Draw in Illustrator, extruded in OpenSCAD

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:

• Laptop
• Adobe Illustrator
• OpenSCAD
• This script: https://github.com/jk-keller/Adobe-Scripts
• Some designs or ideas

There may not be time to print everyone’s design, but you should go home with something 3D printed.

Monday 4/22 5pm – 10
Gratis and Libre (free)

RSVP by commenting below.

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.

A simple gear was too difficult

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.

Added bonus: these easy-to-make products can be re-created on your own to be used as gifts for the upcoming holiday season!!

All Natural Handmade Personal Care Products Class

Click Here to Get Tickets

Sunday, December 2, 2012, 12:00PM – 2:30PM

Hive76, 915 Spring Garden St, Philadelphia, PA 19123

$25 (includes all materials…but feel free to bring your own essential oil if you have a specific signature scent!)

the Philadelphia Area Computer Society‘s kickoff meeting, Saturday,

September 15th.

His topic will be “Arduino: Where It’s Been, Where It’s Headed, and Why You Should Care”.

After the main presentation, a beginner class will be taught in the Linux SIG.

PACS Schedule available here.

Trippy RGB Waves Kit

Soldering is an essential skill to learn if you’d like to build your own electronic circuits. Come on in to Hive76 and we can teach you how to solder using Mitch Altman’s Trippy RGB Waves kit!

This specific circuit has a red-green-blue (RGB) LED that slowly changes colors over time. When you wave an object (like your hand) over it, you reset the color-changing pattern. With several boards laid out before you, this creates a wave-like effect.

You can check out a video of the circuit in action here!

When: Saturday, September 8th, 1-4PM

Where: Hive76

Cost: $20 (covers kit and instruction)

Huzzah!

I know I certainly had a really fun time last night with everyone.

Tonight is the first lab session for our series on learning how to program in study of games with JavaScript. Can’t wait to see everyone here in just a few hours!

Additionally, for anyone who couldn’t make the weeknight-at-7pm time slot, I’ve cleared some time this Sunday to do a repeat/additional session–Sunday, August 12th, at 3pm. You can get tickets here: https://www.wepay.com/events/intro-to-game-programming-with-javascript-weekend-edition

Or hell, just click the button:
Sunday, August 12th, 3pm – 5pm, @ Hive76 Register

Pong!

The first game is, as promised, Pong. You can see the game in action here: http://wedusc.com/games/pong.html

And you can read the source code online in my GitHub repository here: https://github.com/capnmidnight/JS_Game_Programming_Class/blob/master/pong.html

I’ll have printouts for everyone when you get here. If this is your first time trying to read code, try not to cross your eyes too much. We’ll cover how to read code along the way.

Though this game is pretty simple, it has a few interesting features…

Features!

• Stupid AI: There is a really basic AI running the second paddle. It’s pretty dumb, but the astute reader should be able to figure out how to make it tougher.
• Cross Platform: it runs in all of the latest versions of Internet Explorer, Chrome, Safari, Firefox, and Opera on Windows 7, as well as Safari on the iPad 2 and the default Web browser in Android 2.3. There is a small amount of browser-specific code to handle the difference between mouse events on desktops and touch events on mobile devices. I suspect it will run exactly the same on all of the other operating systems that these browsers run on.
• Comments: there are more comments than code in this file. Hopefully, someone reading it will get an idea of why I did many things as I did.
• Single File: everything in the game is in that file. Normally, one would split such a thing up into multiple files, but as a learning tool, I think it’s better to have everything in one file.

Only 5 Tickets Left!

Some Q/A

3D printed Towel Rack

The design is parametric, which means that each aspect of the design is customizable. I had a specific diameter rod to use, so I entered that value into the code. If you would like to make your own towel rod, you could download the code that I wrote, and change the diameter of whatever rod you find to use. In this way the design can meet everyone’s needs with very little effort. This also means that sharing the design is much more valuable for others.

In this class you will learn the basics of OpenSCAD and reproduce a simple design from scratch. Some prior knowledge is required; basically that when you code, you need to spell things right and close brackets. OpenSCAD is fully cross platform and easy to install. Feel free to bring an idea for a 3D printed object, but make it practical. OpenSCAD does not excel at organic pretty things.

Details:

• Class will be on August 4th from 1pm to 5pm.
• Fee is $20. There will be an optional materials fee for printing: $1/10g, cheap.
• There will be beer and a donation jar for more beer.
• A computer will be required, laptop much preferred.
• OpenSCAD needs to be installed: http://www.openscad.org/
• Basic knowledge of some coding helps, ie: proper spelling and syntax, indenting code, closing brackets, semicolons.
• Class will be held at Hive76 in our new fancy classroom.

If you have heard of OpenSCAD before, we will be covering for() loops, modules, and debugging as well.

List of things I have designed with OpenSCAD:

• Watering Spike
• Replacement chair piece
• Towel Rack
• Hole cover

Zen and the art of soldering …

This Friday, we were able to inaugurate our newly completed class space with a most auspicious visitor — Mitch Altman!

PJ, Brendan, Robert et al were working until the wee hours the night before making sure that the space was ready to rock — and it was — literally.

Mitch arrived a bit before the appointed time, snapped a few photos, schmoozed, chowed down some local Chinese food etc. and, while documenting our stash of Elephant Heads,

Even this Diavolino was glad to see Mitch

anointed Hive76 as the most organized hacker space he’s seen. Quartermaster Brendan took appropriate pride in the observation.

Mitch basically talked about the Maker/Hacker movement in general, showed some of the kits that were keeping him company on the train, and weaved it all in a thematic web reminiscent of Arlo Guthrie’s is-this-guy-rambling-no-holy-shit-he’s-a-genius-because-it-all-makes-sense-in-the-end style.

After that, everyone bought a kit or two and lost themselves in the task of soldering.  I don’t know whether it’s the solder fumes or just the act of soldering itself, but I felt pretty good at the end of it all.

The new space is completely awesome and turned out to be nearly perfect for the event. Hats off to Brendan, Robert, PJ and Jordan!