This update is about something that I've done a few times, a place that I've been to once, and a project that I'll be working on that ties these things together. BTW, keep an eye on the dates along the way, they will give you a time line of how this project progress's (top of page, above some pictures, etc.).

I've been using computers for a long time now, just like most of you reading this, and one of the things that has passed the time now and then was playing some kind of game. There were a few games that I found challenging but one game that sticks in my head was called, "Escape The Room". This type of game uses your wits not your aim, like some of the 'first person shooters' (FPS) that I've played in the past (which is a story for another time).

Now don't get me wrong, FPS games were great but there's something very satisfying when you can solve some kind of riddle or figure something out within these escape type games. I remember playing some years ago and once I finished or escaped, I would send it to my daughter Angela, so she could try because she loved them too. I also remember her calling me to ask, "dad, how did you do this part of the room or locate that item from this area"? I think she was much more obsessed with them than I was because she wouldn't stop until she conquered the game, or escaped...no matter how long it took. At least I would spread it out over a few days if I had trouble with one.

This whole obsession that Angela has with these games might be my fault...let me explain: she was to watch our house about seven or eight years ago while my wife and I went somewhere for the weekend. To show her my appreciation for making sure all the animals were fed and the mail was taken in, I bought her a nice gift. However, I didn't just leave it on the table for her to see when she came in, no way... I made her work for it. And how did I do that you ask? By running her all over the house solving clues that I dreamed up.

I've done this for Angela twice now, making her work for a gift that I bought her, solving clues along the way and then finding her prize at the end. And she loved it both times. As a matter of fact, she did that for me as a Christmas present in 2014. When she came over that year, she hid some clues when I wasn't in the room and then when I opened "The Present", it had my first clue that I had to solve which untimely lead me to my wrapped present. We all had a good time with it that year and something tells me that it will happen again in the near future.

The following year she gave me a really cool gift for Christmas 2015, it was two tickets to a real 'Escape Room' that her and I were to experience. Now if you've never heard of this before then you're not alone because till that moment I hadn't either. I'll explain what this Escape Room thing is: depending on the room size, there could be anywhere from six to 10 people doing this at the same time. The Escape Room she bought for us held eight people, which meant we didn't know the others but it didn't matter because we all worked together as a team.

The object is to go in one door, find and solve a bunch of clues and puzzles and if your day goes well, you exit through a different door that you entered in from. It sounds easy but it's not, you have to really work at this and there is a time limit which makes it that much harder. Ours had a one hour time limit and you could ask for help if you got stumped. And yes we got stumped. But with a little perseverance we escaped the room with only seconds to spare. You talk about a rush and a good time, this was it!!

Well Angela must have this escape room stuff in her blood because after we did our room together, she went with some friends and did several other Escape Rooms in various cities. By the time Spring rolled around she was hooked and decided to open an Escape Room of her own. With the help of her husband Matt, her father-in-law, myself and a few others, her dream came true in the city of Redlands, CA. And the name of her new business is called, "Open Door Escape Games". If you were wondering how her new business has been doing, well...it's been a huge success and opened in the Summer of 2016.

The theme of her current Escape Room is called, "The Study", which has the capacity to hold six people or less. However having six people increases your odds of making it out of the room on time, but you can have four or five people if you wanted. The reason you have this many people is because everyone has a different idea of what a clue might mean. So having multiple people and their input is very beneficial.

Well.... to make a long story longer, Angela and Matt have decided to open a second Escape Room at a different location, which is what this update is all about. This new room is still located in Redlands but will be a couple of miles away from her current place.
 

EDIT: A quick note to get you up to date and then we'll get back to the original content. This room was originally titled "The Train Room" but things changed over time (almost three years worth) because Matt and Angela decided to go in a different direction recently. With that being said, this project would've been fitting for such a room, being mechanical and all. But it still ended up right at home in the current room that it's in now. Follow along and you'll see what I mean.
 

What you see below is a section of my garage floor that has been masked off along with a few cardboard templates that are suppose to resemble some gears. The blue tape measures in at four feet by eight feet, with another piece of tape at the seven foot mark. I did this so Matt and Angela could see what both sizes looked like and they both liked the eight foot size. What I'll be doing is using a four by eight sheet of plywood for this project that is either 5/8" or 3/4" thick, which is what this layout represents below. Oh and if you're wondering what the yellow string is for, that represents chain, which I'll talk about later.
 

Let's Talk About Gears

Now that you know what I'll be trying to make, I'd like to talk a about gear terminology because there are a lot of choices when it comes to gears. And once you know a thing or two about a gear, you'll be able to follow along that much easier and it will make a little more sense as you read this.

If you look at the picture below you'll notice the word 'Pitch Diameter'. Pitch diameter is not the outside diameter of the gear teeth. Pitch diameter is the diameter of a gear where the optimum force transfer takes place, which is usually about halfway down the tooth face. This means (at least in my case) that if you measured a gear with a pitch diameter of five inches, the outside diameter would be about six inches.

The second thing to take into account is called 'Diametral Pitch or Pitch' . Pitch is the number of teeth it has per inch of its pitch diameter. A toothed gear must have an integral number of teeth, or tooth count.

Another thing to understand is called the 'Pressure Angle'. Pressure angle in relation to gear teeth, also known as the angle of obliquity is the angle between the tooth face and the gear wheel tangent. It is more precisely the angle at a pitch point between the line of pressure (which is normal to the tooth surface) and the plane tangent to the pitch surface. The pressure angle gives the direction normal to the tooth profile. Yes this last one is tough to understand but don't worry there won't be a test at the end.

There are many other things to know about gears but the terms above are very important if you are buying one, or in my case, making them. So to recap we have: pitch diameter, pitch and pressure angle.
 

Spur gears are very strong and very good at moderate speeds but tend to be noisy at high speeds. I could have used helical gears which are very quiet compared to spur gears but that's not why I'm using them. I'm using spur gears because of their simplicity and the ease of manufacturing them.
 

All the gears below have a pitch diameter of four inches despite their size in the pictures (take a look and then continue reading).

The only difference between these are the pitch (number of teeth). The first one is a 10 pitch, next is an eight pitch, third is a six pitch and last is a four pitch. As the pitch count becomes less the overall look improves, at least it did for Matt and Angela.
 

The number below each gear represents the 'pitch diameter' in inches but doesn't include every gear that I'll be using. Not shown are smaller ones that range from two and a half inches to a five inch pitch diameter and those won't have any holes or windows in them.

What I plan to do is have these cutout with a 'water jet' machine. Now you may be asking, "why don't you just make these gears yourself at my work using the CNC machines"? Well to be honest, a water jet machine is a much more efficient and a quicker way of doing this. Plus, at the moment my work doesn't have any machines available to use because they all have jobs on them.

The material for this project is a half inch thick, 6061-T6 aluminum and there will be 37 gears total. However not all of these gears will be in use at the same time, some of them will be spares. Let me explain: once Angela and Matt opened their first Escape Room, they quickly found out they needed two of almost everything. People are in such a hurry to move from one clue to another, they sometimes drop or mishandle some of the objects in the room. I figure we should have some extras on hand just in case because it would take a few of weeks to have one or two made again.
 

We've Got Gears!

4-2017

Here are the gears fresh from the water jet place. In case you were wondering who cut these for me I used R & I Industries metal fabrication in Ontario, CA. My contact from R & I Industries, Scott, was a big help and did a really good job on them.

To make these parts, I took the default file format that my CAD system uses and converted it to a dfx. file format so Scott could work with it. Then I sent the converted file via email and in about two to three weeks my daughter and I picked them up. This was the easy part because now the real work begins. How much work you ask? Let's put it this way, this project will keep me busy in my garage for several months....no kidding!!

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