For our upcoming make-a-thon we are rounding up some ideas of what you can make at the event. Idea number one is to sew and light some clothing.
MakeHaven has sewing machines and there are various fabrics available next door at the creative reuse center. We have lots of LEDs, soldering irons, batteries, arduinos, neopixles, sensors and other supplies electrify your worn creations.
I was excited to play with this conductive paint today:
Really I've only been jumping on this project for about 20 minute spurts one or two nights a week. Today I did a good 3-4 hour burst and made some good headway. Neverheless, its oak and relatively uncomprimising. Spoke a little too soon about not annoying Gina with chopping noise from the basement but the upside is that she's retreated to the farthest upper corner of our house, stumbled upon and restarted a quilt project. We're both contemplating submitting these to the Durham Fair. Theres $6 to be made and a sweet-ass blue ribbon.
Being snowed in is a perfect excuse to do more bowl carving. After smoothing the exterior with a draw knife I decided to take a whack (pun intended) at the bowl interior. This is about 15 minutes of hewing with an adze. Bowl carving is done with super green (freshly cut) wood and the block is stored in a sealed plastic bag to avoid too much water loss prior to the finished shape. I try to work symmetrically so that between sessions the bowl will perspire evenly and hopefully avoid warpage. The work is usually done on a tree stump to avoid tool damage.
I got a beautiful old French clamp at a yard sale for 10 bucks and Jerry rigged it to my workbench (it's supposed to be plumb but doesn't matter much for my purpose. Unlike the now ubiquitous parallel jaw bench vice, this has a pinned connection at bottom allowing one to clamp oblong objects as one would do with a Jorgenson clamp. Using a razor sharp draw knife to smooth (that's paint on my chair, not blood); along the grain is easy; across the end grains is not so easy.
Right now I only have a curved adze. Its hooked inward and elliptical in cross-section and typically it would be used for hollowing out an interior (a hooked adze with a flat crossection seems to be typically use for bowl exteriors but what do I know…I’m a beginner and I only have one tool.) I seem to be spending 1-2 hours to rough out each side and it seems like another hour to smooth.
Beginning : As a sort of regression therapy I've decided to try my hand at stone age (updated to iron age) technology and do some wood bowl carving with an adze. Got a great deal from a fellow in Bulgaria that calls his company "Happy Tools" on Etsy. He sells really nice quality hand forged adzes and my experience so far (on oak which is a surly wood) is that it holds it razor edge well. Sculptor Susan Clinard kind enough to donate a green stump to me and I roughed it out in my backyard with a chainsaw (so far my only 20th century indulgence).
How we think about and experience transportation is likely to undergo radical change in the coming years. Right now cities like New Haven are trying to anticipate the infrastructure that will be needed in the next few decades. Because of the rapid change of technology those predictions are difficult, yet new technologies also hold tremendous possibility for improving city life.
I am excited to announce that we have five enthusiastic volunteers to animate our community.
What does it mean to be a Community Animator? It means they have each committed to being at MakeHaven 3 hours per week over the next 6 months to help people learn and inspire members to make the most of our space. Each has a focus area and will be a resource for actives in that focus. Let me make the introductions:
From left to right in the photo is:
MakeHaven has a challenge for you. Can you prove your maker skills by doing one project per month for the year? Starting in January for every month in 2016 I will be putting forth instructions for how to do a project. These projects with use all the different capabilities of the space. Those who succeed in doing all the projects will come out as skilled master maker. The list of projects is still developing but here is an idea of what will be on the list.
These are instructions on how to make a game called Holiday Grab. It is like the classic game of Operation but in this version you are carefully lifting ornaments of the tree and presents from under the tree. … You can think of it as pretending sneaking a peek at some presents without your parents waking up.
So about 25 years ago I lived in a 5000sf loft space for $500/mo. The windows were falling out and the heat was splotchy but I was young and resilient and it was a great place to host parties with garage bands (NH post crack-war, pre-boom days, ahh nostalgia)… We had to build our own rooms which were more like little boxes inside of a big room so, fresh out of college I commenced to buying tools. One of my first buys was a Dewalt circular saw. I forget the model but it was simple, lightweight, trustworthy and I loved it.
"Lies, damned lies, and statistics?" http://journal.c2er.org/2013/09/how-can-i-create-my-favorite-state-ranking/
So Gina and I were having coffee this morning and chatting with our friend Katy, when I noticed her 18 month old Paul grabbing hold of a parked bike's chain. Even though I thought this was funny (becuase for no good reason I would have done the same thing ....from his age up until about a couple of years ago) I didn't laugh but warned Katy who noted that he just had a bath (bonus dirt points) and that he really wants to ride a bike and that maybe she should get him a tricycle.
Please excuse the video quality but the following is a recording of a presentation about many applications of 3d printing.
Was finally able to complete a print of the infamous shift knob this AM. Used Adam vice Eve this time and tried something completely different. I mounted the (white) filament on Eve and strung it across to Adam. It was much easier to monitor the slack and several times detected overwraps that would have not have been seen behnd the machine. I suspect that even minor tension on the filament will cause the type of problems I have been having. A good solution might be to mount the reels on the wall where they can be better observed and controlled. You definitely can't walk away and hope
Hey MakeHaven,
Just wanted to let everyone know we have several updates to the HERMS project page. Have a look to get up to speed.
http://makehaven.org/project/herms-heat-exchange-recirculating-mash-automated-brewing
We're still refining the process, but we're also making beer. I was considering scheduling a brew day to introduce people to the project, and get them some time using the machine.
My computer science teacher and I are trying to make and program an led matrix, (possibly like 5 X 5 or a little bigger). We started off with a scrolling 1 X 5 led matrix, but that the letters were pretty difficult to read and it was too simple, so we moved on to a srolling 2 X 5 matrix. However, that was still pretty dificult to read and didn't look great either. Neither of us have much experience with the hardware for excedding the maximum number of output pins.
So school has just started and that means that Gateway is open with its new manufacturing program. I'm really excited to take a few classes there. I also am looing forward to getting the laser cutter cleared as I'd like to get some trigger time on it.
What sort of classes are you looking for?
I recently moved from an apartment on a noisy street to a different apartment a few blocks away on the same noisy street. I have wanted to work on a few musical projects that involve recording live instruments, vocals, etc, for some time. The loud nature of my living quarters has made this impossible. In my studio in the new apartment, however, is a rather large closet measuring 5.5' x 4' x 8.5'. It is not luxurious, but it is more than sufficient for a vocal/small recording both provided it is treated properly. To get it to a useable state, it will require some bass traps around the sides, some treatment on the door, and foam around the sides and on the ceiling.
I saw the following ROV today on kickstarter.
Perhaps a potential project for the space?
Right now there are several spaces outside of Connecticut in the Northeast that I'd like to go and check out:
1. NYC Resistor (Brooklyn,NY)
2. AS 220 (Providence,RI)
3. Artisan's Asylum(Boston,MA)
4. MITERS (Cambridge,MA)
Road trip anyone?
I love robots. I love computers. And Im starting to love tools the more I get to try to improve on my n00b skillz. So when I get a chance to see tools and computers together that I can have access to in my own house, garage, or makerspace that I am happily a member of, I think this may deserve a look as something to add to the space.
https://www.inventables.com/technologies/cnc-mill-kits-shapeoko
