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Taking the time to write up a blog post is hard and with technology these days, it’s easy enough to just pickup a camera phone and start recording. Tim and I had wanted to do weekly updates about the changes to the shop, but it’s turned into less than monthly updates. I’ve just been posting them on my Youtube channel since there’s no good way to do groups in Youtube anymore 🙁 Here’s June and August’s updates.


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Come one, come all.
See the wonders of ancient 3D printers unearthed at the Makers Local 256!
Be amazed by a printing technology unseen since nineteen hundred and ninety seven A.D.!
Marvel at the rugged construction that can be left in a barn for nearly 15 years!
Gasp as this once dormant design device springs to life, fresh from the packaging*
See it live tonight only! (videos posted later this week)

Today, May 16th, After our regular monthly meeting, We will be throwing a little party to celebrate unboxing of a BPM 2100 Personal Modeler that we received last week, still in it’s original shipping create. Meeting starts at 7:30pm, the event will be directly after the meeting finishes. Drink a beer, reminisce about the 90’s, and talk 3D printers until we get tired and go home. (some of us have to work in the morning, I know.)

Moe is waiting to be unpacked, Curly's broken, but it's ok, Shemp can step up to keep things running.

*This printer is not guaranteed functional or “fresh”. Packaging is open to the elements. Frankly it’s a long shot, but hey, we’ve got ~4 of these puppies, and we can probably get one of them moving again that night.

Oh, and by the way… We have moved and will hold the meeting and the party at the new shop:
414 Stevens Ave.

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I decided to snag a pair of F8Z942-P A2DP receivers since they’re now cheap ($25 each) on Amazon.  I picked up the Belkin variant because it seemed to be what I wanted with the ability to pair up to 6 devices and a range of 10 meters (around 33 feet).

Everything connected immediately and I had no problem transmitting from my laptop or phone…until I moved more than 5 feet away from the receiver.  At this point, the audio began to break up or cut out completely.  This was certainly not what I expected, so I decided to investigate a little.

What I found inside made me a little angry at Belkin’s marketing department and more so at the company as a whole for not requiring a full test of the hardware in the final enclosure as approved by marketing.  This is what you see upon removing the top of the enclosure.

Yes, that’s a slug of metal in the bottom of a WIRELESS device to give it heft and make it feel not cheap.  Once I removed the slug of metal, the receiver regained its full range and became the device promised by the spec sheet.  That said, I shouldn’t have to modify a device to fix a marketing blunder that breaks its functionality.

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One of the challenges of the cupcake was that it had to be done over the Synchronized Hackathon, what usually starts Friday night.   This however doesn’t mean you have to wait until then to start thinking about the cupcake.  Though for us, this is exactly what happen.  I casually asked Alice how much she would charge me to cook some cupcakes.  She then got excited and spend the rest of the evening baking and all day Saturday making the cupcake.

Our cupcake wasn’t a standard cupcake.  The idea was mentioned to put a cupcake inside a cupcake. Which in itself is awesome, but not as awesome as a cupcake inside a cupcake inside a cupcake.

To pull off something so awesome we needed to make one big cupcake.  To do this we bought some disposable circular roasting pans, and individual pie pans.  Alice then shaped them into a more cupcake looking pan.

In the end we had two giant cupcakes, a few smaller ones, and a few even smaller ones.  Alice stayed up all night Friday finishing the baking.

Saturday the construction began.  Alice magically turned one giant cake looking thing into a cupcake with two cupcakes inside it.  She also took time out to run to the store where she was able to talk to a baker and get some Italian Buttercream frosting.  This frosting is apparently special and cost her a bit, but was worth it.

So after many long hours of baking and construction here is what the cupcake should look like inside.

And here is the final cupcake.

Here it is boxed up and ready to go.  The cupcake is frosted to the bottom of the pan.  Then four pieces of cardboard are around the outside of the cupcake.  We then ran bamboo skewers through the cardboard, pan and cupcake.  This was to hold the cupcake down if it got tipped upside down.  Also we added bread to suck up the moisture and keep the cupcake fresh.

Here are more pictures if you would like to see them.

UPDATE: So it looks like someone can’t send a package through the mail.  This morning I went down to the post office and found our cupcake had been sent back.  🙁  As sad as I was about it, I was kind of excited to see how the cupcake looked after a week and a half in the mail.  This evening Alice and I opened it.  Here are the results.