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PPPRS Detroit 2015

Post author By Pete Prodoehl
Post date 2015-10-05

This is no time to relax! It’s time to see the photos from The Power Racing Series event at Maker Faire Detroit, which happened back in July, that I’m posting in October. Better late than not at all!

Want more? You can see the whole album on Flickr, and scroll down for a video!

Power Racing Series - Detroit 2015

Oh, there’s also a video, because Jim finally got around to editing my footage. I shot the DSLR stuff from the ground, and others got the aerial stuff. I also managed about a half dozen GoPro cameras during the event.

Tags detroit, makerfaire, powerwheels, ppprs

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mms xeyes

Post author By Pete Prodoehl
Post date 2015-10-02

When I first started using *nix-based operating systems I played with xeyes, which is a “follow the mouse X demo” and a very simple program. (Really, it’s not fancy, but 25 years ago, it was sort of neat.)

A few days before Maker Faire Milwaukee Vishal and I were brainstorming ideas for something done in Processing to show with a projector, and I suggested xeyes because it was silly and simple and we hadn’t slept much.

I figured there was a Processing version out there, and our old pal Alex has one at Tinkerlog. I grabbed it and started hacking. Someone mentioned putting the old Milwaukee Makerspace logo in place and putting the eyes on it. (It may have been me, I honestly don’t remember, again… not much sleep.)

Then Lexie showed up and I ran the demo and she suggested there should be a fly for the cursor. In my tired state I thought this was a great idea, and then checked on how cursors work in Processing (yes, you can use an image) and then I found a fly on OpenClipArt.org and added it.

Now we had something that let you move the mouse around and the fly would move and the eyes would follow it. I sent Vishal the code and he had a trackpad he thought about using with it… But then he said it would be cool if it just moved around on its own. I didn’t have time to write the code, so Vishal asked if I had a Teensy on me, and since I always do, I gave it to him. He then wrote code to make the Teensy act as a mouse and randomly move around the screen.

We hacked this all together pretty quickly, and it was fun, and not super-impressive, but we liked it. Oh, I also made a Processing.js version you can try. (It’s an early test version before I added the fly.)

A few days after Maker Faire I got an email from Bryan Cera about running Processing on the Raspberry Pi, which we had been discussing. He got it working, so I finally circled back around to give it a try. Well, it worked, and I got this mms-xeyes thing running as a full-on application.

This is pretty awesome. I mean, the cursor is a little weird, and disappears when you do not move the mouse (but reappears when you do move it) but overall it does work, and I’m pretty pleased with it. I’ve got a few ideas that involve Raspberry Pi computers running Processing sketches, so yeah… overall, this is good.

Tags makerfairemke, processing, raspberrypi, teensy, xeyes

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Turndrawble Pen Holder

Post author By Pete Prodoehl
Post date 2015-09-15

If you remember reading about my Turndrawble, the turntable-based drawing machine, you may remember that I use Fine Point Sharpies with it. The last time I used it in public I just had the pens in a jar, which is not ideal.

The original design was going to have the pen holder built in, but I changed things and decided against that, so I needed something else, and this is it.

If you want to see this thing in person, and make some art with it, I’ll be at the Hidden River Art Festival at the Sharon Lynne Wilson Center for the Arts on September 19th & 20th, 2015.

Wood

The wood pieces are cut from 1/4″ Baltic Birch plywood. The blue parts are set to cut before the black parts. You usually want to cut the insides of things first. (Often this leads to many colors if you nest objects.) Not all laser cutter software requires you to do this manually. Some software is smart enough to always cut the inside objects first.

Acrylic

I also cut some rectangular acrylic panels to go on the inside. Two red, and two black, to match the Turndrawble acrylic colors used.

I glued the wood pieces together with wood glue, sanded them, and did a stain and polyurethane coat. (Next time it would be better to sand everything completely before assembly. The sanding removed some of the burned wood look, which I wanted to preserve.

The acrylic pieces fit nice and snug, but just to be safe I put a few small dabs of hot glue on the before putting them in place. There’s also four rubber feet on the bottom to prevent sliding around on the table.

(You can read more about this thing on the Turndrawble project page..)

Tags acrylic, lasercut, turndrawble, wood

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HDPE Disaster

My most recent HDPE adventure did not turn out well. While I got a nice sized sheet, I managed to slice my finger open and wasn’t sure why, until I investigated more closely…

If you can see those shiny pieces, those are pieces of glass. But since I’m personally cutting up all the HDPE scraps and putting them in the oven, where did this glass come from?

Oh yeah, I put it in the oven in a glass baking pan. The HDPE actually tore some layers from the bottom of the pan when I was removing it! The HDPE doesn’t exactly fall out of the pan, and requires some coaxing to come out. I typically pry it out with a screwdriver, then pull it out. (I wear gloves the entire time, as that stuff is HOT!)

Obviously the glass baking pan isn’t ideal for this. I’ve gone back to using the smaller glass loaf pan. I’m hoping the smaller surface area will help prevent this from happening again.

The glass pan is pretty beat anyway, and with pieces missing from the bottom, I guess I’ll just scrap it. (Unless someone wants to melt it down!)

Tags hdpe, melt, plastic

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Maker Faire Milwaukee

Post author By Pete Prodoehl
Post date 2015-09-02

While I’ve been posting a lot lately about plastic and other odd things, pretty much all of my time these days has been filled with planning Maker Faire Milwaukee.

If you’re not familiar with what a Maker Faire is, here’s a quick description from the history page of makerfaire.com

Part science fair, part county fair, and part something entirely new, Maker Faire is an all-ages gathering of tech enthusiasts, crafters, educators, tinkerers, hobbyists, engineers, science clubs, authors, artists, students, and commercial exhibitors. All of these “makers” come to Maker Faire to show what they have made and to share what they have learned.

What I love about Maker Faires (I’ve attended about eight of them in various cities the past few years) is that the people who share their work (or play) are passionate about what they do, and they love sharing it with others. I find this inspiring, and I usually leave excited about what I saw, and eager to learn new skills and make new things.

I’m planning to do a talk about The Power Racing Series, and help out showing off tiny electric vehicles built for under $500, but most of my time will probably be spent working with the folks from Betty Brinn Children’s Museum and Milwaukee Makerspace just making sure everything runs smoothly. (The two organizations are co-hosting the event, and I’m an employee and member of them both, respectively.)

I hope to see you at Maker Faire. If you’ve got kids, it may inspire them, and if you’re a kid at heart, you’ll love it too. (Don’t get me wrong, adults are welcome too!) And, Maker Faire Milwaukee is FREE to attend, thanks to our great sponsors! (And yes, there are still sponsorship opportunities, so get in touch with me if interested!)

If you want a preview of what you’ll see, check out some of the blog posts I’ve been writing.

(Oh, Maker Faire Milwaukee takes place at State Fair Park on September 26th & 27th, 2015, and Harvest Faire is also happening at that time, and also free, so really, there’s something for everyone… Come on down!)

Tags bbcm, makerfaire, makerfairemke, mkemakerspace