BronzeBot fails
I left the robot alone, and it tried to climb off the table. It succeeded and I recorded most of it.
Drying out flooded N64 carts
Brendan got a little water in his basement and almost ruined 36 of his childhood memories.
But after dismantling and cleaning them, they still work! 
Workshop: How to torrent
Rule #1: Don’t steal stuff.
Rule #2: Always be seeding.
Rule #3: Always have 3 rules. (I guess)
The more we use the internet, the bigger the files we move around get. There was a time when I carried around a 1.44MB floppy with all my important garbage on it. Then ZipDisks! 100MB of storage. omg. Well, now when I want to share a day’s worth of webcam footage, I need to find a way to get 4GB of video to 12 different people. This is where bittorrent shines.
We want to show you how to torrent!
- Workshop: How to torrent
- Tuesday, 9/13, at 6pm
- at Hive76, 915 Spring Garden
- Free!
- Bring a laptop with this installed: µTorrent
- Please leave a comment to RSVP
Here’s a tiny vid to explain how it works. Basically, everyone downloads one piece of the file at a time until they have the whole enchilada. Then in theory, they continue to share their copies with other’s that don’t have it yet.
This makes it easy to download huge files from large groups of users. It’s true that most torrent traffic is used for sharing pirated work. But we won’t be telling you where to get any movies or anything. We want you to know how to share your own stuff with bittorrent!
Phone “hacking” at News of the World
Whenever the word “hacking” shows up in the news, it usually means one of two things. It’s either some government or group breaking into the system of some other government or group, or more likely, someone didn’t change their weak password. 
The recent fuss about News of the World in the UK is the latter, the stupid hack (besides bribing the police and other non-hacking crimes.) This “hack” is just taking advantage of one of two voicemail vulnerabilities. One way in is to punch in the default VM PIN for the carrier, which is sometimes the last 4 of the phone number. The other way is to spoof your caller ID to match the voicemail number so the system lets you in like this. PS: don’t hack voicemails.
We don’t want your personal voicemails to be stolen like this. That’s why this Wednesday for open house, we can help you stay safe. A member can help you navigate the menus on your phone and change or add some security. Or maybe this post just pushed you right now to change your pin to something other than 1478.
Getting closer to an awesome laser
We are almost to laser time. Almost is this case is $2,908.70. That is the remaining cost for all of the hardware that a Lasersaur needs to move and cut and all that good stuff. 
A real, complete Bill of Materials is located here. I took out stuff we already had or might be able to scrounge.
Pledgie is currently broken and now charges 3%, so if you would like to donate, there are tons of other ways to give us money: Paypal to hive76@gmail.com, Venmo to hive76, cash at open house, or buy some stuff and ship it to us!
I’m real excited to start etching and cutting stuff soon, but we can’t do it without your help!
As always, laser fund donations are redeemable at $1/minute. (That’s a good deal)
BronzeBot: a 3D printer made of bronze
A few months ago Enrique Muyshondt (President of DesktopFab, aka Endeavour on IRC) gave us a set of Sells Mendel parts that he had cast for our work on various research projects at UPenn and here at Hive76. We slowly assembled it and got it running, and thanks to this past weekend’s RepRap World Tour stop in Baltimore, we have it running! In addition to 3D printing like a champ, we’re now using it to work on the firmware and customize printing scripts for tissue engineering research. We are grateful for the support!
The parts are cold cast bronze, this means Enrique painted several layers of bronze powder into his molds and then cast them with resin. What came out were the brown parts you see in the pictures and video below.
This 3D printer rocks. The RepRap 3D printing project still has a lot of rough edges, but that’s why we love it. We’ll have BronzeBot on exhibit at the next RepRapWorldTour in Baltimore, and then back in Philly in August to do it again.
Slideshow:
Suggestion Box
What would you like to get from us here at your favorite hackerspace? 
Below is a poll where you can vote on new things to do, or add your own suggestion. (If you do, keep it brief) Feel free to have a discussion about new col things in the comments below.
[polldaddy poll=”5034351″]
Philly Tech Week signature event
One of our lovely members, Jim Fisher, was kind enough to send me and a friend along to the Signature Event for Philly Tech Week because he liked my SketchUp class so much. Thanks Jim! There was an open bar, some food, and a big screen displaying a TwitterFall for the tag #phillytechweek. I’m not one to pass up an opportunity, but I didn’t have the right hardware to exploit such a lovely tweetstream. Instead I bugged Adam into doing my dirty work in exchange for a burrito. The result:
Woot! Great success! High fives all around.
There was also a collaboration suggestion board where someone suggested that we team up with Breadboard to hack some art. Okey doke, let’s do it!
Learn to 3D print!
I’ve given up on 2D printers. 3D is the future!
Every single paper printer I have ever owned has been a constant source of pain and expense [example]. My experience with 3D printers thus far has been slightly better, but a magnitude cooler. The payoff for designing and printing your own real thing out of plastic is a real joy. That’s why some people call me obsessed with these 3D printers, and also why I feel the need to share!
Learn to print in 3D! We are running our SketchUp class again with 2 new dates: 4/17 and 5/1. Both Sundays and both from 10am – 3pm. [avoiding religion jokes here] These dates are separate; it’s not a 2-part class.
Grab a ticket today. $25 for either date:
SketchUp 4/17 SketchUp 5/1