hackerspaces | supper

The first generation of Bose SoundDocks did not feature an aux input jack, they are only compatible with the 30 pin connector of Ipods and Iphones.  Lately, my music player of choice is my Droid Razr, which has 60+ Gb of music on it, even more in the cloud, and no 30 pin connector.  I decided to add an auxiliary input to my SoundDock in the easiest and quickest way possible. I made an adapter cable using an $6 Ipod extension cable, a $1 3.5mm headphone cable, and two necessary resistors.  I can plug this adapter cable directly into any unmodified SoundDock, or any other amplified speaker system that only has a 30 pin connector and no aux input.

It turns out that the SoundDock is smart, and will only turn on when it senses 3.3VDC on pin 18 of its input connector.  Luckily, it also outputs 12VDC on pin 19 to recharge the attached Ipod’s battery.  To trick the SoundDock into turning on with no Ipod attached, I made a voltage divider by soldering a 20 Kohm resistor between the wires connected to pins 18 and 19, and a 4.7 Kohm resistor between the wires connected to pins 18 and 1.  I measured the voltage between pins 18 and 1 to be ~3VDC which was sufficient.  I soldered the three pins of the 3.5mm headphone jack to the 30 pin connector’s wires as follows: Ground to pin 1, right audio to pin 3 and left audio to pin 4.  I used 1206 surface mount resistors because they measure only 3.2mm by 1.6mm, a size which fits conveniently under the shrink wrap joining the two cables.  The most time consuming part of this two hour project was identifying which color wires were connected to pins 1,3,4,18 & 19, and determining if the pin on the left of the photo was #1 or #30.

We got a great little email on Sunday asking if our Vendy was available for public dispensing. There happened to be a pile of us here hacking on Sunday afternoon, so Nicole dropped by, fed $15 into Machine Uno and get herself a teensy board. On Thursday, Shanshan came round to Craft Night and we got to see what they made:

They didn’t get any action shots of the teensy . Nice Arduino though.

Last year, the Milwaukee Makerspace participated in the South Shore Frolics Parade with a giant driving Arduino, a driving 10′ tall can of Old Milwaukee Makerspace beer and a fleet of power wheels racers. In short, it was a blast. I’ve lived in Bay View for the last 6 and a half years and a highlight every summer has been the Frolics Parade. For long-time Bay View Residents, the Parade has been a summer highlight for over 60 years. Being in the parade and producing such fun floats for it was more fun than i thought it would be and we immediately started scheming for the 2012 parade.

This year, it doesn’t look like we’ll have a Frolics Parade, though. For the last few years, a corporate sponsor has footed the considerable bill for the parade. They are unable to do that again this year and the Bay View Lions Club is left without the funds for a parade.

David and I, along with several other Bay View neighbors have been working with the Lions Club to see if we can scramble to raise the funds for the parade. $13,000 is needed for the city and county alone to cover the permit, closed parking meters, re-routed buses, police officers and cleanup. Yow! I wasn’t aware that there was such a high starting bid for a parade. On top of that, many bands and groups require payment to travel and participate in the parade.

We quickly pulled together a website, voice mail and twitter account and a bunch of fliers to try to get the word out. David talked to every business from the White House to Hamburger Mary’s on KK last Saturday and had a lot of interest. We need to head back this weekend to see if we can secure any commitments from those businesses.

Members from the Milwaukee Makerspace have pledged $2,000 to kick things off, but we still have $20,000 to raise in almost no time. We’re giving it a week to follow up with Bay View businesses to see if we can arrange any commitments for funding.

If you love the Frolics Parade, ask your favorite Bay View Businesses if they are willing to help save the parade this year as you get a bite to eat, a cup of coffee, a haircut or a drink this week. If you have the means to make a significant donation yourself, please get in touch.

We’ve also thrown out a pretty cool incentive. For any group that donates $5,000, the Makerspace will build a float for you.

For donation and contact information for the parade, head over to the Save the Frolics Parade website at http://www.bayview-frolics-parade.com/.

Yeah.  Having access to a laser cutter is pretty boss.  I’m planning to wear this to the premiere of a certain movie this weekend.  Four layers of acrylic; two diffuse, two opaque.  11 LEDs, 11 100 Ohm resistors, some phone cord, some solder, and a 9V battery.  There’s no lack of great pages on Instructables about how to make your own.

Saturday, May 12th at 8 PM we’re doing another Handmade Music L.A.!

Handmade music is all about people making music with hand-made instruments (hardware or software).  We will have performances with monomes, and Pd patches, and chess boards.  And demonstrations of instruments people have made and that you can make yourself.

We’ll be getting started at 8 PM and running until late at CRASH Space, 10526 Venice Blvd., Culver City 90232.

Open to everyone, a $5 donation to CRASH Space is recommended.

If you’re interested in performing or demonstrating something musical that you’ve built (instruments, circuit bent toys, Pd/Max/MSP patches), e-mail theron.trowbridge@gmail.com with a description of what you do, pictures/videos, etc. and whether it’s more of a science fair project or a performance piece.

Kudos to David (known to the group as a videographer and motorcycle enthusiast) who must have experience herding cats, because he managed to get a whole bunch of members to take a break from making and stand still long enough for a group photo.

I’m not sure which one should be the “official” group photo, so I’ve posted all three of them below. Let us know which one you like the best!

Option #3: “Serious”

Option #2: “Lighthearted”

Option #1: “Machete”

Note: Whichever photo gets chosen as the “official” Milwaukee Makerspace Group Photo will remain the “official” Milwaukee Makerspace Group Photo until we take a new “official” Milwaukee Makerspace Group Photo.

First of the month, That's this Friday. It's 2600 time! Meeting will be at the usual place the Game Lounge at 178 Main Street in Burlington Vermont from 5-8. It's on the third floor, so just keep going up. There will be signs to point the way.

Afterwards we will probably head over to Laboratory B!  1.5 blocks away for further hijinks!

Our Maker Sessions for May will be taking place at Madlab, 36-40 Edge Street, M4 1HN on

• Wednesday 2nd May, 7pm - 11pm
• Wednesday 9th May, 7pm - 11pm
• Saturday 12th May, Noon - 7pm
• Wednesday 23rd May, 7pm - 11pm
• Wednesday 30th May, 7pm - 11pm

All our meetings are open access, and free to attend (though we might ask for a donation if we do your uni work for you!), so you don't have to ask, just turn up!

On Saturday May 12th (2p-6p), the weekend before MakerFaire, you can come to CrashSpace to get custom CrashSpace gear. We’re talking hats, bags, shirts, pants, socks, and pretty much anything you are willing to bring to customize.

Did you catch that?

Bring something to share, customize, and DIY.

We hosted a CRASHirt CRAFTnoon in the past and it was CRASHirt CRAFTernoon CRAZYness !

We’ll provide:

• silk screens
• stencils
• sewing machines and supplies
• sharpies
• finger paint
• bleach
• splatters
• sharpies
• tons of glow-in-the-dark and neon paint. I cannot wait until those photos start to surface
• LEDs,
• even some sparkle kits for the adventurous.

CRAFTERNOON?!? What is it anyhow? Cecily said it best on the crash list

“It can be a nice time to hang out, make crafty stuff, and discuss
making more crafty stuff. Don’t be afraid of the “softer” side of
making. Craft projects usually don’t bite, they just poke, tangle,
glue your fingers together, cover you in glitter…”

craft crash craft crash craft crash craft crash craft crash craft crash craft crash craft crash craft crash craft crash

Chaperoned kids are welcome.  The cost is free.

CRASHSpace is entirely membership/donation funded and relies on your support to keep the doors open. Donations are welcomed, helpful, and necessary. thx!

Standford University is at it again with another round of free (as in beer) courses! This time they’re joined by the likes of Princeton, Penn, and the University of Michigan!

Why should you care? Well, Hive76 is forming a study group to help individuals tackle this incredible and challenging opportunity to be found within Standford’s Machine Learning course, of course! Our first meeting will be held tomorrow night during Open House Hours (7-11 PM)! If you are interested in taking this course, please take the time to register with Stanford at the link provided here.

As a place to get started, Mike S. of the Noisebridge hackerspace in San Francisco, has compiled an excellent list of resources for the study group that they have going on the left coast. Do consider joining their ML-specific mailing list!

Folks considering this course should be familiar with programming concepts and linear algebra, for sure! Recommended linear algebra lectures can be found here, and for your open source alternative to MATLAB, check out GNU’s Octave.

See you tomorrow!

We had an awesome time at the Philly Tech Week Signature Gala last week. While certainly any event with free booze is going to be a hit with us, it was surely all of the amazing people we got to meet. We had quite a few things on display and people were very interested in talking with us about our projects, how we got started, and even the very nature of hacking, DIY, and hackerspaces (To quote Adam Savage, “I reject your reality and substitute my own”).

Manning the table we had Jim Fisher, Chris Terrell, Dave Morfin, Chris Thompson, and me. Here is a video showing off our table and some of the things we had there.

Come build and program an Arduino with expert guidance. You’ll build your own Freeduino kit and program it. Even if you’ve never soldered anything in your life, you’ll come away with a working micro controller that you built.

Sign up at EventBrite: http://nycr.eventbrite.com/

This collaboration of specialties represents an undertaking by members of Freeside Atlanta, Southern Arizona Limb Salvage Alliance, and The Podiatry Institute.  Charcot foot reconstruction remains on of the most challenging procedures in foot and ankle surgery.  These procedures are often lengthy procedures which can be riddled with complications.

With the help of Freeside Atlanta Members, institutional researchers used open source Osirix Image viewer and 3D Software such as Newtek's Lightwave or Blender to create simulated surgical reductions as well as 3D printed templates.  Freeside Atlanta members assisted in providing 3D printing solutions and know-how to the project.

Experimental test prints were done on a Makerbot Thing-o-matic, and final templates were printed on a modified ZCORP z400.  These templates were full scale replicas of the patient's boney anatomy, which were used in the laboratory for practice purposes.  (see video below)

The surgical bone cuts were trialed in advance and the the Ilizarov fixation frame was constructed and modified prior to surgery.  The combination of these two things saved the surgeons literally hours of work in the operating theater, ultimately lowering cost of care and risk of complications.

3D simulations were used for templating surgical approach on printed replicas.
Intra-operative execution of practiced surgical plan.
Application of Ilizarov External Fixation Construct

Charcot foot syndrome (Charcot neuroarthropathy affecting the foot), particularly in its latter stages, may pose a significant technical challenge to the surgeon. Because of the lack of anatomic consistency, preoperative planning with virtual and physical models of the foot could improve the chances of achieving a predictable intraoperative result. In this report, we describe the use of a novel, inexpensive, 3-dimensional template printing technique that can provide, with just a normal printer, multiple "copies" of the foot to be repaired. Although we depict this method as it pertains to repair of the Charcot foot, it could also be used to plan and practice, or revise, 3-dimensional surgical manipulations of other complex foot deformities.

Copyright © 2012 American College of Foot and Ankle Surgeons. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Kevin’s Noise Box (Photo by Pete Prodoehl).

On Friday April 20th, 2012, several members of the Milwaukee Makerspace participated in the Spring Gallery Night event hosted at BucketWorks and put on in collaboration with ArtWorks for Milwaukee.  Several hundred people came through the space to check out works from both groups.  ArtWorks also had a nice write-up of the night from their point of view. We love getting our crazy work out in front of people.

So, gentle Reader, I present to you an inventory of our Makers and Their Works:

• Kevin Bastyr
  • The Mahoganator – A noise box encased in a lovely Mahogany shell.
  • The Cacophonator – A noise box encased in a lovely welded metal shell.
  • Cast bronze tree-trunk table.
  • Angle grinder table from the One Tool Competition.
• Adam Cohen
  • Functional MageTag prototype! Gallery night patrons were invited to run through the space playing MageTag.
• Jason Gessner
  • Step – A step sequencer controlled by a Dance Dance Revolution Controller, Processing and Logic Pro.
• Matt Neesley
  • CNC Architectural Relief Sculptures.
• Pete Prodoehl
  • The Arc-O-Matic! A one-armed, 2 servo-enabled drawing robot.
  • Wooden Knuckles and Wooden Nickels.
  • Other crafty 3d printed replacement parts and creations.
• Vishal Rana
  • Laser Harp and Propane Tank Drum
• Shane Thielen
  • The Eye Wooden Block Sculpture
  • Laser Printed Periodic Table of the Elements.

Check out Pete’s TimeLapse Bot footage of the event. I’m seen messing around with my laptop a lot until i settled on a sound set i liked for the Step.

In addition, the folks from the newly-forming Spring City Launchpad makerspace in Waukesha were there to get the word out.

And if that wasn’t enough, Jason H had 2 of Pete’s Drawbots collaborating at the Art Milwaukee Wedding after party!

Big thanks to Tim @ Bucketworks and the folks at ArtWorks for sharing the space with us and inviting us to the festivities!

More photos of the night shot by Brant are available on Flickr.

Adam B. is a fellow here at Milwaukee Makerspace, and the guy behind The Amazing Milwaukee Race. He asked for some help using the Egg-Bot, and I stepped up to help him out.

Part of the race this year involved playing ping-pong, but why would you use plain old ping-pong balls when you’ve got an Egg-Bot!?

Here’s the end result: a big pile of “The Amazing Milwaukee Race” ping-pong balls.

So the next time someone asks what you can do at Milwaukee Makerspace, let them know that you can easily custom print a whole bunch of ping-pong balls. (Note: we also do other things.)

Howdy Folks.

Alot of us here at crashspace do things. From building robots to brewing Kombuchas we’ve got it covered. And the one thing that we all do to get out the word is taking pictures (and sending them to the intertubes). Everyone’s handled a camera (now that smartphones are ubiquitous) but did you know there’s basic techniques that can make your photos 100% better overnight ?(with no pre-soaking required)

So bring your camera and head on over to crash on Wednesday may 2nd at 8pm. We’re going to meetup to go over everyone’s skill level and see what people would like to do with photography. I’ll be teaching a basics class for all skill levels in the coming month, and we’ll preview that at the meeting.

Other topics include
- Tilt Shift Lenses and perhaps making your own
- Intervalometer photography
- rail/carriage systems for panning shots.
- Photo Editing software
- ect.

So if any of that sounds interesting, stop by the space on wednesday!

TomG shows how he etches PCB boards using paint, a 25W laser cutter, Muratic Acid, 30% H2O2 and a sponge. Much frothing ensues.

The technique is a neat one, given the presence of a laser cutter, because it can take you from copper clad to etched board in a pretty quick amount of time.

One note, the Muratic Acid is actually from a pool supply store, not Home Depot. It is, of course, dangerous. Wear safety goggles, use gloves, use in a well ventilated area. (The acid smells like a punch to the nose, don’t inhale it)