Weekly Update 2011.09.26

Greetings Thinkers,

On Tuesday, [Matthew Hellmer] handed out Arduinos. With the help of [Matt Turner], the two made some RGB LEDs with resistors pre-soldered as gifts for those that waited and put up with a rather disorganized course on Monday.

On Thursday, [Rafael Negron] and [Gary Leutheuser] starting using the spare parts in their Boe-Bot kit with their new Arduinos. [Scott Tanner] and [Danny Sarmiento] worked on fixing the MakerBot after it ripped a wire off of a coupling on the x-axis stepper motor. Annoyingly, one of the wires for the extruder desoldered during reassembly. This is a common problem due to the constant reheating the extruder undertakes. We like seeing people get to work on projects in this lab, and these four did a great job of showcasing that drive.

[Rafael Negron] and [Gary Leutheuser] using Boe-Bot parts for Arduinos.

[Scott Tanner] and [Danny Sarmiento] working on the MakerBot

On Saturday, [Jack Ritchey] came in to the lab and continued work on his home made Boe Bot. Not content with following a kit, [Jack Ritchey] has been learning how to program AVR chips on his own (specifically thte ATMega 328 used in Arduino Unos) as well as working with improvised parts as much as possible. A very impressive project for a freshman and we look forward to seeing more from [Jack Ritchey] as both he and the ideaLab grow.

[Jack Ritchey] and his homemade Boe-Bot.

Sunday was a little slow, which allowed [Matthew Hellmer] to work on course materials for current and future courses. [Matthew Hellmer] also resoldered the extruder on the MakerBot. We are now finding that it heats up in far less time (~00:07:15 as opposed to the old 00:19:24 we were used to). However, the extruder appears to have a poor connection to the main board and this will be corrected soon. [Joseph Ocasio] came in to the lab because he heard we had soldering irons and he needed one to fix the audio jack on his electric guitar. It is great to see students using the lab to gain experience in fixing their own equipment.

[Joseph Ocasio] and his now working electric guitar.

Interesting things this week:

• We finally found out how to accept donations, and that information has been added to the FAQ.
• [Matthew Hellmer], [John Ulrich], and [John Cope] met with a representative from CORKCICLE (a local company with an innovative gadget to cool wine). They would like our help in making a Rube Goldberg Machine for a commercial. This is a great resume builder and if students would like to help, they are more than welcomed to. We can talk about suggestions and what students can do during lab hours on Tuesday.
• [Alex Stringfellow], the new manager for the Arboretum, wants the ideaLab to work on projects for the Arboretum. Check out the projects subforum for some things to work on if they interest you.
• New courses have been created, with materials being added as fast as we can test them. If there's something you'd like to see taught in the ideaLab, leave a comment either here or the forum. 

New Courses!

EDIT (2011.09.23-13.15): Updated Buy Now buttons after an error was found.

Greetings Thinkers,

We are offering two courses soon. Please bring your laptop, and take note that we are limiting the courses to 40 students each with a firm deadline of Monday at 1200. By the way, these should be held in ENG1-388.

Arduino Level 1 - Arduino Basics - 2011.10.02 at 1700

We've hosted this one before. Thanks to feedback received, we are ready to offer it again with vast improvements.

Students choosing this course will learn a lot about using the Arduino. An Arduino is a microcontroller that is very easy to work with and can be used to control electrical components for many purposes (automation, robotics, data collection, turning pretty lights on, etc.). The course covers the history of the Arduino, installing the IDE, basics of programming, custom sketches for the course, and students making their own sketches to use on their Arduinos. This course offers students the option to pick up an Arduino through us ($38), or on their own ($5). Food will be provided to sweeten the deal.

Arduino Level 1 Tickets

Need an Arduino $38.00Food Only $5.00

Arduino Level 2 - Displays/Motors/Sensors - 2011.10.03 at 1900

The students have spoken, and Arduino Level 2 won over the ZomBadge [7:5 votes].

This course involves students learning to use LCDs, servos, buttons, potentiometers, and force sensors. To aid in using these, each student will get a breadboard and jumpers to quickly prototype many projects of their own devising. These components can be combined in numerous ways to interact with surroundings and to easily gain feedback from the Arduino. Students have the option of picking up a set from us ($65), a set without a servo [save money and use one from a Boe Bot set] ($55), or source their own parts ($5). Students will have dinner provided (comment on what you want to eat, or I'll probably pick sandwiches this time). This one is a bit pricier than normal, but take a look at the BOM to see all the cool things you'll be getting. I'll try to make sure Arduino Level 3 is cheaper.

Arduino Level 2 Tickets

Full Set $65.00No Servo $55.00Food Only $5.00

Potential Halloween Soldering Clinic

Post from DrD....

So I was thinking today after I learned about the new www.zombadge.com.  I would like to see if we can teach 1000 students to solder.  I think it would be really cool to make our own zombadge....but a bit different from the games that have been posted for the zombadge (detective, etc).  What about if we make a badge that transmits and receives infections IR codes.  Start with one person infected.  It begins transmitting infection.  All "Humans" once infected for a certain amount of time turn into "Zombies."  So Green to Red LED.  Another twist would be Zombie Killing Guns that become infected but could also kill zombies.  So imagine two PCBs.

ZombieBadge and ZombieGun

I have just finished laying out the ZombieBadge and will begin the ZombieGun if everyone agrees that its a cool idea.

So what do you think....$10 (TBD) tickets.  We order the PCBs and parts, bag them, then teach people how to solder in IdeaLab the week before Halloween.  Then Monday Oct. 31st everyone meets in the attrium for some Zombie killin'

Here is the ZombieBadge so far.

Imagine the PCB in green soldermask and white silkscreen (sort of how it appears below).  The battery is on the back, LEDs on the eyes, ATtiny85 with ISP, IR TX on the nose and IR RX in the mouth. 13 parts total.

We're On Google+ and Facebook

In addition to updating students on our happenings through Twitter, we now have the ideaLab on Google+ and Facebook. This should help us reach more students with events in the lab, though the blog will be the main source of information.

[Matt Hellmer] will be using Google+'s Hangouts to host projects updates and keeping in touch with new developments in the lab. Add the UCF ideaLab to one of your circles, which should be easy since Google+ is public now.

[John Cope] will be handling the Facebook side of things.

Weekly Update 2011.09.19

Greetings Thinkers,

Tuesday had [Scott Tanner] continue work on his bike lock holder, with some nice improvements. As well as the creation of our new forum. Feel free to use the forum to create groups, discuss projects, ask questions, or just continue to foster the community of makers that we are working on and with.

Thursday had [Scott Tanner] finish his bike lock holder, and it works like a charm. Very impressive for a first time designer. [Scott Tanner] went from a need, to a design, to a product in one week in this lab. Good work. Just think what we can all do this semester.

[Scott Tanner]'s finished Bike Lock Holder

Over the weekend, [Matthew Hellmer] went to Maker Faire and had a blast. Most of his time was spent learning new ways to help the lab by speaking with people that ran their own hackerspaces, as well as attending shows and courses. The rest of his time was spent goofing off. The important thing to know is that some very important people in the maker community are really happy with what we are doing in this lab. Which means we are on the right track preparing you all to work on your own projects, or find jobs more interesting than cubicle positions.


Monday, we held our first course, Arduino Level 1. The comments so far have been pretty positive, so we'll definitely hold more. We've learned a lot about how to make these courses run smoothly, so expect us to just keep making improvements. Materials for the course are located here, and expect these 'live' files to be updated as we continue to make improvements. By the way, the room was packed and we'll work on getting a larger one next time.

Packed Room

Other news of interest:

• It looks like we'll be offering another course soon. Expect an announcement on the blog/twitter, as well as in the Introduction to Engineering class.
• The Arboretum at UCF is very interested in working with us on some very enterprising projects. Projects such as a green house, water cistern, automatic composter, de-weeding robot, a rope bridge, and many more projects. [Alex Stringfellow] from the Arboretum should be in the lab on Thursday around 1500 to further talk about projects he's interested in us working on.
• The Arduinos finally arrived. Swing by during lab hours to claim yours. Again, sorry about the delay in getting them. Pending a disaster/emergency, due to new policies on our end a delay like that is unlikely to ever occur again.

Weekend and Course Updates

Greetings Thinkers,

[John Cope] will be running the ideaLab on Saturday from 1200-1700. He is unable to run it on Sunday, so it will remain closed that day. Research some fun projects for Tuesday.

We have a room for the Arduino Level 1 course: ENG1-388. [Matthew Hellmer] will lead people unfamiliar with the school layout from the ideaLab room (ENG2-180) to the course room at 1645 on Monday.

Just to reiterate:
Arduino Level 1
ENG1-388
2011-09-19 1700-2000
Bring your laptops.

Weekly Update 2011.09.12

Greetings Thinkers,

As many of you know, [Dr. Ducharme] mentioned last Friday that we will host a course to introduce students to the Arduino. We quickly sold out of the initial tickets, and have since added another 30 tickets that students can purchase here. Next Monday will be an interesting night.

During the weekend, UCF held an event called Family Weekend and several students brought their families into the lab. It was a great opportunity to chat with parents about what the ideaLab is and how it could help their children practice the techniques and skills they are taught in their courses (as well as anything else they were interested in learning). We'd like to thank the parents for their time once more, and let them know we are working on making the ideaLab an even better community for helping students succeed.

On Tuesday and Thursday, we were rather busy but continued work on the vacuum former and taught several students to use the Thing-O-Matic and introduced many more to the lab. Lots of new faces appeared in the lab and we hope to see them again in the coming weeks. [John Cope] made an amazing logo for the lab and we will use an iteration very much like it. We plan to add LEDs to a sign in the lab so students can control the color of the light bulbs.

[John Cope]'s awesome logo for the lab

On Saturday, [Terrence Winston] worked on his DIY Head Mounted Display. He managed to print, using the Thing-O-Matic, a functional part to hold his lenses in place. The part was designed in AutoDesk Inventor on his laptop. There are more parts to print until he has a completed case, but he is well on his way to finishing. We are glad to offer the tools/equipment/support to help him make his project.

[Terrence Winston]'s lense holder

On Sunday, [Scott Tanner] began work on a bike lock holder for his bike. After bringing his bike in to the lab, he was able to quickly take measurements and produce a prototype in SolidWorks and print it on the Thing-O-Matic. While some fine tuning is needed, we are sure he'll have a completed product very soon. [Frank Ramirez] spent the day completing SolidWorks tutorials in preparation for taking the Certified SolidWorks Associate exam. We wish him good luck on it.

[Scott Tanner]'s bike lock holder in mid-print

[Scott Tanner]'s bike lock holder in ReplicatorG

Some news of interest:

• MakerFaire New York 2011

MakerFaire is coming to New York this weekend. This is the big convention for hackerspaces and hobbyists like ourselves. [Dr. Ducharme] and [Matthew Hellmer] will be attending to learn better ways to help students in the ideaLab. If anyone else is able to attend, it will be an eye-opening event that students will remember. Our main goals while there are to learn from other hackerspaces, source equipment for the lab, and learn about hosting our own MakerFaire in Orlando next year.

• New Tuesday/Thursday Hours

We are moving the hours from 1100-1600 to 1300-1930, as students are wanting to stay later in the day. Hours can change again if students start preferring them at different times. Feedback for this change comes from emails, our survey, and talking with students in the ideaLab. Pretty soon, we may change from Sunday to Friday hours, as the current survey results indicate that as a preference.

• ideaLab Closed This Weekend

The ideaLab is likely to be closed this weekend (2011.09.17-2011.09.18) due to [Matthew Hellmer] attending MakerFaire. We are working to find someone to manage the lab in interim and will update the blog by Thursday evening with further information.

That's all the news this week, Thinkers. Keep bringing in the projects and enthusiasm.

More Tickets for Arduino Level 1

EDIT (2011.09.13.1925) : Dr. Ducharme asked for the deadline to be extended until Wednesday, so he could announce it in class.


We've been listening to you Thinkers and we know that you want more tickets, so we are offering another thirty. Make sure to tell your friends, as this won't be announced in class.

A couple explanations first.

• We will no longer use Eventbrite for hosting ticket sales as they only release the money five days after the event is held. To prevent this problem, we are hosting ticket sales directly through the blog and Paypal. This means less fees for students and the ideaLab receives the money in a more timely manner.
• All students that purchased tickets through Eventbrite will receive their Arduinos in time. We are fronting the money until Eventbrite releases the ticket earnings to make sure that students get what they paid for.
• The prices on the Arduino tickets are increased from $38 and $5 to $39.94 and $6.11 as that is what the students paid for the Eventbrite tickets and we want to be fair to everyone. The extra $0.49 and $0.64 earned (after factoring Paypal's fees) on each ticket sale will go directly to ideaLab costs. In the future, expect fees to be lower.
• We are unable at this time to use Google Checkout as a credit card is needed to create an account. We are looking in to finding a way to use Google Checkout.

As mentioned in the Eventbrite listing, this event is all about introducing students to using an Arduino. We will start with getting the Arduino IDE up and running on laptops, followed by a short introduction to programming, and ending with customizing the Blink program. This is all in preparation for Arduino Level 2 where we get to have the real fun working with sensors and displays.

We have two types of tickets:

• Need an Arduino

Choose this option if you don't have an Arduino. We will order one for you and have it ready for you on the day of the event: 2011.09.19.

Your $38 will cover the cost of your Arduino and cable with shipping/handling and food for the event.

• Don't Need an Arduino

Choose this option if you already have an Arduino, or plan to pick up your own from a site such as Sparkfun. Be sure to pick up a cable.

Your $5 will cover the cost of food for the event.

On the day of the event, meet fifteen minutes early in the ideaLab. We will be moving to a lecture room that is to be announced.

You'll definitely need to bring a laptop so that you can run the Arduino IDE on it.

Without further ado, here is the Paypal button for thirty more tickets to Arduino Level 1. These will likely go fast. The cutoff date for these is now Tuesday Wednesday at 1700.

Arduino Level 1 Tickets

Need an Arduino $39.94 Don't Need an Arduino $6.11

Introduction to Arduino Course

Greetings Thinkers,

The ideaLab will be holding a course to introduce students to microprocessors, specifically the Arduino platform. Microprocessors are capable of being programmed to carry out tasks based on timing or events you select. We feel it is about time students were introduced to them. The amount of things you can do with them are simply amazing, from automating a cup of tea brewing when you send a twitter message to opening a door when you sync your phone to an Arduino, you are really only limited by your imagination.

Arduino Level 1 will help students navigate the tricky installation process of the new Arduino UNO, go through the basics of the Arduino IDE programming language, create a script that will blink an onboard LED, and end with students coming up with creative uses for an LED with their own scripts. This is all just a precursor for Arduino Level 2 where students get to add sensors and motors to really get their Arduino working for them.

The course will be held in a yet to be decided classroom at UCF on 2011.09.19 from 1700-2000.
The course costs $38 (covers an Arduino, cable, and food) or you can provide your own Arduino and just pay $5 (food alone).
Important, you will need to bring your own laptop (make sure you bring your power cable) and it would be very nice if your OS was Windows 7, Ubuntu, or Lion.

Also, spacing for this is limited to 30 students so act quick. Don't fret if you miss this one as we will be doing this again, hopefully.

Here's the link for the event and we hope to see you there.

EDIT: That was phenomenal. Eventbrite just notified me that we are sold out (well, three tickets are currently pending). We will have your Arduinos soon and look forward to seeing you at the course. Just amazing, guys.
By the way, any feedback on this would be great. Do you mind Eventbrite? Want more tickets for the next event? Information like that helps us make the ideaLab better for you thinkers.

EDIT 2: We are now sold out of tickets. Amazing.

Weekly Update 2011.09.04

Greetings Thinkers,

Thank you [Dr. Ducharme], for helping get the word out. We received 260 views on Friday, over four times our previous record. Let's keep spreading word for the ideaLab.

On Saturday, [Matt Turner] brought in his portable N64 and we managed to get it working. His project is coming along greatly and we really like his initiative. Using a couple guides, [Matt Turner] was able to combine an N64, a PSOne screen, a controller, and various switches into a fully working portable N64. The really interesting bits are his charging switch and custom case. The switch allows him to easily change between recharging his battery and running off the power from the wall plug, while his custom case places his buttons in easy to access locations. We plan to use the vacuum former to make an improved case and make a connection port to allow a second portable N64 to sync up for multi-player fun.
We'll have a link to his project shortly, but in the meantime here are some photos.

On Sunday, we continued work on the vacuum former and fixed the CNC mill. [John Cope] arrived and brought a couple boxes of Lego parts, including many Lego train parts. We created a Lego test track in the back of the room and started work on two projects for it: modeling/printing custom parts based on Jurassic Park to recreate the T-Rex chase scene, and a part dispenser that delivers resistors and other components when ordered through a web page.

By Tuesday, we expect the end stops to be installed on the CNC mill and the frame of the vacuum former to be completed. By Thursday, the vacuum former should be completed (or very nearly) and the CNC mill settings should be properly keyed in to allow reliable cuts. Then all we'll need is the laser cutter to have this lab up and running with equipment for students to use.

Some news of interest:

• Stanford Offering Free School of Engineering Courses this Fall

Stanford is offering courses on Artificial Intelligence, Introduction to Databases, and Introduction to Machine Learning. These classes sound very interesting and you can bet that they all will be practical for many later projects in this lab. While you won't get credits for taking them, you will get a nifty certificate to show off. The best parts are that they are free and you do not need to take any prerequisites. There's no risk involved and you can help Stanford as a beta tester for a new form of online course.

• The Donkey Show: Delightful Code

The Donkey Show is a local monthly event where people can offer free courses on various skills (mostly programming from what I've seen). Take a look at the website to see if any upcoming courses interest you. Our own [John Cope] teaches the Processing class there, with the next one held on 2011.09.09. Try to make it as these classes can really help people of all levels learn new skills to make them a more well rounded maker

That's all for this week. We hope to see some new faces in the ideaLab this next week.

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