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.

Makerspace rocks Sustainability Summit

Posted on by BenN

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Members of the Milwaukee Makerspace built and manned a booth at Milwaukee’s Sustainability Summit this week.

Josh Z. and Ben N. talked with the crowds, showcasing member’s projects ranging from an electric motorcycle to 3D-printing, aluminum casting, CNC woodworking, lasers, and more! Several of the event organizers told us that we were the busiest booth there, which was pretty obvious, because my throat is still sore from speaking with attendees for two days straight!

The 3D printer was especially eye-catching to the crowds and there was a strong interest in 3D printing and laser-cutting.

We did NOT have electricity at the booth, so in true DIY-style, we MADE our own with a real-world “Vehicle-to-Grid” Display, powering a laptop, 2 computer monitors and the 3D printer directly from the electric motorcycle. Our display featured a slideshow of Maker projects on the double monitors, the hands-on Laser Kalidescope, and even conductive Play-doh!

One of my favorite moments was speaking with the owner of the “Cow Sailboat” out in Madison about converting its diesel system over to an electric drive. We also briefly saw Ed Begley, Jr. and Will Allen. (Thanks to Growing Power for the sprouts!)

All in all, it was a great event! The organizers donate the booth space to us because they love the real-world, hands-on teaching and excitement that we bring!

If you were at the Summit, and are swinging over here to the web-page after learning about us, WELCOME! Stop on by, meet some members, and take a tour, we’d love to have you!

Thanks to Josh, Ben, Shane, Pete, and others that loaned projects for us to display!

 

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.)

Arduino Programmer Shield

Posted on by AdamC

I gotta say I’m pretty proud of my design for a custom programmer shield.  The images below show the Arduino, programmer shield, and a target board (ATTINY85).  I made the boards using the laser cutter method (which you can find videos of on this site somehow).  The target boards slip right into the header pins I bent up for the purpose.   Makes a really handy programming and testing jig!

 

programmer2

 

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Occupancy Permit Frame

Posted on by Shane
A laser cut and etched wooden frame for our occupancy permit.

Y’know, ’cause we’re all fancy like that.

Once we got our occupancy permit, we had to consider how to display it.  A simple plastic frame seemed a bit above us, so I was asked to design a laser cut frame instead.

The frame was designed in 4 layers (5, if you count the acrylic) in Illustrator CS5 and cut on our 60watt laser cutter out of one of our favorite materials, 3mm thick Baltic birch plywood. If you’re wondering why the permit doesn’t fit perfectly, some unnamed culprit gave me the wrong measurements, but I still think it looks great.

Since I firmly believe that makerspaces enhance and contribute greatly to the world we live in, I came up with the corny, soon to be lampooned phrase, “Official Permit for the Milwaukee Makerspace to Make the World a Better Place”.

And that is what we intend to do.

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!)