-C? Why? Because the world is moving to USB-C. It doesn’t benefit me much here, as I am using only to get the power output, but the idea of not having to figure out which way up to plug in is quite attractive.

So I found some USB-C sockets and bought a few to test. And they work!

Connect wires to GND and VBUS and you get a consistent 5v power, and when I touched the motor wires to these, the thing spun very satisfyingly.

So I set out to refit the body to take these little USB-C circuit-boards.

To RACCS Or Not To RACCS?

RACCS is the Ready-Attachable-Configurable-Component-System, a rack I created to fit on the back of a GI Joe Adventure Team All-Terrain Vehicle so Joe can configure his own adventures using various modules I created. (Search this page for RACCS and you will see a bunch of them. But there are even more I haven’t take time to write about yet.)

When I was creating a prototype for a new Weather Tracker or Environmental Analyzer, I found a way to make RACCS pegs fold up so new units can act either as standalone equipment, or slot into the RACCS slots. So by folding down these hinged pins, you can attach this Centrifuge to a RACCS-equipped ATV.

(Oh, I also created a new version of RACCS that has legs, so it can also act as a table. In fact I made a set of legs that are also compatible with previous RACCS by slotting the legs into the pegs used to attach  the rack to an ATV (or Training Tower).

I will talk more about this project later but for now, I’ll just link these videos I created to show the prototypes in various stages of development.

Update – Aug 15

Well that kinda worked, but only kinda. I redesigned the chassis (shrinking it significantly) to accommodate the USB-C port and it worked. For a while. I got the motor spinning and it spun gorgeously.

However, on repeated tries, the motor began to judder and stop. And the USB Power Bank I had shut down every time I tried it after that, and my plug-in USB power block’s blue light went out. Something is reaching the USB charger controllers and saying “Uh, there’s nothing there dude.” or something like that.

I highly suspect I’m burning out the motors. I am not sure what amperage USB-C puts out, and what amperage the motors can handle, so I am pretty sure this isn’t going to work. But it could have been a fluke.

I soldered in another motor and the exact same thing happened. Worked for a while quite nicely, but shutting it off and restarting it a few times resulted in a dead motor.

Oh well.

This, as with most of my new products, is in a prototyping phase, which is when you go down dead ends and find out what works and what doesn’t. 9V works, but the power doesn’t last long. 2xAAA works, but same. I’m going back to my original idea of 2xAAs and recommend buying rechargeable batteries.

At least I learned a little something about USB powering.

And also I bought a bunch of these little USB powered hand-vacuums at Dollar Tree that are wired into a USB (standard) cable and so I may just revisit the USB version of this later, with its own cord, since that motor seems to work fine, probably has some regulator on the circuit board or something I do NOT have with my Centrifuge.

I’ll keep posting updates here.

A couple of months ago, I sent some of my GI Joe 3D printed toys to two people. A nice CARE package for each, including some of my various toys I knew they did not have.

Each of these guys have some of my toys, but not everything.

I sent a box to Paul Knapp, who hosts a podcast called “Live from the Man Cave”, and a box to Jeff Sherer who runs Skunk Works Studios and does weekly podcasts.

Paul and Jeff are two very devoted fans of the toy collecting hobby, spending a lot of time on podcasts, reviews, and engaging with other fans.

So I sent them some toys.

Here are two videos Jeff and Paul posted showing the boxes I sent:

Skunk Works, especially, has featured many of my toys in the past, and I’ll post some of the videos here:

On May 20, I was invited on Live from the Man Cave, Paul Knapp’s podcast. We discussed toys, of course. And ended the evening with some trivia.

I focused on my 3D printing work for GI Joe figures, my work with Cotswold, details about my designs, and teasing some up-coming work.

You can see the video here: