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Pig Roast March 5 2011

Makers Local is hosting a Tech Expo with accompanying Mardi Gras Pig Roast on Saturday, March 5th.  Members will be showing recent projects and demonstrating the technologies they use, as well as giving tours of the shop.  Some of the demonstrations include 3d printing, robotics, vacuum molding, rocketry, microcontrollers and more.  Mardi Gras treats will be delivered by the Makers new Candy Cannon!

The Tech Expo begins at 12, food will be served at the same time. Plates are $10, or two for $15.

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Like other hackerspaces I’m finding, we have less than optimal heating and cooling. This summer, a popular complaint was that our space was too hot. We had thermometers, but you can’t read them from your appartment before you head down to the shop. Last winter, we had the same problem with the shop being too cold for happy hacking.
NOT ANY MORE! Harnessing a spare arduino and a few DS18B20+ I’ve finally built a network attached thermometer.

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Makers Local got the chassis for the Remote Control Lawnmower motorized and running around the shop on Tuesday.

Currently the chassis consists of 1″ square steel tubing, two caster wheels, two motors from kid’s scooters, and two Victor 833 Motor Control Boards.

RC Mower Chassis in Action

RC Mower Meets Tuesdays @ 5:30 at the Make Shop.

Watch the Calendar and the project wiki page for details.

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After seeing the working mini cannon on YouTube myself (preauxphoto) and Gregabyte started talking about how much fun it would be to have one (for purely scientific research of course.) I began to think that maybe it wasn’t a pipe dream and it might be possible. I began to look around and found us some 1″ brass round stock.  From there it was just some time at the lathe and mill. Within an hour,  we had a working prototype. Though it is about 4 times the size of the one in the video, it’s still fun. It measures 1.5″ in total length, 1″at its widest and 3/4″ at it’s smallest. It is designed to take 1/4″ steel ball bearings and a 2mm fuse. Though the first couple of shots were less than spectacular, we will see if we can get near the awesomeness of the one in the video. Updated with more pictures after the break.

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By MOG and Tim

This Mind Flex project is a re-imagining of a similar design LINK  Where a Mind Flex EEG device has been modified to output and log brain functions via a serial connection to a laptop. The laptop is running on battery power alone as you should have no current plugged in while connected to an EEG.

This altered design has similar concepts though this version is a little different as there is no tether with an Arduino,  rather information is being transferred via a serial to Bluetooth adapter.  The Arduino was removed to reduce some of the bulk and increase battery life on the laptop. Serial to BT

The adapter is powered by the Mindflex power supply and also the serial line. when the Mindflex is turned on the Bluetooth is turned on simultaneously outputting information from the subject’s brain to the computer for logging.

Also a self designed software library was created for this project and runs in the background for logging data. lib