All posts by chris

What’s a Makerspace

June 17, 2016 chris Leave a comment

It’s been a busy time for Castlemakers this last month; we received our first grant a few weeks ago for equipment. A group of us have been working very hard to create a physical location for Castlemakers, a makerspace, and watch for an announcement soon.

Map of Artisan's Asylum in Somerville, MA — Map of Artisan’s Asylum in Somerville, MA.

Several years ago I wrote something about ‘what is a makerspace’, which have become even more popular since then.

Their numbers and importance has grown since that first post, with the White House proclaiming this week in the US as a Nation of Makers and hosting a reoccurring Maker Faire this coming weekend (June 18^th & 19^th). If you visit different makerspaces, as some of us have, it’s a very entrepreneurial movement with many different makerspace models. You’ll find makerspaces as community co-ops, ones associated with libraries, ones that are affiliated with science and children’s museums, and even some at universities.

One of the main halls in Artisan's Asylum. Besides all the workshops, space can be rented for people working on their projects. — One of the main halls in Artisan’s Asylum. Besides all the workshops, space can be rented for people working on their projects.

Perhaps one of the largest and most successful makerspaces is Artisan’s Asylum in Somerville, MA which I visited last year. Started in 2010, it’s grown from a 1,000 sq ft “hole in the wall” to a 40,000 sq ft facility with over 600 members! What impressed me the most in my visit: the projects being built & how they bridged different disciplines along with oozing creativity and innovation. The sheer size & scope of the current facility was also impressive, but the people involved & what the makerspace environment seemed to be the key why it works.

Locally we’ve been making great strides in creating our own makerspace here in Greencastle. Thanks to a June 2016 grant from the Putnam County Community Foundation we’ll be purchasing our first major piece of equipment, a CO2 laser cutter. Of course we’ll need a place to house it, and we’re very close to that.

Makerspaces, Making

Making Chicago

May 3, 2016 chris Leave a comment

Chicago's Maker Lab on the 3rd Floor in the Harold Washington Library downtown. — Chicago’s Maker Lab on the 3rd Floor in the Harold Washington Library downtown.

While in Chicago last month to see the Strandbeest exhibit we took two maker classes. The first class was creating a greeting card using an electronic cutter and the second an acrylic keychain with a laser cutter. Both were hosted at public makerspaces, although the largest was called a Fab Lab (alternate name for a makerspace).

vinyl-cutter-CPL-makerlab_IMG_0457 — Psychedelic flying pig being drawn by a vinyl (electronic) cutter on a greeting card.

The Chicago Public Library (CPL) Maker Lab workshop began by teaching Inkscape to design the greeting card. They supplied a blank template, then using a laptop with Inkscape we added text and art for the card. The saved file was put on a flash drive, imported into the electronic cutter program (Silhouette), and then drawn on the card (the cutter’s blade was replaced with color felt tip pens).

CPL Maker Lab was the first publicly accessible maker lab in Chicago, created in July 2013 with a fairly large corporate grant and a 6 month trial/study. While a major portion is classes, they have plenty of ‘open shop’ times, at least 3 hours/day. They worked closely with the Museum of Science & Industry (MSI) in creating it, which was our other makerspace/fab lab visit.

MSI Fab Lab computer area for classes. On the far right wall are 3D prints and lasercut acrylic objects.

The Fab Lab in Chicago’s Museum of Science and Industry goes back about 10 years and is part of MIT’s Fab Lab network. Located in the back of the MSI it’s easy to miss, I had walked past it on two previous trips to the museum and hadn’t noticed it was there! While not open to the public for personal projects or general use, the classes are available for a modest cost ($7-9/person in our case) once you pay the general admission to MSI. They do fill up, so consider booking in advance.

A lasercutter was used to cutout and etch the acrylic sheet for the participant designed keychains. — A lasercutter cuts and etches an acrylic sheet for the participant designed keychains.

The class was well run and began with an overview of the lab, which has a lot of equipment and well organized. We used Inkscape to create the drawings, like the CPL Maker Lab class, and a template to get everyone started. This was a much more scripted class, which was needed because of the 1 hour timeframe. There was plenty of assistants to coach folks through the lesson and very helpful to all, even offering suggestions to some indecisive younger kids! This lab caters more to the young, although there were adults like myself attending.

Main Fab Lab workshop area with some of the equipment. The 3D printers are in the foreground, the very far wall is an electronics area. — Part of main Fab Lab workshop; in the foreground are 3D printers and very far wall is an electronics workbench.

These were good examples of the Museum & Library-based models of makerspaces. There was significant institutional support in creating both and in these cases they have a massive potential user base to draw on. There are also many makerspaces in our region that started with extremely small budgets and even self-funded. One thing I love about the makerspace community is their willingness to share with others; I ended up with curriculum content and contacts that offered to help we move from a makergroup to makerspace in Greencastle.

Making, STEM

Tetrahedral Kites

April 19, 2016 chris Leave a comment

Several different tetrahedral kite drinking straw designs were tried to see what would be easiest to build. — Several different drinking straw designs were tried to see what would be easiest to build.

After the big winds a few weeks ago, we decided to build some kites for our latest Castlemaker Kids project. For those not familiar with tetrahedral kites, the engineering behind the geometric design and history of Alexander Graham Bell’s involvement is interesting.

Alexander Graham Bell saw the Tetrahedral Kite as a way of getting to manned flight. Just before the turn of the 20^th century, there was a big debate in the scientific community on whether human flight was possible. Kites were being used to test aerodynamics and flight stability for possible aircraft. After Lawrence Hargrave developed the box kite in 1893, Mr. Bell designed a tetrahedral kite in 1895, which was not only very stable but simple to expand and easy to fly. Mr. Bell wrote a National Geographic article in June 1903 on his new kite structure that explains the development and gives a comparison with other designs. He eventually created a steamboat towed 12 meter (40’) long 3,393 cell model in 1907 that carried a man 51 meters (168’) above the water!

Prototype tetrahedrons and cutout tissue paper. Building a template helps considerably. We used string to tie the straws and cells together, but I'm working on designing a 3D printed connector to see if that would work. — Prototype tetrahedrons and cutout tissue paper. Building a template helps considerably. We used string to tie the straws and cells together, but designing a 3D printed connector to see if that could work.

There are lots of variations today – the design we chose was built using drinking straws, string, and tissue paper (Tyvek also works). Individual tetrahedrons are made out of straws, tissue paper is put on 2 sides, and then they are tied together in groups of 4 to make a building block. The 4 cell model can fly by itself but if you get ambitious 10 cell modules work well too, all of which could be attached together into larger tetrahedral kites. Instructions for a simple 4 cell model can be found here, but it can be tailored to the supplies available and what you’d like to build. To help with the kids’ attention span (and time constraints) we stayed with a 4 cell model.

Brian holds up his completed kite by the bridle. He used just one longer string for the bottom layer, the rest of us built individual cells and tied them together.

Finding non-bendy straws locally turned out to be a challenge, each 4 cell module takes 24 straws. The rest of the components are pretty straight forward, it’s just a matter of time and patience to assemble a kite. Once you figure out the pattern, the most difficult part is tying together the individual tetrahedrons with the string, in the version we used. There are several other versions if you search the internet, including one that uses flexible drinking straws, but the individual cells in the folding model are wired together. This makes assembly a bit more challenging and I found it harder to put and keep together, although the folding feature is nice.

A tetrahedral kite’s advantage is the low weight to sail ratio. Because of the shared trusses, as you add additional cells performance improves – what Bell saw in this design over other types of kites. And it’s easy to put multicolored paper on the kite, making a good looking kite. Don’t be surprised if you see some larger ones in the sky this summer in Putnam County!

3D Printing, Making, STEM

Teaching With 3D printing

April 11, 2016 chris Leave a comment

The whistlers share their designs and prints. The train whistle in the foreground didn't turn out as planned, something every engineer has experience! — The ‘whistlers’ (Ben & Carlie) share their designs and prints. The train whistle in the foreground didn’t turn out as planned, something every engineer has experienced!

A high school Principles of Engineering class I visited last week is providing a great example using a 3D printer to teach the engineering design process and critical thinking.

Mr. Shields at Greencastle High School inherited a 3D printer when he took over a new class this winter. I had contacted him to see if he or his students were interested in a community 3D printing competition that Castlemakers is putting together. He was able to take the basic idea we had and turn it into valuable classroom experience for the students. Plus provide a pilot test for a future community 3D printing event!

Another student demonstrates his 3D printed frog, which resonates sounding like a 'ribbet' when a stick is rubbed on it's back. — Craig demonstrates his 3D printed güiro, a frog which resonates ‘ribbet’ when a stick is rubbed on its back.

The challenge was to 3D print a functioning device that would make noise or music. They had to walk through a seven step design process, print the part, and then write a report that included evaluation of their prototype by others.

The projects they made were impressive with whistles, a drum, ribbiting frog, and of course musical instruments. While all of them were good, perhaps the most impressive sounding was a musical instrument that 2 students collaborated on – Mattia designing and making a mouthpiece while Dalton did a horn. You can hear the mouthpiece/horn in this video.

Justin B assembles his banjo/ukulele. One of his tuning keys broke but of course another can be printed! — Justin H. assembles his banjo/ukulele. One of his tuning keys broke but of course another can be printed!

Piaget would be proud of the constructivist learning going on Mr. Shields’ classroom. It really shows how hands on learning and the maker movement can improve learning in the classroom. IU School of Education is embracing the movement, opening a new a makerspace(The MILL) last fall in the Wendell Wright Education building just for teachers. Not all learning goes on in a classroom however, and people need tools/equipment and a place to practice – one of the reasons that Castlemakers feels Putnam County needs a makerspace.

Greencastle's Makerspace, Making, Robotics, STEM

Building A Robot at Wonderlab

April 3, 2016 chris Leave a comment

Wonderlab/Bloominglabs workshop on building a light seeking robot from motors, switches, and a few electronic components.

Another good regional resource for kids STEM activities is Wonderlab in Bloomington, Indiana. Besides being a fun place to visit, they also offer summer day camps for kids through 6th grade (and mentoring opportunities for those older) that can range from crazy contraptions and electronics/engineering to TV technology. They also have occasional special events, often on weekends or during school breaks, that anyone can sign up for.

A completed 'BrainBot' - light seeking robot based on the SunBEAM seeker robot. — A completed ‘BrainBot’ – light seeking robot based on the SunBEAM seeker robot. These use $7-8 in parts and the robot seeks out light using the two photosensors that drive the rear motors.

Bloominglabs, the community makerspace in Bloomington, put on a 3 hour Brainbot building workshop over spring break at Wonderlab for kids and adults. Since we had some experience teaching kids to solder, ended up helping with the workshop and now helping to improve the workshop instructions. Bloominglabs also helps the Monroe County Library with speakers for the summer Make It Digital series, put on Makevention every year, and have an open shop night every Wednesday evening for those interested in making.

As we work towards creating a Putnam County makerspace, the robot building workshop is a good example of what Castlemakers will offer. Of course a makerspace is much more than just classes. But the goal is sharing/helping people to learn skills with arduinos/microcontrollers, mechanical devices, 3D printers, and more. And with the right physical location that may include welding, woodworking, jewelry making… all things that makerspaces in other cities offer.

3D Printing, Artistic Endeavors, Making, Robotics

Strandbeest Exhibit in Chicago

March 27, 2016 chris Leave a comment

An earlier Strandbeest, Animaris Apodiacula. On the far wall you can see a picture of his workspace and that room is full of parts used to make them. — An earlier Strandbeest, Animaris Apodiacula. On the far wall you can see a picture of Theo Jansen’s workspace and that room is full of parts used to make them.

Spring break turned out to be more of a making experience than expected, starting with the Strandbeest exhibit in Chicago and then taking a Chicago Public Library makerspace class and later one about laser cutting at the Museum of Science and Industry’s Fab Lab.

If you haven’t heard of Theo Jansen’s Strandbeests, and even if you have, the Chicago Cultural Center has a fabulous exhibit for anyone interested in mechanical creatures. You get to see what an eccentric artist can do when combining engineering and art. Jansen’s wind powered beach creatures have evolved over the last 25 years, getting more sophisticated by storing wind energy, sensing when walking into the water, and even self-correcting to prevent them getting stuck. Some even anchor themselves if they detect a storm, all without any electronics just plastic pipe, cloth, and recycled bottles.

Close-up of the Animaris Suspedisse before the walking demo. Over by the windows you can see visitors walking a smaller one. — Close-up of the Animaris Suspedisse before the walking demo. The plastic pipe you see in the foreground hanging down with red tips is part of the propulsion system from the plastic bottle stored air. Over by the windows you can see visitors walking a smaller one, here’s a video.

Check the schedule if you go, you can watch a 42’ long Animaris Suspendisse walk or they might actually let you move an Animaris Ordis by yourself! The exhibit also included the evolution of the creatures and a small case of what other inspired people in the making community have done with his designs. Hamster powered Strandbeest anyone? How about 3D printed Strandbeests? The Segway like device inspired by a Strandbeest was pretty impressive too! Anyone interested in building a Strandbeest here?

The Chicago Cultural Center is a beautiful building itself and just across the street from Millennium Park – you can see Cloud Gate from many of the windows on the east side of the building. Make sure you check out the other exhibits in the building and look at the incredible dome on the 2^nd floor of the Center.

I’ll cover the workshops on making your own greeting card using a electronic (vinyl) cutter and making a custom acrylic keychain with laser cutter in a future post…

STEM

Catapulting a Wild Boar

March 12, 2016 chris Leave a comment

Yes, that is a flying pig in the photo! After working through the calculations of a hurling a wild boar, the students got to try firing various animals at a castle wall.

Yesterday, in conjunction with The Castle, we did a class workshop on catapults with the 7th grade science students at Greencastle Middle School. They were challenging sessions with both physics and mathematics involved, but the kids in the 7th grade science classes on Friday worked through the calculations to solve whether a 150 pound wild boar could be hurled across a 100 yard moat using a catapult. Their current curriculum was in the Newton’s laws of motion section, which they had to use to help answer the question.

With only a 43 minute class period to work with, we had to reduce the scenario to a fairly short calculation. The groups were given the wild boar launch velocity (100 ft/sec at a 45 degree angle) and had to calculate the flight time so the total distance traveled could be determined. For those that finished the problem quickly they could try to figure how the distance would change if a cow was instead launched, but that was a bonus item that most didn’t get to. We finished up by test launching a few stuffed animals in the classroom to see a simple catapult in action.

Special thanks to Mr. Wickerman for letting us into his classroom, to Kara Jedele from The Castle for arranging the workshop, and both Kara and Emily Knuth for helping in the classroom.

Making, STEM

Learning to Solder – Part 2

February 15, 2016 chris Leave a comment

Newspapers were used since they quickly smoke/smell if a soldering iron is left on the table. The chaser kits are sometimes called a Larson Scanner referring to Battlestar Galactica & Knight Rider. — The chaser kits being built are sometimes called a Larson Scanner referring to Battlestar Galactica & Knight Rider.

Despite the snow & cupid competition, we had some not-so-lonely hearts show up yesterday to continue learning and honing their soldering skills. This was our 2^nd soldering session, during the first one the kids learned first by soldering wires together and then went on the kits. A little simpler kit with color changing/blinking lights was used this time for those that missed the first meeting or were quick to finish.

Newspapers were used to quickly smoke/smell if a soldering iron is on the table. — Newspapers were used on the tables, they quickly smoke/smell if a soldering iron is on them.

The LED chaser kit (Velleman MK173 rev2) was a medium difficulty build; in retrospect something easier for first timers would be better. But the coolness factor is very high, you can see it in this video link to Connor’s just after he finished. The socket helps protect the IC from overheating, but 44 solder joints is a lot to do. Solder pads are close together on both kits, not unusual, which offered opportunities for many kids to learn unsoldering techniques (some more than others). Glad we had a couple of solder suckers to clean up the bridging and over ambitious solderers! We also had one solder pad on one of the boards come loose but hard to tell if that was a circuit board problem or not.

The color changing LEDs kit (Lux Spectralis 2) was definitely simpler with 24 solder points, but was bought on clearance so now hard to find. It has 38 modes of color/flashing to choose from and could be easily finished under an hour or less. The IC (ATtiny13a, no socket included) held up well to overheating, least from our experience. One kit was short a few parts, something we’ll plan for next time.

We’ll be doing more learning to solder classes, this is a skill that generated an lot of interest from both young and old. Our next meeting will be using App Inventor again, part of our series building up to Arduinos and other microcontrollers.

Making, STEM

Learning to Solder

February 4, 2016 chris Leave a comment

Our first ‘learning to solder’ session last Sunday drew quite a crowd. With 20 kids showing up and quite a few parents there too, we packed the FYCDP house on Crown Street. George Edenfield, who’s involved in Putnam County Auxiliary Communications and an active amateur radio operator, helped lead the session. Many of the kids brought their own soldering irons or borrowed one from a parent, but only a few had ever soldered before.

Before tackling the circuit board and real electronic components, the kids practiced on soldering wires together. — Before tackling the circuit board and electronic components, the kids practiced on soldering wires together.

After going through the basics and soldering safety, George had everyone solder two wires together so they could learn how to handle a soldering iron and learn how to recognize a good soldering joint. We then moved on to a small kit that creates a ‘chaser’ effect in 6 LEDs. The kids picked it up pretty quickly, although most needed someone to help them with the first soldering joint on the small circuit board. A few even got to learn how to use a solder sucker (desoldering tool) when they got a little carried away putting solder on the copper pads on the circuit board. Desoldering techniques, a possiblebackup topic if there was extra time, will be covered at a future meeting.

Another table starts their initial soldering task.

Although the kits didn’t get completed due to time and everyone helping each other, everyone kept saying how much they liked it and wanted to do more. So we’ll continue working on those that didn’t get it completed at our next meeting, February 14^th, and for those that did or missed the Jan 31rst meeting we’ll have another simpler, quicker soldering project. It was so popular we ran out of the chaser kits.

Making, STEM

Cardboard Virtual Reality

December 13, 2015 chris Leave a comment

Google Cardboard Kit components. The magnets become a switch for the cell phone's magnetometer. — Google Cardboard Kit components. The magnets become a switch for the cell phone’s magnetometer.

Today we assembled some really inexpensive Google Cardboard kits and explored different 3D virtual reality programs that use a cell phone for viewing. By using the cell phone gyro for judging head movement and the magnetometer as an input device, with a little cardboard and a couple of lenses you can experience virtual reality!

We started with some ‘un-certified’ Google Cardboard kits, I suspect these are version 1 models vs. the latest version 2. These do not have the QR code that can help with configuration. These particular units don’t come with any instructions, which since they don’t strictly follow the Google Cardboard guidelines, made a little more challenging build. But really not that hard and adding some masking tape made them even sturdier. And they do work!

Rebecca discovers that the view is 360 degrees by looking up at the sky. — Rebecca discovers that the view is 360 degrees by looking up at the ‘sky.’ The adults are exploring what additional apps we can try.

The real fun began after Alice got her’s assembled first and then began wowing… everyone else starting racing to finish theirs. The technology is impressive and the demo app is a great place to start. There are so many more apps out there already that it will take some time to learn the best ones. Some of us old folks liked the Paul McCartney video app where you are on-stage for one of his concerts and can look around 360 degrees to watch things from the band perspective. Impressive fireworks and sound too! The VR Roller Coaster app was a hit with the kids, although I think all of them also tried the different cities in the demo, starting with Paris where you can walk around the Eiffel Tower.

Greencastle Indiana's Makerspace!