Author: Daniel Davis

SplatSpace at RARSfest!

Published by Daniel Davis

Last weekend was at the Raleigh Amateur Radio Society Festival, aka RARSfest. We had a booth with a Learn to Solder Station lead by Scott Hall. It was a great event with a great turnout and we appreciate everyone that volunteered their time to help out! And special thanks to Pete Soper for hooking us up with some great pictures!

Hole lot of venting going on!

Published by Daniel Davis

For those of you that don’t know, SplatSpace has an awesome laser cutter that has been out of commission for the last few months. Why? Because we needed a hole.More specifically, we need a ventilation hole knocked through the wall to the outside.Last week, Chris and shaw were able to provide us with such a hole. Whether he used tools, fists, telepathy, or a combination of all 3, I do not know, but we now have a working vent for which to hook our laser up to. Below are some pics. Thanks guys!

20160405_190411_1 splatventhole

Game on!

Published by Daniel Davis

For the last couple of months, Splatspacers have been participating in a Teen Tech program called “Game On!” at the Main Branch of the Durham County Library. Every week a few members have been meeting with a group of teenagers to work with them on the basics of computer game design.

Most of these teens have never coded at all before, so we started with the Scratch platform to introduce the idea of constructing logical sequences of instructions, loops, conditional statements, variables, etc. The graphic drag-and-drop interface of Scratch makes it instantly accessible and gives good visual feedback on the structure of the code being created.
Since the group has grown and waned and changed over the weeks due to schedule conflicts, holidays, weather, etc, we have often just taken the class period to teach someone new the basics, and perhaps make a small interactive sprite-based game. It has been hard to get an impression if this class was having any kind of effect at all.
Then, last week the teen librarian gave us this note from one of the participants (edited for anonymity and minor spelling changes):
Mxxxxx
7th Grade
Xxxxxx Middle School
 
I like when the game people come to teach us about programming and making video games because that gives me a chance to learn about technology and get to experience things that I couldn’t do on the regular day base. They make me think of being a technician and engineer when I get older, and that’s why I like their program. I would like for them to keep coming and teach me and other people more about their program.
It’s hard to explain how huge this note was for us. As adult “Makers and Hackers” we tend to measure “success” by something that we made, something complete and finished. But, the kids don’t see it that way. This young lady reminded us that the effect we have isn’t due to success at completing something that we might think is impressive. The real impact is that we are changing their view of what it is possible to learn and to do.
 
We had forgotten that for most of the participants, this may have been their first experience not as typical technological consumers, but as innovators and creators.
Some of us had heard this before; we had received feedback from the mentoring work we did at an elementary school’s “Robot Camps” that some of the participants had gone on to take math and science classes that they wouldn’t have considered before the Camp. With time and distance, of course, we had forgotten it.
Will Splatspace keep doing this? Absolutely. Some of the teens have moved on to the Twine platform, including using CSS. This summer when school’s out, we hope to create a daytime program with another platform such as Stencyl. The Durham County Library system has been very progressive in their embrace of Maker Education and we hope to be working with them for a long time.

Unintended Consequences Of Names

Published by Daniel Davis

Sname-checkerplatSpace member David Bradway had the upcoming blessing/delima of determining a name for his new child. In order to facilitate the best decision on a name with the fewest future consequences of being ridiculed as the child gets older, he decided to create this website: namechecker.colab.duke.edu. You enter in a full name and it shows you results of potential consequences with initials, e-mail addresses, married names, etc. It’s a really cool project, so be sure to check it out! Also, he has the code up on GitHub if you wanna check out how it was written and if you want to contribute to this awesome project! Thanks David!

Happy New Year from SplatSpace

Published by Daniel Davis

new_yearIt’s that time again. Time for a new year, new outlook, and new resolutions. If your resolutions are to develop a new skill, meet new people, learn elecrltronics, learn to code, or anything else tech or hobby related, then let SplatSpace help! Just come to a Tuesday open meeting or check out our website for more info. See you in 2016!

NC Near Space

Published by Daniel Davis
One of Splatspace’s contacts in the Durham Public Schools recently reached out to us for help with a personal project. He has been rebuilding vintage Geiger counters, and a “Prospectometer” he had acquired had a broken meter indicator.
He found a replacement meter that was compatible, but it was circular instead of the “D” shape of the original.
It was fast work in FreeCAD to create a new mounting ring to mate the new meter to the old Geiger counter case. We printed it in black ABS on our Lulzbot Mini; a little acetone-vapor glazing and sanding for an appropriate finish, and it was done.
This is a great example of how open-source design tools simplify the process of “Manufacturing For A Market of One.”

Published by Daniel Davis

vtw3y

It’s another awesome Tuesday, which means there’s another awesome Open Meeting tonight at Splat Space! Why would you want to go? Because you’ll get to meet some awesome people and see some awesome projects and you could even get help with some of your own projects! Sounds awesome, right? No? Well what if I tossed in 3D printers, laser cutters and CNC machines? Interested now? OF COURSE YOU ARE 😉 Hope to see you there!

LOCATION:

800 N Mangum St.

Durham, NC 27705

(919) 704-4225

Arduino Project & Idea Session Today 10am – 12pm!

Published by Daniel Davis

arduino_creative

Terry and Mary Alice will be at Splat Space (Durham Makerspace) today from 10am to noon to demonstrate Arduino projects and help attendees explore ideas. Kids are welcome (middle schoolers and older will get the most out of it) but there will be plenty of interest to attendees of all ages.

Soft drinks will be available at the ‘space. Some Yourduino inventory will be available for purchase (but this is not a sales pitch event). For more information, please visit the TriEmbed blog post.

LOCATION:

800 N Mangum St.

Durham, NC 27705

(919) 704-4225

Arduino Project & Idea Session This Saturday!

Published by Daniel Davis

arduino_creative

Terry and Mary Alice will be at Splat Space (Durham Makerspace) Saturday morning, November 21st from 10am to noon to demonstrate Arduino projects and help attendees explore ideas. Kids are welcome (middle schoolers and older will get the most out of it) but there will be plenty of interest to attendees of all ages.

Soft drinks will be available at the ‘space. Some Yourduino inventory will be available for purchase (but this is not a sales pitch event). For more information, please visit the TriEmbed blog post.

LOCATION:

800 N Mangum St.

Durham, NC 27705

(919) 704-4225

Published by Daniel Davis

UNAVEZMAS

It’s another awesome Tuesday, which means there’s another awesome Open Meeting tonight at Splat Space! Why would you want to go? Because you’ll get to meet some awesome people and see some awesome projects and you could even get help with some of your own projects! Sounds awesome, right? No? Well what if I tossed in 3D printers, laser cutters and CNC machines? Interested now? OF COURSE YOU ARE 😉 Hope to see you there!

LOCATION:

800 N Mangum St.

Durham, NC 27705

(919) 704-4225