Author Archives: Pete Prodoehl

Panoramic Photos

Posted on by Pete Prodoehl

A few years ago I built a panoramic camera head (mostly out of scrap wood) and while I’ve wanted to build a new one, this one (mostly) works, so I just keep using it. It also helps that Hugin keeps getting better and better at stitching panoramas together.

I was lucky enough to be at the space on a Saturday morning before it got too busy and shot a few panos. (You can see larger versions on Flickr by clicking on each photo.) Enjoy!

Craft Area Here’s the craft area… something we didn’t have at the old Chase location.

Office Here’s the Meeting Room & Electronics Lab. (Often called “The Office”)

Wood Shop The Wood Shop is constantly improving… this photo is already out of date!

Metal Shop The Metal/Machine Shop has some heavy duty equipment. And lots of room!

Storage Room Here’s one end of the storage room…

Storage Room And here’s another end of the storage room.

It’ll be great to look back at these photos and see how things have changed over time. It shouldn’t take long though, as things are in a constant state of development. (Oh, there’s more rooms, but I ran out of time! More to come… Stay Tuned!)

Red Lotus Repairs

Posted on by Pete Prodoehl

Red Lotus Repairs

Tom and I spent some time this past weekend repairing Red Lotus, our #55 Power Wheels Car. Working with Tom is great because I end up learning a ton of new skills, like how to use an angle grinder, and the mill, and some welding tricks. These will all come in handy when the car breaks (and it will break) in the middle of a race.

Besides fixing up the car, we’ve also been building up the team, and it looks like at least two of us will try to make it to Minne-Faire in April for a bit of pre-season racing fun.

Here’s a quick time lapse video of Tom and I doing some repairs.

Can you guys build me a…

Posted on by Pete Prodoehl

Work It!

Every so often we get a question from someone along the lines of “Hey, can you guys build me a…” where the thing in question might be easy to build, or hard to build, or cheap, or expensive, or… a dozen other things.

It might be worth explaining how Milwaukee Makerspace works, for those who are not quite sure. Milwaukee Makerspace is a number of things: it’s a physical place (a hackerspace or makerspace) but at its heart, it’s also a social club for people who like to make things.

Most people who join Milwaukee Makerspace already have personal projects in mind that they want to work on. Others just want to learn new skills; like forging metal, or wood working, or digital fabrication. At the weekly meeting people talk about what sort of making they are into, and it ranges from electronics to photography to welding to sewing. There’s a lot of skills in the group, and that’s good!

When people contact us asking if they can hire us to build something, the answer is usually not as simple as yes or no. It’s complicated…

No one ‘works’ at Milwaukee Makerspace we’re all just members, and we are not a business. We’ve done group projects for other organizations in Milwaukee, but it’s usually to help people in need, support a community effort, or for fun.

So here’s the deal: if you want someone at Milwaukee Makerspace to make something for you, or help you make something yourself, your best bet is to come down to a Weekly Meeting at 7pm on a Tuesday and introduce yourself, talk about what you want, and see if anyone is interested in helping you out. You never know, you might find someone up for a new challenge, or just as excited about your potential project as you are.

(If you just can’t make it to a meeting, consider posting on our mailing list. But if you can attend a meeting, it’s definitely better to meet up in person than just shoot emails back and forth.)

The Raspberry Pi Challenge Accepted!

Posted on by Pete Prodoehl

Raspberry Pi

Remember our recent announcement about the Raspberry Pi Challenge we’re running? Well, we’ve found our challenger, and it’s Eric B!

Eric’ joined Milwaukee Makerspace last summer, and rumor has it he’s a pretty skilled software guy, so hopefully the challenge of writing code for the Raspberry Pi won’t be too difficult for him. He’s also done a bit of metalwork, woodworking, and a few electronics projects. But wait, we should explain what he plans to do!

Here’s the project that Eric proposed:

As an outgrowth of the Travelling Gnome Prank, many groups have adopted their own traveling mascot, where a statue, doll, gnome, or action figure voluntarily travels with various group members to far off places. The group documenting the travels of the mascot collects photos and travel reports

I propose that a Milwaukee Makerspace traveling mascot be equipped to report on its own travels. Built around a Raspberry Pi, with the addition of a battery, GPS unit, and a camera sensor, the traveling mascot could take its own photos and report its own location.

I believe that with this kit, a few additions, and the tools at the Milwaukee Makerspace, I could pull off making a working self-reporting traveling mascot. With the help and input of artists, designers, developers, and makers of any kind, we could make this thing great.

This project can help build the Milwaukee Makerspace community by keeping the space in our member’s minds as they travel, sharing with our community. Also, the traveling mascot will encourage frequent additions to our website.

Sounds cool! I don’t think anyone has used a Raspberry Pi to create a self-documenting mascot that can track itself. Eric’s made it clear that he wants this to be a community project, and is hoping for input (and assistance) from other Milwaukee Makerspace members. We’ll keep you up-to-date with blog posts as things progress.

(Thanks again to Adafruit Industries for helping make this project possible.)

The Raspberry Pi Challenge!

Posted on by Pete Prodoehl

Raspberry Pi Challenge

Thanks to our friends at Adafruit Industries, we’ve got an awesome Raspberry Pi Starter Pack (and a few other goodies) and we decided that rather than fight over who gets to play with it, we’d issue a challenge to our members: Tell us what you’d build with the kit.

The results are in, and we’ve got a bunch of entries to look at before we decided who will be chosen take on the challenge. Hopefully in the next week or so we can reveal what the winning entry is.

But don’t worry, we’re going to share a bunch of the ideas right here on the blog. We may not get to build them all, but we’ll do our best to highlight some of the ideas that our members have come up with.

(If you’re looking to get into using the Raspberry Pi in your projects, you’d do well to check out the Adafruit Learning System’s category on the topic.)

Make It Sew!

Posted on by Pete Prodoehl

Make It Sew!

Thanks, Jean-Luc! If you haven’t heard yet, Milwaukee Makerspace now has a craft area, complete with sewing machines and plenty of space to roll out and cut up some fabric. Make It Sew!


Sew

At our old location (which was a bit “industrial”) there was a layer of filth everywhere which pretty much prevented the introduction of clean fabric, but with new members eager to handle the operations of the craft area in our clean new building, we can’t wait to see what gets made.

Shirt

New member Caitlin has already made a new shirt! (She used this pattern, btw.)

There’s another member organizing a regular “Stitch ‘n Stuff” event (details to come) where people can show up and work on their sewing, knitting, crocheting, and costuming projects.

At some point I’m sure the sewing people will run into the electronics people, and someone will pull out the conductive thread, and then the next thing you know, e-textiles will appear. (We have it on good authority that’s how these things usually work.)

(Did I mention the screen printing? No, I didn’t, but we’ll save that for another post!)

Space Improvement Workshop

Posted on by Pete Prodoehl

improve!

You’ve been waiting for this… It’s The Return of the Space Improvement Workshop!

What’s that you say? Space Improvement? How could we possibly improve the space anymore? Sure, it seems impossible, but we think we can do it.

In fact, the wiki has this huge list of things to do, and since we moved from the old location on short notice, there’s still some unpacking to do, as well as cleaning, and just general organization. All of these things will help improve the space and make the processing of actually making things in the space, that much easier.

So please, join us on Sunday, February 24th, 2013 at 1pm as we run this totally awesome Space Improvement Workshop.

(There’s been rumors of pizza and appropriate beverages for those willing to join us.)

March 3D Printing Meetup

Posted on by Pete Prodoehl

MKE3DP

Join us on Saturday, March 9th, 2013 from 1pm to 4pm for the Milwaukee 3D Printing Meetup! We’ll be hosting it at the new Milwaukee Makerspace located at 2555 S. Lenox St. in Milwaukee.

The Meetup group is over on meetup.com, but we welcome anyone to come to the meeting and learn about 3D printing. We’ll have a few printers on-hand (as well as many printed objects) and will provide a nice introductory talk to the subject by one of our members. After that we’ll melt some plastic and create some real-world things.

This event is free and open to the public, so come on down at learn about 3D printing!

Nick Offerman, Come On Down!

Posted on by Pete Prodoehl

Nick Offerman

You probably know Nick Offerman from NBC’s Parks and Recreation, though if you’re a maker, you may know him better for his woodworking skills. (There’s a great video tour of his workshop you should see.)

Well, Nick’s coming to Milwaukee February 23rd, 2013 for a show at The Pabst Theater, and while we’re sure he’s a busy man, we’d like to invite him to Milwaukee Makerspace to check out our workshop. We’ve got a nice collection of tools and a great group of makers who would love to show Nick some of the things we’ve made and talk about our love of wood.

Check out Offerman Woodshop for some of his amazing work, and if you’re on Twitter, ask @Nick_Offerman to swing by Milwaukee Makerspace and check it out!