DIY Slide Scanner

Posted on by Pete Prodoehl

DIY Slide Scanner

I have a confession to make: I’m about 80% done with my own device to photograph slides and convert them to digital form. I’m pretty sure I will abandon all of my efforts and attempt to replicate this DIY Slide Scanner I saw from the Metrix Create:Space folks.

And yeah, I’ve already got a working slide projector. It may be the same model you see in the photo above. (I picked it up at a WCTC auction for $5.00 years ago.) I’ve already got code to trigger my Nikon via an IR LED, so the main thing I need to do is wire up the remote to advanced the slides, and fit it all together. I’ll probably just build a wooden platform to hold it all.

And then it’ll be time to… DIGITIZE ALL THE SLIDES!

EEVBlog’s Simple Soft Power

Posted on by Royce

Dave Jones over at EEVBlog posted his design for a simple soft power circuit. This is something I looked at a couple of years ago in my own un-expert way. I really like Dave’s design. It’s just so simple and draws basically nothing when off.  It’s something I definitely want to file away in my library of circuits as I can see it coming in handy quite often.

If you are not familiar with EEVBlog you should check it out. Dave’s series of videos are fun to watch and you often learn something.

More Makers

Posted on by Pete Prodoehl

More Makers

If you visit the site (and I hope you do) you may have seen some new faces in the header of the home page.

Maybe you’ll be the next one to “join our diverse group of highly trained, creative, and tech-savvy makers, engineers, designers and inventors.”

In fact, as of writing this, hackerspaces.org seems to indicate we are really close to having 50 members.

Who will be the 50th? Hmm, maybe there should be a prize… maybe a nice laser-cut wooden nickel or something. :)

One Tool at Sweet Water Organics

Posted on by Pete Prodoehl

Sweet Water Organics

As we’ve mentioned in some previous posts, a few of our members took part in The Tool at Hand Milwaukee Challenge recently at Sweet Water Organics, so I figured I’d add just one more post to tell you about the event.

First of all, I should state that Milwaukee’s Art Community is one of those things that makes this city special. We’re lucky to have such talented artists here, and we at Milwaukee Makerspace are honored to be a part of it. That said, the show itself was well put together, and the variety of pieces shown was fascinating. I’d suggest a big round of applause for the Chipstone Foundation for making this all happen. But, hey, we’re here to talk about our makers! :)

Kevin's piece -- Jason H.'s piece

On the left we’ve got Kevin’s piece, which includes a table and a set of “rocks” he created with an angle grinder. Kevin was unable to make it to the show, so I tried my best to answer questions about his piece. People were definitely interested in it, but alas, it did not rise to the challenge of being selected for the Milwaukee Art Museum. I think that’s fine though, as Kevin already has a spot in his home picked out for it.

On the right we’ve got a door with laser-etched glass courtesy of Jason H. (with a little help from his partner Dena.) This too is a piece that belongs in a home, and by that I mean it’s beautiful and should be on display. I get the feeling Jason may be etching more glass for people in the future…

A Dream Half-Remembered

And here we have Shane’s piece titled “A Dream Half-Remembered” which was created with the chopsaw and a lot of wood. Shane put a many hours into this thing, and it shows. There were challenges along the way, but in the end we got it there in one piece, and got it attached to a concrete wall, so I call it a success!

Plastic Sun

Last, and maybe least, is my piece, titled “Plastic Sun” which was created with a heat gun, and about 200 plastic grocery bags. I won’t go into too many details, but if you want to see more photos, or the video I produced, head over to my project page for it.

While none of our pieces were selected for inclusion into the exhibit at the Milwaukee Art Museum, that’s just fine. We all had fun doing this, and we met a lot of great people at the event, from artists to art-enthusiasts, some of whom were interested in the Makerspace.

The One Tool Challenge is a great concept, and who knows, maybe it’s something we might want to see happen as a Milwaukee Makerspace event, either restricted just to the members, or opened up to the public as well.

So what tool would you choose?

Ms. Particle-Man Arcade Cabinet

Posted on by MikeN

A friend of mine, Michael Falk, recently created an arcade-style video game called Ms. Particle-Man for Alverno Presents Sexy Results, a post-modern variety show inspired by particle physics and the search for the elusive Higgs boson. The event was curated by Cedar Block and held in Milwaukee, Wisconsin on Februrary 18, 2012. Ms. Particle-Man is a modern take on retro-style video games. The gameplay, graphics, and soundtrack recall classics of yore from the arcade, Atari, Commodore 64, and NES eras. The game is influenced by a variety of games, including Pong, Breakout, Asteroids, Ms. Pac-Man, Frogger, Donkey Kong, Pitfall!, and Super Mario Bros. The goal is simple: Discover the Higgs boson. The player controls Ms. Particle-Man in his/her search for the Higgs across three different collider worlds. Each collider ends with a showdown against an elementary particle. The player collides with each boss particle to discover new worlds, abilities, and eventually possibly even the Higgs boson itself.

In order to create an arcade-style experience Michael asked me to build a table-top cabinet to house the monitor and controls. We wanted to do this on a fairly low budget, so I chose a large piece of 3/4″ birch plywood that I already had in the garage. I started by cutting out holes for the monitor and trackball with a jigsaw. In order to make sure my cuts were straight, I measured the distance from the jigsaw blade to the edge of the jigsaw guard, which in my case was 1-3/8″. I then clamped a straight piece of wood 1-3/8″ from the line I wanted to cut, running parallel. The wood acted as a guide, keeping the jigsaw straight and not allowing me to cut in any further then I needed to. I used a spade to drill holes for the two push buttons, and routed out a shallow area so the trackball mounting plate would be flush with the top of the cabinet. I used the same guide setup for the router to make sure I did not cut away any wood outside of my target area.

I then used a jigsaw to cut out the pieces for the front, back, and sides. We wanted the cabinet to be around 5 to 12″ tall from the surface of the table it would sit on, and slope down towards the player. This would put it right around waist-height.

To bring out the color of the birch veneer I used a clear lacquer. I applied four coats to each piece with some light sanding in between. The finished wood looked great. I wanted to avoid seeing any screw heads on the exterior of the cabinet, so I ran some scrap wood along the joints between the sides, front, back, and top, and screwed into the interior face of the wood where the screws would not be seen.

We decided to use a monitor that we had laying around, however it turned out to be fairly heavy and bulky. Instead of mounting the monitor to the inside of the cabinet as I had originally planned, I built a separate stand for it using scrap wood. I matched the angle of the monitor stand to the angle of the cabinet, and measured the appropriate height to make sure it was flush with the interior face of the cabinet top. We added a standard VESA mount to the monitor stand so we could easily remove all of the components. The setup ended up working really well, as it allowed us access to the monitor controls before placing the shell of the arcade cabinet over the top.

In order to protect the monitor and the top of the cabinet from wear and tear I put a piece of plexiglass over the cabinet. Ace Hardware was able to cut the piece to the size I needed, and I was able to drill holes for the trackball and buttons using the top of the cabinet as a template. The holes had to be drilled very slowly in order to prevent chipping. We sanded down the edges of the plexiglass to make sure they were smooth, and attached it to the cabinet with a bolt in each corner.

The cables for the controls and monitor ran out of the back of the cabinet and connected to a computer that was stashed underneath the table. The final product worked out great, and was a big success at the Alverno show in February.

The game and cabinet will also be shown at the upcoming Midwest Gaming Classic this weekend. It is a great event full of new and classic arcade and table-top video game systems, as well as replacement parts for pinball and arcade machines. If you attend, which I highly recommend, please stop by and say hello, we will be in the Future Gaming Arcade area. We learned a lot from working on this project, and already have plans for future games and cabinets. To learn more about Ms. Particle-Man please visit the developer website where you can play the game for free in your browser. Ms. Particle-Man is also available for download in the App Store for iOS devices.

 

Thanks, Stan!

Posted on by Pete Prodoehl

Stan Miller

Check out Stan Miller’s last column for JSOnline: Goodbye Milwaukee: Covering tech has been a blast.

Having had some involvement with Milwaukee’s tech scene over the years, I’d like to personally thank Stan for some great coverage. As he mentions in his column, he’s attended BarCampMilwaukee (which is something I help organize) and has been a real champion of Milwaukee Makerspace, mentioning us numerous times over the years. I always hope it was partly due to what we help bring to the City of Milwaukee, and not just because we occasionally build crazy things. :)

We’ve been meeting a lot of interesting people lately, from artists, to high-school teachers, to department chairs at local universities. Part of talking to these people is just getting out story out, that Milwaukee Makerspace is for creative people who loved to make things. Stan played an important role in helping us tell the story since the beginning, so for that, Thanks Stan!

Fun with Lasers!

Posted on by BenN

Just about the only thing I don’t love about the Open ReVolt motor controller is the case.

As cool as an Open Source Motor Controller is, it’s just not shown off with a basic metal cover. In fact, I actually drilled through the original cover (and put clear packaging tape over the holes!) to see the power and troubleshooting LEDs through the lid.

Recently, the Milwaukee Makerspace got itself a laser cutter. It’s not all that powerful, but more than capable for cutting plastics. One of the Makers posted a blog entry about making a wood box on the laser. He used a program called BOXMAKER which helps you layout the size of your box, including overlapping cut edges to put the whole thing together.

This got me started on the idea of building a clear plastic case for my 500 amp Open ReVolt controller. But I had never even used the laser before. I sat down with the member who owns the laser, and he took me through the basics of importing files, exporting to the laser, and modifying power and speed settings. With that, I was able to start making a few test items on the laser. I figured that since I already had the Open ReVolt logo as a vector file, it couldn’t be easier to try out etching some plastic with it.

I used the laser to make a few small test pieces on various materials. The two logos turned out pretty well. They were both etched AND cut out with the laser. On the orange medallion, I mirrored the image, so it would be a design on the “back” of the piece. That keeps the upside nice and shiny and clean.

Plastics cut on the laser

 

After practicing a bit on the laser, I started wondering what else I could cut, mark, or etch with the laser. Last night, I forgot something at the Makerspace, so I had to return there this morning to retrieve it. And I am NOT a morning person, so I had my trusty travel coffee mug with me. It’s stainless steel with an anodized dark gun metal finish to it. “I bet that would laser engrave nice!” I though to myself. Sure enough, it only took a little tinkering to figure out how to keep the mug from rolling sideways inside the laser before I could engrave it.

Also, when I came in this morning, all the lights were off, except for one – Tom’s LED lit plexiglass desk drawer. I asked him for some advice last night about how to engrave and then edge-light in clear plastic. He plugged in his project to show me a sample, and had left it on. It was eerily awesome to see the Makerspace lab lit up by green LED power! It’s a good example of how I would like to engrave the top of the controller case and light it up.

Well, that’s it for now. Next, I’ll have to take careful measurements of the controller, lay out the box, find some material to work with, and figure out where and how big the cuts in the end plates will need to be for the bus bars.

Aluminum Pour

Posted on by Royce

Bill M, Bret D and I went by Dan Dricken’s studio this past Sunday to watch his aluminum pour.  It was great fun to watch. Dan has a custom built furnace with a 40lbs crucible. Audience members prepared sand scratch blocks. They were shallow square that participant carved designs into to form an aluminum tile.

I learned that there is really quite a close-knit community of metal pourers. Bret D is going to help us out making our own aluminum furnace and eventually even an iron furnace. I’m really looking forward getting more involved with that community.

The Tool at Hand(s)

Posted on by Pete Prodoehl

One Tool

You may remember Kevin writing about the The Tool At Hand, or maybe you saw this wild video… either way, I just wanted to remind you that The Tool at Hand Milwaukee Challenge is happening this Saturday, March 17th, 2012 from 1pm to 5pm.

So what is this “one tool/tool at hand” thing all about? Here’s a description:

“Milwaukee is a city full of creative people. The Chipstone Foundation has invited makers in the city to explore the concept of creating a work of art using only one tool.”

Yup… just one tool. Does that mean one tool with 500 attachments, or does it really mean just “one” tool?

I’m not entirely sure, but I’m not just posting this so you can check out Kevin’s work… We’ve got a number of Milwaukee Makerspace members involved and showing what they’ve created with just one tool. If I recall correctly we have Kevin, Shane, Jason H., and myself all showing work.

Also, does anyone else like the fact that they specifically used the word “makers” instead of “artists”? :)