Category: Uncategorized

Holiday Make-A-Thon 2011 ReCap

Post author By Pete Prodoehl
Post date 2011-11-28

I had a fun time at the Holiday Make-A-Thon and everyone else there seemed to as well…

There was painting, and decorating, and soldering, and knitting, and 3D printing, and gourds, and ABS, and PCBs, and yearn, and glue, and even some glitter!

Big thanks to the Milwaukee Makerspace guys for teaching people to solder, and for helping me out with the wooden ornaments. More thanks to Bucketworks for hosting the event. Based on the feedback we got, I’m going to assume we’ll do it again next year.

Here’s a few snapshots I got during the event.

Ornaments

Some of the wooden ornaments painted and glittered up. (Thanks to Brant from Milwaukee Makerspace for the googly eyes.)

Penguin

I’m not 100% sure but I think this dried gourd penguin was made by Amanda from Milwaukee Makerspace. (Please correct me if I’m wrong.) My kids told me it was the most awesome gourd they saw all day.

Reindeer

These reindeer from Brant are extra-cool because they were made from the scraps of the first test of my cucoloris design. They were sitting around the space near the CNC Router and he found a neat way to upcycle them.

Starclops

I may be biased, but Starclops, which was created by hot-gluing a star ornament onto a snowman ornament, adding a googly eye, and using a soldering iron to brand it, may be the best thing I made that day.

And finally, thanks to all the folks who showed up. Rather than battling the crowds at the malls you opted to join us and make something with your own hands… and that’s pretty cool. We need more of that in this world. :)

Tags bucketworks, diy, make, makeathon, makerspace, milwaukee

Uncategorized

Upcycle Plastic Repair

A year ago I saw a post on the Sector67 site that talked about upcycling the plastic from laundry jugs. After seeing the post I thought about how many of these jugs we end up tossing in the recycling bin, and if there were any ways I could make good use of them.

Empty Laundry Jug

Here’s a typical laundry jug, and as you can see I cut out a nice (mostly) flat piece from the side.

Plastic
Cutting the plastic with an X-ACTO blade

I wanted to cut a small piece into a rectangle to match a missing piece from a window blind, and using an X-ACTO knife and steel ruler are the perfect choice for such things.

(Somehow we’ve lost/misplaced these window blind parts, or they weren’t here when we moved in. I thought briefly about 3D printing a replacement, but cutting a piece from plastic I’ve already got seemed like a better option.)

Holder
New vs. Original

My replacement is not an exact match, but I’ve cut it a bit taller to provide some friction so it will stay in place. For the simple purpose it will serve, it should do just fine.

Holder in Place
Original and New

Here’s the original piece, and my replacement piece. Both are holding the blinds into the bracket reasonably well.

I’ll often just cut out the flat sides of laundry jugs and keep them in a stack and then recycle the rest of the jug. They’re handy to have around when you need one.

We’ve talked about building an injection molding machine at Milwaukee Makerspace (Mold-o-rama anyone?) so if that happens, I may have a few more uses for these plastic jugs.

Tags diy, hacks, plastic, repair, upcycle

Uncategorized

Sleep Study

Well, I finally did it. After ~~years~~ decades of not sleeping well, and snoring away the time I do spend sleeping, I did a sleep study. I’ve been wanting to do it for a few years, but you either need insurance or money to do one, and in the past, I’ve had neither…

Yeah, I’ve got sleep apnea. If you don’t know what that is, it basically means you stop breathing while you are sleeping. You don’t have to be a medical doctor to know that’s probably a bad thing. In fact, it’s believed that sleep apnea may have contributed to Reggie White’s death.

I’ve got friends with sleep apnea who got tested, and ended up with CPAP machines. One told me it changed his life, and urged me to get tested. (Hey Les, I finally did it!)

The test itself was a lot of fun for a nerd like me. They connected 27 sensors to my body to capture data. This included 15 on the head, one on each ankle, some on the chest, back, and stomach to monitor breathing, and a pulse sensor on the finger. (Interestingly enough, I’ll be getting my own pulse sensor very soon.)

They wire you up and let you sleep a few hours to monitor things, and then (if needed) put a CPAP mask on you, and it helps you breathe. It was a little weird, but I’m sure I’ll get used to the mask, especially if it means better sleep and better health. (The machines are also much quieter than they used to be.)

I was also told that surgery can be an option rather than a CPAP machine, but they do not recommend it, and it doesn’t always work. I’m cool with the technology instead.

I did do a little probing about the data that got collected from the study. I asked it if was just numerical data from the sensors, perhaps in a CSV file. The technician said that was “basically” correct. (It was hard to gauge how technical the technician was.) I asked about getting a copy of my data. They told me I’d need to ask the doctor, as it was for him. I personally think it should be available to me. I’m the patient, right? Isn’t the data about me? Shouldn’t they be required to share it with me?

Anyway, I was told that I slept good with the mask on. I didn’t feel like I did, but I think “medically” I probably slept good. I should find out in a few weeks when I get my own machine for home use. (The mask probably wasn’t optimal either, as they spend some of the time adjusting the pressure and monitoring the sensor data. Hopefully they’ve got it all dialed in at the end.)

Oh, I was also told that the home machine logs data and the doctor takes a look at that data as well. Anyone know how to get that data from the machine? :)