Appleton Makerspace is now OPEN!

Posted on by Pete Prodoehl

Appleton Makerspace

Back in April 2011 when Milwaukee Makerspace had its Grand Opening at the Chase location, a bunch of guys from up north stopped by, and they were calling themselves DHMN, which stood for [D]istributed [H]acker/[M]aker [N]etwork. It was the early formation of a group similar to Milwaukee Makerspace, though they had no physical space to meet in. They made do meeting at member’s houses or coffee shops, etc., which is typical for the formation of a new group.

Well, it’s been about two years, but they’ve been growing, and making, and sharing with others, and now… they’ve got a space!

Signs of the Times

We’re please to welcome the Appleton Makerspace (Powered by DHMN) into the ranks of Wisconsins’s makerspace/hackerspace community. Way to go, guys!

Happy Towel Day

Posted on by Caitlin

In the Guide, and we all know what guide that is, a towel is considered one of the most important items one can have on hand or claw for  interstellar travelers. According to this Guide, a towel can provide warmth, comfort, and even sustenance (provided it’s been absorbing bits and pieces of your meals during your travels). Just wet it a bit and suck in the nutrients of meals gone by.

Since one can never know when one’s planet might be blown up to make way for interstellar highways, I thought it’d be appropriate to appropriate a towel and well, make it my travel towel, one I could carry around always just in case my best friend turned out to be an alien from Betelgeuse and not, you know, Hartford.

I printed out “Don’t Panic” in large, friendly letters and pinned them to my fabric. Then I cut the letters out and pinned them to the towel, sewing them on using a tight zig zag. There may or may not have been copious amounts of fusible interfacing involved.

cutouts don't panic

 

Happy Towel Day everyone. And thank you, Douglas Adams. There’s a frood who really knew where his towel was.

 

Bay View Gallery Night

Posted on by Pete Prodoehl

Bay View Gallery Night

Summer is just around the corner, and that means it’s time for the first Bay View Gallery Night of the year, and now that Milwaukee Makerspace is located in the heart of Bay View, we just had to get in on the action, so we’re inviting you to join us in what we sometimes refer to as “16,000 sq feet of Art”.

And hey, it’s not all art, as we do a zillion things at Milwaukee Makerspace, as long as it involves being creative and making things, we do it. We’ll have plenty to see and experience, including our group show titled: Awesome Things From the Makerspace.

If that’s not enough to convince you, we’ll also be hosting a show from our friends at the Bay View Arts Guild, so yeah, even more art!

It’s all happening Friday, May 31st, 2013 from 5pm to 10pm. And as always, we’ll have some sort of magical surprise to knock your socks off!

(Note: If you’re not wearing socks, we can’t be responsible for what might happen to your feet. You’ve been warned!)

Preschool playset remodel.

Posted on by EdH

1

My youngest son and nephews pre-school is tiny. Literally it’s two classrooms, but it’s a great environment for them both which includes identical playsets in each class.

Hundreds if not thousands of kids have played on them. Being built in the 80’s when building codes weren’t as strict, they were no longer compliant.

While the wood is still good, had been sanded well and sealed well there were a few problems.  The banister rails been deemed to be too short and the handrails needed to have another one put on the bottom under the other two on either side.

The choices were to surround the play sets with a 6 foot giant landing mat around the sides, or to raise the banister rails and add another handrail. A landing pad would have taken up far too much room in the class so I volunteered to rebuild some of the rails so they met code.

Because construction was going to take a little while (actually it turned out to be a long while, started before Christmas it was finished in early April), the rail cutting / routing / sanding was going to take place off site and then assembled onsite during a weekend afternoon

First thing was to take lots of pictures, and lots of measurements.

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I did up some high-level sketches just showing how the rails would be raised.

 

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The next step was to cut up a whole pile of 2”x2” rails to the desired height with a 45 angel cut on the ends to match what was originally there. The rails also had been rounded off with a quarter round router bit, so I did that as well.

 

11

 

I knew there was no way I could match the old finish that was on the original wood so I decided to go with something a bit brighter and engaging for the kids mixing blue, red, green and white paints that I had my son pick out. Then it was just a matter of cutting and routing. Here are some shots of the wood after cutting but being painted. The coats ranged from 4-5 to get a deep coverage and then 3 coats of a clear poly to brighten it up.

 

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By some miracle the measurements all turned out perfect, which is nearly a first for me. We still have the bottom hand rail to make but that will be easy to do.

Staying Stocked Up

Posted on by BrantH

The idea was simple: make something to help keep track of our supplies so we know when we’re running low on the essentials.  After weeks of kicking the idea around and various rough doodles, this project finally took shape.  Two days after the first cut on the laser cutter, it was complete.


Made from multiple layers of acrylic, cardboard, and wood, the “Milwaukee Makerspace Consumables Super Analog Status Board” is a clipboard-sized device with nine sliders installed in enclosed slots.  Sliding the tabs right displays more green to indicate “full” or “lots” and sliding left reveals the red acrylic below to indicate “empty” or “low.”  The user can carry the board around the Space with them as they check on supplies and when done, a large hole centered at the top allows the board to be hung up and displayed on a wall.

The hardware holding the whole thing together can be loosened and the layers disassembled.  The cardboard insert that the text resides on can be swapped out should we decide to change the list of items we want to keep tabs on.  The supplies being tracked currently include:

  • Toilet Paper
  • Paper Towels
  • Hand Soap
  • Welding Gases
  • Welding Wire
  • Propane
  • Soda
  • Duct Tape
  • Painter’s Tape

A digital version may or may not be planned for future release.

We’re hosting MKE UX (Milwaukee User Experience) *CANCELLED*

Posted on by mmassie

Update: Due to some unforeseen events, tonight MKEUX is cancelled. It will be rescheduled for a later date at our space. Thanks!

–

Mike Massie will be presenting on an intro to Ambient Intelligence and how sensors can give the user super powers.

“As shrinking technology allows us to cheaply put hardware eyes, ears and touch sensors on everyday things, the data now readily available can offer a magnitude of information without the user even lifting a finger. Some are calling 2013 the “Year of the sensor”, and it giving passage to the Internet of Things and Big Data; aside from buzz terms we’ll talk about how these tools will offer the ability for more interactions to get out of the way.”

When: 6:30pm – 8:30pm, Monday, May 20th, 2013
Participants: Mike Massie (Host)
Info: http://mkeux.com/
RSVP: https://www.facebook.com/events/454981001262166/

Water Cooler Conversion

Posted on by Rbean

cooler

In addition to the obligatory refrigerator full of soda (or sometimes empty of soda, depending on whether anyone’s filled it recently), we also have a water cooler that takes the big 5gal water bottles. They also sell coolers that can be plumbed into a water line, and a while back I discovered that they’re actually bottle-type coolers that come with a conversion kit. The kit consists of a float switch and a solenoid valve, and a mounting bracket that takes the place of the bottle holder.

There isn’t a conversion kit for the cooler we have, but it looked simple enough, so I made one from scratch. I don’t like float switches, so I used two other methods of sensing the water level (I wanted a backup sensor because certain failure modes could result in an unlimited amount of water on the floor, which would be a Bad Thing). Instead of trying to find the “best” way to do it, I used the components I was interested in learning about.

 

sensors

For more details, see the wiki page:

http://wiki.milwaukeemakerspace.org/projects/watercooler

 

MegaMax 3D printer lives!

Posted on by the_digital_dentist

After a year’s work designing, building, scrapping, redesigning, building, and working through software and firmware issues, the MegaMax 3D printer is now functional.   It has some common 3D printing issues like printed objects peeling up off the glass printbed.   Tweaked settings in Slic3r, ABS “juice”, and Aquanet hairspray have all been tested with moderate success in attempts to improve adhesion to the printbed.  Finally, have_blue gave me  a block of foam out of the Stratasys printer to try out and it seems to work better than the other methods and doesn’t require heating the bed!  Further experiments to be conducted post-haste.

More info on this project can be found here: http://wiki.milwaukeemakerspace.org/projects/megamax_3d_printer

MegaMax printing on foam from Stratasys printer.

MegaMax printing on foam from Stratasys printer.

The Milwaukee Makerspace Makership

Posted on by Pete Prodoehl

The Milwaukee Makerspace Makership Program

We’re doing it again! For a second year in a row, we want to provide a local maker with a chance to become a member this summer, and do something awesome.

Milwaukee Makerspace is proud to be a part of Milwaukee and to provide a shared workspace where people can explore their passions in making things, whether it be art, technology, electronics, alternative energy, or rapid prototyping and fabrication. Our members are eager to share their skills and equipment with others, and we recognize that we learn better when we learn together, so we’re introducing a “makership” program, which will allow a local maker to become a full member though a sponsorship from the group.

If you’re interested in joining us and gaining access to our space, our tools and our community, come up with a killer idea and apply today!

Find out more at: http://milwaukeemakerspace.org/makership

Raspberry Pi Project Update

Posted on by EricB

I’ve made some progress on the Raspberry Pi based traveling mascot for the makerspace. I’ve figured out how to connect the GPS unit, and configure the software on the Pi to read the data. The makerspace’s metal roof well insulates the inside of the building from the GPS frequencies, so the device doesn’t receive location data in the electronics lab.  The wooden roof of my home is much more transparent to these frequencies, so I’ve tested the GPS at home. I’ve got the C libraries loaded, and started a program to check and record the current location of the mascot.

Unfortunately I’ve run into a few setbacks. For some reason it keeps corrupting its file system, and failing to boot. A few times it’s happened has been when I made a configuration change and then rebooted. So I blamed myself. But today the Pi wouldn’t boot. The last time I used it I properly shut it down before tucking it in its box and putting it away. I had the Pi configured to register itself on the network so I could work with it remotely. It wouldn’t come online. So I grabbed the monitor and keyboard to figure out what’s going on. The monitor showed the Pi would start booting, but pause with a “PANIC: No init found.” message. A bit of web searching found that other people have had similar problems and fixed it by using different keyboards and different SD cards. Trying a boot without the keyboard and mouse plugged in gave the same panic message. So I think I need to try another SD card.

My son has a Raspberry Pi of his own, and a few SD cards he’s had success with. He has agreed to let the mascot project borrow one of his cards to figure out if this card is the problem. I’ll post about my results after I try with the different card.

Once I figure out the file system corruption problems, I can continue writing the C code. After that I’ll work on the other parts of the project. These parts include the website, battery pack, camera, and body. I think those denim monsters some members will be making in an upcoming sewing class could make a great form for the mascot. Would any of those members be interested in making a custom one for the mascot? Would any members be interested in helping out with any other part? Would any members just like to play with the Raspberry Pi? If you want to help, participate, or just check out the project talk to me when I’m at the space, or post a message on the mailing list.