Sometimes you wonder about things. Strange things. I’ve been watching the stepper motor row in the vending machine, and seeing motors quickly disappear. I wonder where they go. It seemed like yesterday we had a huge box of them. Mostly, I don’t know what happens to them. They go to live a second or maybe third life somewhere, in some project. The machine is just a temporal stop in their exciting life of spin and step.
Sometimes though, people bring their projects in, and we get a peek at their new function and snap a blurry picture. A few weeks ago, Michael came by to show us his propeller powered etch-a-sketch. We were all amazed. We boggled at the speed, accuracy and awesomeness of this project, then we wondered how he did it.
Last night, Dominic Muren, Willow Brughe and I presented a night of “Fab Lab” to the Dorkbot Seattle crowd. I saw later on twitter that some 120+ people showed up, which is not only uncommon for dorkbot, but it shows that whole physical computing and home fabrication thing is generating lots of interest.
Dominic’s talk was awesome, and it covered pretty much every way to digitally fabricate things. He’s annotating the whole thing with links and should be uploading it to Humblefacture shortly, so if you didn’t make it to the talk, you should dig through the slides. Probably the best list of fabbing technologies and software for modeling I’ve seen in a while. Makes me want to rethink my current toolchains.
Willow Brugh, director of Jigsaw Renaissance, talked about their space in SODO, admittedly hard to find and hard to type, it sounds like a fun place to hang out. They’re a non-profit, under the umbrella of Milwaukee-based Bucketworks, and they have some access to Artillery’s tools. This is the second time we’ve met. Last was at KUOW. Hopefully I can get down to Jigsaw one of these days and check it out. Sounds interesting. Too bad it’s not within my ridiculously short live/work radius.
Milo the makerbot hummed away for a while on a print, but ultimately it’s extruder failed. The makerbot portion of my presentation didn’t get to have a live maple syrup smelling robot giving birth to a Mendel extruder. Suck.
We adorned him with flashy LEDs and magnets, but the demo gods were not amused. More robot maintenance in my future. Unsurprising.
I had a presentation, but I tried to keep it informal, I talked about the history of .\C:_ (most people ask), how it came together so quickly (i have the most awesome friends ever), and about some of the things that happen in our strange basement on Broadway. Dorkbot threatened to put the video up on their website soon, and I’ve shared my slides on Google Docs. I’m sure neither will make sense without the context of being there.
The star of the night for me was Professor Mark Ganter, who wasn’t on the schedule, but who has voided the warranty on his departments 5 zcorp printers by printing ceramic and glass. Apparently you can print different materials than $1000 per oz zcorp plastics, all of which are dirt cheap. The glass dust he uses is a byproduct of glass recycling, and is next to free. Printing in wood is easy if you have micron scale wood dust, which is something laser cutting produces. The binders are as simple as cheap vodka and maltodextrin, both easily available at local stores. He has dropped the costs on printing to nothing.
This is huge stuff. Commercial 3D printing is a racket, and the costs ($600 for a gallon of comercial binder) of something so potentially world-changing is ridiculous.
Ganter is putting all of this up on Open3DP, another amazing move for a professor at a University that lives on patents
What happens if you dont have a zCorp printer?
There is a guy in Brazil who has made a Homemade 3D Powder Printer out of an old Lexmark printer. Once we figure out the logistics of where to put something like this, and how we can make it relatively safe (glass dust is probably off the table), I think we’ve got a new shop project. And with that, more maintenance. Awesome.
Darivanh Vlachos, Alexis Hope and Kate MacCorkle (from left to right above) came down to Metrix this evening to learn about MakerBots. This is not in itself noteworthy, especially since we’re pretty much the only shop in the neighborhood with any. What was different about this visit was that Darivanh, Alexis and Kate are all part of the Human Centered Design and Engineering at UW. They’re going to be making a MakerBot and documenting how they learn how to make and use it as their class project on how everyday, non-technical folks learn how to use technology.
This is possibly the most meta and intellectual use of Metrix I have yet to write about. It’s especially meta when I consider the fact that I am now documenting the documentation of their project…woo, recursion vertigo. Anyway, one more example of just how interesting and creative things can get when you put a bunch of tools in a basement open to the general public.
Here at Metrix Create:Space, we don’t really sell coffee. We provide it as an amenity to our members and customers and we drink a lot of it ourselves. It does cost a dollar, but that dollar doesn’t go into paying staff, or rent, or even paying back the upfront cost of the robot (eventually we’ll pay for that thing somehow). It goes towards Vivace beans, our nifty poker draw cups, milk, and tasty tasty Oregon Chai. We’re not a coffee shop. We’re a workshop. We like coffee, it keeps us moving, so we have the good stuff.
We do understand how coffee shops work , and how you and many of the laptop carrying, working-from-home mobile workforce out there live within their rules. You see, at one time, we worked on software, and we were laptop hobos.
Working from home, or working ‘out of the office’ is a hard thing (well, it’s not hard like a salt mine or working at a desk or anything, but it can be inconvenient). For the most part, coffee shops have become the haven of the hobo. There are lots of social rules to setting up camp in a coffee shop. Mostly they involve picking up a coffee or a pastry every now and then, trying not to tie a table up every single day at the same place, tipping the barista kind of heavy so they don’t glare at you (too hard), not bringing in packed lunches and outside drinks. There’s a fine line you tread to not wear out your welcome, or run the place out of business. That’s why you’re buying the scones even though you don’t really like them. That’s why you don’t sleep much. It’s not the stress of the workplace, it’s the 4 latte a day habit.
Coffee shops, have become the third place for workers, some by design, some by accident. For the most part though, coffee shops focus on their coffee, not their Internet. And for coffee shops, the Internet is an amenity that they have to have, rarely understand and don’t like paying for. Lots of coffee shops don’t even have a computer in them other than a cash register. Which is why their Internet is slow and laggy.
Here at our workshop, we spend a lot of time working on our robots, building shop projects, buying tools and supplies and going about the things we need to do to make your projects go smoother. For that we need the Internet, and we like the Internet, so we make sure our Internet is awesome.
Some of you may have noticed that there is effectively no lag at Metrix Create:Space. That’s because we have fast tubes (50mbps/10mpbs). We have a managed Cisco switch rather than a linksys hub. Our WiFi gear is from our ‘other store’, which primarily sells WiFi gear to people building WiFi businesses. We give you a publicly routeable IPV6 address. If the wireless istoo slow for you (because 802.11g is only 20mbps), we even have a couple of wall jacks that you can plug in to, and get the full 50. Remember we mentioned that we like the Internet here? That may have been an understatement.
Unfortunately, this makes us both appealing to the laptop hobo , and confusing. The rules are different here. It’s a new thing. We don’t have scones. The coffee doesn’t really pay for anything. How can you hobo without running us out of business? We know a lot of you are concerned about how we survive, because you ask us, and sometimes we wonder ourselves. We have thought about your concerns, and are offering you an option.
Today we are introducing Hobo Tokens and an actual tip jar. Hobo Tokens are a totally optional currency of goodwill. They let us know that you care about us, and remind us to keep that awesome Internet connection around. There are no rules, you can buy them and lock them up in a curio cabinet, give them away as gifts, or put them in the tip jar. They have no monetary value and are worth nothing in the store. Rest assured though, if you hobo hard, and you tip us in tokens, we know you care about the shop.
Like the rest of the shop, this is kind of a weird experiment.
They’re available online (we will mail them wherever you want) or at the counter for $5. 5 for $20
We’ll also put them on Thingiverse. They take 3 minutes each to cut, so if you cut them yourselves, they’re $4.80 each. If you have your own laser and material, they’re free goodwill.
Our first Using Transistors workshop went well today. We managed to continue the tradition of blowing up at least one component per class. This time it was a transistor that shattered due to excessive current. As usual, the exploding component served to highlight the facts covered in the class. The workshop attendees got to play with logic gates, switches, sensors, and motors.
Interest in both of our electronics workshops has remained strong. The Intro to Electronics workshop on Thursday has been full for a few weeks, and we already have people on the waiting list for our next classes. Next month we’ll be having another set of electronics workshops, so register early to reserve your spot.
We haven’t forgotten about those of you who want a soldering workshop. We’re hard at work designing a workshop that’s worthy of you. As soon as we’ve got a curriculum we’re satisfied with, we’ll start scheduling the soldering workshops.
Introduction to Electronics Sunday, February 7 2010 2-4:30 Cost: $40
This workshop covers everything you need to know to get started in electronics. We’ll start from the basics of electricity and work our way up to using integrated circuits. You’ll leave the class with some simple components and the knowledge to use them.
Using Transistors Sunday, February 21 2010 2-4:30 Cost: $40
We’ll explore transistors, what they’re used for, and how to use them. After an overview of the function of transistors, we’ll spend the class making some simple switches, logic gates, and an amplifier.
Morgan’s tasty transistors workshop - transistors are like delicious grilled cheese sandwiches, except that if you eat them you will get sick. Also, transistors can do a lot more neat things than a sandwich can.
Jesse and Angela (pic 2, right) were down here tonight make some nifty LED light boards (pics 1 & 4) - when those things are on it’s like Christmas all over again. You can’t see it in the still shots, but they can be programmed to oscillate and generally look even more spectacular. They’re from a kit for LED light bricks, but Angela and Jesse are going to put them in a translucent acrylic case rather than setting them in an acrylic brick so they can access the board to reprogram it later if they want.
Their friends Kevin and Jaime (pic 2, left) were also down here putting together bliplaces (pic 3), sound-reactive LED button kits they got from the vending machine of wonder. That’s a pretty impressive night’s work for some first-time solderers, and they got to walk away with a badass homemade piece of shiny.
He did it! At approximately 3am this morning, Matt finally finished the 2-axis laser writer he’s been working for the past week. Congratulations Matt :)
Wow, Kraft Nite is doing wonders for my productivity…I made seven wooden cog pins, I’m on my way to finishing a couple more little hip-pockets, and I’ve got pictures of everything I made. It’s amazing what you can pull of if you just have the right tools. If I can do all that in a few hours, just think of all the progress you could make on your own crafty goodness :D
There’s also a fractal quilt in progress - if you stop by in a few Kraft Nites from now, you might even get to see the finished product.
Sometimes though, people bring their projects in, and we get a peek at their new function and snap a blurry picture. A few weeks ago, Michael came by to show us his propeller powered etch-a-sketch. We were all amazed. We boggled at the speed, accuracy and awesomeness of this project, then we wondered how he did it.
Wow, Kraft Nite is doing wonders for my productivity…I made seven wooden cog pins, I’m on my way to finishing a couple more little hip-pockets, and I’ve got pictures of everything I made. It’s amazing what you can pull of if you just have the right tools. If I can do all that in a few hours, just think of all the progress you could make on your own crafty goodness :D