Join us for our monthly Saturday Open House on October 7th. We are participating in POST, Philadelphia Open Studios, and we will be open starting at noon. Drop on by some of our members will be working on projects and some will be ready to show visitors around the space. See you there!
Also Intro Electronics class is October 12th 7:30 PM See here for tickets to that class https://hive76.ticketleap.com/introelectronics/
Computer Aided Design is the way we interact with the digital tools that make things. Do you want to try 3D printing or laser cutting? Ever want to CNC mill something from a chunk of aluminum? The first step is getting your idea into the computer.
Fusion 360 by Autodesk is a powerful parametric CAD tool that is free to use for makers, educators, and even most startups. It rivals SolidWorks in its functionality, but adds features found in many standalone tools. Your instructor Chris Thompson is a certified CAD professional with experience teaching digital making to beginners and professionals alike.
In this class you will learn the basics of most CAD systems and the intricacies of the Fusion 360 interface with hands-on demonstrations. The evening will begin with a general overview of CAD. There will be a structured walk-through of the program where every student creates the same model. This is followed by individual work where students explore the numerous different ways to make any one shape. Do you build up feature-by-feature, or would you rather carve away piece-by-piece? The class will reveal the hidden pitfalls of the program and any caveats. We will cover exporting your files for the next step in making. Any remaining time in the evening will be dedicated to answering any questions you have about CAD or making.
The class is Thursday, June 1 2017 from 7pm – 9pm at Hive76
Tickets are $50 and can be purchased from our ticketleap page. Members, don’t forget your discount!
Students must bring their own laptop with Fusion 360 installed and a 3 button mouse (left, right, scroll wheel button.) Please bring some paper for sketching and notes too.
Students will also need a free Autodesk account to save their work. Please follow these instructions to get set up with a free account.
On Tuesday April 28th Chris Anderson will be instructing a lecture and demo on Hydroponic and Aquaponic gardening. If you are interested in learning alternative farming and gardening techniques this class will introduce a more environmentally friendly process for growing your own produce. Generally, the hydroponics approach is beneficial because although the initial costs are higher, on a long term outlook the process is exponentially less expensive. Hydroponics also takes up to 50% less land use, therefore is much less intrusive to the environment, minimizing clearing of woodlands and soil degradation. The soil-less process of hydroponics also uses up to 90% less water and up to 60 % less fertilizer and pesticide use.
Join Hive76 members to learn more about how you can build your own sustainable farming/ gardening hydroponic or aquaponic system. The instructor will be providing the Basic items for the wicking system being built but please bring any supplies you have that may enhance the design. Chris Anderson will help guide the class in how they can optimize their gardening system with their suggested materials, exploring the creative possibilities in using recycled products. That class will cost $8, CASH ONLY. For more information check out the class in the Hive76 Calendar. Please comment below if you are interested and will be attending. Can’t wait to see you there!
Take a tour of Chris Anderson’s classroom design.
The materials for the class are as follows:
We are thrilled to announce our Razorbots class August 10-17! Razorbots are small, simple R/C robots that wield razorblades against one another to pop their opponent’s balloon. They’re good fun even for the most seasoned roboticist and a great entry point for anybody who wants to learn about robotics, electronics, or DIY tech in general. Sign up here! Continue reading “Razorbots Class!”
Got a sweetheart? Want to meet a sweetheart? David and Leslie are back to share the Valentine’s love. Make sweet gifts and learn about 3D printing and paper circuits at the same time. For the gamer in your life, there’s a Valentine Creeper. Got an inspirational do-gooder? Here’s a movie inspired MockingJay pin. Just want to show you care? Well, they’re working on a pixel heart necklace/keychain, that is sure to please.
While your piece prints, make a Valentine card that will illuminate your sweetheart’s soul. Bring some materials from around your house and combine them with a variety of papers, copper tape, LED and battery to create the perfect paper circuit. If you love crafting and electronics, you are about to experience maker heaven. If you’ve never been here before, you can tour the space and find out more about other member’s projects. Munchies will be on hand. Don’t forget to comment below so we know you are coming!
Our friends over at The Hacktory (Repurposing Technology, Making Art) are running a Kickstarter to raise matching funds for an excellent project to unite artists with the latest technology to empower new designs. From their Kickstarter page:
Electronics and digital technology can infuse works of art with an element of magic. At The Hacktory we have literally put this magic in people’s hands, through classes and large public events. We want to do more though. We want to make our classes available to artists. We’ve found that they are usually the most excited to take our classes and play with technology, but usually the least able to pay for our classes.
The Hacktory is creating a program called T.E.R.A. Incognita: Tech Education and Residency for Artists. Our goal is to support artists who want to create new work and experiment with technology such as cameras, projectors, sensors, robots, software and circuits. The name “T.E.R.A Incognita” is part acronym, part vision for the program. We want to give these artists an opportunity to learn and explore at the edges of technology and art, literally in unchartered territory, to create new experiences and new possibilities with code, hardware and creative expression.
The Kickstarter ends on Monday, so go check it out and consider making a pledge! Some great rewards are being offered too.
Our friend John Abella (of the Maker Faire 3D Printer Village and Delaware Makerspace Barrel of Makers) is running a two-day RepRap build workshop in Wilmington Delaware, October 5th and 6th. Attendees will be building Prusa i3 printers with all top-shelf parts: milled frames from Josef Prusa, genuine J-head hotends from Hotends.com, stainless threaded rods and hardened chromed smooth rods.
The workshop is being held at the Wilmington DoubleTree Hotel, and will have catered food for attendees. Every person attending will leave with tools and basic supplies to maintain their printer and get started printing. The workshop fee – all inclusive – is $999.
Click here for the official flyer for the event
More info and class registration can be found here: http://botbuilder.net/classes/
On July 14th Hive76 will be hosting a class on piezo transducers! What’s so cool about peizo transducers? They let you turn anything into an electric instrument that you can amplify, record, and experiment with! These nifty little devices turn vibrations into usable electrical signals -and the nice thing is that they’re dirt cheap and easy to work with.
Basically microphones that work by touch, they can be used to electrify guitars, make drum boxes, or listen to sounds you can’t hear with your ears. Essential to the musical tinkerer and sonic experimenter.
The class will include a brief lesson on the science of music, sound, and practical applications of piezo transducers (music or otherwise). Participants will build their own contact microphones and leave ready to start making their own noise. If you have any cool old tins, boxes, or things that vibrate in an interesting way, bring them and turn them into instruments.
Please RSVP by commenting below with the number of seats you’d like to reserve.
When: July 14th, 2pm
Who: Open to the public
Where: Hive76, 915 Spring Garden Street
How Much: $10 at the door
Difficulty: Basic as basic can be
(Parents, please accompany minors under 18)
For Philly Tech Week, I will be showing visitors how to take a shape from Adobe Illustrator into the popular open source CAD program OpenSCAD and make a 3D model suitable for 3D printing.
I’m sure you know Illustrator. It’s the most successful vector drawing program <clarkson>in the world.</clarkson> OpenSCAD is less well known. It is best described as coding for objects. You make a solid with the function cube() and cut a cylinder() out of it with the difference() function, etc. But sometimes you want a more organic or complicated shape to start with. That’s where artist JK Keller stepped in and made a script that automates some of the process for you. What you need for this workshop:
There may not be time to print everyone’s design, but you should go home with something 3D printed.
RSVP by commenting below.
Lately, a few members have been discussing the use of 3D printed parts in use with metal casting techniques to create some stronger, lighter and more durable parts. As all good hackerspace conversations do, we immediately decided to go with the most painful and difficult solution: Metal Casting. Luckily for us the very next day, we got an e-mail that a local group, Philadelphia Sculpture Gym, that they intended on hosting an aluminium greensand casting class. A perfect opportunity to learn some metal casting techniques, even if not totally applicable to what we wanted to ultimately end up casting. Andrew S., and myself both signed up along with a few friends of Hive76.
About 30 minutes into making our own greensand molds, we realized that this was going to be a difficult process, and immediately destroyed several hours of work trying to get a good crisp mold for our first pour.
Several hours into our class, we managed to finally get a good solid mold of a 3D printed TARDIS. We hopped in line and got a pretty good looking cast. Andrew also attempted the TARDIS with some success. He also managed to get some good casts of a wooden puzzle, including one that blew out. However, due to our earlier troubles, we decided to hedge our bets and get one more good pour out of the class before we would start wrapping up. While waiting to pour ours, I was being shown how to work the furnace by Gus, and ended up melting down plenty of scrap and helping others make their pours which was a lot of fun to be working with. The furnace was operating at about 1300 Celsius, and moving around molten metal at that temperature can be quite a thrill. We plan on working with Gus and Darla at Philadelphia Sculpture Gym on some other types of casting techniques, especially as they apply to our 3D printing. We look forward to working with them in the future, and hope you all consider taking their next Greensand class in January.
