3D Printer Arrived – we printed our first parts!

Update — The printer arrived Friday.  We assembled and printed our first parts over the weekend.  We’ll be showing it off at our regular Wednesday evening open house.

We ordered a 3D printer with grant funds from the Framingham Cultural Council and a generous Makerspace member.  We decided on the Flashforge Creator Pro.  This printer has dual extruder heads and an 8.9 x 5.7 x 5.9 inch build area.

We will provide one to two hours per week, open to the public, free training on use of a 3D printer.  Training will include: how to find open source parts others have designed on the web; using the “slicer” software to prepare parts for printing; setting up the printer; various materials available to print; discussion of how the printer works; discussion on limitations on part geometry; introduction to 3D CAD programs to design your own parts.  Some nights will be stand alone intro training, while others will be a series of more in depth training.  Intent is not for each person to print their own part but to learn about 3D printing capabilities.

Grand Opening was a Big Success!

Thanks to all who helped with and came to the Grand Opening. You made it a big success with well over 100 people attending.  It was busy from start to finish.  We were so busy talking with people that we didn’t get to all of the demonstrations we had planned.

Remember, we are open for tours every Wednesday evening from 7-9pm.  If you want to become a member, you can stop by then or sign up on the web page at Become A member.

Here are a few pictures.  Sorry no crowd pictures.  We didn’t want to post people without permission.

 

 

 

Pill Bottle LED POI

This project is a beginner LED POI that can be built for under $25 for a pair (if you scrounge a few parts).

It uses an RGB LED with ping pong ball for diffuser, 9 volt battery, Arduino pro-mini (or nano) and 3-axis accelerometer board.  It teaches the basics of connecting things to the Arduino, programming the Arduino, both input from the accelerometer and PWM to control the RGB LED.

Pill bottle POI 1 LED Poi spinning 1

Pill bottle poi 2

LED POI with 9-axis IMU and wireless link

More advanced LED POI we are working on include 9-axis inertial measurement unit (IMU) (3-axis accelerometer, 3-axis gyro, 3-axis magnetometer).  We coupled this with a wireless transciever to send data back to a computer while we’re spinning. 

The goal is to use this feedback to show us how the sensors are responding to various motion conditions so we can program better effects.  This project is still in an early phase, we’re still working on understanding the quaternion output of the IMU’s on board data fusion engine and how best to use that data.

Total cost for this POI is still very cheap, Arduino Nano, 9V battery, RGB LED, IMU (about $8), radio ($1).

Here is a video showing wireless data streaming back to a computer http://youtu.be/me-uFxpgRTk

 

POI wireless demo 1

Raku Pottery

This past fall we built a propane fired Raku kiln, made clay tiles and fired them. It was an ambitious project since we had never done Raku pottery before. Researching this project taught us a lot and brought some great people into our maker community.

 

The burner is a high-heat model which has been added to a kiln which was formerly an electric kiln. The group modified the kiln so it could be propane fired.

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