All posts by chris

Robotics, STEM

2023 Indiana Robotics Championships

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March has become one of my favorite times of year, and not just because of the weather or basketball. One of my favorite events to attend is the annual Indiana Robotics Championships in Indianapolis at Lucas Oil Stadium. This year was no exception.

Indiana VEX Robotics Championships
Opening Ceremonies at the 2023 Indiana Robotics Championship in Indianapolis.

Although I’ve never actually competed in the event, I’ve attended for many years. The sheer energy and excitement at the competition is infectious. You can’t help but be astonished at the amount of hard work (and sometimes doughnuts) the teams put into this effort.

Middle School VEX IQ teams competing in the Indiana Robotics Championship.
Some VEX IQ Middle School Teams competing.

The size of the event is also impressive, this year there were over 10,000 attendees and 318 teams competing. And as a volunteer judge the last 2 years, I’ve learned the knowledge and skills that the kids participating have is even more impressive. From mechanical and programming skills to creativity and especially project management, which some learn quicker than others, these kids are learning things that will help their future careers and life.

This year the competition has another record, 157 Indiana teams qualifying for the VEX World Championships in Dallas, Texas. Some of the teams are asking for support to attend. If you’d like to help an Indiana team, a fund raiser has been set up.

CNC, Making

Creative CNC Ideas

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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!

Amateur Radio

Listening to the International Space Station

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A lot of people don’t realize that Amateur Radio can involve spacecraft, including the International Space Station (ISS). When it passes overhead, there’s a lot more than images you can receive!

When this blog post was written there were 7 astronauts aboard the ISS and several have an amateur radio license. There are 2 radios currently aboard and the astronauts will occasionally use them to contact people when passing overhead, although that is really pretty rare. But the radios are almost always in use, except during a spacewalk, from amateur radio operators sending radio signals up to the station which then repeats them back down to earth.

Set for receiving 2 channels at once, you can hear both voice and data audio from the International Space Station.

The ISS passes overhead an average of 5-6 times a day; anyone can track and predict when it will be passing over their exact location. You can even see the station passing by in the night time sky on a clear night. But what’s exciting to me, as the station passes overhead you can hear amateur radio operators sending voice and data traffic up to the ISS which then transmitted down to earth. That allows their signals to travel much further; I’ve easily picked up signals from Oklahoma and further with a handheld radio or scanner.

A couple of us at the makerspace are working on building an antenna to transmit up to the ISS. If you’re interested in learning more, stop by the makerspace during Open Shop time. And if the ISS is passing overhead, we can let you listen to the traffic yourself!

Artistic Endeavors, Classes, Putt Putnam County

October Happenings

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Temperatures in the 40’s meant the 2022 Putt Putnam County was literally our ‘coolest’ one yet!

This month started off with our 6th annual Putt Putnam County event, which is always exciting not only for those building a mini-golf hole but also the crowd played course down Franklin Street. This year was much colder than usual, but still fun for those that made it out to play the community built 12 hole course this year. We’ll be looking to increase the number next year, so start working on ideas now!

Yard bird welding
Becky and Chuck show off the yard birds they made in our Intro to Welding class.

We’ve also had several classes this month, including offering our first welding class where people could learn how to weld by making a yard bird! Troy Fiechter, one of our members & a talented artist/welder on his own, taught the basics of welding in the half-day class and then helped them to make their own yard art using a wide variety of different scrap parts and tools.

Our Tinkercad/3D Printing class was a good turnout and nice mix, combining interested locals and people that drove up from Linton, Indiana. Not the farthest someone’s driven to take one of our classes (Kokomo still holds that record), but nice to know that others appreciate our offerings. October also means we get to help out with Putnam County Public Library‘s Halloween Event, which we bring out one of our 3D printers to make bats, skulls, and other scary objects to give away to the kids that come there.

We’ve got a number of classes planned for November, including a Raspberry Pi configuration class this Wednesday and Learning to Solder class later in the month. Check out our learning / classes webpage for those & more.

Electronics, Greencastle's Makerspace

Makerspace Improvements

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Shapeoko XXL Installation in Castlemakers middle room.
Hooking up the Shapeoko CNC after moving.
Nd:YAG Laser in the basement
Not everyone has a Nd:YAG laser in the basement!

This summer we decided to make some changes to the layout at Castlemakers. Perhaps the most visible was moving our Shapeoko XXL from downstairs into the middle room on the main level. With all the parts & equipment donations that we also received this summer, it’s felt like a big project – which it has been. But we’re beginning to reap some of the rewards of the move with better equipment utilization, even if we’re still not done yet.

1 of 5 shelves of electronics & 3D printer parts!

This summer also brought in a large amount of unusual equipment, from electronics, laptops, & printers to a rather large Nd:YAG laser! We’ve got plenty of tear-down material for inquisitive minds right now.

But the most incredible gift was from Travis & Weiwei Chao, who formerly had an eBay store that sold 3D printer, CNC, & electronic parts. When they decided to sell their house & then close their eBay store, they gave what was left to Castlemakers! We now have lot of extra components at the makerspace & plan to use the parts in future classes at Castlemakers. Stop during our Open Shop times if you’d like to see the new things we got or just have an urge to take something apart to see what’s inside…

Making, Putt Putnam County

Building A Mini-Golf Hole

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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.

Classes, Solar / Photovoltaic

Solar Info Session

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This coming Wednesday, August 3rd, from 7-8:30 pm we’ll be putting on a solar system information session at Castlemakers. This no-charge presentation will briefly discuss general types of solar systems used in homes, then dive deeper into photovoltaic systems and solar panels. If there’s time, we’ll also talk briefly about how to determine solar potential at your location. If you’d like to read more, here’s a blog post that covers a session we did before.

3D Printing, Making

Foam Box Derby

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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

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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.

Robotics, STEM

2022 Indiana Robotics Championship

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2022 VEX Robotics Indiana Championship from the stands.

This last weekend I had the pleasure of volunteering for the Indiana VEX Robotics Championship in Indianapolis. While I’ve been to both FRC and VEX competitions, this annual event at Lucas Oil Stadium still stands out as my favorite. Sponsored by Techpoint Foundation for Youth, this year there were 274 enthusiastic teams competing and 1500 students there at the Saturday event.

Indiana VEX Robotics Championship Judging
Taking a break during judging at the competition.

I ended up being one of the judges for the middle school VEX IQ Challenge section, which included around 80 teams. For this event we broke into pairs to interview the teams in the morning, then met later in the afternoon to combine scores from their engineering notebook judgements, in-person interview rubrics, and match scores to develop the awards and winners. As you can imagine for an event this size, it takes a LOT of organization, hard work & hustle by the organizer to make this all happen that day!

Indiana State Championship VEX Competition area which includes both IQ and VRC robotics.
Main competition area for the middle school VEX challenges.

But when you listen to the excitement, the passion and what the teams are learning, you realize what a makes it such a great event. It not only teaches youth STEM skills but they learn about teamwork, project management, and much more. This event has turned into the biggest robotics competition in the US, and Techpoint Foundation for Youth works hard to make it happen. You can read more about this year’s event in their blog post and some highlights of this year’s event in this video.