August 2011
2 posts
Intro to Electronics Workshop next week, Thursday...
Another exciting Intro to Electronics workshop is coming up in a week. It’s perfect both for total beginners as well as those who need an electronics refresher. We will be going over the basics needed to understand how a circuit operates at its simplest level. We’ll be covering voltage vs. current, resistors, capacitors, microcontrollers. Through a series of quick LED projects the...
The next Intro to Arduino Workshop is coming up on...
Arduino is a great platform for creating awesome projects both small and large in scale and varying in complexity. It pairs a board packed with fun components and an open source programming software. The board integrates a microcontroller with a set of inputs and outputs. The inputs can be as simple as a button or a switch or as fancy as real time streaming data. The outputs can be motors that...
July 2011
4 posts
Arduino Workshops on Sunday 7/24
Arduino is an open source prototyping platform. It combines a microcontroller (computer brain) with input and output ports to enable virtually any project.
Example projects range from playful, like LED cubes, to practical, like a mouse trap!
Two workshops will be held on Sunday: Intro to Arduino from 2-4 pm, and Arduino Programming from 5-7 pm. The Intro to Arduino workshop will...
Big Robot Lives
Late last night, we had our first print on the big robot. This robot eats chipped HDPE milk jugs (the plastic ones, clear and opaque both) and extrudes them a lot like a big RepRap. We’ve been working on it for a few months now.
The nucleus of the machine is a CNC router table, a DynaCNC 1000. The company is out of business, as you might notice from the website, but they were located...
Clonedel Electronics Packages
What do you do when the electronics kit you want to buy is more than you’d like to pay, or doesn’t have the right mix of features? Stop by Metrix and create your own of course! I recently spoke with Logan Bowers about his plans for creating and selling his own electronics package to work with the Clondels- also being made at Metrix.
For those who aren’t sure what Clondels are, I’ll give...
Summer Workshops
Here is our upcoming schedule of workshops. Please see our workshop wiki page for more information, or click on the individual workshop listed in our calendar. For Youth Summer Camps, please read more information here. As always, please call the shop (206-357-9406) to reserve your place in advance. We look forward to seeing you down here!
Thursday, July 14, 2011 7-9pm Basic EL Wire
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June 2011
1 post
Windowfarm: Growing a Garden in Your Window
Do you enjoy having plants, but don’t have enough space in your tiny urban dwelling? Are you interested in growing at least a little bit of your own food? Want to get into hydroponics or aquaponics, but you don’t know where to start?
(Seedling in the Bottle! PJ)
Come to the Windowfarm Workshop this Saturday to learn to build a DIY hydroponic garden that fits in a window....
May 2011
3 posts
Design a Printed Circuit Board (PCB)
You’ve got the hardware working perfectly. The software is awesome. The fantastic project is ready to meet the world. But if it’s on a breadboard, how are you going to deploy it to the real world? A circuit like the one below isn’t going to survive long.
(A new 20 pin PIC design on the breadboard for software development while waiting for printed circuit boards - Jon...
3D Printing, Using Eagle, Windowfarms and more Fun...
Our workshop and makeshop schedule is now up for the rest of May and June! Call or come by to sign up for these workshops and makeshops.
Start your summer with a foray into 3D printing: check out our Intro to OpenSCAD Workshop and 3D Printing Makeshop on Sunday, June 19. Or learn how to make your own custom printed circuit board with our two part workshop on Using Eagle on Tuesdays, June 7...
6 tags
Capitol Hill, The Capitol and Creative Capital
Sometimes it’s hard for us to realize there is a life outside of our Capitol Hill basement, especially when we do venture out and everything sounds the same.
Last week I headed out with Open3DP to Washington DC, for a whirlwind trip of 3D printing in our Nation’s Capital. I showed off the Clonedel and some of our new powder-printing skills to the House of Representatives and met up...
April 2011
3 posts
Local Maker Event Looking for Participants
The Kitsap Maker community is hosting a Maker Event on Sunday, June 5 in Poulsbo, WA. They would love to invite all of you to participate. If you’re interested in demoing at the event (and you should), come by tomorrow and meet some of the minds behind the event. They’ll be making the trek from Poulsbo all the way here to meet YOU and talk shop.
So, come by, meet some new...
Mother's Day Card Makeshop
This coming Saturday, April 30 from 2-5, I will be teaching my second makeshop! Just like the first, everyone will be learning how to design special holiday cards, this time for Mother’s Day. The makeshop is $25, and you get $5 off if you bring your mom!! We’ll be providing materials, and I’ll be leading you through a quick session on Inkscape so you know how to use the laser...
8 tags
An update from the cage.
Last month was pretty crazy around the shop. We pushed out over 50 sets of RepRap Clonedel parts, and we sent molds out far and wide. We got a visit this weekend from the Electromagnate folks doing their Kickstarter-funded Documentary, and we got invited to 3D DC, a conference in the other Washington to do some dog and pony about 3D printing and Intellectual Property (check out their...
March 2011
6 posts
Get your learn on...
Workshops! Makeshops!
All workshops are $50 unless otherwise noted. Makeshops are $25 unless otherwise noted. To sign up, call or stop by. See you here!
TOMORROW from 7-9pm: Arduino Shields! Sunday, March 27 2-4pm: Open SCAD Saturday, April 2 2-4pm: Basics of Working with EL Wire Working with EL wire is easy! In this workshop you will learn the basics of working with...
Capacitive Touch with LilyPad Arduino
A little while ago I wrote about a student in the industrial design program at the UW making some really neat packaging. The other day I saw a group of three other students in the same program working on making their final project. While they had several weeks to do the project, they were scrambling to finish (haven’t we all been there?). Of course it makes sense when you learn that they were...
4 tags
Some photos of the shop.
Today on Flickr, a slideshow after the jump.
8 tags
The Makerbot Challenge...
One of the things about Metrix Create:Space that makes me happy is that it has become a hub for DIY 3D printing. We have one of the first 100 makerbots, and we have seen that community grow. We have built printers from scratch and from kits, and have ripped apart commercial beasts. Bre Pettis saw his first RepRap Mendel print here. Saturdays are slated for 3D printer topics, and we have a lot...
Arduino Outreach
Several months ago, a teacher at Seattle’s Bush School, Marilyn, was looking for someone to help teach an Arduino based class to make little robots. Her son had taken a similar class and had a great time; she wanted to bring that experience to more high school students at her school. She Googled for Arduino and Seattle, and the first relevant link was to Metrix’s site. She emailed Matt, the owner,...
8 tags
Clone Factory Bootstrapping
As many of you know, we like to take action and move fast on things that excite us. A couple of weeks ago, Open3DP announced their clonedel process, and we decided that we were going to be the first to jump on board. I posted that we were going to do a Kickstarter project, and begin building a Distributed Clone Factory.
Unfortunately, Kickstarter didn’t see this project as fitting...
February 2011
6 posts
3D Stop-Motion Animation Workshop
If you’re looking for new ideas for what to print on your 3D printer, come to our new workshop on 3D Stop Motion Animation on Sunday, March 13 starting at 2pm. Digital Kitchen’s Sean Dekkers will be leading the workshop. Topics include preparation, pre-visualization, and processes using 3d printers, laser engravers, and other animation techniques to make just about anything move. The ...
