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.

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.