It was great to be able to offer a Cricut/ electronic cutter class again before the upcoming holidays. We offered the class several years ago, actually before we had the current Cricut Maker at the makerspace.
Laurie showing some of the things that can be made with an electronic cutter.
The class covered the basics by making several gift bags and a holiday greeting card, although the makerspace machine can be used for lighter and heavier materials including fabric and even balsa wood. Laurie Hardwick, who has a history of creating all kinds of things with a Cricut, taught the class and did a phenomenal job – the things she brought in to show everyone were amazing.
If there’s interest, we can do another Cricut class after the first of the year. If you’d like to make more holiday items, be sure to check out our classes webpage for an upcoming lasercutter class where you can learn to make a holiday ornament.
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.
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 was made from an old piano.
There were even a few apparently stored re-worked older favorites that apparently, 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 was really too many holes to detail and I can’t do them all justice. If you didn’t make this year’s even 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!
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.
Candyland golf hole built by Alice, Bella, & Rebecca.
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!
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 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!
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!
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.
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.
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!
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.
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!”
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.
