Last night was a great turnout for the Public Meeting at Workshop 88. Over a dozen makers came out to work on various projects and learn new things at the space.
Our friend Tom M from the Fox Valley ASME chapter came out and had a small part for his project printed on the 3D printer:
Looks pretty sharp! We’ll be waiting to see the finished product.
We’ve been doing a lot of 3D printing recently at Workshop 88. Many times we just download models from Thingiverse, but more and more we are designing our own models.
Using Sketchup is one way that models can be created, but sometimes when you print a complicated model as designed in Sketchup, there are pieces of the model which are missing.
Enter: CADspan.
There is a tutorial available for this Sketchup plugin which allows you to find holes or reversed faces in your models. Recently, there was a model designed which failed to print correctly. When using the CADspan plugin, it was discovered that many of the faces were reversed:
The red faces are the ones that needed to be corrected. A few right-clicks later and the model was fixed:
We’d love to know your tips and tricks for getting better prints from your own designs. Let us know!
Hackers have a heart, too! This heart was printed on Workshop 88′s 3D printer for a very special someone. <3
We would like to plan the March classes that we will offer at Workshop 88. What classes would you be interested in taking? Most classes would cost $25 (+ materials).
Let us know by answering the poll on our meetup page.
Reminder – Tonight is an open hack night at Workshop 88. Bring a project out to work on with other makers. 7:30 pm.
Want to follow the schedule of open hack nights? Check out our meetup page: www.meetup.com/workshop88
New members John and his son came to Workshop 88 yesterday for the Arduino 101 class. Before class they started printing a model of the Sears Tower that they had designed on their own in Sketchup.
The scale of the model is such that each floor is 1 mm tall. Pretty cool!
Fantastic turnout for the Electronics 101 Class
We had a great turnout for the electronics 101 class! It was so great to see everyone who came out to learn a bit about the fundamentals of electronics today. Big thanks to Eric, Paul and Bill who all helped out today with the class. Remember to sign up for the Electronics 102 class next week!
We will be running an event for the Addison public library. We’re taking our introduction to arduino on the road to do for a group there.
Are there other libraries in the area that would like to know more about makerspaces? Let us know!
Have you been coming to Workshop 88 public meetings on Thursday nights? If you haven’t been yet, or it’s been awhile since you’ve been in, you may be surprised to see all the stuff that is going on at the meetings each week.
Thanks to Workshop 88 member Bill Paulson for snapping the photos last week!
Workshop 88 is offering our introduction to the Arduino platform at our makerspace in Glen Ellyn. Class attendees will learn how to configure their arduino programming environment, how to design simple circuits for interfacing with the arduino and how to write simple programs to control the arduino. What is Arduino, you ask? From their home page:
Arduino is an open-source electronics prototyping platform based on flexible, easy-to-use hardware and software. It’s intended for artists, designers, hobbyists, and anyone interested in creating interactive objects or environments.
If you need to get an arduino, please see the Workshop 88 Arduino Store. Sales from that store are fulfilled by amazon.com, and help support Workshop 88. Alternatively, you can order Arduino systems from several places, including Adafruit and Sparkfun. Both companies have lots of tutorials and howtos to get you started with Arduinos. If you’re looking for a local source to get Arduinos, try Trossen Robotics.
What you’ll get from this class: If you choose the registration + materials option, we will have an arduino and assortment of electronics components for you to take home after the class. (The Workshop 88 Arduino Store is by far a cheaper route to get supplies.)
In this class you will learn how to start programming in the Arduino environment including interacting with the inputs and outputs of the Arduino.You should bring: a laptop with the Arduino environment downloaded and installed. Please contact us (info@workshop88.com) if you have any questions.
Image credit: By Linuswiki (Own work) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons