Category Archives: Making

Making, STEM

First Friday Season

Leave a comment
Building Catapults at Castlemakers during First Friday
There was lots of activity inside building catapults before going outside to hurl objects at a target.

One of the things we always look forward to in the summer and fall is Main Street Greencastle‘s First Friday. With our location in downtown Greencastle on Franklin Street, we have a great location to have a hands-on, youth-oriented, ‘making’ project outside for people attending the monthly event. It’s also an opportunity for folks to checkout the makerspace & some of the current projects – although Open Shop times are another time good for that too.

Testing a catapult
Getting ready to test launch a catapult.

Projects change each month, but June was one of my favorites – catapults, something we’ve done a lot of with youth over the years. Given the age span of First Friday visitors and the time typically spent, this time we had them build chopstick and popsicle stick catapults – although one youngster was there for 1.5 hours working on his!

Plans are in the works for July 5th First Friday, please stop by. And don’t forget our annual Putt Putnam County event, which will be held on Friday October 4th from 6-8:30 pm. Last year we had 13 mini-golf holes built by people in our community. It’s not to early to think about building a hole and we’re always glad to you build one!

CNC, Laser Cutting, Making

The Value of Prototyping

Leave a comment
Power vs Speed grid to determine proper levels for the desired depth & darkness in black walnut wood.

One of our members wanted to make a commemorative plaque for his church using the CNC and laser engraver at Castlemakers. I volunteered to help, thought it would be a good chance to use our bigger CNC with some newly updated software and we could both learn in the process.

CNC plaque cutout with the first prototyped laser engraving.
First engraved prototype in plywood next to a full thickness pine cut out on our CNC.

Given the nice wood they wanted to use, doing several prototypes with lower cost wood seemed in order. It also would give him something to show the church committee approving the plaque. Ed was able to locally source some rough cut black walnut wood and another member Ian used his planer so the wood could be glued to an appropriate width.

In the meantime one of the other church members created a great looking design for the engraving. For the first prototype, done in birch plywood, we just used the laser to cutting the shape to show others for approval. This resulted in a few minor changes and a decision by the group to add gilding to part of the dove and the rays on the plaque.

Black walnut test gilding before changes.

The final plaque is on darker wood, so we engraved a sample portion on some scrap black walnut and it’s a good thing we did! The original rays were too thin, making gilding extremely difficult. Now with the final design was completed, another prototype was made in pine the thickness of the final plaque to make sure the CNC portion of the project was going to work with the engraving.

Making, Programming

Squirrel Proof Birdfeeder Testing

Leave a comment

One of the longer term projects I’ve been working on at the makerspace is a squirrel proof birdfeeder that uses machine learning to identify squirrels vs birds, then make a noise when those darn squirrels try to get a snack in the birdfeeder!

Squirrel proof bird feeder made using acrylic and 3D printed parts.
Bird feeder without the onboard ESP32-EYE camera housing, which will be mounted on the right side.

The project goes back a few years when I stumbled across a Google project to make a design using a Coral development board to accomplish the same thing. Since we had the equipment to make most of the components at the makerspace, except the development board, I started making one and looking into improving their idea.

First minor change was an error in the CAD files, which I’ve corrected on my GitHub. It also seemed like the board they chose was overkill, I had wondered about using a Raspberry Pi, but then Brian pointed out it might need a board with a better GPU. Ian mentioned the ESP32 board/chip could run TensorFlow Lite & might do the job. Cost of the ESP32 boards was appealing, so I started going down that path even though I didn’t know much about the subject at the time!

Squirrel Proof Bird Feeder test picture
ESP32-EYE image from the bird feeder. The onboard facial recognition software generated the yellow box.

I made was the birdfeeder housing and seed holder well over a year ago, which turned out quite nice. But the ESP-EYE housing got complicated between mounting locations, how to power the device, how to create the noise and lots of other distractions, so it got put aside a while ago until I could get back to it. Earlier this month, with some help from a student working at the makerspace, I started working on it again creating a prototype housing for the ESP-EYE v2.1 board in Fusion360 and restarting the work on the software.

It’s now at the point where it’s taking pictures and we’ve begun training the software to identify squirrels (cat pictures work pretty well). It still needs more work, and I’ve gotten other projects that need finishing first. But I’ll put a page on our website when more details are finished. Or stop by our makerspace & we can show you the progress in person!

3D Printing, Making

Halloween Making at PCPL

Leave a comment

For the last several years we’ve been helping out at the Putnam County Public Library (PCPL) with their Scary Science event on Halloween. It always draws a crowd and love making things for the event.

A trick or treater tries on the animated eye mask we made for Halloween.

We usually bring one of our 3D printers to make something there and this year we printed out a mask for an artificial animated eye. And while not original, we made a ghost for a robotic vacuum that was often seen wandering around the library’s lower level cleaning up things.

Topping off our tricks was an updated version of Pepper’s Ghost, an optical illusion that makes animated things appear to be floating, using a tablet and a prism created on our laser cutter. We already have some ideas for next year’s event!

CNC, Making

Creative CNC Ideas

Leave a comment
Oak box frame made on our Shapeoko CNC
Oak frame made to backlight a lithophane.

Now that our larger CNC has been moved upstairs we’re starting to see some more interesting projects being made at the makerspace. Some of them have been more traditional woodworking projects, sometimes updated with a technology twist. For Valentines Day we had a teenager who made an oak box that he lined with LED lights to backlight the lithophane he created that was mounted on top of box. Haven’t heard yet if the recipient liked it, but I was definitely impressed!

Nerf gun turret assembly.
Assembly of a remote controlled Nerf gun turret made on our CNC

We also saw another interesting use for the CNC several months ago when someone made an remote control NERF gun turret. The design was done in Fusion 360 and the main parts were cut on the CNC so the stepper motors could be mounted directly into the wood. The final device allows remote control aiming and firing of the nerf gun. We could use one of these at the makerspace!

Making, Putt Putnam County

Building A Mini-Golf Hole

Leave a comment

We’ve seen a lot of different mini-golf holes built for Putt Putnam County, now in its 6th year. Often questions come up about supporting the playing surface or the sides to keep the ball on the playing surface when building a hole.

Close-up of an example mini-golf hole construction. The 3’x7′ OSB is nailed on 2×4’s then green outdoor carpet was stapled to the OSB. To keep the ball on the playing surface leftover plywood underlayment was cut & screwed to the 2×4’s.

We’ve got some general guidelines here, and you can always try searching the internet, but here’s some thoughts on what we’ve seen people create. Really almost anything will work, the piece of plywood with players laying/arranging building blocks at the event comes to mind, but for those that want to make something a little more complex:

  • Many folks use 2×4’s or 2×2’s to raise the playing surface off of the ground to allow the ball to drop into a hole or cup. Do remember that people could be walking on the playing surface depending on your design.
  • Others have kept their main surface on the ground, then have the ball hole higher than the playing surface.
  • For covering the playing surface, plain carpeting or felt is common. But anything will work, including old fanfold computer paper printouts! Outdoor carpeting that looks like grass can be found and felt is available in the fabric department. Or just paint it!
  • You’ll need to get the mini-golf hole to the event on Franklin Street Friday October 7th. Some have chosen to keep them light by using smaller or thinner boards for support. Many times it’s simply based on whatever wood is readily available.

We’re here to help you build that mini-golf hole, both with ideas and suggestions on construction and materials. Stop by during our Open Shop hours or contact one of us.

3D Printing, Making

Foam Box Derby

Leave a comment
Foam Block and c o 2 cartridges.
Foam before shaping with CO2 propulsion cartridges

This Friday night, at Greencastle’s First Friday, we’ll be trying something new, letting folks carve a foam block into a car, then propel them down a wire on Franklin Street.

Carved and painted foam block that we'll be racing down Franklin street.
Finished foam block mounted on the base.

For the first attempts we’re keeping it simple, although admittedly we’ve got bigger plans. For Friday night we’ve built a platform to put the foam block on, participants can carve the block into a car body, then will launch it down a cable using a CO2 cartridge.

Foam box car launcher
Foam box car launcher testing

In the future we’re going to try 3D printed and laser-cut wheels & want to also try using model rocket engines for propulsion. We’ve even thought about dual tracks for racing and putting an on-board micro:bit to measure speed and acceleration. Come join us on Friday night from 6-8 pm on Franklin Street in downtown Greencastle and to try out our first prototypes!

Amateur Radio, Electronics, Making

Radio Beacons

Leave a comment
Circuit board & Raspberry Pi used for WSPR transmission.
Raspberry Pi Zero & circuit board Ian built for WSPR

There’s a lot of similarity between amateur radio (or ham radio) and ‘makers’ – in fact many people are involved in both. With the electronics workbench area that we added to the makerspace, there has been even more interest in amateur radio. Several months ago, we put a 2m/70cm member-donated antenna on the roof, then started looking for a transmitter/ receiver & more projects next.

WSPR signal reception graphic.
WSPR Signal reception reports from multiple continents using only 100 mW of power!
Antartica reception report.
Antartica reporting of an Indiana transmission!

A recent article(p30) on building a low power Weak Signal Propagation Reporter (WSPR) radio beacon using an Arduino had us wanting to make one. We have experience with single board computers & most of the parts at the makerspace already – so why not make one! But before I could get mine finished another member, who recently got his amateur radio license, redesigned the project using Raspberry Pi Zero and got his running in Crawfordsville!

Transmitting on less power than many wifi routers (100mW in this case), he’s had confirmation of his signal on the 20m frequency band in Australia, Denmark, off the coast of Africa, and even an Antartica research station! Stop by the makerspace – we’re glad to show off what we’re doing.

Greencastle's Makerspace, Making

5th Annual Putt Putnam County

Leave a comment
Castlemakers 2021 Putt Putnam County viewed down Franklin Street.
Mini-golf holes were down both sides of Franklin Street during our annual Putt Putnam County event.

The Covid pandemic seemed to unleash a little extra creativity in our community and it showed in our annual Putt Putnam County tournament. We certainly had the largest turnout yet with 14 locally built mini-golf holes at the event held again during Main Street Greencastle’s October First Friday downtown.

Clinton Falls Run mini-golf hole - Putt Putnam County
The skeleton talked & lit up at night.

There were so many interesting holes this year it’s too hard to pick out my favorites. Ranging from the fairly simple “Back and Forth” (why didn’t I think of that?) to our first Halloween themed and a pachinko inspired hole called Plunko. And really, making a piano sounding board with strings into a hole so the golf ball made sounds?

Sounding Board mini-golf hole made from an old piano.
Sounding Board was made from an old piano.

There were even a few re-worked older favorites, including the Kirsch Dental ‘hit the ball through the chomping teeth’ and PCPL‘s Alice in Wonderland (don’t go down the rabbit hole though!). There were really too many holes to detail and I can’t do them all justice. If you didn’t see this year’s mini-golf holes, be sure to come next year to play through the course. Or better yet, start planning to build a hole and bring it to the 2022 event – Friday night October 7th in front of Castlemakers on Franklin Street!

Greencastle's Makerspace, Making

Putting Around in Putnam County

Leave a comment
Candyland golf hole built by Alice, Bella, & Rebecca.
Putt Putnam County mini-golf holes
Picture of Franklin St as the golfing began to die down…

It’s the time of year to start building a mini-golf hole for Putt Putnam County! This year the mini-golf holes will be on display and playable during the October First Friday from 6-8 pm.

For the annual event youth, families, groups, and businesses create a mini-golf hole to bring that evening as part of the mini-golf course on Franklin Street. There are more details on the event, including building guidelines, on our website project page. We’re also certainly glad to help you build one. We’ve made some of the simpler holes in less than 2 hours, so don’t ‘putt’ off building one!