Artistic Endeavors, Classes

Edible Art In Gelatin

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Learning to create petals and leaves in gelatin.

This last week we offered something completely different – a class on making edible flowers in gelatin. “Jelly Art” is a popular technique in Asia using a syringe to inject natural ingredient colors into a clear gelatin base. With the proper needles and some patience, participants made some pretty amazing decorative gelatin art that they could take home to eat if they wanted.

Flower petals & leaves are made with natural ingredients that are injected into the special gelatin.

For all of us that had never done this before, it was surprisingly easy, although having someone demonstrate how to do it (and help if a mistake was made) was perhaps the most valuable part of the class. If you’re interested in the materials used, we’ve got a webpage for the class that explains the materials used in making the gorgeous flowers.

Special thanks to Weiwei for teaching the class & bringing all the materials to get it done in a 3 hour class. Should we offer another class like this in the future? Let us know!

Everyone showing their completed edible flowers that they made in the class.
Greencastle's Makerspace, Making

Putting Around in Putnam County

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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!

Solar / Photovoltaic

A Real Solar Gain

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Castlemakers is pleased to share the news about our SIA Foundation grant to create a Solar / Photovoltaic Resource Center for the community. The grant will be used to install and demonstrate a working photovoltaic system at our makerspace. The most visible portion of the system will be a solar awning, which has been designed to blend into the streetscape on Franklin Street.

Solar awning that will be on the front of the makerspace.
Solar awning design/artist conception being made by Castlemakers.

Besides the hands-on working solar/photovoltaic system, which will show makerspace power usage & creation, Castlemakers will add resources and equipment to learn more on solar and photovoltaic technology. Besides the solar awning, we’ll have:
– Projects to demonstrate photovoltaic creation for youth and adults.
– Classes & sessions to help everyone to learn about the technology
– Equipment to help with solar measurement & assessment
– A reference library of books and materials.

There’s still a lot to do before everything’s in place; we’re currently designing , getting approvals, & purchasing equipment. But we’ve already started offering classes and will have projects in the next few months – including building a solar generator. We’re excited to help put a little more ‘green’ into the area by encouraging more solar power!

Amateur Radio

Slow Scan TV

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This week the International Space Station (ISS) has been broadcasting images using Slow Scan TV (SSTV) from the Russian portion of the station on 145.800 MHz. It’s relatively easy to pick up the signal if you have the right equipment and can calculate the time it passes overhead correctly.

Audio from Tuesday’s ISS SSTV transmission over Greencastle Indiana.
SSTV image received from the International Space Station when passing over Greencastle.

This happens several times a year and will continue through at least June 26th, so we’re going to try receive and decode the image this coming Saturday morning at Open Shop. Overhead passes start 5:10 am, are about 90 minutes apart, and go through 1:22 pm local time. Stop by during our open hours from 9-12 am and you might get to see an image directly from the space station!

Classes, Electronics, micro:bit

micro:bit Interfacing

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Castlemakers advanced micro:bit class.
Our 5/1 class on learning about micro:bit interfacing.

Last weekend we had our advanced micro:bit class that was cancelled last year due to Covid. Ian Girvan, one of our members, taught the class & everyone there learned a thing or two about the more advanced features of this IoT like device. The class was taught using v1.6 of the micro:bit, v2’s released last November are still almost impossible to find; versions are similar enough it doesn’t make a real difference.

Participants learned how to use a breakout board to connect lights, sound, & control a DC motor with a micro:bit. They even got the chance to use a light sensor & variable resistor as input to control a LED.

Our next class, coming up on May 29th, will be a ‘learning to solder’ class where folks make a little jitterbug robot that starts moving when the light sensor detects darkness. We’ll soon be adding a lot more light/solar projects and classes with some upcoming makerspace additions in the next few months.

Classes, micro:bit

advanced Micro:bit class

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micro:bit controlling a bell & light string.
micro:bit with a relay controlling an alarm bell & LEDs.

Now we’re able to have classes at the Makerspace again, last Saturday there was a free ‘Intro to micro:bit’ class for anyone interested. It went well, with several attendees liking it so much they signed up on the spot for our next micro:bit class which will cover the device in even more detail.

This coming Saturday, May1st at 1 pm, we’ll cover using external devices with a micro:bit, including hooking up light strings, switches, and even a motor to the single board computer given to all 6th graders in Putnam County. This will be an all ages class however, the simple and powerful IoT like device can be programmed by anyone from 8 to 80. We’ll have everything you need for the hands-on class where you’ll learn to control a string of neopixel lights and no previous experience is needed. Learn more about it on our classes webpage.

CNC, Greencastle's Makerspace

Making A Custom Bracket

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Nomad CNC machining setup at Castlemakers.
Machining the aluminum bracket on our Nomad 883. You can see videos of the CNC in action on our Youtube channel.

We’re certainly excited about the new electronic equipment capability at Castlemakers, but the makerspace is not just electronics. One of our members, Dan, asked about making a bracket for his 2009 Triumph motorcycle to install an upgraded combination gauge for the stock speedometer & tachometer. We’ve only done a little aluminum machining, and it can be a very slow process, but if you don’t try you’ll never learn what you can do!

Close-up of aluminum bracket being machined on CNC.
Aluminum plate machining into a bracket.

The original gauge included some warning lights, which he wanted, but weren’t part of the upgraded combo gauge so they were purchased separately. So Dan needed to create a new bracket design to hold the new gauge and lights.

Finished Triumph bracket Installed on the motorcycle.
Finished Triumph bracket.

I’ll let Dan take it from here:
“I used Adobe illustrator to make a vector file of the shape I wanted, along with holes for mounting the bracket and indicator lights. I made a prototype on the laser cutter, and after a few small adjustments, we made the final version out of 3mm thick aluminum with the Nomad desktop CNC. There are still a few little tweaks I might make to get the spacing perfect (I ended up having to hand-drill one more hole for a button I had forgotten about), but I’m happy with the result. Couldn’t have done it without Castlemakers!”

3D Printing, Electronics, Programming

Window Micros

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Web accessible lamp with ping pong balls for LED diffusion.
LED lamp at Castlemakers in Rainbow mode, the colors change continuously in this video.

Pointing out the new ping pong ball lamp in the Castlemakers window on Franklin Street is a natural follow-up after writing last month about the micro:bit in the window. It’s a great fun, low cost project built by one of our member with items found at the makerspace, except for the ping pong balls.

Example lamp components, penny included for size comparison to the ESP8266 modules.

Recently several of us started experimenting with ESP32’s, a ‘system on a chip’ device that’s less than $10. I’m working on a squirrel proof bird feeder using an ESP32 with a camera for squirrel recognition, more on that later. This project is built however with an ESP8266 module, predecessor of the ESP32, which cost even less. The ESP8266 modules, bought some time ago for $4, are still quite capable having both wifi and a control channel built in. Ian, who’s known to build things for the heck of it, turned an ESP8266, a bit of leftover led strip lights, some 3D printing, ping pong balls and some glue into a flashy user controlled lamp!

Webpage for lamp controls if you’re logged into our network.

There was mathematics involved in figuring out the right way to spiral the LED strip up the side for tight ping pong ball spacing, which depends on the diameter of the 3D printed cylinder. What’s also impressive is the built in web server. If you’re at the makerspace and logged into our network, type http://pingpong1.local to change the lamp pattern. Pretty darn impressive for a $4 circuit board!

We’re thinking about creating a class to help folks build these. If you’re interested stop by to let us know, post on this blog or send us an email.

Classes, Greencastle's Makerspace, micro:bit

Start of a New Year

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3D printed round tuit
Multi-color Round Tuits designed in January 3D printing by class attendee David.

It’s exciting to be able to offer classes again, even though with a reduced size and constraints due to Covid. Introduction to 3D Printing will be offered on January 23rd at 1 pm and our popular Introduction to Laser Cutting/Engraving on February 20th. We’re hoping there’s also interest in some micro:bit classes, refer to our classes page for more information.

We’ve continued to experiment, a lot, with the micro:bit since giving them away to youth in the fall of 2019. The micro:bit capability is still impressive for a device that size. In the window of our Franklin Street location you can see several micro:bit projects, including some that have been written about before.

Window micro:bit that remotely flashes lights & rings an alarm bell!

One of the more mysterious window projects uses the micro:bit’s internal bluetooth radio. There’s been a micro:bit for some time that sends scrolling text and can control a string of lights and a rather loud alarm bell if the right text is sent wirelessly from another micro:bit to the window unit.

Hint: the words to send are obvious, it’s easy to program in MakeCode, and use Radio Set Group 1. It even works from outside! I’ll link later to some more detailed additional help.

Greencastle's Makerspace, Making

Holiday Making

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Acrylic Prototype ornament
Prototype green acrylic ornament.

This year we decided to pitch in and help Main Street Greencastle’s Santa in the Park project by making holiday ornaments to give away in Santa’s gift bags. We’ve held classes in making holiday ornaments before, so it seemed like a natural fit with one big difference. Instead of making 5-10 ornaments designed by class attendees, we needed to make 500 ornaments for the gift bags in 2 weeks or less!

Laser cut holiday ornament
Closeup of the final laser cut wood ornament design .

3D printing the ornaments, which we’ve done in our classes, was out due to the time constraint. Recently I helped a local entrepreneur make his parts for a new product idea on our laser, creating a little over 150 pieces in 15 minutes. They needed to be extremely precise and were slightly smaller than ornaments, but that had me thinking this was the way to go. What we needed was a simple to engrave & cut design that could be done in a reasonable length of time.

Finished laser cut Castlemakers holiday ornaments.
Getting first batch of holiday ornaments ready for delivery.

A local high school student, Hyrum Hale, came up with design that with a few modifications we could use. Our first prototype in green acrylic looked nice but wasn’t really visible on a tree, plus enough acrylic was hard to find due to Covid. Getting it to engrave/cut quickly required additional work; size of the ornament, material choice & availability, laser settings, and laser bed calibration/set up all were factors that determined time per ornament, quality, and repeatability. Making 500 items of anything means you learn a lot!

Although the cutting/engraving time was still substantial, we made the deadline and are really excited for our first time doing this. There’s a few extras at the Makerspace if you’d like one. We’re also already thinking about a new design for next year…

Greencastle Indiana's Makerspace!