We’ve added a new machine to the lab: an Inventables X-Carve. I scheduled a build day this coming Friday. We’ll see how far we can get in 2 hours!
Update:
Build Day, Part 1
Build Day 2, Part 2
Build Day, Part 3
Jennifer Kraemer (Early Childhood Education) and I are collaborating on a “Making in ECE” class, which will be one of the capstone/MAtC classes in our maker certificates. As part of that Jennifer has been working with a LEGO MINDSTORMS set, and recently built a little robot.
We sat down the other day to work with the EV3 Programmer app. It reminds me some of Scratch, with a drag-and-drop interface and functional blocks, and we set out to address a classic Logo sort of challenge: have the robot draw/drive a square.
Having never before used the app, and having no prior programming experience, Jennifer was able to program the sequence, complete with looping logic, and topped off by a few embellishments!
Whenever we do a flight day, we try and have at least one student taking photos and documenting the process. Here are some Folsom Lake College students at our most recent BAP field day doing science – taking GPS coordinates, shooting the balloon with the laser rangefinder, and logging data.
Helping students rig the balloon, with the 3D printed picavet in the foreground:
Lowering the rig to clear the canopy:
Nothing better than doing real science in the field with students (plus wearing a sweet safety vest):
Additional photos and datasets at the project blog dolookdown.org
Field day with Jason Pittman’s (Geosciences) mapping class yesterday. We flew the 3D printed picavet for the first time. After we worked the wetlands, two student volunteers agreed to walk the balloon up into campus, as I wanted to get shots of the garden. That little patch of green in the dry area (above) is the garden. Image below from a different flight for comparison.
The entire dataset can be found at the project blog (DoLookDown.org), as well as the images from our 2014 and 2015 flights of the same area. When I find the time, I plan to redesign and 3D print the picavet from the ground up, shaving some additional weight.
Field day with Jason Pittman’s (Geosciences) class yesterday. The balloon pulled well, I think thanks in part to the weight reductions we achieved with the new 3D printed picavet part.
Full dataset here: https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0B1HizVK87qvsS3kxX3A4OGM4WFU&usp=sharing
Max Mahoney (Chemistry) and I have been collaborating on a volumetric display for the 3D visualization of molecular models. We developed a pretty sweet prototype, and then Max had the idea that instead of one big monitor, wouldn’t it be easier to just have 4 identical small monitors?
Indeed I think it would be.
The video can be sent from the computer to a 4 way HDMI splitter, then sent to 4 identical monitors – maybe 7″? – each rotated 90 degrees. No special software to deal with, no creation of a special 4plexed version of the video. An elegant volumetric appliance, at least on paper…
Jennifer Kraemer (Early Childhood Education) was in the lab today, printing up some new connector pieces from the Free Universal Construction Kit. I used the K’NEX-to-Lego connectors in a workshop over the summer, and Jennifer is planning on printing many more pieces for use next week for activities with her ECE students.
Side note – I’ve been really impressed with the performance of the Printrbot Simple Metal. It’s been getting a fair amount of use lately, with the aquaponics nozzles and Max’s molecules and molecular visualizer and the picavet parts, and it just seems to go and go without being fussy. That said, I have my eye on a Formlabs Form 2. I’m especially interested in the castable resin. It would be great to get a metal pour going in the fall!
Details over at http://www.dolookdown.org/2016/04/18/3d-printed-picavet/
Did a quick SketchUp model of a picavet and printed it for a BAP day on Wednesday. Much lighter than the setup it replaced.
When I have a little more time, I’ll look into replacing all the metal parts with printed plastic ones.