Castlemakers Dojo Ninjas celebrating after Indiana CoderDojo Hackathon in Indianapolis
One of the community efforts that we perhaps promote enough is the local CoderDojo. The Castlemakers CoderDojo was one the early ones in Indiana, starting in 2016, and now going on it’s 3rd year.
What’s a CoderDojo? Simply it’s a club where youth, ages 7-17, learn programming from volunteers – including professional programmers. The kids/ninjas bring in projects that they are working on or are interested in… or the mentors have some structured & unstructured exercises to help them learn more about coding.
Greencastle Coders work on Python in the Individual Challenge
This is the second year we’ve taken kids to the CoderDojo Hackathon sponsored by CoderDojo Indiana / Techpoint Foundation for Youth. Both years we’ve had teams that won trophies, something to be very proud of!
Indiana VEX Robotics Championship on 3/10/18 at Lucas Oil Stadium.
If you missed the Indiana Vex Robotics State Championship in Indianapolis last Saturday, you missed a great event. This was the first time it’s been held at Lucas Oil Stadium and despite stadium size with over 300 teams participating on 6 stages it seemed like the right choice!
One of the middle schools competing in the competition.
With over 900 teams in Indiana, I was unable to find anyone that made it to the event from our area. Should Castlemakers help organize a local event to encourage more teams? Comment or send us an email (info@castlemakers.org) if you think we should!
So much happened at Castlemakers in 2017 it’s been a challenge to keep the blog current. This entry started in December, but had to be finished in 2018 – which I guess highlights 2017’s theme of expansion and growth! 2017 growth included:
Castlemakers CNC addition, a Nomad 883, making a wrench out of a piece of aluminum.
Thanks to several generous gifts, Castlemakers added more equipment in 2017. Perhaps the most notable was our desktop CNC (Computer Numerical Control machine, a Nomad 883) which we’ve now put into use and will be offering the first class in January. Techpoint Foundation for Youth also gave us 10 Chromebooks, which are getting heavy use in our Castlemakers CoderDojo (a youth coding club) and the gift helped with our classes.
Since last June we’ve had general public STEAM oriented classes essentially every month for the old and young. From 3D printing & Arduinos to lasercuttering, they provide practical learning using technology where the participants take home something they make. What a great way to learn!
Castlemakers CoderDojo met the first Saturday afternoon of every month in 2017.
With a new Makerspace soft opening in December 2016, memberships now offer 24/7 access to the physical space and equipment. ‘Open shop’ times offer anyone a chance to use/try the equipment for their own projects. But the real value is the associated people/members and their knowledge. Plus it’s a great way to try/use an expensive piece of equipment that you can’t justify for yourself.
Rodney created this 3D wooden map using a downloaded USGS topo map, oak plywood, & our CO2 laser.
But the real growth is with the makerspace community & people. It’s the December CoderDojo with 10 kids spending their Saturday afternoon practicing computer coding along with showing and sharing what they were working on. You could see kids programming a tablet to adults there teaching robot navigation and a 12 year old coding a humanoid walking in an online landscape he designed.
It’s also listening to a member take what he learned in our laser class to create a wooden 3D map of his farm. It’s a 3DPO regular showing off the 3D printer he designed or seeing the cable supported 3D printer in which the print size is only limited by the room’s walls.
2018 looks very promising indeed…
First stage of the model rocket that Nick launched in the fall of 2016.
If you walked by the Makerspace this summer and looked in the window, you may have noticed a very large model rocket. It was the first stage of a creation that Nick Adams, who taught our ‘build a model rocket’ class, built last year and launched. Several people have stuck their head in since it left and asked us where the rocket went. The short answer is he prepping it for an even higher/faster launch this Labor Day weekend in Kansas.
Earlier this year Nick asked if we could make something that would plug the air intake holes, the kind of project we love! When you go supersonic a flat surfaces creates even more turbulence, so for his upcoming flight he wanted a more streamlined version. Plugging 4 intake holes on the side of the rocket would help.
Different versions of the intake plugs.
We initially fabricated a plug out of foam, using a hot wire cutter at the Makerspace, then scanned the piece so it could be 3D printed. Creating the styrofoam piece was easy, scanning… well the Makerbot Replicator we have wasn’t quite up to the task initially. Learned that covering the foam with masking tape helps (the foam color and irregular surface created problems), but it was still less than a satisfactory design.
Nick’s QCC rockets assembled, the one on the left has black intake plugs installed.
Then one of our younger makers, Ephraim, helped by creating by creating a quick model in Autodesk’s Inventor. That design came closer, but we missed measuring a few key dimensions like the chamfer where the plug goes into the rocket. We finally ended up redrawing with Fusion 360, which turned out to be the best solution. Although the program has a steep learning curve, it allowed us to make several more design changes quickly & easily to get the 4 pieces printed out last month.
This weekend Nick’s letting Castlemakers take the rocket to show off at Makevention in Bloomington, Indiana – an annual celebration of making things. Located at the Monroe County Convention Center, it’s open to the public and a great event! Stop by and see the assembled 12.5 foot tall rocket and also stay tuned to Nick’s YouTube channel. I’m sure he’ll have a video of the launch posted not long after the launch on August 30th!
As Castlemakers moves from a youth oriented makergroup to an all ages Makerspace, we’re not neglecting our roots – offering kids interesting hands-on STEAM activities. Last month, for on one of our ‘un-making’ events, we used weed whackers to expose kids to internal combustion engines. It seems like small 2-cycle engines are a throw-away commodity anymore, so after collecting 8-10 weed whackers (and one lawnmower engine) we had everyone tear them apart to see what’s inside.
Tear down days are always popular, and surprisingly the girls outnumbered the boys for this one. With everyone being warned in advance to wear old clothes we threw down several pieces of plywood and cardboard out back, put a bunch of tools out to help, then let them go at it with some occasional supervision & suggestions.
Doug points out the differences between 4 and 2 cycle engines.
These single cylinder engines seem to be the perfect size for kids. We began by removing the pulley and clutch off the engine. After explaining how the piston pulls fuel into the cylinder, you can explain how an engine is a controlled fuel explosion. Centrifugal clutches & carburetors were another whole discussion. After piston removal everyone seemed fascinated by how the crankshaft/rod converts the linear piston motion into rotation. A few of the piston/rod/crankshaft mechanisms were saved (although several went home), it’s a good tie into the paper mechatronics we did last year.
Special thanks to Doug Salter, a 25+ year mechanic at Ryder Truck, who donated at least half of the weed whackers and also helped by coaching the kids on disassembly and how the parts inside worked. And another nod to Jerry Hecko, our makerspace automotive repair shop neighbor, who gave us the 4 cycle lawnmower engine for comparison and often has the right tool when we don’t have one.
Maggie Cline & Courtney Lambert from TPF4Y give Castlemakers’ Brian Howard & Chris Hebb new Dell Chromebooks.
We’ve had so much going on lately that blog posting fell off the list. But with so much recent news to tell, we’ll start with a few shorter posts on events and recently made items that folks stopping by the Makerspace have expressed interest in.
One of the most exciting things – we received 10 new Chromebooks from the Techpoint Foundation for Youth. As our monthly CoderDojo has grown, we’ve been looking for ways to have more computers available for kids that aren’t able to bring a laptop to learn more about coding at the meetings. This wonderful gift allows us to have pre-configured Chromebooks for kids to use.
Saturday July 1st from 1-4 pm will be our next monthly CoderDojo meeting of the free coding club for youth ages 7-17. We’ll have programmers there to help, or if you’d like to help the kids learning programming please stop by also!
And if you like coding, the inaugural CoderDojo Indiana Hackathon will be in Indianapolis Saturday July 22nd from 9:30-4:30 pm. Anyone can enter & we’ve already got one local team entry going.
Hunter tries the Holographic Prism he just built with an animated jellyfish. The prism was made from a CD case and our laser cutter, a Putnam County Community Foundation gift.
If you’ve been following our blog, you might think Castlemakers is a just a kids focused nonprofit. That’s definitely how we started, but our mission is broader than that – providing and encouraging scientific and creative skills (i.e. STEM or STEAM) by creating opportunities for all. Much of our first two years has been providing youth-oriented opportunities, which is now being called Castlemakers Kids, but with our new makerspace downtown we can expand to all ages.
First learning to solder class, before we had a makerspace. Future classes will be for all ages.
One way we’re doing that is offering community classes to allow people to learn, try, and build or make things that they may not have experiences with. Certainly software and some of the new digital fabrication tools like electronic cutters, 3D printers, and single board computers(i.e. Arduino & Raspberry Pi). But also how to use more traditional tools and then combining them with electronics/soldering, sewing/crafting (clothing with sensors/electronics are popular), woodworking, and fabrication. Watch for our first community class at the makerspace to be offered in soldering and electronics in March.
At our last 3DPO meetup, Curtiss scans a robot with a Sense scanner while John sets up a Makerbot 3D digitizer.
A third way, using our physical makerspace, is a community location where people can share ideas, have access to tools and equipment, and create things. A place that will spur creativity and innovation in our community. Some of this is outlined on our what we offer page. You can also stop by and see for yourself, perhaps even build something if you’d like, by coming by sometime during one of our ‘open shop’ times where some of the people involved in Castlemakers can help you with a project or just explain/show you what we have. Better yet, get involved and participate – no experience is necessary and you’ll help our community grow!
Alice and Rebecca working on projects at October 2016 CoderDojo
Saturday afternoon, October 1st, saw our first CoderDojo session at the makerspace on Franklin Street. What’s a CoderDojo?
CoderDojo is a worldwide movement of free, volunteer-led, community-based programming clubs for young people. Anyone aged seven to seventeen can visit a Dojo where they can learn to code, build a website, create an app or a game, and explore technology in an informal, creative, and social environment. [coderdojo.org]
Evan shows Brian what he’s been making
Assisted by student mentors from DePauw, Brian and Mike spent three hours with kids ranging from Jacob, who worked through introductory tutorials from the Hour of Code, to Alice, with a fair amount of experience already in JavaScript, who learned details about working with HTML and CSS.
The next session will be Saturday, November 5, from 1 to 4 pm. Bring a laptop if you have one, or use one of ours! Bring a project to work on, or try out some of our coding activities! Bring a friend!
Alice taking a quick break from fiddling with fonts
After the interest in the Subaru Indiana Automotive tour, a group of Castlemakers went on a tour of a Hydroponics Lab at Airy Knob Farm just outside Greencastle last month. The ½ hour tour, which was a science project for Victor & Linda Hunter’s grandkids, went over the basics of hydroponics in their proof of concept center for growing fruits & vegetables year round. There is a pretty big ‘concept center’ with over 500 plants growing when we visited & the kids did an awesome job with the tour.
After placing seeds into rock wool cubes, they are inserted into the ebb-flow growing unit.
Hydroponics grows plants in a mineral rich water solution without any soil. Because the plant’s roots don’t have to use energy seeking out nutrients, most of the growth goes to top portion of the plant with the root ball being significantly smaller and a much bushier, more compact plant. Supplemental lights often help that growth when it’s used in practice today (hydroculture goes back to Babylonian times & the 1600’s in Germany).
One of our hosts show how water/nutrients are added to a nutrient film hydroponic system.
We learned a lot, including 3 different types of irrigation systems used there, the process of germination to harvest, and how the lighting & cooling systems are used to control plant growth. The kids on the trip put seedlings into the larger growth units & also could test the nutrient solution used with the plants. With the water/nutrient solution recirculation, this type of plant growth uses a lot less water than traditional farming!
Testing the growing solution is very important for larger scale hydroponics.
Ty launches the first rocket of the day, one he built several weeks earlier in the model rocket class.One of the later launches
Despite the forecast, it was a beautiful sunny afternoon at Big Walnut Sports Park after we delayed the rocket launch a week. Besides the DooDad rockets built by the Castlemaker Kids, we had others show up with their own rockets, creating quite a show. We ended up with multiple launch pads and variety of different sized rockets and objects becoming airborne.
No that’s not a flying saucer. It’s actually two interlocking plastic plates floating down after launch…
The ‘objects’ part are a little hard to describe, although they all used rocket engines. There were various polyhedrons and cardstock printed lawn darts (no chute, but colored with crayons by some younger kids – landed with a ‘thud’ nose first). Then there were the flying plates…
Recovery is much quicker & easier when you have an energetic chase crew!
All of the kids (and a few of the adults) learned the proper setup and launch procedures before launching the model rockets. Thanks to the Greencastle Parks & Recreation Board (along with the Putnam County Airport) for letting us use Big Walnut Sports Park for launching the rockets. And a special thanks to Nick Adams for teaching the class, bringing his launch equipment, and teaching/supervising everyone who launched that day. And to Jonathan Green for bringing his tub full of objects, it definitely added some more fun to the event!
Setup area for launching with a few onlookers at Big Walnut Sports Park.
