Category Archives: STEM

3D Printing, Robotics, STEM

MRRF 2025

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2025 Midwest Rip Rap Festival (MRRF) in Goshen Indiana, inside the main building

Last weekend I traveled up to Goshen Indiana for the Midwest Rep Rap Festival (MRRF), a trip every 3D printing enthusiast should make. It’s been 6 years since I went to MRRF, and it’s certainly grown since then! One big improvement: more space! When I went in 2019 it was so crowded it was difficult to walk around.

2025 MRRF table with castles and life-sized figurines.
By no means the only 3D printed castle there, but often the most crowded table in part to the life-sized figurines including girl on the right with pink & gray hair.

The annual event has changed slightly, although the biggest portion is still regular folks showing off what they’ve made. It does seem to have shifted more from new/unique 3D printers to what you can print, but there were still some different 3D printer designs there. There were several interesting belt printers, a few variations on the Positron printer, and a new Bondtech multi-material upgrade unit that looked really promising among others..

Death Racers at MRRF 2025
Death Racers on display before competition.

There were also many vendors there: Prusa had a large presence there, Polymaker had one of the most challenging tables with their interactive filament color guessing games, and Indiana based Atomic Filament had lots of filament at the show. And even some youtubers with tables, occasionally doing interviews, and of course a few vendor raffles (I won a Voron board from LDO Motion!).

Turtle on the right (with Tiny Bikes to the back left) took 15 spools of filament, 82 pieces, and 350 hours of print time.

But what I really noticed was the increase of the activities vs 2019, there was even a separate building for setup, repairs, and the competitive challenges. Death Racers, jousting in small tank like 3D printed cars where you knock off the head of opponents, were quite popular and Mayhem at MRRF continued this year. Then there was an occasional Tiny Bike parade in the main building and 3D printed drag racers outside in the parking lot.

DDrag Racing at MRRF 202
3D Printed Drag Racers setting up at the starting line Christmas Tree. An RC Fuel Truck is in the corner going out to ‘fuel’ the racers…

Perhaps what impressed me the most was the congenial, family friendly atmosphere of not only the participants but also the attendees. It will definitely be on the list to attend next year!

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!

Greencastle's Makerspace, STEM

Summer First Fridays

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Sometimes a simple design is all it takes…

Greencastle’s First Friday’s have become one of our favorites that we look forward to at Castlemakers. It’s become a tradition for us to have a youth-oriented hands-on project on Franklin Street during the event, plus we get to show off projects going on inside the makerspace for anyone interested.

For this month’s creative challenge we chose a 4th of July themed project, challenging people to build a base out of red, white, & blue copy paper with tape to support a Statue of Liberty. The Statue of Liberty was made using our laser engraver/cutter and had a lead weight inside to make it a little more challenging. And photos of the real thing were there to help folks come up with ideas.

More Statue of Liberty base building ideas.
Experimentation & creativity in building was abundant!
Another successful base built!

There were some really creative solutions generated by youth building the base – definitely some signs of potential future engineers. I was expecting to see a few discover and use the edges of the paper since they can add more height than the flat portion. I wasn’t expecting so many different creative ways they would that concept. We even had one young woman create a box, then fold strips of paper inside to provide a very strong, yet clean outside base that looked great!

Our next upcoming First Friday event is Friday August 4th from 6-8:30 pm on Franklin Street. And of course you won’t want to miss our annual Putt Putnam County, where we take over Franklin Street to show off community build mini-golf holes for everyone to play on a Friday night.

The ‘who could build the tallest’ competition went on for quite a while…
This one definitely got the job done.
One of our first entries.
3D Printing, micro:bit, STEM

Learning at the worksite

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This last week I got to do something different during “bring your kid to work day” – provide additional STEM activities for the kids that came to MESH Systems in Carmel, Indiana. The idea came about when a parent in Greencastle, who often brings his child to Castlemakers, wasn’t sure if there would be enough to keep his son interested all day. Since his son really enjoys stopping by the makerspace, and he knew we’ve done many youth programs in the area, he asked if we could do something at his office. After some discussions with their HR person, we were able to put together an afternoon STEM session at Mesh.

Learning how to program a micro:bit using Makecode.
Programming a micro:bit using Makecode.

We began by going over the micro:bit by demonstrating beginning programming on the IoT like device. It’s been one of our favorite single board computers since we gave them away to every 6th grader in Putnam County. The MakeCode web interface, where you can use block based programing or even JavaScript & Python, allows you to accommodate different levels of programming knowledge – important when doing a group of mixed ages kids. As expected, some picked it up quicker than others but there’s enough projects available at different skill levels to keep everyone busy during the time we had!

Introduction to 3D printing using Tinkercad
Explaining how to export 3D printing files for printing.

There was also interest in 3D printing, so we started with a quick overview of the printing process. After starting our 3D printer making some parts and explaining how some of the 3D printed parts we brought were made, we had them design their own part to be printed using Tinkercad. The later afternoon kids were more interested in design, so we focused in on using Tinkercad to create objects and how it differed from other 3D design programs. Those that were left had access to other 3D printers, so we finished up on how to export and print their designs.

Thanks to Mesh Systems for giving us the opportunity to teach some of their kids about single board computing and 3D printing design!

Greencastle's Makerspace, Makerspaces, STEM

Open Shop Time Projects

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On Tuesday evenings and Saturday mornings we have open shop time at the makerspace. It’s a time when folks can bring in projects and our members, or anyone who happens to be there, can try and help people create, repair, or build something. It often becomes a fun community sharing time at a spot with lots of maker tools along with various STEAM kits and projects to keep younger kids busy also.

Coin operated riding horse that Castlemakers helped to make the lettering.
Sandy’s horse ride letters created by our laser cutter

Some of the projects that come in are pretty fascinating; ranging from helping restore a coin-operated hobby horse to figuring out how to build a wheelchair cart for a duck(more later on that one!). We also get folks that want help assembling something – those have ranged from 3D printers to even a forge(perhaps a good thing we couldn’t find our propane tanks at the time).

RV satellite tracker
RV satellite tracker brought in that we’ll try to use for ISS tracking.

But often it’s someone bringing in something to give us to fix or teardown later like a bass amplifier or reel-to-reel deck. Even if they can’t be fixed, they make great tear-down items for kids and adults to learn about how things work – we’re big believers in learning through finding out what’s inside. In fact, right now we have a lot of things to tear down for components and/or salvage – stop by and learn something with us!!

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.

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.

Castlemakers Kids, Electronics, STEM

Holiday Light String Theory

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Mini holiday incandescent light experimentation.
Mini holiday incandescent light experimentation.

Raising questions and seeking answers can be great learning. When given a trash bag full incandescent holiday mini-lights last year, it raised the question “when one bulb burns out the string stays lit, but why do they all go out when you remove it?” That led to a lot of learning about holiday light strings and the bulbs they use, more than can be covered in this blog post!

Resistance is not futile, it's a feature of circuits.
Resistance is not futile, it’s a feature in circuits.

And resulted in the topics for the last 2 months at  the Castlemakers Kids meetings. We started with simple electrical circuit diagrams, schematic components, and voltage/resistance in November. With a volt-ohm meter we were troubleshooting incandescent light strings pretty quickly. By December’s meeting we got into diodes and LED’s, along with Ohm’s law, to make our own LED lights for packages. And learned why lithium batteries can power an LED, but alkaline batteries can burn them out!

Removing piezo from candle lighter.
Removing a piezo sparker from candle lighter.

It’s safe to say everyone there learned something, including the adults. Few of the adults for example had heard of anti-fuse’s, one of the features of those small incandescent bulbs that let them burn out yet still keep the rest of the string lit. Who would have guessed that the piezo sparker from a butane candle lighter or gas grill could restore a burned out light string to identify the bad bulb? Too much to cover here, will try to write a longer blog post later detailing some of the experiments and what we found. In January’s meeting we’ll be continuing experimenting with LED’s and components – join us!

Classes, Making, STEM

Girl Scouts / Makevention

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Central Indiana girl scouts learning about electronics & Arduinos.
Central Indiana girl scouts learning about electronics & coding.

This last Saturday we had 2 events going on in 2 different cities, a bit of a landmark for Castlemakers. In Greencastle we had our first STEAM class for the Girl Scouts of Central Indiana. 15 girl scouts and parents from Indianapolis learned about sensors and coding using Circuit Playground Arduino based boards.

2nd Floor Main lobby of Makevention, but a lot more in other rooms and first floor.
2nd Floor Main lobby of Makevention, but a lot more in other rooms and first floor.

At the same time, in Bloomington, we had a booth at Makevention, our 2nd year there.  Makevention is a little harder to describe. If you’ve ever been to a Maker Faire that’s close, especially this year since they added workshops and presentations. Makevention is a celebration of the Maker Movement, you can learn about all kinds of DIY/making – from robotics to soap to swords/knifes to lock picking to…

Makevention Makerspace panel which included Castlemakers.
Makevention Makerspace panel including Castlemakers.

At our booth we had some of the PuttCode robots which we used on the CoderDojo mini-golf hole, although several other holes from previous Putt Putnam County events were there also. The other booths were also interesting, it’s a great event for seeing what other groups in the area are doing and making. It’s usually the last Saturday in August and definitely worth attending.

 

Robotics, STEM

Indiana VEX Robotics Championship

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Indiana VEX Robotics Championship on 3/10/18
Indiana VEX Robotics Championship on 3/10/18 at Lucas Oil Stadium.

If you missed the Indiana Vex Robotics State Championship in Indianapolis last Saturday, you missed a great event. This was the first time it’s been held at Lucas Oil Stadium and despite stadium size with over 300 teams participating on 6 stages it seemed like the right choice!

One of the middle schools competing in the competition.
One of the middle schools competing in the competition.

Indianapolis has hosted VEX robotics competitions for at least 6 years – an initiative that came out of the mayor’s Office of Education Innovation. Each year it’s grown and with Techpoint Foundation for Youth’s (TPF4Y) statewide elementary school initiative, they became the host for 2018 event which combined 3 separate events (elementary, middle school, & high school) in 2017.

With over 900 teams in Indiana, I was unable to find anyone that made it to the event from our area. Should Castlemakers help organize a local event to encourage more teams? Comment or send us an email (info@castlemakers.org) if you think we should!