fussing with stuff

Maker Classroom Resources

2011-04-20T09:54:00.000-04:00

In your maker classroom, you might to see the resources for teaching and learning as Widespread, Shared or Scarce. How you provision your learning environment will depend on how any given supply or tool fits into these categories.

Widespread resources

These are the supplies, materials, tools that are readily available in quantity and without reservation. In many schools, copier paper fits in this category, pencils, paper clips and other traditional supplies can be had with a minimum of begging. If there is a drink machine in the building, plastic bottles should be readily available. You may also arrange a donation of some amazing resource that will be available from the community. Several years ago, I worked out a deal with a parent employed at a corporation to donate 80 Pentium II and III computers. They arrived on two pallets along with mice, keyboards and a couple of boxes of power cords. Where before the donation, computers were a relatively scarce resource, suddenly I had so many computers that they were literally stacked three machines high under the the classroom tables. After using them as computers for students to rebuild, the components had a long life. From this ubiquitous resource of compujunk, we learned a lot about how computers work, how to fix them and how to repurpose the components, all the way down to harvesting cd drives for their motors, switches and amplifier chips.

Shared resources

For some materials, tools and even spaces, it makes much more sense for them to be shared. If there is an expensive tool that you don't use all that often, it can see more action in a shared environment. This is the case with 3D printers, electronic component collections and even the work room itself. Teachers who travel with a cart know about shared resources, as do people who frequent hackerspaces, community centers and vacation camps. With shared resources, tools and supplies can be concentrated in an area where other people have access to them, an the resources' use may be sporadic. These devices and supplies may be donated equipment or purchased with the intent to share.

With shared resources, it is important that people recognize the shared nature of the device and manage their time and access accordingly. If the whole class is sharing access to the laser cutter, or 3D printer, and others are waiting on machine time, then doing short cuts or short prints will help move the whole group to get a chance to use the tool. Saving a long print or a long cut until last in line when most of the group has moved on to their next class will help get everybody through. Trying out a new process that might take a lot of machine time can prevent others from getting their ideas made. If a student is waiting for access to the vinyl cutter, she should sit near the machine watching how the other people operate the machine so that she can get her project made quickly when it becomes her turn. People sitting near the machine should use it and move along so others can get their chance. They shouldn't sit and hang out, preventing others from accessing the resource.

With shared resources, the expense can be spread out over a greater amount of users who will access it. If a 3D printer costs $1,000 and thirty people can get access to the tool in a classroom or shared learning space, the cost per person is lower than if it's bought as a personal machine that stays at home and only one or two people use it.

Scarce resources

Some materials that student and community learners can benefit from are very difficult to get, expensive or potentially dangerous if not operated properly. If your classroom has one sewing machine, and there are twenty students, this scarce resource will need to be managed. While one person uses it, another might watch, but the other students will need to be working on other phases of the project while they wait their turn. Some might be designing, preparing materials, gathering information before using the machine, and others might be finishing their work and documenting their projects with photographs, video, text and posters after sewing with the machine.

If your classroom is equipped with just a little bit of white paint, this scarce resource must be managed carefully to make sure it gets used well. Sure, maybe you could go out and buy some, but what if time or money is also a limited resource, and you can't get more? How can the resource be managed? You may also want to make a resource scarce for other reasons. Soldering irons or utility knives are resources that I personally prefer to keep as scarce resources. It makes me more comfortable knowing that there are only a few of them to keep my eyes on.Having potentially troublesome tools kept scarce helps encourage students to use their time in a more focused manner. If you have large class size, then storage space might be more scarce than if you have small class size. This will affect the types of projects that will be appropriate.

Some resources may start out as scarce, then move on to shared and ultimately become ubiquitous. Computers hold a good example here. In the early days of computers, a student would have been lucky to get any computer time. Eventually, computer terminals allowed some schools to give access, then personal computers appeared in a few classrooms. It is now fairly standard for there to be at least one computer in each classroom, making it possible for shared access. Some classrooms have widespread access where every student has a computer. Digital cameras have followed a similar arc as they have gone from unusual and expensive to standard and embedded on just about every cellphone that students may have. As more students have greater access to these resources, it becomes easier to design projects around their use.

What are the Widespread, Shared and Scarce resources in your learning environment? How do you manage students' access to various devices and supplies to get the most learning out everything students can use?

Programming Play

2011-02-13T10:25:00.016-05:00

This project is similar to the Program a Person project from a few years ago. The main idea is to create a format for teaching programming through combining storytelling and object oriented code.

The participants in this project would be students/learners who don't know much about code, but are familiar with stories. Any age group could work. If there were participants who knew a bit more about programming, that would be great. This is also a great way to combine the disciplines of theater, writing and programming.

Everything that exists in the story has to be defined/instantiated/called as an object in the code.

Some objects would be:

theStage

theAudience

aCharacter

aHouse

For example, if the story were The Three Little Pigs, there would be calls for:

theStage = thisStage //stages can be given a variety of attributes, small, large, classroom, with lights, etc

theAudience = thisAudience //adult, children, deaf, blind, etc

aCharacter = littlePigOne aCharacter = littlePigTwo, aCharacter = littlePigThree, aCharacter = bigBadWolf,

aHouse = strawHouse, aHouse = stickHouse, aHouse = brickHouse

etc.

As the story develops and unfolds, the code would be displayed, highlighted, spoken to the audience. This could be be a line or block of code that is shown on a card. It could be shown on a display on a screen adjacent to the stage. It could also be spoken by a narrator (also an object instantiated above). Audience members could have a copy of the program or script, or they could write the program as they see the show.

Actions would be defined by a line of code:

littlePigOne build stickHouse;

bigBadWolf printf "I will huff and puff and blow your house down";

Desired outcomes:

The end result would be that participants would have a better knowledge of how code works, and could start to see the way programming applies to everyday situations. A pretest and posttest could identify learning that results from this technique.

This experience could be followed up by:

A more elaborate play programmed by participants
Type based programming projects
GUI based programming projects
Discussions of how aspects of a program could be acted out
Allowing the language of programming to be used in conversation to explain how things work in the world

If you are interested in helping develop the idea, keep the conversation rolling. If you have a teaching situation, try it with your students. I'm not aware of other projects that are similar to this, but surely somebody has done something along these lines.

Programming Play

2011-02-13T10:25:00.002-05:00

This project is kind of similar to the Program a Person project I wrote a few years ago.

The main idea is to create a format for teaching programming through combining storytelling and object oriented code.

Everything that exists in the story has to be defined/instantiated/called as an object in the code.

(my syntax is sloppy below...)

Some objects would be:

theStage

theAudience

aCharacter

aHouse

For example, if the story were The Three Little Pigs, there would be calls for

theStage = thisStage

theAudience = thisAudience

aCharacter = littlePigOne aCharacter = littlePigTwo, aCharacter = littlePigThree, aCharacter = bigBadWolf,

aHouse = strawHouse, aHouse = stickHouse, aHouse = brickHouse

etc.

As the story develops/unfolds, the code would be displayed/highlighted/spoken to the audience. This could be be a line or block of code that is shown on a card. It could be shown on a display on a screen adjacent to the stage. It could also be spoken by a narrator (also an object instantiated above)

Actions would be defined by a line of code:

littlePigOne build stickHouse;

bigBadWolf printf "I will huff and puff and blow your house down";

The end result would be that participants would have a better knowledge of how code works, and could start to see the way programming applies to everyday situations.

This experience could be followed up by:

A more elaborate play programmed by participants
Type based programming projects
GUI based programming projects
Discussions of how various aspects of a program could be acted out
Allowing the language of programming to be used in conversation to explain how things work in the world

If you are interested in helping develop the idea, keep the conversation rolling. I have a teaching situation in Pembroke where we could test it out, or you may have a venue that you'd like to work with. I'm not aware of any other projects that are similar to this, but surely somebody has done something along these lines.

Designing in Sketchup

2009-12-13T19:30:00.005-05:00

In my Principles of Technology class, we're using Sketchup to design the parts we will make for the Mendocino Motor. Though we'll fabricate the parts with hand and power tools, you can also use Sketchup to make the files needed to cut parts on a mill, Makerbot, Shopbot or other CNC tools.

The Mendocino Motor project appears in the Teachers' Pet Projects section in MAKE, Volume 20, page 79.

Here are some techniques to design parts for the motor:

First get familiar with the Sketchup interface. This is pretty easy, the software is rather intuitive. A good place to start is by making whole shapes with the rectangle and circle tools. Draw a shape, then use the Push/Pull tool to extrude it up or down. You can make a shape on the side of another shape, then pull it out or push it in. Make some shapes. Mouse over the tool icons and you should see the name of the tool in a popup.

You can also do some neat stuff with the Move tool. If you have a cube, draw a line at the midpoints (again, mouse over, and watch for the popups). If you pull the line up with the Move tool. This will give you something that looks a lot like a roof of a house on the cube. If you pay attention to the color of the line while you are moving it, you'll see that it takes on the color of the blue axis if you are pulling straight up. This means that you are moving parallel to the Z or vertical axis.

As the designers made the software easy to use, it is not very straightforward to resize objects and move features. Some other CAD software packages, such as ProDesktop, ProEngineer, Blender, Solidworks, AutoCAD, Rhino and more definitely do have measurement features that are probably easier to access. In general, these other packages are harder to learn, a tradeoff for their greater precision and parametric features. These other software packages (excepting Blender) will also set you back more than a few bucks, though most offer student/educator versions and discounts to help out some of us.

To get a more accurate design out of Sketchup, you'll want to start paying attention to the measurement box on the bottom right side of the screen. If you make a rectangle and then type in the dimensions you want it to be and hit the enter key, the rectangle will be the size you specified. For reference, I've made a set of screenshots of just about all the steps taken in this tutorial. The tools themselves are not shown on the screenshot, but you can tell which tool is being used by looking at the icons in the toolbar. The measurements of all the parts are listed on the MendoMeasurements page of the course's wiki.

For the base of the motor, we need to make a 3 3/4 by 9 inch rectangle. Draw any rectangle to the right of the origin intersection. Immediately after, type the size, 9, 3 3/4 or 9, 3.75 and hit enter. The rectangle should be resized along the x axis. The first number is the distance along the x axis, the comma separates the x and y values, and the second number is the distance along the y axis. You can check the measurements with the Tape Measure tool.

Next, we'll want to extrude the shape up 3/4 of an inch. To do this, we use the Push/Pull tool. Switch to the tool, then hover over the rectangle. You will see the shading change. Click the mouse and push up any distance. To size the extrusion, type 3/4 or .75 and hit the enter key.

To place the grooves that the magnets will sit in, we need to make some guides. The grooves will be half of the thickness of the wood, or 3/8" and they will be 1/2" thick. Use the Tape Measure tool to make the guide. In the tool, first click on the bottom or top edge of the shape. Drag down and type 3/8 to place the line. It should be a dotted line. On the front edge of the block, make a guide that is 2 1/4" from either end. To locate the other side of the groove, measure towards the middle of the block 1/2" and place another guideline. Next, use the Line drawing tool that looks like a pencil to draw in the three lines of the groove. Once the lines are in place, you can use the Push/Pull tool to remove the material of the groove. Once the file is complete, save it as BaseWithGrooves.skp.

The next two parts are easy to make in Sketchup. The upright is 3 3/4 square and 3/4" thick. When you make the rectangle to start the part, put the coordinates in as 3 3/4, 3/4. This will save you from having to rotate it later. Use the Push/Pull tool to extrude it up to 3 3/4. Save this file as Upright.skp. To make the mirror, use the same process. Make the rectangle with the measurements of 3 3/4, 1/8 and then push it up to 3 3/4. Save this file as Mirror.skp.

Now you have three parts that you have designed. To put them together, you create a new file that you will save as BaseAssembly.skp. Bring in the first part you made, BaseWithGrooves.skp. Place the part at the origin of the three axes. It should snap into place at the origin. While the part is selected, you can go to the Edit menu and Lock the component. This will keep it from moving around later.

Next, you bring in the Upright.skp. Go to the File menu and choose Import. Then find the part. If you also place this part at the origin, you can move it into place with the move tool. You can also eyeball its placement, but let's go for accuracy. Use the Orbit tool to move the view around so you are looking at the origin. You can roll the scroll wheel on the mouse to zoom in and out, or you can use the zoom tool. Click on the upright component with the Move tool, it should have a blue box around it. Select the bottom corner closest to the origin of the axes. Move it up on the Blue axis a bit and type in 3/4. This should place it on the top of the BaseWithGrooves part.

To place the Mirror.skp part, do the same thing. Import the part and place it at the origin. Move it up 3/4" and then move it along the RED? axis 3/4" It should be now placed on top of the BaseWithGrooves and alongside the Mirror part. Save the file.

You can also do some neat visual styling of the parts by selecting them and using the paint bucket tool to color them. If you want to color one face different from the others, you will need to select the part, then go to the Edit menu and choose Explode. This will allow you to change the part, even paint the faces different colors and more.

Wear your helmet EVERY TIME YOU RIDE

2009-11-21T00:58:00.002-05:00

On Tuesday afternoon I went for a refreshing bike ride near my house. Somehow or another, I got clotheslined on a dog's leash as I rode down a dirt path. I flew off my bike at a high rate of speed, landing square on my head. Several hours later, I came to in the ER of the local hospital babbling and repeatedly asking my wife Liz the same handful of questions over and over. Angela was at horseback riding during my misadventure, and ended up staying the night at our neighbor's house and we're tapping our network of friends to get her delivered to and from her many activities.

Physically, I'm kind of a wreck, my head, knee, shoulders, elbow and neck hurt. Mentally, I'm foggy, talking slow, tired, unable to focus on much, can't take much screen time, and overall kind of slow.

Years ago I decided to always wear a bike helmet. I had a bunch of bad spills as a teenager, but that seemed to stop around the time I started wearing a helmet. This was my first big spill since my reckless youth, and probably worse than any I had as a kid.

On Tuesday, I hopped on my bike, helmet on, probably with music going through my headphones, wearing a favorite hoodie and red jacket. Behind the seat I've got a blinky LED array to help my rearward visibility.

Through (probably) no fault of my own, I hit the dog's leash at full speed down hill. The bike stopped, but my body took flight. I ragdolled on the trail where I was peeled off the ground by my neighbor, the EMT. I assume the other end of the leash held the woman who called 911. I bet her arm hurts pretty bad.

Most of the whole day of Tuesday is gone from my memory. Wednesday was a wash, as we waited until after 6pm for the last consult. Thursday went to three doctors' visits that I couldn't drive myself to. Friday held only one dr visit, but I needed rides to and from. This week I missed three days of work, and next week looks like a washout as well. Substitute plans just aren't the same for the students as having me in the classroom.

This has been an enormous disruption, and there is plenty left on the plate. What I would ask of you, my bike riding friends, is to keep this in mind every time you get on a bike, skateboard, set of skis, snowboard or experimental homebrew vehicle. You don't know what will happen to you as you ride, and you cannot control how you will land. Even with a helmet, your life can become amazingly complex in less time than you an say 'look out!'

At the risk of coming off preachy, let me just say:
WEAR YOUR HELMET EVERY TIME!

Creepy baby

2009-10-31T21:25:00.003-04:00

2009-10-31 20.35.07.jpg, originally uploaded by connors934.

It was getting close to trick or treat time, and I needed something quick. Looking around, I remembered the dismembered dumpscore doll under the desk. Glowing eyes. That's what she needed. Red? sure, but wait, how about these multicolored blinky ones from Jimmie's throwie workshop? Yeah, that'll work. Fire up the Dremel, do a little eye surgery.

Next the circuit. Cut up a piece of stranded CAT5 cable to bring the connections down. Test the polarity before soldering. Put a little heat shrink on the wires before soldering, then move it into place after the connection is cool. Next up, a red LED for the heart. I dug out a 2AA battery pack for the power. The last part of the circuit was a switch so that it could be turned on and off for dramatic effect. Stuff the blinky LEDs into the head cavity, fit them into the eyes, then put the battery pack into the back area. The head is held in place with a zip tie, and she's dressed in some old doll clothes. She took an hour or so of fiddling, but everything in the supplies was already in the room when I started.

Out on Halloween night, she was a hit. I carried her in a sling, just like her older sister when she was a baby. Every so often I would ask people if they would like to see my new baby. As they got close, I flipped the eyes on with the switch behind her neck. Good response. Surprisingly, she raked in a bunch of candy of her own.

No gas car September 11th

2009-09-05T10:25:00.004-04:00

Here is an idea that I have been working with for a few years: a movement to have people avoid gasoline powered transportation on the anniversary of September 11. I have been doing it since 2002, and I like it. There has been a bit of inconvenience at times: torrential rainpour on the ride home from work a few years ago, and picking up my daughter at a playdate a few towns away on the bike with a tagalong was kind of tough. Each time, though I am confirmed that this is a valuable experience.

It has few rules: Basically, don't drive. If you can use your feet or a bike, great. If you have access to public transportation, make use of it. Carpooling is good, electric drive vehicles are great. If you live too far from work, you could stay with a friend who lives closer and ride or walk in. We can still do business and get our needs satisfied while using less or no fossil fuels.

Here are a few pictures I took a while ago to mark the idea.

If you would like to join me in riding to work each year, then come along. If you have some project ideas that we can work on to help raise awareness, then bring it on.

catsci

2009-05-15T22:05:00.004-04:00

catsci, originally uploaded by Dr. Monster.

Science fair fun!

Hello Blink!

2009-01-12T16:20:00.004-05:00

Everybody seems to be messing with Arduino lately. So today was my chance to give it a go. Jimmie Rodgers of Willoughby and Baltic helped me set up the software on my laptop at Noise Night. It was incredibly easy, and he helped me to understand that the IDE for the 'regular Arduinos' is different for that used on the Minty POV and Brain Machine.

Stephanie, one of my Programming students had a piece of code running on her laptop and wanted to test it with four LEDs. We set up a breadboard with the LEDs, and she got her program to run. She had it going Cylon style, where the light would pass from side to side. After she left, I noticed the breadboard sitting on the table, still hooked up to the arduino, so I figured I would give it a whirl. I plugged it into the USB port, fired up the IDE and saw her program run.

Then I decided I wanted to mess with it on my own, so I did a search for "Hello World Arduino" Hello World is usually the simplest program you can run in a computer language. I wanted simple, so I could understand what it was doing. I found the code, which is also in the Help Menu under something or another, but I couldn't find it easily. I recalled that Jimmie had told me that Blink is the first program you want to run.

I copied the code and pasted it into the script window. Then I had to figure out how to get it to the board. I hit the Compile window, which looks like a play button, and saw that it compiled. I tried changing a few things, and broke it.

Earlier, Stephanie had some basic problems as well, such as not spelling the variable names exactly the same throughout the code. Hand typed code is case sensitive, so it's important not to mess with it too much. When we were debugging her code, I put some comment marks ( // ) in front of the lines that were throwing the errors. Eventually, we figured out that the problem was capitalization.

After compiling, I had to save the file, and then download it to the board. I was very happy when I saw that one LED blink. After about a half a minute, I got bored, and started messing with the code. I tried changing the duration of the blink and pause, and then I made each of the four LEDs do thier blinky thing.

So now I have made an Arduino blink. There is so much more that can be done, but it all has to start someplace. This step for me has been a major block. For some reason, I haven't been able to get it going. But now it is going. Hopefully others may find this moment useful. If you do, let me know in the comments.

Makeit: open source kit idea

2008-11-23T14:22:00.011-05:00

Here is an idea that showed up recently:
It is handwritten because I needed to get it out quick.
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3058/3051988828_15c04373e2_o_d.jpg
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3160/3052001508_e40c10b472_o_d.jpg

Here is a link to the set:
http://flickr.com/photos/connors934/sets/72157609759515238/

This was inspired by getting one of those cheapie battery operated fans that have plastic floppy blades. It cost a buck, had a nice little dc motor, a 2 AA battery pack with a switch, and a removable hub that holds the fan blade on. As I drove home, I couldn't believe what a great deal it was for the dollarfan. When I got back, I made a quick little video of the "what could you do if you had a lot of these little fans?" idea. I probably get a couple dozen at least of the fans. There are probably more than two or three in the house already. If prople could weigh in on project ideas, then others could try the project idea out with whatever stuff they have handy. They could then post it up and the open source project could be widened with reader commentary and documentation.

The larger idea: is to create a kit based on very cheap objects like the fan. Things that have incredibly good cost to features value, like the dollarfan. Things like the old cd drives I used for a workshop at the Duxbury Student Union a few weeks ago, and other electromechanical junk. Inside the kit could be supplies like coroplast, magnet wire, machine screws and nuts, some hardware, some tools, all very cheap, replaceable, upgradeable. Enough to get some things done, cheap enough to provide variety. This would give people a way to experiment with the Design Process in a collaborative and low stakes manner.

Included in the information side of the kit would be some project ideas, questions that could be answered with inventions, thought triggers on paper, and in digital form. All of the projects would be listed first on the web in a forums like place. People would show their products in flickr, youtube, and what ever other systems they wanted to use. If they used a consistent tag, then the products would be easier to find. Makekit would be a decent tag to use. This could even turn into a formal curriculum if that were an interesting idea to the right people.

If somebody could create a simple project that would work on say turning a cd drive into a small remote control car, or creating a mp3 speaker out of a water bottle or yogurt cup and some headphones, then that kind of thing would be enough to get the ball rolling. Probably a dozen or so sample projects would relieve some of the 'gettting started' anxiety. Then, as supplies run low in the kit from project use, people should be recognizing the junk around them and the potential it holds. Of course, some of the text based material would include possible resources for finding replenishment supplies. The kit is a starter, and it grows as the user gains experience.

To keep the thing rolling, people, organizations and schools could use a subscription model. Once a month, or at some other interval, a new package would arrive with a few suggestions of project ideas. Maybe a tool could be in the package, like a little screwdriver with phillips and straight tip or needle nose pliers with wire cutters. That would be the JunkOfTheMonth club model, as Perry Kaye put it.

This idea will run out in as open a fashion as possible. Ideally, it should get lots of feedback and inspire some people to be collaborators. There are a few to turn to at this time, but through the forums and comments, certainly more would come out. It would also be possible to have people add ideas from developing countries.

So anyway, what do you think? What should be the first device to deconstruct/morph/hack/mashup? CD drive, dollarfan, cassette player? If you want in, send me a message, or add info into the comments. Tag your product with kitjunk or Makeit to help us keep track of what each other are doing.

User reviewed cell coverage

2008-11-11T11:15:00.006-05:00

This is a neat visualization for cell coverage. It also has embedded into the maps the location of the call towers of various vendors. I know that it is not up to date at this writing because it doesn't show the cell antennae in First Parish Church in Duxbury.

Makezine Education Blogging

2008-11-06T06:33:00.005-05:00

Over the past few years, I have been watching and informally contributing to Make Magazine's blog, Makezine.com. During a conversation with Phillip Torrone this year's Maker Faire, he suggested I blog for the site.

In talking with Phil and Dale Dougherty, we came to an agreement that my beat would be education. So my charge is to help bring together teachers and learners from across the world and help them find the best techniques and project resources.

Do you work with youth or adults, helping people to learn? Where do you get project ideas, supplies, community support or other resources? Do you have examples of incredibly good teachers? If you do, please share them with me so that we can all benefit. You can post to the comments of FussingWithStuff.com or the Make blog.

Here is my introductory post on the Make site: Link

Open Robo Baby

2008-11-04T14:46:00.006-05:00

In a school near you there is (hopefully) a program that teaches teens the issues of teen pregnancy. Babies are needy little beasties who want attention, care and feeding around the clock. While it is unwise and probably dangerous to send a fleet of fleshy babies out in the sometimes indifferent arms of our nation's teenagers, it is more practical to arm them with something a bit less animated.

Enter RoboBaby! For close to a thousand bucks, your school system can 'adopt' a glorified doll loaded with data logging circuitry.

Couldn't this be done for considerably less money? The one pictured here seems to have been dropped at least once too many. It may be an easy fix, but even after it is done, is it worth it for a school to spend so much on something like this?

So here, you can do your part to educate the seemingly all knowing, invincible and infertile teens of the world. How about OpenRoboBaby? What is out there that will work? How can schools produce their own?

Here are some photos to get you thinking: Link

Vibrobot workshop at Duxbury Student Union

2008-11-03T18:39:00.003-05:00

Calling all Tinkerers!

Do you enjoy tinkering with broken parts to make them work? Do you like knowing how motors and systems do what they do? If you are a girl or boy aged 12-18, you might like to make "The Vibrabot", a twitchy, bug-like robot with a toy motor and a mint tin. The project is featured on the cover and page 119 of Make Magazine #10 from O'Reilly Publications.

This introductory and experimental program is designed to develop curiosity, problem solving techniques and mesh the various mediums of documenting to build confidence and know-how for future projects. In the future, the Duxbury Student Union would like to create more workshops and experiences that help girls and boys take creative control over the systems and devices that they use every day.

This introductory session is offered free of charge this Friday, November 7th from 2.30pm - 5.00pm at the Duxbury Student Union. This workshop, led by Duxbury Technology and Engineering teacher Chris Connors, Alec Resnick from NubLabs.org and several collaborators will be documented with photography and video to be included on the Make Magazine website makezine.com.

To register, please call Sue Lawrence at 781.934.2290. Space may be limited to ensure that girls and boys have access to this workshop.

When trash talks to you: The educational value of junk

2008-11-02T14:21:00.001-05:00

When trash talks to you:
The educational value of junk

Intro:
As a teacher, tinkerer and curious person, I have learned a lot from junk. The discarded things and devices I have learned from have helped me to teach and learn about electronics, product design, mechanical devices and many other interesting ideas. Like many people picking through the discards of others, I have a few rules on what I will and will not gather. It should be useful when I pick it up, or fairly easy to make useful. I don't like dirty, moldy or otherwise noxious stuff. Obviously, if you are in relationship with others, those people may or may not be thrilled about a taste for trash. Spouses and neighbors, even city officials or neighborhood associations may have some opinions on what you can and cannot accumulate. Somehow, everybody has to be kept happy.

The value of emotionally unattached junk.
If somebody tossed it, you can do whatever you want to it. If you brick a device that came out of the trash, nobody will cry that they paid $400 for it five years ago. This is the most powerful concept of learning from trash. When I started working on a dumpscore computer, trying to turn it into a server for my classroom website, I realized that I could screw it up royally and nobody would be mad at me. That realization released me to be able to experiment without the fear of failure. It was trash. If I ruined it, I could put it back in the computer pile at the dump and nobody would know the difference. I made the computer into a server and used it effectively for years until I found another way of hosting websites.

What can you learn?
Electronics, mechanisms, product design, how things work, the history of technology, innovation, environmentalism,

How can trash talk?
Use your senses:
eyes - How does it look, does it have parts that are useful? What is written on it? What is the design of it?
ears - When you start it, use it, run it, does it make noises? Where are the noises from? When you pick it up, are there loose parts inside?
touch - What does it feel like, is it heavy, smooth? Can you feel the craftsmanship?
smell - Mostly, I give it a sniff test to see if it is musty. This is especially useful for books and computer that were used in basements.
taste - You probably shouldn't taste it, but some people don't have a problem with carefully found trash food.

How can you use the junk?
use it as it is
fix it
take it apart
make something new
take parts from one to fix another
take systems from one thing and add it to another thing

What do do when you are done with it
Take it back to where it came from.
Use it.
Give it away.
Sell it.
Take pictures of it.
Get rid of it.
Use it for parts.
Try to get rid of it.
Eventually, you probably ought to get rid of it.

Where can you get trashed?
The trash can in the house/school/office/etc.
Swap pile at the town dump
Dumpster
Loading dock
Somebody's junk heap/pile/room/etc. But always get permission first, because they may have something in mind.
Yard sale
Flea market

Photos to illustrate the ideas
Here are a few pictures that might go along with it, though I have many more. I have been doing this for years, and have a habit of often photographing as I go.

http://flickr.com/search/?q=dumpscore&w=13559856%40N00

Here is a set of a project that I did a few years ago. I still have the radio, and may add to the project. http://flickr.com/photos/connors934/sets/72157607723190514/
It was fun to take the old radio apart, see what all the components did, how they were connected to the circuits of the other components and imagine how they could be reorganized into another device. I attached them to a scrap piece of plywood, and intended to add an mp3 player input where the cassette head was, and an FM transmitter to the output so that it could be used to transmit the input to other radios in the house.
Resources to help with the ideas
Duxbury, the town I live in, has an active picking pile at the dump. It is actually called the Duxbury Mall. I have been using it as a project supply resource for years. Many of my students use the dump for a lot of the points of this outlined topic. I can tap into the experiences those people ranging from kids to college students to adults. Many of the people who graduate from my program at Duxbury High School learned a lot of what they know using these techniques and are now studying or working in the engineering field. I know many other people in other places who share this mindset.

If you have projects that came from trash, let me know. What did you learn from the trash? What did you make? Where did you get it? How do you dispose of the tailings of your trashy life?

How I share my information

2008-11-01T03:35:00.004-04:00

In the past few weeks, I have been having discussions with people about how to share information online so that their interesting projects can find an audience. In one of these discussions, most of the text of this post came out as an email. I have referred to it enough times that the idea needs its own web address.

For online, I like free. I also like instant availability and worldwide access. I aspire to travel, sometimes I actually do. One thing I hope is that people in other parts of the world will see some of my work and that of the people around me and be inspired to think about it and maybe even try something similar.

Photos
Posting photos is much more useful than leaving them on a hard drive. I am using flickr for my photos. For a pro account it's $25 a year for unlimited uploads and storage (yes I have tried to find the limit). I started using it because of the Make Flickr Pool. Happy ever since. I put everything up, and it is basically a second place to store it in case something tragic happens to my hard drive. Another nice thing about it is that if I recall a photo, I can get at it no matter where I am or who I am working with. Sometimes it comes in handy as a way of illustrating a point. Sometimes it allows me to do something creative on short notice. Sometimes I just need to use it to move a picture from one computer to another without a flash drive. If it goes into my Flickr account, it is retrievable.

Video
Most digital cameras have video capability. many cellphones do as well. Since we have them with us most if not all the time, we should use them. Youtube is good as a place to put the videos, mostly because of the community and audience that it will reach. Vimeo has fewer ads, and the quality seems better. Flickr also has video, but it is new and the size and duration of the files is pretty limited.

Wiki
There are many other ways of making a wiki, I use pbwiki for most of my daily online text posting. Mediawiki is more powerful, but more like driving a manual shift car. There are probably better solutions, but the markup is incredibly easy, and again, its free. When I start a new project, I just make a new wiki and add it to my little wiki farm. I have a few dozen at this point, and see no reason to stop there. Each wiki gets about 10 megabytes of file storage. Certainly it is enough for text files, code and things like that.

Text and office documents
Open office should be the standard for hard drive based office type tools. Why should anybody pay for the software to make a text document or spreadsheet? If your document needs to be opened ofn MS Office, save it into that format. Free, open source software will help individuals and institutions save money and have more options.

Google docs seems useful, I have made a few text documents and that kind of thing. It is also possible for people to collaborate on a single document. The power is there, but not many people get it yet. It definitely is a good way of posting your work, like slideshows or spreadsheet so that other people can view it. A student of mine posted his presentation on electric cars vs. gas powered cars. I thought it was a nice way of sharing the info. The calendar is also useful, and linkable, other people can import it into their calendars and stuff like that. The main problem with google docs is that nobody seems to be in the habit of using it. google code looks useful, though I have not really set to using it. Gmail works for me, and being able to search through the messages for the info helps.

Blogs
Often a blog post will start as an email to a particular person and then get copied into the blog interface. Wordpress, Moveable Type and Blogger are the blogging tools that I have tried. Blogger is the one I use for fussingwithstuff.com It allows me to add some tracking code for Google Analytics, and I can change the css skin pretty easily. Everything lives on the server, no software on the hard drive. Web browser access means that you can update worldwide. It does take a bit of learning to get at what it can do, I am still trying to get better at it.

Cross publishing
Lately, I am trying to tie all of my media together. My facebook account seems to be the binder. I have it set so that it has plugins for twitter, youtube, delicous and flickr. Whenever I update one of those, it sends a message over to facebook, which adds it to my wall and alerts all my friends. It is also possible to post a link so when I make a new blog posting or find something good online, I can share it with people through my wall. I have been trying to assemble a good list of friends who are really interested in the same kinds of education and hacking projects that I am. I like the list so far, and each time I do a collaborative project I seem to find more clever people to add to the list.

Tags
Tags are essential in the modern web. By tagging EVERYTHING, I can find it myself, and so can the other people in the world. Search engines use tags to find what is out there on the web. If there is a project that is unique to me and the people I work with, I create a tag and start using it. duxtech is the handle that I use for my high school technology and engineering program. connors934 is the handle I use for most of my online presence. By searching for that, it will show many of my social media accounts. Through poking around in those and in the tags that I use on them, you can see what I am up to.

Hopefully you found this helpful. Each of these systems takes time and patience to figure out. Once you get into it, you will find that there are powerful things that can be done by sharing ideas online. By showing others what your projects and ideas are, you can help find and build community around the interesting work you do.

Bret Dickerson on using the Shopbot in school

2008-10-28T06:13:00.005-04:00

Brett has been using Shopbot in his classroom for over 22 years. He likes what he sees in the changes that his students have shown. He likes the way that his students have grown socially and intellectually through the projects they have done. He has had a great time learning alongside his students.

A conversation with Mitch Altman at Maker Faire

2008-10-26T14:42:00.006-04:00

Mitch Altman creates kits that inspire people to make things. "If we don't make things on our own, then we're stuck with what the corporations want to give us....If we make our own things, we can make whatever we want. If we can imagine it, we can make it."

Wikipedia profile: Link
TV-B-Gone Link
Brain Machine on Engadget Link
Mitch's profile on the Make site Link

Brain Machine Users at Maker Faire Austin

2008-10-25T20:22:00.005-04:00

The people in this video are using Mitch Altman's Brain machine. It uses a microcontroller to vary the blinky pattern of the leds and the sound through the headphones to match brain wave activities and give a terrific visual experience. The program runs 14 minutes and is quite exciting. Every person seems to have a different experience.

The article in Make: 10 Link
Video Podcast Link
Kit in the Maker Shed Link
Hack it into a tin Link
Notes on Mitch's visit to AS220 during of the summer of 2008 Link
Mitch also invented the TVBGone Link

Danny Brought his daughter to Maker Faire

2008-10-24T16:56:00.005-04:00

Danny and his daughter returned to Maker Faire for some excitement with building and experimenting. While she was learning to print with silkscreen, he was checking out the Shopbot and surveying the nublabs Fab Lab.

Patrick Built his own CNC machine

2008-10-24T16:33:00.004-04:00

Patrick from Buildyourcnc.com talks about making his own computer numeric controlled machines. He originally started the project to make parts for a hobby, but now uses his machine to cut parts that he sells as kits so others can make their own machines. It is the machine that can make its own replacement.

His website has lots of information for people looking to get started making machines that can be controlled by computers.

Site Link: buildyourcnc.com

Denise Made vinyl silkscreen stencils at the nublabs Fab Lab

2008-10-24T15:22:00.009-04:00

Denise is a chemistry teacher. She put on a contest for her students to design pictures for Mole Day. She brought the pictures to the nublabs FabLab where she used the vinyl cutter to make the stencils. Later that week, she printed the shirts with the students. The students then wore the shirts in schools bearing their custom designs. Limited edition ChemGeek shirts!

She used the techniques for Silkscreen Print With Vinyl described here
nublabs operated the Fab Lab at Maker Faire Austin 2008

Matthew Dalton in the Maker's Shed Kit Building Area

2008-10-24T15:01:00.005-04:00

Matthew Dalton worked Maker Faire in the Kit Building Area of Maker Faire Austin. He showed people how to solder, and helped them through the process of building the kits that they bought at Maker Faire. By helping people get familiar with the tools of electronics, he's teaching them so that they can work on electronics at their home doing the projects they want to do.

Steve Davee Shows His Maker Notebook Projects

2008-10-24T08:19:00.008-04:00

Steve Davee came to the nublabs Fab Lab at Austin Maker Faire 2008. He has been working on his Maker's Notebook, and shows some of the way he has modded the book and how he has used it as a way of storing and developing his ideas. He also talks about his experiences in education and how he is able to inspire kids to do amazing things. Steve is a teacher at the Opal Charter School in Portland Oregon.

Distributed Manufacturing and Disaster Revovery

2008-09-15T06:25:00.018-04:00

Another weather update today: Hurricane heading for the Gulf Coast. It's the third time this month we have heard this announced. In the news report that triggered this writing, we hear that the contractors working on rebuilding from Hurricane Gustav are being asked to ramp up their 30 day contracts to repair damage so that the work can be done in a week or so. As this is being prepared for posting, we are hearing of the aftermath of Hurricane Ike and the destruction of Galvaston.

Three years ago, New Orleans was hit by hurricanes Katrina and Rita. The population of the Gulf Coast was scattered all over the country because the government was not ready to quickly house the people and rebuild the area's housing stock. In the years since, we have heard of the problems with 'FEMA Trailers' and the environmental hazards the represent. Once people move out of these trailers, where are the trailers to go? Stockpile them for the next emergency?

In the days after Katrina, I remember hearing that there was a sentiment that "Americans don't live in tents". Our people should not have cloth houses for even a while (unless there is hunting involved).

So we have a problem and an opportunity.

The problem is that we have large populations around the world that are located in high density areas, and these areas are subject to a variety of natural disasters. We have heard this year of hurricanes, earthquakes, floods, fires and tornadoes to name a few. Whenever these areas are wiped out, housing needs to be replaced, quickly and safely.

The opportunity lies in how the housing is replaced. What if we had a system to rapidly manufacture housing that is safe, sturdy, attractive and can be used for permanent or temporary use? This housing would not be built using traditional methods developed a hundred years or more ago, it would be an opportunity to reinvent housing design, construction and use.
Distributed manufacturing of architecture
With computer controlled tools like those found in the Fab Lab system and manufactured by ShopBot, we could create a network, locally, nationally and globally to provide good, safe, rapidly assembled housing. There are hundreds or thousands of tools around the United States and world that could be used on relatively short notice.

The parts of the houses could be shipped to a distribution point, then trucked or trained in to the disaster zone. Once on location, the parts, which would have been cut to consistent specifications on similar materials. Obviously, some allowances would have to be made in the design to ensure that the parts would assemble properly. Assembly could occur with relatively simple tools like rubber mallets. The site would need to be prepped, a cement slab or some other foundation.

Each set of parts from a distributed manufacture would have markings that would help with quality control. It would be possible to check the numbers carved into every part and tell which machine it came from, and from there tell which material was used, and other data that the tool owner/operator would keep track of. This would help in the design process by allowing the testing of materials and techniques.

As the crisis is resolved, people in the emergency zone could continue to live in the housing, or they could turn it back for other housing. Since it is possible to build the house entirely with mortise and tenon, pressure fit, tab and slot techniques, the housing could be assembled with little or no hardware fasteners. If there is a surplus of these distributed manufactured housing units, they could be sold, moved or even cut up and chipped. Will it blend? Yes it will. But can we Watch it Shred? Yeah, that too.

In preparation for the next emergency, a number of these housing units could be stored warehouse style, maybe in shipping containers that could be put on trucks or trains. When the next hurricane/tornado/flood/fire/earthquake comes, pop the houses into the transportation system and get people into safe housing quickly. These stockpiled kits would be from manufacturers who had been properly proven as having good quality control, since these would be the first to hit the disaster zone. In days, or maybe even hours, it would be possible to get roofs over the heads of the people who recently lost their houses to mother nature.

This would change the way we make houses. Instead of just making the housing faster, we would be reinventing the system of housing design, manufacture and construction. It would encourage collaboration and open source design. It would release the manufacture of the house from the local area, and support open source manufacturing. It would create a viable solution to the rapid and safe rebuilding of housing in areas where there are vulnerable displaced populations.

Larry Sass of MIT has been working on developing a system very similar to this. His focus is on the building itself. His designs and those like his could form the base of the system. But between where we are now and having trailers loaded and ready to ship to the disaster zone, we would need to have several intermediate projects of lower stakes to prove out the system.

The test part is an important step in the design process of the project.. A whole set of test parts with calibration fitting points could be made on one machine that has a known calibration and a history of accurately cutting the project parts. These tester parts could then be shipped out to the project participants who would then make sure their machine can make parts that fit into the tester's calibration areas. It would have some mortise and tenons and holes and rectangles, and probably some more than that. The part would likely be no more than an 8th if a sheet of plywood. When the machine user can make similar parts that are compatible with the tester, then the machine is calibrated to the international standard. The machine user may just want to know the machine is set right.

At that point, they can make an example duplicate of the tester and ship it back to a quality control group. If the part passes a test, then the machine is official. The official part would be optional unless the machine would be used on long distance group projects where intermachine compatibility is essential. The certification process could be done by shopbot, or some other group of trusted individuals.

As far as proving the system, it would be absolutely essential to test it out on some low stakes projects first. This would allow the manufacturing team to go through the design process as many times as needed to get the system working accurately and effectively. If the project had a number of intermediate projects and goals to build up to the biggie of fabbing houses that would sit in shipping containers waiting for a disaster. When you get to that point, everybody involved has to completely trust the system with good data behind its' testing.

Intermediate level projects could be the manufacture of something pretty simple but at least a bit complex like rubber band cars or a toy paddle boat or a simple chair/table/organizer/other piece of furniture.

As the project progresses, the manufactured projects get more complex or made of larger runs of parts. The rules governing the design get more precise, so then you can get into items that can meet national or international standards for manufactured goods.

Ultimately the project gets to make structures, maybe starting with a dog house design or storage shed or car port. When that system is working well, then the project tries out some even more complex designs

Links
Shopbot Tools - http://www.shopbottools.com/
Blend Tech - http://www.willitblend.com/
SSI - http://www.ssiworld.com/watch/watch-en.htm

Educators' Maker Faire Proposal

2008-09-14T11:10:00.008-04:00

If you were an educator or learner and going to Maker Faire, what would you want to find out? If you couldn't go, what would you want other people to find out? How could you learn more about what happened at Maker Faire long after the physical event ended?

Here is a link to the Educators' Maker Faire proposal: Link

These are supporting documents that will help inform our thinking about the project:

A Community of Learners Link Cultivating the Joy of Learning - Link Facts, Frustration and Fun Link

Cultivating the Joy of Learning

2008-08-29T21:57:00.007-04:00

Lately I have been thinking, both on and off the clock, about the school year ahead. As we go into the last weekend before school starts, I am mostly wondering "How Can I Cultivate the Joy of Learning?" The information that has been delivered to me has mostly been facts about what needs to be done, how it needs to be done and what the lawyers need me to know. Most of this information has been delivered lecture style. There was some discussion about 21st Century Skills, how to become critical thinkers and effective problem solvers. That was the good stuff, and unfortunately was over within ten minutes. Most of the rest of the days were filled with smart people at the front of the room telling the audience what they needed to know.

When I go to a conference about a topic I find fascinating and important, I sit up front. When I go to a concert, I see the audience crush the stage. When I go to a meeting, I see empty rows in front of the room. In a classroom with optional seating arrangements, I see students with interest sitting in the front and goof offs in the back. What is it that causes these differences in seating arrangements? What causes the conference members to crush the speaker while the meeting attendees and students crush the back wall?

While I don't know the answers to these questions, I am very interested in helping people learn. As a person who dislikes lecture format information delivery as both a student or teacher, it is always important to me that other styles of teaching and learning have a chance.

Back when I was being trained as a teacher, we talked about the Teacher/Learner. It was expected of us that we knew some things and that we were committed to finding out more. We were trained to believe that our students knew about things that we didn't. We were not encouraged to always be The Smart Person at the Front of The Room. It was our responsibility to uncover the possibilities within our students and ourselves. As our students learned, so did we. We were facilitators in the construction of knowledge. The class that just left the room would have a different personality and set of interests than the one that was about to come in. Last semester would be different than next semester.

As I have taught, I have learned a great deal about the subjects in my classes. Often I have had, like I will this year, five completely different subjects in a semester. Eight different subjects in one year may be the greatest number, but even when I have had multiple classes of the same subject, the unique qualities of each collection of students brings out differences in the same subject.

So the school year looms large at the other end of this weekend. How can a mere mortal teach five different subjects, have each course contain meaningful learning experiences and be fun for both students and teacher?

Each class is filled with a group of individuals who most likely chose to be enrolled in this elective class. Since they chose, and since the class is an elective,unlike their math, social studies or English class, the people should be able to buy into working with the subject. Every person has interests, and every person knows of some issues that need to be addressed in the community.

Here is one recipe for making this work:
Build a Community of Learners
People need to get to know each other. People need to treat each other respectfully. We need to be committed to learning and sharing our knowledge with each other.

Assess the topic
We need to look widely at the topic and examine its components. For example, what is robotics? What is computer programming? What is building and repairing computers? How can a computer be used effectively and creatively? Making a publicly visible statement of the topic as the group understands it and working from there will give a good base.

Determine our level of understanding
Each group will come into the subject with unique perspectives and experiences. It is worth determining some of what we know and don't know as we embark on the learning experience.

Identify our interests in the subject
Each person will come into a subject with personal desires and agendas. Having these known up front to the group as much as possible will help the individuals move forward in the group community. In this area, it is worth noting that some people do not feel confident in speaking up about this part of the topic, and sometimes find themselves working on a project that they did not really buy in to. When group decisions are made, it is important that people not look back in unproductive regret on the choices of the group.

Name the public/external expectations of us as a community of learners
The learning group may have been given an expectation in the form of course description, behavior code, state curriculum frameworks, or other Fact based expectations. Name them early, and the group needs to commit that they will be adhered to. What are the facts that we will be expected to demonstrate at the end of this experience?

Create the base of knowledge we will need
Every time the learning group meets, the members of the group needs to build its base of knowledge. Each person needs to commit to learning about the subject in meaningful ways. This may involve there being a teacher from the ranks of the group who delivers information, or it may involve people working collaboratively helping and assisting each other. It may also involve independent study and work on projects.

Collaborate to make an enduring public artifact to represent our learning and promote the work we have done together
During the larger time frame of the learning environment, the group and its individuals need to collaborate to create some thing or collection of things that will help demonstrate what was learned. The external community needs to see and recognize the learning and achievement that has occurred within the learning environment. It is important that the learner's peers see what they have done. The elders in their community need to see and recognize and support what they have done and created.

This enduring public artifact should be documented and archived in easily retrievable ways such as web pages, online photos and video. The learners should present their work publicly in front of the people of their community. After the presentation of their work, the evidence of the work should remain so that their learning can continue to affect the interest and inspire the learning of others.

So this could work. Personally, I have been involved in each part of this process before, but not so much as a comprehensive whole learning approach. It may be that by using this approach, it could be refined and repeated in other communities of learners.

Why Do Cyberthieves Steal?

2008-08-25T17:09:00.008-04:00

A few months ago my debit card was compromised by cyberthieves who intercepted the data coming from my transaction at the local Hannaford's supermarket. They bought about $800 worth of stuff in Kuala Lampur. Fortunately, my credit union noticed that I was buying things locally and thought that the Malaysian purchases might not be legit. It took several months for the money to get credited back to my account because of delays in getting the police report done. The whole thing was at least mildly disruptive to my finances.

This has gotten me thinking. Why is it that people steal through online networks? Why do people hack systems? What separates the regular 'hacking for the fun of it' people from the 'hacking for the profit of it' cybercriminals?

As I have read through some of this information, I realize that I and many of my students may be considered Hackers. We like exploring systems and making them better for our own purposes. Personally, I have no real interest in exploiting these experiences for profit, my goal is to gather information about how things work and how to make them more capable.

There are many misunderstandings about Hackers. These misunderstandings come at least in part from the actions of people like those who stole my debit card information, and others who choose to cause chaos on our computer networks. I can't say I understand why people do this kind of thing much better now than I did before, but I do know that there is a lot of good to be done with Ethical and Productive Hacking.

Here are some links that I found on my quest for more information:

How to become a Hacker: The Cathedral and the Bazaar Link

The Five Principles of the Hacker Mindset (from Eric S. Raymond): Link

The Cathedral and the Bazaar by Eric S. Raymond online at Link published by O'Reilly in book form as well.

Why I love hackers by Tim O'Reilly (presentation): Link

Defcon is an influential event in the Hacker community: Link
MIT/MBTA fare dispute discussion at The Tech: Link
- on Yelp: Link
- at Information Week: Link
- on The Bostonist: Link

Hackers by Steven Levy: Link

Cloud Collaborating, virtual worlds and the hacker mindset: Link
The Hacker Ethic by Pekka Himanen: Link
Old and New Hacker Ethic by Steven Mizrach: Link

Hacker Manifesto on Wikipedia: Link
Chaos Computer Club on Wikipedia: Link
Timeline of Computer Security Hacker History on Wikipedia: Link
It is useful to note that there are a variety of interpretations to the word "Hack": Link
The Happy Hacker: Link

Facts, Frustration and Fun

2008-08-19T09:05:00.011-04:00

In learning, there is a balance between Facts, Frustration and Fun. In order to have it all work in favor of the learner and learning environment, the education experience should be enjoyable, informative and relatively free of barriers between the two.

Facts:
To get true command of any subject, the learner must master at least some facts. They can get the facts by being told them or pointed to them, or they can get the facts by finding them as they need them. In standardized education, some authority above the teacher and learner dictates what the facts to be learned must be, and the teacher has to make sure that the learners have an equal chance to gather, integrate and master the use of these facts. It seems a lot of the time, educators spend an undue amount of time on 'covering the facts'.

Frustration:
Frustration can be very helpful in an appropriate amount. By getting frustrated, the learner actually has something at stake in learning the material. If success comes too easy, then the prize of achievement is a hollow victory. If the whole experience is too hard and filled with blocks to success, the learner gives up too soon. Some students will slog on 'just because that's what we were told to do' and will recall the experience with dread.

Fun:
Most people do things because they are worthwhile. Adults seem to be focused on getting things done because they have to. Money is a strong motivator, especially for adults. But in learning environments, especially with young learners, Fun can be the strongest motivator. What is the value of this experience? Just doing it because they have to isn't going to be enough. Is there laughter as people explore the topic? Does the experience lead to a desire for more knowledge? Does the Fun increase the desire for more Facts? Does the Fun minimize the effects of the Frustration? Eventually, the students will reflect on their experience and judge it to be either Fun or Boring. Too many Boring experiences and things don't go well.

The more Fun the experience is, the more useful the Facts are, the fewer major Frustrations between the Facts and the Fun, the more successful the learning environment will be.

Breadboard Western

2008-08-19T07:46:00.004-04:00

Capacitors ride the posse on their resistor steeds. Disc and electrolytic duel it out in the electron saloon. Aliens anyone?

From Star at Miters - Link

Engineering the Future - Boston Museum of Science

2008-08-09T11:46:00.003-04:00

Engineering the Future

Students should be learning how to solve problems using tools and ideas. They need to have a working knowledge of the Design Process. Just about the only curriculum that addresses this issue directly is the Engineering the Future project originating from the Museum of Science in Boston MA.

People who know how systems work and how to solve problems methodically make better citizens.

Here is a link to one of the segments of video about the curriculum. It was filmed in the Technology and Engineering classrooms at Duxbury High School.

Video: Link

Duxbury High School Technology and Engineering Wiki: Link

Learning Styles and Teaching Styles

2008-07-19T09:06:00.005-04:00

Today I saw the need for different learning styles and teaching styles in action. I thought it was interesting how they voiced a need for a different style out of me, and I was able to do what I could to accomodate it.

In the world of MCAS, No Child Left Behind and centralized testing of curriculum outcomes, the learning objectives come from the top and get delivered to the people below, whether the people below are teachers or students.

What I am seeing with Learn 2 Teach, Teach 2 Learn, there is little of the top/bottom hierarchy in the structure. "We want to learn it by doing it, not by hearing it". That works for me, but it does make for a tricky situation of making sure that "everybody gets It" Who defines the 'It' that they are getting?

If people demand not to have hardly any lecture based delivery of information and then start side conversations and other off topic activities, then it is probably not about learning styles and teaching styles, its probably more about control of the situation and other behavior issues. If a goal is framed, but not worked towards effectively, then what is the problem? Is the search for information not being treated seriously, or is there a problem with learning tools and techniques? Is it not okay for participants to ask the questions they need to get the results they have framed as goals?

In a lot of public school learning situations, the emphasis has really become 'results based learning'. Some call it teaching to the test. Students should know this that and the other thing, and here is how they will get there. In the l2t/t2l environment, the learners are framing a lot of the goals. This can be a messy, exciting business. With everybody heading to the goal in their own direction, they all can learn creatively and come up with novel solutions to the problems they face.

In this technique and process, some people can fall or slip through the cracks. They may not understand the goals (fall), or they may not agree with them (slip). In either case, it is possible for them to quietly (or sometimes not so quietly) dodge the goal and not get it done, or get it done poorly, or let their groupmates do it for them.

I would be very interested in getting your feedback on this. I am also looking for the right place to park this type of written work online. I would rather have a community of writers than a solo effort. Care to join me?

Idea Capture with Writing

2008-07-19T00:02:00.009-04:00

One of the things that I do is to reflect on the things that I do and write them up. As I write, I get more questions, and more clarity. I consider you to be my collaborators in education at this point, and value your opinion. It may be that I raise questions and observations that you share as well. If that is the case, then it would be very helpful to have a dialogue.

In reading the grants that funded the program this year, I did see several references to growth of the program to other programs and other cities. If that is to happen, we must make a trail of information for future program leaders and participants to follow. If we are to recruit teachers and organizers into the fold, then we need to have something to point to so we can show them the way we think about teaching, learning, organizational structure and the topics we cover in the program. We cannot rely on oral history to spread the word of how the program works. At some point, there must be a manual of sorts written so that others can emulate the policies, techniques and community building that has gone on at SETC for so many years.

While it is very important for the youth leaders and participants to write about their techniques and experiences, it is also important and essential that the adult leaders find ways of writing accessibly about their beliefs and techniques of how these programs and systems work and don't. There really should be a place for the adult leaders and mentors to share their ideas, theories experiences and dreams about the programs. It could be a great benefit in ways that we can't quite see at this time. The writing does not have to be extensive, and can be pointers to the important work of others.

It is my belief that the more that is written, the better. The reasons for writing are several:

Writing helps you remember
If you write something in a trusted place where you know you can access it again, you can stop trying to remember it. Your system remembers it for you. You can use email conversations, which can be archived. You can put it online in a blog or wiki, and make sure that the account stays active for as long as you need it. You can write it in a notebook and hang on to the notebook for as long as you need it. You can use loose pieces of paper to write it on, and keep the paper as long as the information is valuable. Using the writing, you can come back to an idea hours, days months or even years later when you need the idea again.

Writing helps you think
As you write, new ideas and questions come to mind. These will give you a better understanding of the issues you face. It may be that the solution comes to you as you write, or you get a clearer view as you write about it. It may be that you come up with other parts of the issue show up in the form of questions to ask and find out about.

Writing saves you time
In the learning style we are advocating, participants get what they need when they need it. If somebody comes to you with a question and you have ten minutes, a half hour or an afternoon to answer it, then you do it right then. But what if people keep coming to you with the same question? It is better in that case for you to write it up and make it accessible. Then when people get in the habit of reading and researching in addition to speaking and using conversation to gather information, then they will come to you with better and more informed questions.

Writing can evolve as the ideas evolve
As people's beliefs, opinions and experience evolve with time, it is possible and advisable to go back and refine the written body of work. As ideas change, then they can be updated. If an idea becomes outdated, then it can be ignored and not read, or it can be rewritten to reflect the new thinking. Where the writing resides can make a difference to. It is possible to place greater or lesser prominence on it by showcasing it in various ways, like printing it out, putting it on the front page, quoting it in a blog entry and more.

Energy Sock Puppets

2008-07-14T19:09:00.006-04:00

What would the various energy types say if they were in front of you? Maybe it would be something like this. This video is not the best, but it was an interesting way of presenting the information.

The show was presented at Solarfest 2008 in the Youth Track. Kids were receptive to it, and had a lot of good insight as to the types of renewable energies and how they fit into the big picture. The show was fun. Afterwards, the facilitators passed out hand cranks to show how you can make your own electricity, and answered questions. They compared three types of light bulbs, Incandescent, compact Flourescent (CFL) and Light Emitting Diodes (LED). Apparently there is a lot of promise in LEDs because of their greatly increased use of energy efficiency.

Links

http://solarfest.org

Design Process and Design Squad

2008-07-02T08:51:00.004-04:00

On PBS, WGBH Channel 2, there is a great show based on engineering challenges where teenagers compete with and against each other. This week’s show has two teams working together to build a hockey practice target for use by the Bruins. When I watched the show this morning (it airs again at 5:30pm Sunday) I was struck by some similarities between our program and theirs.

They have teenagers working together to solve problems.

The participants are doing complex things with interesting systems.

The individuals are explaining what they are doing as they do it.

Builders and makers are learning about the things they are working on and providing a functioning project.

Solar Panel simulator in Scratch

2008-06-06T08:25:00.008-04:00

Learn more about this project

This is a project I have been cooking up this week to combine Solar Energy with Scratch. Scratch is a programming environment created by the Lifelong Kindergarten Group at the MIT Media Lab.

You can move the mouse over the left hand side to show a sprite which will allow you to adjust the brightness. If you have access to a Scratch Board, this script makes use of the light sensor on the board.

Mendocino Motor

2008-06-05T10:28:00.005-04:00

The Mendocino Motor is a great project in which you make a solar powered, magnetically levitating motor. We use a 1 inch square balsa block to serve as the rotor, cut the corners off with a 1/4 inch router bit. The motor is wrapped with 32 guage magnet wire. the solar panels are 3/4 inch by 1 3/4 inch cells with tabs. When it is running well, it goes pretty fast.

Click on the video to see it run.

Links
Mendo Motor Process - link
Mendocino motor measurements - Link
photos - link

Geodesics and GIKs

2008-04-13T12:41:00.011-04:00

The other day I tried two different building systems in the same environment with teenagers. Geodesic Domes have long been an interest of mine, and I have successfully made a few of them with straws and attempted to use other materials. GIKs or Great Invention Kits are something of a newer building technique. When we were in South Africa, my daughter made a kit with a lot of help from one of the staffers at the Capetown Fab Lab. I have seen samples of them in all the Fab Labs I have been in.

Early in the morning I sent out an email message asking if anybody had a copy of the cutting files I would need to make my own GIKs. Later in the morning I printed up some geodesic dome strut calculations for figuring out what size and how many struts and connectors we would need. With the information, a pen, metric ruler, lots of pipe cleaners and a box of colored straws I set out to measure the struts and cut them. The information came from Desert Domes, where there are a lot of calculators for different frequency domes. Their focus is more on conduit strutted domes, but I have adapted their info to straw domes in the past.

During my process of gathering information and starting to build the geodesic dome, I was able to catch a few people to help out. It was pretty much a "Here is what you have to do, then you have to make some of these, and then some of these..." kind of experience. It was very much tied to the information that I had gotten. Too few struts, or the wrong size, and it won't work. We used a template on a piece of paper to get the sizes consistent. Each of the two sizes of struts (100 mm and 90mm) were a different color, to make identifying them easier. There were 4, 5 and 6 way connectors. Each was made with a different color pipe cleaner.

After most of the struts were complete, I left to go to the Fab Lab at the South End Technology Center. During my time away, the materials were put aside to keep them from getting mixed up. The information was out and visible, but people didn't know enough about the project to figure it out. When I returned later, I brought a sample straw dome made several years earlier and a book on Geodesic Math.

At the Fab Lab, I checked my email to see if there were any files available, but they were not. So I needed to make the files myself and then fabricate the GIK parts. During the process, I wrote up my workflow on how to design the file. The link to the process document is here.

During my session at the lab, I made a few dozen parts of two designs, square 4x4's and rectangular 4x8's. I brought them all with me back to the group, and put them out on the same table as before. This was also a drop by activity, and I did a little recruiting, but not much. I showed a little of how to combine the shapes, and one teenage girl's eyes lit up when I asked her if she would like to try them. She and a few others quickly got the idea of how to attach the tab and slot shapes, and quickly built a shape out of them. As people passed in and out of the group, they added and modified the construction.

The time shifted and people moved on to other activities. I was next in a room with a half dozen teenagers and one other adult. I brought the geodesic dome parts in with me and set out to make the shape from the parts.

In the construction of the geodesic dome, Jen, the other adult said she was "fascinated to watch how I was building this thing", but she did not get engaged enough to join in. I explained what the different coloring was, and how there were colors for the connectors. I showed the diagram used for assembly. During a half hour or so, none of the teens joined in, preferring instead to play a card game (again, it was a personal choice time for the activities). As the dome got built, I had to keep referring to the diagram, and had to make sure I was getting it 'right'. The connectors were not staying in place, and I was clearly struggling to get the whole thing to stay together. I ultimately gave up after the bottom level of triangles was complete, but I could not get the horizontal layer of struts to stay in place without pulling out many of the connectors. I put the parts back into a basket and got them ready to take them home.

During this time, I recalled trying to build a geodesic dome several years ago with my daughter and nieces, all preadolescents. That kit used plastic tubing held together with machine screws and nuts as the connectors, and wooden dowels to serve as struts. On that project, it was me who held the information and them who were serving more as helpers. We tried holding the fittings with duct tape, and even tried screwing the connectors to the dowels. As the kit failed to stay together, they lost interest in the project.

What I see from this experience is that there was only one solution to the Geodesic Dome project/activity. If the parts were the wrong size, or if the directions were not carefully followed, and if all the problems were not resolved properly, then the dome would not stand up.

In the GIK project/activity, there were many solutions. Each person would need a mininum of instruction, and would be free to create anything from imagination. As long as the parts were manufactured with pretty reasonable tolerances, the people using them would be able to get them together. From their assemblies, could come a lot of variations. They would not look exactly like "a building" or "a spaceship", but the ideas could come across in the object.

Certainly there are lots of things that people have done with geodesic domes since their invention by Buckminster Fuller. They have been used as homes, shelters, playground equipment and much more. There is, however a static way in which they must be assembled. Once that level of requirement is met, then they can be used in very creative ways. Materials can be substituted, sheathing can be added, and much more.

What I saw with my experiment trying out the two techniques out on a similar set of teenagers was that it was much more intuitive for people to get engaged with building from a kit of GIKs than from a kit of geodesic dome parts.

Links

Desert Domes -link
GIKs - link
Instructions on how to make GIK files - Link

FabLabEasterEggContest

2008-03-23T21:38:00.008-04:00

The other day I got this from Sherry Lassiter, Program Manager for the Center for Bits and Atoms, host of the Fab Lab initiative at the MIT Media Lab. The prize this year was a free trip to the Norway fab lab in June 2008, including airfare, housing and meals covered for one week.

Dear all you FABULOUS FabLabbers:

At 1:00PM (EST) on Friday, 6:00PM (Amsterdam time) we held the Fab Easter Egg competition. There were a total of 10 entries from 5 countries. And they were wonderful. Judging was done by one of the newest fab labs in the network, the Waag Society Fab Lab in Amsterdam. Jean-Michel Molenaar and Alex Schaub, the fab lab managers there gracefully served as our judges-- with a little help from Bas van Abel.

I'll be making up a webage to document the competition on Monday, but in advance of that here is the list of participants and links (where possible)to their work. Winners annouced below.

Pabal, India Fab Lab:
2 egg entries by Hiren Panchal

Please see the link of egg design (first link) on our blog. This shows step by step activities done by our student Mr Hiren Panchal (17 year Old) on the laser machine.
http://fabinnova.india.googlepages.com/home
http://fabinnova.india.googlepages.com/egg

Amsterdam, Netherlands Fab Labs:

Waag Society Fab Lab:
Alex Schaub: Proteins Can Be Light and Beautiful
(We didn't totally understand it, and we're waiting for Alex's pictures and written explanation... but Alex's entry was a gorgeous wall light that looked like a fried egg-- but when you looked more closely you could see in the white of the egg protein structures or DNA strands. Totally cool. The Polycom isn't the best visusal aid, so I know we couldn't see all the other integrated elements.)

Second Amsterdam Fab Lab organized by Fab Lab Netherlands maverick Dirk van Vreeswijk.
Designer Thomas Renouvin etched a lovely design on a brown egg. Here is the link to his project-- movies and explanation, in Dutch of course.
http://www.mediamatic.net/artefact-23403-en.html

Ghana Fab Lab:
A team of Fab Labbers made a Communal Easter Egg Table, complete with a rotary table top device (we call it a "Lazy Susan" here in the States).
Please see their webpage:
http://fab.cba.mit.edu/central/?q=browse

Norway Fab Lab:
Johann Wood, Jorgen, Aud and the youngest fab labber in t Anne Marie (born last September) had a enry just buzzing with energy and local relevance: Shimmy Sheep. First Johann made his own rotary attachment for the Epilog... ohmygosh. Then he cut the egg in half on the laser cutter, and inserted a motor, closed up the egg again. Aud and Anne Marie painted and decorated the egg to look like a sheep. When you turn the egg on, it runs/shimmies all over the table so you have to watch it and herd it so it doesn't fall off the mountain and hurt itself. We all laughed really hard. Johann owes us all pictures, movies and explanation.

Lorain County Community College Fab Lab:
Two entries:
Rita Hersch made a terrific, recyclable Easter Basket/Bird House. It was cut and engraved on the laser cutter
out of high-density particle board. When you are finished using it as an Easter basket, it converts to a bird house! Dual purpose.

Scott Zitek's was a blast of an entry called "Eggship Enterprise". Using a fascinating combination of traditional and digital egg decorating skills (I've never thought of using a laser cutter to blow out raw eggs, but hey, why not live dangerously?!?!?) he created a silver egg rocket, with a plasma drive. I'll leave the details and picutres to the contest website next week, but his was REALLY fun!

Me, Lass had two entries:
First entry was an egg laser-etched with several MIT logos:
Entry #2 from Lass Etched eggs: (best pic is #1672)
http://fab.cba.mit.edu/world/people/lass/Eggs/Eggs2008/lasseggs08.html

The other entry was my Vegas Egg-- a frilly construction of feathers, mirrored acrylic, vinyl, mylar completed by a blinking light circuit.
Electronics pics-- haven't posted pics or movies of the final decorated egg yet, but here are pics and movies of the working circuit (thanks to Amy):
http://img.cba.mit.edu/img/?v=t&d=080321_fablab_lass_egg
I'll post my tutorial online next week for how to etch an egg as well as the Vegas circuit files. Promise.

AND THE WINNERS WERE...

Ghana Fab Lab took First Prize -- hands down --for the Communal Easter Egg Table.

Lass placed second for the Vegas Egg.

Scott Zitek placed third with his Eggship Enterprise.

And Johann and the Norway team's entry was sooo good that we created an award category just for them: Technical Egg Guru. So they take the prize for TEG.

As the Ghana Team said in their award acceptance email: CONGRATULATIONS TO ALL THE PARTICIPANTS AND JOB WELL DONE!

Sherry Lassiter
Program Manager
Center for Bits and Atoms
Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Links
Fab Central recent Posts - Link
Center For Bits and Atoms - CBA Link
Lass' Blinky Eggs - Link
Laser eggs - Link
Last year's entries - http://www.fabfolk.com/fabeastereggcontest

Fab Lab and Scratch Field Trip - Saturday Programming

2008-02-18T16:05:00.012-05:00

On Saturday February 17, Tim Hovey and I took our Saturday Programming group on the road. The South End Technology Center (SETC) hosted us for the day, where we worked in the Fab Lab in the morning, then experimented with Scratch in the afternoon. We were met by Ed Baafi, who runs the Fab Lab portion of SETC. Ed introduced us to the lab and some of its possibilities. Mel King, who runs the South End Technology Center stopped by for a bit during the morning. Michael Nagle assisted the group in the Fab Lab. Amon Millner of the Lifelong Kindergarten Group at MIT worked with us on Scratch.

We ended up taking the T, but there was some kind of track repair and trains were not running on the usual tracks. Taking the train added at least 45 minutes to our travel time in. I guess that kids ride free on the train, so we actually saved a lot by not having to pay $50 for parking two cars. As it was, it ran $110 to bring the group in and feed them.

Mr. King was there for a few minutes, but I didn't get much of a chance to talk. Things were busy, kids were figuring out how to work the equipment and get what they needed. Nagle helped out with the late morning part of the day. There was a definite Creative Buzz in the room. The kids figured out their pecking order for who would cut on the laser. When Amon finished up his conference, he stopped by. When I left, Geoff and Amon were handling the lab and lockup.

The kids had a great time in the lab. They were all able to make things of their own design, starting with a cardboard product and working up to plexiglass when they had their design right. OpenOffice was new to most of them, making designs that are based on only lines was also a new concept. Kids tend to design stuff with color. The laser doesn't care about color, only line.

The scratch session was not as productive as I had hoped. They did figure out how to do a bunch of things, but we could have used about another hour to really get some product. The scratch boards don't work with the older version of the software on most of the machines. Most of the kids made accounts on the Scratch site, and saw how to find it by searching for scratch, top entry on the google search. They sounded like they would like to do some more experimentation with it. In about an hour and a half, they were getting the software to work and programming their animations to do what they needed. Alec did a demonstration on how to get the background to change. With headphones, they could hear the audio of what they were programming.

Angela tells me that the group dynamic was a bit off by her observation. She would have liked to work with more of a variety of kids. Two of them were spending too much time working together. I had to tell a some of the boys to moderate their behavior. These suburban kids really don't have their 'city faces' yet. They were excited.

On the whole, everybody agreed that it was a fun time, and they would all like to go back again. We will do some work with scratch at home and in our saturday sessions. I will also see about bringing them over to the high school to show them some of the possibilities there.

At this point, there are some parts of it that can and should be repeated with other groups:
We introduced new users to the lab. We showed some of the things that other people had done in the lab, such as some furniture made on the Shopbot and prototypes made on the lasercutter. We demonstrated the software tools of open office and CAM. All the participants had enough time to design at least one thing on open office draw, make a series of cardboard tests, with the lower settings, then a finished piece with the more powerful settings to cut in plexiglass. They had to measure their piece, and place the cut on a piece of plexi that had already been cut by other users. Some of them had the opportunity to make relatively complex designs by merging shapes to remove interior lines. The older kids made more representational pieces, alien, spaceship, star in a circle, while the younger participants were active in making shapes which had their names or other words etched onto the interior. Everybody was able to make something of their own imagining that they could carry a physical representation of out the door. They were universally interested in returning to the lab to make more.

Links
photos
Nagle's reference to Buzzing Creativity - Link

Scratch Website - Link
South End Technology Center Website - SETC Site

Facilitators:
Ed Baafi runs the fab lab portion of SETC link
Mel King runs the South End Technology Center - link
Amon Millner works on the Fab Lab and Scratch projects at the Media Lab link
Alec Resnick is a senior at MIT, helped facilitate in the lab - link
Mike Nagle is an MIT grad, runs a summer camp in cambridge, will help facilitate - blog link and Camp link
Chris Connors is a technology and engineering teacher at Duxbury High School and cofacilitator of the Saturday Morning Programming Group - Connecting link and blog link
Tim Hovey is a programmer by profession and helped initiate the Saturday Programming group to fill an unmet need for teaching kids how to use the computer as a tool through programming.

New Users at the Fab Lab

2008-02-09T05:23:00.003-05:00

In the past few times at the SETC Fab Lab, I have been trying to pay close attention to users who are new to the lab. Here are a few reflections. I have 'given the tour' to a few new users, and listened as others do the same.

The first time user presents an interesting opportunity. Each new person has the possibility to become an active participant making great contributions to the lab community. They could return later that week, or months later, or maybe never. I have seen each. One of the guys in the dorkbot group on Monday of this week told me he remembered a project I was working on with the laser last summer. My friend Lyle came back a week or two later with datasheets, schematics and a pretty clear idea of how his project should work and some opinions of the shortcomings of the Hello Board project. He still hasn't made anything, but his idea is getting much more focused. He is very much in the information gathering stage of the desing process of a sophisticated project.

The intro tour might be something that we work to refine so that new users get a consistent and complete perspective on what the lab is and what its' possibilities and limitations are. I think people should be able to walk out the door with something original in their hand that they created on the spot during that session. The workflows of their session should be fairly established and easy to talk them through without us having to hand hold the whole time. They should drive the computer, and we should not have to touch the mouse. Not everybody needs to make something their first time, but it is especially important for people who are unclear about what they want to make. Taking something home will give them an 'idea trigger object' that will help them to come up with a more interesting idea for next time.

There should be a scanner so people can transition from the hand drawn phase to the computer drawn phase more fluidly.

We should probably try to take a picture of each new user with their first product and post it to the boston fab lab group on flickr.

There seems to be a couple of categories of new users to the lab.

- People who have heard of the labs and know some of what they are capable of
- People who have been brought in by someone who has heard of the labs and don't know much about the capabilities

- People who have a background in making things and are comfortable with creating objects and devices with a variety of tools
- People who haven't had much experience in making things and are unfamiliar with the process of creating and making

- People who know exactly what they want and how to do it through at least one method
- People who are unclear about what they want/need and aren't sure how to do it

- People who are familiar with the Design Process either formally or informally, can use it effectively and aren't discouraged by obstacles.
- People who think they will 'get it to work just right the first time' and have little patience for failure in the process.

If we can figure out where a person stands on these categories then we can probably steer them towards the ideas and activities best suited to them.

Links
Boston Fab Lab on Flickr - Link

Shopbot Users Group Maker Faire

2007-10-24T22:07:00.000-04:00

On Friday October 19 Shopbot held a User's Meetup on a prep day for Maker Faire Austin. We were treated to lots of information about how shopbot is changing the way people do business. There were signmakers, boatbuilders, craftspeople and lots of curious, creative people.

For materials, mostly people were working with wood, MDO, Medium Density Urethane (mdu)There were some really neat ideas for signmaking with incredibly complex and innovative designs.

Prototyping was a recurring theme. One signmaker brought in a sign that he made to show a client, and the client liked it so much that they bought several signs of the larger size. A boatbuilder used a scale model to show the client what it would look/feel/weigh like. It helped inform the client before having the boat built. Having an example piece that the client can see and touch helps to illustrate what can be done in your shop.

Moldmaking is a neat thing and was featured in several presentations. We got to see the molds and the resulting products. People were very helpful in sharing information about what products worked and how to apply them.

Rob Bell has made a plug in for Google Sketchup that allows you to output your sketchup designs to the shopbot. He had a really neat dome-ish structure right next to the Shopbot booth.

Geoff Neilsen from the Fab Lab group explained how he is using the ShopBot to cut aluminum to make a desktop cnc machine. He is also using the shopbot to cut Delrin, which cuts almost like wax, but has strength similar to aluminum.

Later in the weekend, the Shopbot guys were very helpful in helping to set up our shopbot at the Fab Lab, helped us use the Shopbot to plane the surface of the silkscreen frames, and put on a couple of good cookouts.

It was good seeing how they use various hold down techniques. I liked their vacuum hold down board made out of luan and foam. They also had a nice vacuum shoe for keeping the dust down. At DHS Fab we have an older router, not the spindle, so we would have to make up a different vac setup. Bill Young said that there should be some files online for making the vacuum housing.

In the Shopbot booth they also had a computer set up to a couple of stepper motors controlling a pen on a drawing board. I didn't see a control box, could have gone straight from the parallel port. It was running on the Shopbot software.

Here are the photos:
Workshop Link
My Shopbot Photos

Personal Fabrication Summit

2007-10-24T15:18:00.000-04:00

This conference/ workshop/ meeting session included lots of key people in personal fabrication, Shopbot, Sketchup, FabLabs, Modkit, TechShop, Reprap, EvilMadScientist/CandyFab, Fab@Home and a bunch of O'Reilly editors and writers. A lot of the discussion centered around the possiblities of Personal Fabrication, some on the 'ideal file format' and a bit on the obstacles.

A big question that we discussed was "How do we grow personal fabrication?" Sketchup has a goal that they have of hooking people on the 3d design software within the first 15 minutes. At the Fab Labs, we are working on projects that will get people hooked on working in the lab with fabrication tools in under an hour. Bill Young from Shopbot is wondering how you make personal robotics tools available to people. Ted Hall of Shopbot noted that many tools for personal fabrication are inexpensive and available, but lots of people don't realize it yet. Fab Labs are free community centers and available on a drop in basis. In TechShop, they have a business model similar to that of a health club, where people pay a monthly fee for membership, and have access to the tools on a scheduled basis.

Some of the software that was discussed was: Sketchup, which can be used to model in 3d. Rob Bell has created a plug in to allow users to port their designs to the Shopbot. Inkscape is used in the Fab Labs, Blender is very hard to master, but has lots of open source power. Collada is xml, web based and works with 3D polygons, it was apparently designed for game geometry, but can make useful files for personal fab. Vectric comes from the Shopbot folks. Open Cascade and Maya were discussed. A bunch of people talked about Art of Illusion.

File formats included .stl and .dxf Nothing perfect exists, but people are working with the current situation. It would be easier to standardize some of the hardware if the file format question could be settled.

Some obstacles we identified were: fear - people can be afraid to try things. getting people access to the tools and process so they can try it out. Personal fabrication needs a public face to illustrate what can be done and how to do it. Just getting started can be a block for people. Usability is lacking, the software design tools are a problem, workflow issues block people from creating. Copyright issues are also a concern in an area where it is easy to clone/reverse engineer objects and devices.

Some project ideas that we discussed were Phil Torrone's Iphone stand, two pieces of acrylic that press fit together and hold the iphone at a nice angle for viewing movies. It is cut on the lasercutter, and the files are available online. A good entry level project. Shopbot has a parametric project system that allows users to cusomize known to be accurate designs and scale them up or down. In the Fab labs, we are creating a suite of quick projects to illustrate some of the power and process of each of the tools in the lab.

Heading to Maker Faire Austin

2007-10-23T20:08:00.000-04:00

At 4:00 on Wednesday afternoon Alec Resnick Ed Baafi and I met up at SETC FabLab to pack up the lab and jam it into our luggage We had a 6:30 flight and I was double parked. We moved fast.

In the back of my car was the original box for the Camm1 vinyl cutter purchased with a grant from the Duxbury Education Foundation over the summer. We put in the SETC vinyl cutter, some posters and a bunch of vinyl. Ed had a brand new Modela cnc mill in the original box. We stuffed all kinds of stuff into our luggage, t shirts, soldering irons, and a million small tools and supplies that we were going to need to build a Fab Lab at the Maker Faire. When we got to the check in, Ed and Alec shuffled the contents around so we wouldn't get over charged for heavy bags. Alec carried about 20 sheets of plexiglass as his 'personal item'

We grabbed a bite to eat at Logan, Ed tethered his computer to his iphone so he could set up one of the computers at the SETC FabLab to give us access to the files on the server there. We made our flight, flew to Houston, hung out in the airport for a while, everything was closing, then moved on to Austin. Lots of instruments in the baggage claim. Jose Marinez arrived a few minutes after we did, so we had more company for the wait on the rental car. Ed tethered again and got a better deal on the rental car than the counter would give. We got to the hotel at around 3am. Geoff Neilsen was already at the hotel working on the cnc machine build.

Thursday we had an early morning meeting at the site for the Personal Fabrication Summit. I was extremely tired, but went along for breakfast at Denny's anyway.

South Africa and Malawi

2007-08-29T18:50:00.000-04:00

The photos are finally up! We travelled to South Africa for a week, then four more weeks in Malawi. Organizing and uploading the photos has been far more time consuming than anticapated. Fortunately, all the photos have tags and are organized in sets. At this writing, all the sets are automatically regenerated, but some of the sets will be reset to be just the best of the images. If you have any opinions on the photos, feel free to comment on or favorite them.

Below are links:

This is a big collection of photos, so the 'best of' set will be in transition for a while after this posting - My faves, Africa 2007

Here is a collection of Africa photos - Link

Africa Travels Wiki - Emails and notes from the travels

The pendulum project supports AIDS orphans in part through Paradiso

Peace Corps Malawi is experimenting with a ground nut sheller from the Full Belly Project. Here are some photos of the ground nut sheller in action.

Stonebreakers - Breaking rocks by hand without slaves or prisoners

Full collection - Warning, this is a very large set - South Africa and Malawi

Put it On a Bike

2007-08-19T10:20:00.000-04:00

In Malawi, like in many other developing countries, the bicycle is king for transportation and cargo carrying.

The bikes we saw were primarily chinese or indian manufactured. They looked like the old 3speeds once widely available in the states. On the back of nearly every one was a sturdy steel rack, many of the racks were customized for load carrying. In 4 weeks in Malawi, I only saw one bike without a rack. He was probably riding it to the shop to have a rack put on it.

Regular people used bike taxis to get around. The passenger would sit on a padded cushion on the rack.

They were probably all one speeders. Gears or changing hubs would probably break, and become costly or difficult to repair. Even the western style mountain bikes that I saw had the derailleur bypassed or removed and the chain shortened.

This set is a sample of many more. To see the full list of bike photos, click on the onbike tag on the left of any photo in the set.

Flickr set

Roadside Blind Welding - Mulanje Malawi

2007-08-16T23:33:00.001-04:00

Next to an intersection with the main road to Mulanje works a group of men with basic tools. One of them was actively welding with a scratch built arc welder.

Wire was wrapped around a group of metal plates, and the whole thing was housed in a basic wooden frame.

To turn it on, the power wires to the transformer were connected to the AC electric supply coming out of the store room.

There was one guy doing the welding, and he was also alternating between bashing away at a brake disk from a toyota, trying to remove a part of the wheel hub. The banging was what originally caught my attention. He was beating away at it with a hunk of steel, fatiguing the metal of the hub for removal.

While I was there, he repaired two bikes, one by welding the pedal post back on to the crank.

The welder used no goggles. I didn't realize it until later, but his technique was to do 'blind welding' He would attach the ground to the bike, close his eyes, and scratch at the point he wanted to work with the electrode. When the current flowed and the electrode melted, he worked it until it was close, then would stop, open his eyes, check his work, and continue on or finish up.

Since most Malawians have little or no access to the energy of fossil fuels, people get around by either walking or using bicycles. These bikes are used for everything, carrying heavy loads, personal transportation and serving as taxis. They almost all have sturdy steel racks on the back. The bikes are made in China or India, Humber was a common brand name.

While I was there, I interviewed one of the guys about the welding being done. At some point I will edit and post the audio.

Photos - Flickr set

change in concept - Fussing With Stuff

2007-08-16T12:21:00.000-04:00

In this post I am shifting away from my previous concept with this blog. What I was doing before was using the blog only as a way of showing the podcast material. Every post had to have a picture from my flickr account and had to connect to the fussing with stuff podcast. While this did help for a while, the personally imposed restrictions have held me back from posting for over a year now. Basically, it was too complex. I have still continued to make audio recordings, some video as well, and also shoot lots of pictures. But having to make each entry tie to the edited, xml enabled audio file is too cumbersome. It is my hope that relaxing some of the requirements will enable me to use the blog to point out interesting things found online and in the real world. At times there will be audio or video to go with the entries, other times there won't.

Let the postings begin!

8-16-07

042-EdPerry-WATD-Introduces Reginald Fessenden

2006-08-03T23:10:00.000-04:00

Listen to - 042-EdPerry-WATD-Introduces Reginald Fessenden
August 3, 2006

Ed Perry, owner of WATD FM in Marshfield Massachusetts introduces Reginald A Fessenden. Fessenden created the first radio broadcast of voice, music and live performance.
Links
Radio's first voice - http://www.radiosfirstvoice.org/
Photos - http://www.radiosfirstvoice.org/Photos.asp Marshfield.net entry - http://www.marshfield.net/History/mar3.htm
wikipedia entry - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reginald_Fessenden
About.com Entry - http://experts.about.com/e/r/re/Reginald_Fessenden.htm

041 - Joel Talks Energy and Difference

2006-08-03T21:58:00.000-04:00

Listen to: 041-Joel Talks Energy and Difference
August 3, 2006
Joel talks about energy and difference.
Links
Photos from the workshop -
Engineering the future course description - http://mos.org/doc/1408
Course materials for the ETF Curriculum - http://mos.org/doc/1410
Teachers' area for the ETF website - http://etf.mos.org

040 - Cary Explains Dimensional Analysis

2006-08-03T00:25:00.000-04:00

Listen to - 040 - Cary Explains Dimensional Analysis
August 2, 2006
Cary Explains Dimensional Analysis as part of the curriculum for Engineering The Future.
Links
Engineering the future course description - http://mos.org/doc/1408 Course materials for the ETF Curriculum - http://mos.org/doc/1410 Teachers' area for the ETF website - http://etf.mos.org

039 - Alexander Rick and Ted Discuss The Organizer Project

2006-08-02T22:31:00.000-04:00

Listen to - 039 - Alexander Rick and Ted Discuss The Organizer Project
August 2, 2006
Alexander Rick and Ted discuss the Organizer Project in the Engineering The future Curriculum. Links Engineering the future course description - http://mos.org/doc/1408 Course materials for the ETF Curriculum - http://mos.org/doc/1410 Teachers' area for the ETF website - http://etf.mos.org

038 - Mike and Neil introduce the WPI Machine Shops

2006-07-25T15:18:00.000-04:00

Listen to - 038 - Mike and Neil introduce the WPI Machine Shops
Mike O'Donnell and Neil Whitehouse are members of the class of 2005 at Worcester Polytechnic Institute in Massachusetts. Together, they work at the school's machine shops, helping to train young engineers in the use of CNC equipment.
Links
Photos - http://flickr.com/photos/13559856@N00/sets/72157594206176774/
History of the Washburn shops - http://www.me.wpi.edu/MFE/washburn.html
Labs and research - http://www.me.wpi.edu/MFE/research.html
Podcast - http://feeds.feedburner.com/FussingWithStuffPodcast

037 - Chad tells about the commutacar

2006-07-09T09:11:00.000-04:00

Listen to - 037 - Chad tells about the commutacar
July 9, 2006

Tenth grader Chad spent his lunch breaks and what few afternoons he could find to restore a 1980 Commutacar. One of his goals was to get the car road worthy enough to run it in Duxbury's 4th of July Parade. The car made it with plenty of charge to spare.
Links
Subscribe to the podcast - http://feeds.feedburner.com/FussingWithStuffPodcast
Related entry - http://fussingwithstuff.com/2006/07/033-beth-and-matt-conway.html
Here are the photos - http://flickr.com/photos/13559856@N00/182573317/
Chad's documentation - http://chadconway.pbwiki.com/1980%20Comuta-Car
Info on the Comutacar - http://www.neon-john.com/EV/Citi_Home.htm

036 - Dr. Tracey Wright Practices Bio Geometric Integration

2006-07-07T09:55:00.000-04:00

Listen to - 036 - Dr. Tracey Wright Practices Bio Geometric Integration
June 28, 2006

Dr. Tracey Wright uses the techniques of Bio Geometric Integration as a chiropractor.
She explains what she does as she works on two patients.

Links
Photos - http://flickr.com/photos/13559856@N00/sets/72157594190665812/
BGI Seminars - http://www.bgiseminars.com/BGI_seminiars.html
ICPA 4 Kids - http://icpa4kids.com/
Cafe of Life - http://cafeoflife.com/
Wikipedia entry on Bio Geometric Integration - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bio-geometric_integration

035 - Chuck Nudd with Draco

2006-07-07T08:27:00.000-04:00

Listen to - 035 - Chuck Nudd with Draco
July 7, 2006
Chuck Nudd created Draco out of lots of steel Junk he had. The animated dragon has flapping wings powered by a windshield washer motor and illuminated turn signal eyes.
Sometimes he gets a smoke machine to help him breathe. Draco is often decorated for the seasons and holidays. He moves around town on the back of Chuck's trailer and has been seen at sports events, graduations, parades and in his lair on the Nudd property.
We spoke at the 2006 4th of July parade.
Links
Photos - http://flickr.com/photos/13559856@N00/sets/72157594188385257/

034 - Ned Lawson - Green Building at Duxbury Bay Maritime School

2006-07-07T07:31:00.000-04:00

Listen to - 034 - Ned Lawson - Green Building at Duxbury Bay Maritime School
July 7, 2006

Ned Lawson, Dirctor of the Duxbury Bay Maritime School talks about the school's project of designing a 'Green Building.' He spoke after a DBMS sponsored workshop open to the public on planning the building. The building will feature classroom space, administrative offices and boat storage. They are using a process called LEEDs, which has the planners look at many features of the building as they seek to minimize the environmental impact of the project.

Links

DBMS - http://www.duxbayms.com/mainpage.htm
LEED Certification Process - http://www.usgbc.org/DisplayPage.aspx?CMSPageID=64
US Green Building Council - http://www.usgbc.org/
Mass Technology Collaboritive - http://www.mtpc.org/

033-Beth and Matt Conway

2006-07-05T21:36:00.000-04:00

Listen to 033-Beth and Matt Conway
July 5, 2006
Matt and Beth Conway discuss the project of their son Chad to restore a 1980 Commutacar Electric Car.
They spoke after Chad drove in the 4th of July Parade.
The car had a new battery pack, and this drive was the furthest it had been.
Several thousand people watched the parade.
The car drove the length of the parade route without a problem.
Links

Commutacar photos - http://flickr.com/photos/13559856@N00/sets/72057594080325869/
wikipedia - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citicar
History of the citicar and commutacar - http://www.didik.com/cit_his.htm
Driving and electric car - http://www.didik.com/driving2.htm

032 - Hand Cut Put Put Boat

2006-07-05T11:10:00.000-04:00

Listen to 032 - Hand Cut Put Put Boat
July 5, 2006

The put put boat is a steam powered boat. In this use, they are hand made from either baking pan aluminum or flashing. The boiler is made by cutting and flattening a soda can, folding it, then epoxying in two straws.

Hand cut put Put boat.
Here, we use a hand saw to make the cuts for the put put boat.
Be careful not to lose the cut off pieces.
Pre drill your holes before screwing into the little pieces.
When you make your hull, you can use either baking pan aluminum, which is pretty soft and malleable or you can use aluminum flashing.
Baking pan stock can be cut with scissors, but flashing needs to be cut with snips.
Be very careful with the sharp aluminum.

Photos
http://flickr.com/photos/13559856@N00/sets/72157594188254710/
http://fussingwithstuff.com/
Make a Putt Putt boat - http://www.sciencetoymaker.org/boat/index.htm
wikipedia steamboat - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steamboat
How a put put boat works - http://www.nmia.com/~vrbass/pop-pop/aapt/crane.htm
How a steam engine works - http://science.howstuffworks.com/steam.htm/printable

031 Mixing Epoxy

2006-07-03T22:58:00.000-04:00

Listen Now - 031 Mixing Epoxy
7 1, 2006
Some information about choosing, buying and mixing epoxy.
---
Links
JB Weld - http://jbweld.net/index.php -
Penn State Epoxy - http://www.pennstateind.com/store/pkglue2.html -
Wikipedia Entry - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epoxy -
Engineering the Future - http://www.mos.org/doc/1408 -
Epoxy Photos - http://flickr.com/photos/13559856@N00/sets/72157594183343180/
Duxtech - http://duxtech.pbwiki.com/ -

030 - Nick Created a Hoverboard!

2006-07-03T22:54:00.000-04:00

Listen Now - 030 - Nick Created a Hoverboard!
June 28, 2006
This audio file cannot be edited in audacity, so it is left unedited as a wav file. Ideally, it should be shortened towards the end. There is probably an extra minute or two of riding noises.
---
Nick created a hoverboard!
It needs to be wider for stability. The skirt material is a painting drop cloth from home depot. He bought a big sheet of it and just used a bit of it. Other than that, everything was just stuff we found around the shop.

Here's a recording of how it went during one class. The audio is a little rich on the trumpeting sounds, of air escaping the skirt, but most of the details about the design are on the recording.
---

http://www.makezine.com/blog/archive/2006/06/diy_hoverboard_with_howto_audi.html
http://dhsengineering.pbwiki.com/Term4Projects
Here is his wiki - http://nmkguitars.pbwiki.com/
Photos - http://www.flickr.com/photos/13559856@N00/sets/72157594152692147/

029 - Longboard building with Max, Tim and Taylor

2006-07-03T22:41:00.000-04:00

Listen Now - 029 - Longboard building with Max, Tim and Taylor
June 29, 2006
Max, Tim and Taylor built a bunch of skateboards and longboards as part of their Engineering class.
Here they talk about making the designing the boards, testing them, riding them and selling them to their friends.
They are members of the 2005-2006 Level One Standards Based Technology and Engineering class at Duxbury High School.
The curriculum for the class came from the Boston Museum of Science and was in the Field Test phase of development.
---
Links
Museum of Science link to the text and course - http://www.mos.org/doc/1408
Project description - http://dhsengineering.pbwiki.com/Term4Projects
Class Wiki - http://dhsengineering.pbwiki.com/
Some notes from Max - http://maxscher.pbwiki.com/
Link to the Make Magazine entry that got the project started - http://www.makezine.com/blog/archive/2005/10/how_to_make_toothless_longboar.html
toothless longboards - http://users.pandora.be/Toothless/Toothless/index.html

028 - Elaine Winquist - Duxbury Free Library - Bay to Bayou

2006-07-03T22:16:00.000-04:00

Listen Now - 028 - Elaine Winquist - Duxbury Free Library - Bay to Bayou
June 29, 2006

Elaine Winquist introduces the Bay to Bayou project to benefit the libraries of Cameron Parish LA.
In the summer of 2005, Hurricanes Katrina and Rita destroyed the four libraries of the parish.
Duxbury Free Library is helping to raise money and awareness in an effort to rebuild the library buildings.---
---
Links:
http://www.duxburyfreelibrary.org/children/Summer%2006/B_to_B_explanation.htm -
http://www.duxburyfreelibrary.org/events/baytobayouoverview.htm -
http://www.duxburyfreelibrary.org/ -
http://www.duxburyfreelibrary.org/readers_advisory/louisianafic.htm -
---
Cameron Parish -
http://www.cameron.lib.la.us/ -
http://user.camtel.net/cameron/public/ -
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cameron_Parish,_Louisiana -
---
Pictures
http://www.cameron.lib.la.us/Hurricane/Rita.htm -
http://www.cameron.lib.la.us/Hurricane/Audrey.htm -

027 - Alex explains the process for shopbotting a file

2006-07-03T22:08:00.000-04:00

Listen Now - 027 - Alex explains the process for shopbotting a file
June 28, 2006
Alex had a lot of fun working on the Shopbot making guitars and stuff.
Here he explains his process for getting his design exectuted in CNC.
Next year he will be a Freshman at UMass Amherst in Mechanical Engineering.
http://cncguitar.pbwiki.com/
His guitar project was a part of this assignment at Duxbury High School:
http://dhsengineering.pbwiki.com/Term4Projects
Term 4 Projects - http://flickr.com/photos/13559856@N00/sets/72157594146048256/
ShopBot Photos - http://flickr.com/photos/13559856@N00/sets/72157594159184878/
http://www.ecs.umass.edu/mie/
http://shopbottools.com/
http://shopbottools.com/instruments.htm
http://shopbottools.com/upcoming.htm

026 - Henry Makes Air cannons!

2006-07-03T21:56:00.000-04:00

Listen Now - 026 - Henry Makes Air cannons!
June 28, 2006
Henry has a taste for sending projectiles away very quickly.
http://cannons.pbwiki.com/
http://flickr.com/photos/13559856@N00/sets/72157594180339585/

Make site posting - http://www.makezine.com/blog/archive/2006/06/henrys_air_cannons.html

025 - Joy and Kristin Introduce Teach Engineering Website

2006-07-03T21:48:00.000-04:00

Listen Now - 025 - Joy and Kristin Introduce Teach Engineering Website
June 25, 2006

Joy and Kristin introduce the Teach Engineering website.
They work with Professor Martha Cyr, Director of K12 Outreach at Worcester Polytechnic Institute.

http://teachengineering.com/
Advanced activity search - http://teachengineering.com/search_advanced.php?strpass=
http://www.wpi.edu/News/Transformations/2003Summer/jumping.html

024 - Ryan and Tom Talk About Ohm's Law, Resistance and Capacitance - Duxtech

2006-07-03T21:38:00.000-04:00

Listen Now - 024 - Ryan and Tom Talk About Ohm's Law, Resistance and Capacitance - Duxtech
6 6, 2006

Duxbury High School Seniors Tom and Ryan talk about electricity, Ohm's Law, resistance and capacitance.

http://electricity.pbwiki.com/
http://duxtech.pbwiki.com/

023 - Professor Mark Horenstien talks about the BU 2006 Design Competition

2006-07-03T16:54:00.000-04:00

Listen Now - 023 - Professor Mark Horenstien talks about the BU 2006 Design Competition
6 5, 2006

Organizer Mark Horenstien discusses the Boston University College of Engineering Design Competition. He talks about the value of students getting genuine experience with problem solving.
http://www.bu.edu/eng/design/

http://flickr.com/photos/13559856@N00/sets/72157594155726509/
http://chrisconnors.com/

022 - Jim and Diane Fiset talk about the BU Design Competition

2006-07-02T23:33:00.000-04:00

Listen Now - 022 - Jim and Diane Fiset talk about the BU Design Competition
6 5, 2006

Jim and Diane Fiset came to the Boston University Engineering College Design Competition with their son Tom. They took a few minutes to talk with me about what they saw in the competition.
http://www.bu.edu/eng/design/
http://flickr.com/photos/13559856@N00/sets/72157594155726509/
http://chrisconnors.com/

021-Harry and Janeen James - New England Demolition and Salvage

2006-07-02T23:26:00.000-04:00

Listen Now - 021-Harry and Janeen James - New England Demolition and Salvage

6 3, 2006

Harry and Janeen James of New England Demoliton and Salvage. Janeen talks about the business and what they do.
http://www.nedsalvage.com/

http://www.thisoldhouse.com/toh/print/0,17071,1171946,00.html

http://chrisconnors.com/

020 - Dave Talks about Ultimate Fighting - DHS Tech

2006-07-02T23:19:00.000-04:00

Listen Now - 020 - Dave Talks about Ultimate Fighting - DHS Tech
6 2, 2006

Dave is an ultimate Fighter! This recording was done as an instruction on how to do podcasting in my Web Design class. I had a couple of recordings on my site that were not editable in audacity for some reason, so I asked for a volunteer from the class.

Dave volunteered, and as I asked him a few questions to figure out what we should talk about, one of his classmates said that he does ultimate fighting. I didn't know much about ultimate fighting, so I asked him a few questions about it and why he does it. There were actually three interviews, but on the first two the recorder failed bacause the batteries were dead. It provided a good illustration of equipment failure and how to recover from it.

Once I got a reasonably good set of questions and responses I brought it over to the computer with the wide screen display. I then edited the audio while explaining what I was doing. Before starting I said that I would have to get rid of the clicks at the beginning and end of the recording, and that I would kill off any dead end questions. While I was in there, I decided to pull out some pauses and 'ummm's. The resulting recording is pretty coherent and flows nicely.

After making the recording (and recovering from a few mistakes in edit) I opened the xml document and added the data for this entry of the podcast. When the whole thing was done, I uploaded the two files to the server, updated it in iTunes and played the new file.

One period, and the whole thing was complete. It was fun to do it and explain it at the same time.

http://www.ufc.com/
http://dhspodcasting.pbwiki.com/
http://chrisconnors.com/

019 - Lindsay Rachael Jennifer and Melanie, competitors in the Hydrogen Fuel Cell Junior Competition - Tour de Sol 2006

2006-07-02T23:05:00.000-04:00

Listen Now - 019 - Lindsay Rachael Jennifer and Melanie, competitors in the Hydrogen Fuel Cell Junior Competition - Tour de Sol 2006

5 24, 2006

Lindsay Rachael Jennifer and Melanie talk about their competition in the Hydrogen Fuel Cell Junior Solar Sprint at the Tour de Sol 2006.
http://static.flickr.com/44/146326174_579439eba2.jpg
http://flickr.com/photos/13559856@N00/sets/72057594134688870/
http://flickr.com/photos/13559856@N00/sets/72057594134757554/
http://www.tourdesol.org
http://www.nesea.org/transportation/tour/2006Entrants.php

018 - Allson Sander from Altwheels Alternative Transportation Festival in Boston - Tour de Sol 2006

2006-07-02T22:47:00.000-04:00

Listen Now - 018 - Allson Sander from Altwheels Alternative Transportation Festival in Boston - Tour de Sol 2006
5 24 2006

Allison Sander talks about the Altwheels festival in Boston. The 2006 festival will be held on September 22 and 23 at Boston City Hall Plaza. On Sept 24, the festival will move to the Larz Anderson Museum of Transportation in Brookline, and on Sept 25, Altwheels will provide programming for fleet managers.
http://altwheels.org/
http://mot.org/
http://flickr.com/photos/13559856@N00/sets/72057594134757554/
http://www.tourdesol.org
http://www.nesea.org/transportation/tour/2006Entrants.php

017 - Karl Vogle on his Electric Chopper - Tour de Sol 2006

2006-07-02T22:40:00.000-04:00

Listen Now - 017 - Karl Vogle on his Electric Chopper - Tour de Sol 2006

5 24, 2006

Karl Vogle talks about his custom built electric chopper. It was featured on the tv show Cool Fuel Road Trip. The bike has a 60 mile range and can reach speeds of 80 mph.
http://static.flickr.com/44/146246817_05432717b8.jpg
http://flickr.com/photos/13559856@N00/sets/72057594134569567/
http://www.vogelbilt.com/
http://www.coolfuelroadtrip.com/
http://www.tourdesol.org
http://www.nesea.org/transportation/tour/2006Entrants.php

016 - Josh Kerson of Runabout Cycles - Tour de Sol 2006

2006-07-02T22:32:00.000-04:00

Listen Now -
016 - Josh Kerson of Runabout Cycles - Tour de Sol 2006

5 24, 2006

Josh Kerson of Runabout Cycles speaks about the Electric Bike Range Event at the Tour de Sol 2006
http://www.runaboutcycles.com/main/specsheet
http://flickr.com/photos/13559856@N00/sets/72057594134569567/
http://flickr.com/photos/13559856@N00/sets/72057594134666832/
http://www.tourdesol.org
http://www.nesea.org/transportation/tour/2006Entrants.php

015 - Ron Carlson, chief safety inspector and mechanic of Electric Assist Bikes - Tour de Sol 2006

2006-07-02T22:29:00.000-04:00

Listen Now - 015 - Ron Carlson, chief safety inspector and mechanic of Electric Assist Bikes - Tour de Sol 2006
5 24, 2006

http://www.csrwire.com/print.cgi?sfArticleId=5472
http://flickr.com/photos/13559856@N00/146297622/in/set-72057594134757554/
http://flickr.com/photos/13559856@N00/sets/72057594134666832/
http://www.tourdesol.org
http://www.nesea.org/transportation/tour/2006Entrants.php

014 - Gavin Watson talks about his Porche 914 running biodiesel - Tour de Sol 2006

2006-07-02T21:12:00.000-04:00

Listen Now - 014 - Gavin Watson talks about his Porche 914 running biodiesel - Tour de Sol 2006
5 24, 2006
Gavin Watson, owner of a Porche 914 converted to run on biodiesel talks about his car. The motor is a 3 cylinder Yanmar turbodiesel boat motor, and the fuel system is configured to have both electric and motor based fuel heating.
http://www.autoauditorium.com/TdS_Reports_2006/
http://www.canadiandriver.com/news/060516-4.htm
http://www.greencarcongress.com/2006/05/2006_tour_de_so.html
http://www.tourdesol.org
http://www.nesea.org/transportation/tour/2006Entrants.php

013 - Chris Osgood of UMaine Solar Racing Team - Tour de Sol 2006

2006-07-02T21:08:00.000-04:00

Listen Now - 013 - Chris Osgood of UMaine Solar Racing Team - Tour de Sol 2006
5 24, 2006

Chris Osgood of the University of Maine Solar Racing Team talks about "Phantom Sol" the team's solar racer. The concept car project has been running for 6 years and has loads of horsepower and torque. All of the systems in the car have been custom designed by the students.

http://www.ume.maine.edu/solar/projects.htm

http://www.umainetoday.umaine.edu/Issues/v1i1/insights.html

http://www.foveal.com/ATdS_Report_1999.html#Report30
http://www.tourdesol.org

http://www.nesea.org/transportation/tour/2006Entrants.php

012 - Students at the Delhi College of Engineering show off their Gas Electric Hybrid - Tour de Sol 2006

2006-07-02T20:56:00.000-04:00

Listen Now - 012 - Students at the Delhi College of Engineering show off their Gas Electric Hybrid - Tour de Sol 2006

5 24, 2006

Students from the Delhi College of Engineering talk about their prototype vehicle, a gas electric hybrid
http://dceonline.net/

http://www.thehindu.com/2006/04/28/stories/2006042824960300.htm
http://www.tourdesol.org

http://www.nesea.org/transportation/tour/2006Entrants.php

011 - Tyson Drummond, West Philly HS talks about their biodiesel sportscar - Tour de Sol 2006

2006-07-02T20:49:00.000-04:00

Listen Now - 011 - Tyson Drummond, West Philly HS talks about their biodiesel sportscar - Tour de Sol 2006

West Philadelphia High School student Tyson Drummond talks about his experience helping to build his team's biodiesel sportscar.

http://evteam.gambitdesign.com/gallery/albums.php

http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/living/education/13796737.htm http://www.greaseworks.org/

http://thesoydailyclub.com/BiodieselBiobased/TourSol05092006.asp

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/02/17/eveningnews/main1329941.shtml http://www.tourdesol.org

http://www.nesea.org/transportation/tour/2006Entrants.php

010 - Troy Coverstone of 99mpg.com gives a tour of their plug in Honda Insight - Tour de Sol 2006

2006-07-02T20:45:00.000-04:00

Listen Now - 010 - Troy Coverstone of 99mpg.com gives a tour of their plug in Honda Insight - Tour de Sol 2006
5 24, 2006
Troy Coverstone of 99mpg.com gives a talking tour of their Honda Insight Conversion. It features plug in charging, an extra bank of batteries a fifth wheel for quick starts and uses the spare tire as a air pressure storage system.
http://99mpg.com/

http://99mpg.com/2006events/tourdesol/
http://www.tourdesol.org

http://www.nesea.org/transportation/tour/2006Entrants.php

009 - Josh Prescott from GreaseCar.com talks about diesel conversions - Tour de Sol 2006

2006-07-02T17:41:00.000-04:00

Listen Now - 009 - Josh Prescott from GreaseCar.com talks about diesel conversions - Tour de Sol 2006

May 24, 2006
Josh Prescott of Grease Car Vegetable Fuel Systems talks about diesel conversions at the 2006 Tour De Sol.

http://greasecar.com/

008 - Chris Eachus of Newburgh Free Academy Solar Racing Team - Tour de Sol 2006

2006-07-02T14:54:00.000-04:00

Listen Now - 008 - Chris Eachus of Newburgh Free Academy Solar Racing Team - Tour de Sol 2006

Chris Eachus, faculty advisor of the Newburgh Free Academy Solar Racing team talks at the 2006 Tour De Sol.
http://www.winstonsolar.org/challenge/teams2005/newyork.shtml - http://www.nesea.org/transportation/tour/2006Around_Town_Vehicle_Competition.php -
http://www.nesea.org/

007 Dave Hammond Electric Assist Bikes - Tour De Sol 2006

2006-07-02T14:35:00.000-04:00

Listen Now - 007 Dave Hammond Electric Assist Bikes - Tour De Sol 2006

Dave Hammond of Curricula Futura talks about electric assist bikes at the 2006 Tour De Sol.

Links
Tour de Sol
NESEA
Flickr Photos of Electric Assist Bikes
Electric Assist Bikes distance test
ChrisConnors.com

006 MATE Competiton 2006 Teacher - Joe Bristol Greater New Bedford Voc Tech

2006-06-30T22:26:00.000-04:00

Listen Now - 006 MATE Competiton 2006 Teacher - Joe Bristol Greater New Bedford Voc Tech

Joe Bristol is a teacher at Greater New Bedford Vocational Technical High School. He discusses what it was like to have his students involved in the MATE competition sponsored by NOAA.

http://feeds.feedburner.com/FussingWithStuffPodcast?m=5

Photos

Here are some links:
chrisconnors.com/
Mate Workshop
Boston Globe article
Wired Magazine Article

005 MATE Competiton 2006 official - Joe Sparks

2006-06-30T22:21:00.000-04:00

Listen Now - 005 MATE Competiton 2006 official - Joe Sparks

Engineer Joe Sparks talks about designing ROv's, testing them and education

http://feeds.feedburner.com/FussingWithStuffPodcast?m=6

Photos

004 MATE Competition 2006 Student team - Falmouth High School

2006-06-30T22:08:00.000-04:00

Listen Now - 004 MATE Competition 2006 Student team - Falmouth High School

Members of the Falmouth MA High School Robotics team talk about the MATE Competition at Mass Maritime Academy.

http://feeds.feedburner.com/FussingWithStuffPodcast?m=4

003 Lathe 2

2006-06-30T22:02:00.000-04:00

Listen Now - 003 Lathe 2 - Tools Stephen explains some of the tools used on the lathe.

002 Lathe 1

2006-06-30T21:55:00.000-04:00

002 Lathe 1

Listen Now - Lathe 1 Basic introduction to the lathe with Stephen.

001 Cut with a Handsaw

2006-06-30T21:49:00.000-04:00

001 Cut with a Handsaw

Listen Now - How to cut with a hand saw.

05 DuxTech hack Awards

2006-06-30T21:34:00.000-04:00

05 DuxTech hack Awards

Posted: June 28, 2006

It was a good time! Here are the entries -
http://hackcontest05.pbwiki.com/HackEntries -

http://duxtech.pbwiki.com/ -

http://hackcontest05.pbwiki.com/ -

http://feeds.feedburner.com/FussingWithStuffPodcast?m=105

http://feeds.feedburner.com/FussingWithStuffPodcast