Category Archives: Making

3D Printing, Making

Talking Pumpkins

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For many years now at Halloween we’ve helped Putnam County Library for the Scary Science exhibit in the Kiwanis Room downstairs. We are often there 3D printing bats or witches hats, explaining how it works, or sometimes giving away laser cut ghosts and goblins. Last year we added a ghostly optical illusion using a technique called Pepper’s ghost to project holograms.

Animated pumpkin in action…

This year to try something different we 3D printed a pumpkin and then projected a talking face on it, which turned out to be another great illusion. By using a phone to project the face, most folks were looking behind the pumpkin or asking how we did it!

The idea is based on a project from DIY Machines, who deserves full credit for coming up with a great makerspace Halloween project idea. Unfortunately it’s a bit complex and pretty time consuming project, although we’ll incorporate more elements of it next year to display at the makerspace. And it was designed to be an outdoor display, while at the library we were going to be using it indoors. But having enough time to do it was the real limiting factor.

motorola Z phone with projection attachment.
We used a cellphone projector indoors so most folks didn’t notice how it worked.

We went ahead and printed one of the pumpkins in orange and then realized we could project the face on the pumpkin using a projector attachment for my Moto Z phone. All we really had to do was lay the phone on the table across from the 3D printed pumpkin to project the face on the pumpkin.

Making, Putt Putnam County

9 Years of Putting Around…

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Mini-golf holes lined down Franklin Street for Putt Putnam County.
Putt Putnam County 2024 had plenty of mini-golf hole challenges.

It’s that time of year when we host our annual mini-golf hole building event, Putt Putnam County. It’s hard to believe that we started this event back in 2016. Last year we had a total of 16 community built mini-golf holes lined down Franklin Street for anyone to play on a Friday night.

Laser Alert! mini-golf hole at the 2025 Putt Putnam County in Greencastle Indiana.
Lasers & smoke navigation in Laser Alert! added to this hole’s features.
Guitar based mini-golf hole.

I had too many favorites to just pick one or two. Greencastle High School’s Ghost Pirate Ship was certainly one of the most elaborate builds last year, you could even ‘putt’ the plank. And luckily there wasn’t enough power to vaporize the golf ball on Laser Alert! And some difficult ones too, I only saw one person get the ball up that guitar neck and into the soundhole. It hard to resist hitting the golf ball through downtown Greencastle on the Virtual hole, except of course for a few closed roads. A few favorites from previous years were there too.

It’s not to late to plan and build a hole for the 2025 event on Friday October 3rd. It doesn’t take long to build one, full details are on the Putt Putnam County webpage, and we’ve had some previous tips about making one. And if you can’t?

Please just show up and play a round on Friday night from 6-8 pm, it’s great family fun for all!

3D Printing, Making

Making a Splint

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3D printed finger protector
Finger splint/protector that was scaled up to fit.

After injuring a fingertip, leaf blower intake fan blades & fingers don’t mix well, I was looking for a splint to protect my now injured index finger. Couldn’t find one in the medicine cabinet at home and was thinking about going to the makerspace to get one out of the first aid kit there. Of course a friend mentioned that he figured I’d just print one. Of course I could!

So did a quick online search and found one that was an easy 3D printing job. After taking some measurements of my finger (don’t forget to take into account any bandages), then scaling up, 25 min later I had a custom fit finger protector! It’s worked great, I got to pick my own color, and doesn’t look bad if I do say so myself…

Artistic Endeavors, Entrepreneurship, Making

Making an Entrepreneurial Culture

Do you have a skill or talent at making something that you or someone else has said is valuable? Thought about creating a sideline or actual business that would give you some extra  income? Perhaps you’ve thought it too daunting to sell that product or service, or maybe don’t even know where to begin.

To fix that we’re offering an Entrepreneurial Fellowship. Castlemakers and Main Street Greencastle have been funded by a grant from the IEDC’s Community Collaboration Fund (CCF) to create a program for Putnam County residents who are ready to explore the potential of making and selling their own products. Whether you’re just getting started or looking to grow an idea you’ve already explored, this fellowship will offer the tools, training, and support to help you succeed. 

Selected Fellows will receive a scholarship to Castlemakers, Greencastle’s nonprofit makerspace, with full access to advanced tools and equipment – including 3D printers, laser cutters, CNC machines, electronics workstations, and woodworking tools – for prototyping and small-scale production. Fellows will be part of a supportive cohort, attend exclusive workshops with experienced entrepreneurs, and take monthly skill-building classes tailored to their needs.

Beyond hands-on training, Fellows will receive business advising, mentorship, and goal-setting support through a partnership with the Indiana Small Business Development Center (ISBDC). Combined with public speaker events and peer collaboration, the fellowship is designed to help you turn your ideas into real, market-ready products and build a strong foundation for future growth.

entrepreneurial Fellowship Application

One page flyer on the program.

Castlemakers Logo

Castlemakers, Inc. is a 501(c)(3) non-profit group dedicated to creating an innovative community of makers who promote and encourage scientific and creative skills through building projects, education, mentorship, sharing, and relationships with other organizations.

Main Street Greencastle logo

Main Street Greencastle is dedicated to preserving, promoting, and revitalizing the Downtown Business District of Greencastle, Indiana. Through collaboration and strategic investment, we ensure downtown Greencastle remains a thriving hub for residents and visitors alike.

IEDC Logo

The Indiana Economic Development Corporation (IEDC) is charged with growing the state economy, driving economic development, helping businesses launch, grow and locate in the state. The Community Collaboration Fund helps accelerate new programming and collaborations to serve entrepreneurs, startups and small businesses.

Additional assistance is being provided by the Putnam County Public Library and the West Central Indiana Small Business Development Center (ISBDC).

Last updated on 7/30/25.

Making, Putt Putnam County

2024 Putt Putnam County

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Putt Putnam County looking down Franklin Street in Greencastle Indiana
Mini golf holes lined up down Franklin Street for this year’s Putt Putnam County.

With perfect weather and a great crowd, our 8th annual Putt Putnam County was memorable in many ways! This year we had 16 community built mini-golf holes lined down Franklin Street on Friday October 4th for anyone to play a round in downtown Greencastle, our largest number of holes yet.

Ghost Ship golf hole
Young girl watches her golf ball walk the plank into the shark’s mouth.

With so many interesting mini-golf holes, it was hard to pick a favorite. We had a mix of new and a few popular holes from previous years – for this blog post I’ll mention some of the newest ones. But I will note Putt Putnam Virtually, last year’s hole simulator where you hit a golf ball down the streets of downtown Greencastle, was updated with obstacles on Washington Street – just like the real thing!

Guitar hole
“Playing Along” was a simple but challenging shot up the neck.

At one end was Greencastle High School’s Ghost Ship, a very popular multi-tier hole & perhaps the most elaborately built new one this year. On the courthouse end Putnam County Public Library had a Beetlejuice Beetlejuice themed hole.

Laser Alert! mini-golf hole
The fog machine made the Lasers easier to see

The guitar hole also presented one of the toughest challenges this year – the guitar frets gave a bumpy roll. A last minute addition, Laser Alert!, had great visual effects & was extremely popular with the kids.

With 16 holes this year, there are too many to mention in this post so I’ll work on adding a slide show to the Putt Putnam County project page. And of course it’s not to early to start thinking about next year, we’ll have the 2025 event on Friday October 3rd. Start coming up with ideas now!

Making, Putt Putnam County

Building a Mini-Golf Hole Session

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It’s still not too late to put together a mini-golf hole for Putt Putnam County. This Saturday from 9 am to noon, during Open Shop hours at Castlemakers, we’ll be building a mini-golf hole from scratch. We may even be able to help you build one for yourself/group/business for showing off at the main event on October 4th.

It’s a great way to see how quickly one can come together – we’ve built them before in less than 2 hours! But of course you can always overengineer things…

Making, STEM

First Friday Season

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Building Catapults at Castlemakers during First Friday
There was lots of activity inside building catapults before going outside to hurl objects at a target.

One of the things we always look forward to in the summer and fall is Main Street Greencastle‘s First Friday. With our location in downtown Greencastle on Franklin Street, we have a great location to have a hands-on, youth-oriented, ‘making’ project outside for people attending the monthly event. It’s also an opportunity for folks to checkout the makerspace & some of the current projects – although Open Shop times are another time good for that too.

Testing a catapult
Getting ready to test launch a catapult.

Projects change each month, but June was one of my favorites – catapults, something we’ve done a lot of with youth over the years. Given the age span of First Friday visitors and the time typically spent, this time we had them build chopstick and popsicle stick catapults – although one youngster was there for 1.5 hours working on his!

Plans are in the works for July 5th First Friday, please stop by. And don’t forget our annual Putt Putnam County event, which will be held on Friday October 4th from 6-8:30 pm. Last year we had 13 mini-golf holes built by people in our community. It’s not to early to think about building a hole and we’re always glad to you build one!

CNC, Laser Cutting, Making

The Value of Prototyping

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Power vs Speed grid to determine proper levels for the desired depth & darkness in black walnut wood.

One of our members wanted to make a commemorative plaque for his church using the CNC and laser engraver at Castlemakers. I volunteered to help, thought it would be a good chance to use our bigger CNC with some newly updated software and we could both learn in the process.

CNC plaque cutout with the first prototyped laser engraving.
First engraved prototype in plywood next to a full thickness pine cut out on our CNC.

Given the nice wood they wanted to use, doing several prototypes with lower cost wood seemed in order. It also would give him something to show the church committee approving the plaque. Ed was able to locally source some rough cut black walnut wood and another member Ian used his planer so the wood could be glued to an appropriate width.

In the meantime one of the other church members created a great looking design for the engraving. For the first prototype, done in birch plywood, we just used the laser to cutting the shape to show others for approval. This resulted in a few minor changes and a decision by the group to add gilding to part of the dove and the rays on the plaque.

Black walnut test gilding before changes.

The final plaque is on darker wood, so we engraved a sample portion on some scrap black walnut and it’s a good thing we did! The original rays were too thin, making gilding extremely difficult. Now with the final design was completed, another prototype was made in pine the thickness of the final plaque to make sure the CNC portion of the project was going to work with the engraving.

Making, Programming

Squirrel Proof Birdfeeder Testing

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One of the longer term projects I’ve been working on at the makerspace is a squirrel proof birdfeeder that uses machine learning to identify squirrels vs birds, then make a noise when those darn squirrels try to get a snack in the birdfeeder!

Squirrel proof bird feeder made using acrylic and 3D printed parts.
Bird feeder without the onboard ESP32-EYE camera housing, which will be mounted on the right side.

The project goes back a few years when I stumbled across a Google project to make a design using a Coral development board to accomplish the same thing. Since we had the equipment to make most of the components at the makerspace, except the development board, I started making one and looking into improving their idea.

First minor change was an error in the CAD files, which I’ve corrected on my GitHub. It also seemed like the board they chose was overkill, I had wondered about using a Raspberry Pi, but then Brian pointed out it might need a board with a better GPU. Ian mentioned the ESP32 board/chip could run TensorFlow Lite & might do the job. Cost of the ESP32 boards was appealing, so I started going down that path even though I didn’t know much about the subject at the time!

Squirrel Proof Bird Feeder test picture
ESP32-EYE image from the bird feeder. The onboard facial recognition software generated the yellow box.

I made was the birdfeeder housing and seed holder well over a year ago, which turned out quite nice. But the ESP-EYE housing got complicated between mounting locations, how to power the device, how to create the noise and lots of other distractions, so it got put aside a while ago until I could get back to it. Earlier this month, with some help from a student working at the makerspace, I started working on it again creating a prototype housing for the ESP-EYE v2.1 board in Fusion360 and restarting the work on the software.

It’s now at the point where it’s taking pictures and we’ve begun training the software to identify squirrels (cat pictures work pretty well). It still needs more work, and I’ve gotten other projects that need finishing first. But I’ll put a page on our website when more details are finished. Or stop by our makerspace & we can show you the progress in person!

3D Printing, Making

Halloween Making at PCPL

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For the last several years we’ve been helping out at the Putnam County Public Library (PCPL) with their Scary Science event on Halloween. It always draws a crowd and love making things for the event.

A trick or treater tries on the animated eye mask we made for Halloween.

We usually bring one of our 3D printers to make something there and this year we printed out a mask for an artificial animated eye. And while not original, we made a ghost for a robotic vacuum that was often seen wandering around the library’s lower level cleaning up things.

Topping off our tricks was an updated version of Pepper’s Ghost, an optical illusion that makes animated things appear to be floating, using a tablet and a prism created on our laser cutter. We already have some ideas for next year’s event!