Student Projects

Just finished up the Lego Robotics unit with my Tech and Design 2 class.  They did a great job for how little time we had to build and program!  Wish I could have had them work more closely with my FLL Teams, they could have taught each other a lot.






I let them do a demolition derby before we took them apart... They quite enjoyed that part.




Also got the first batch of air engines done!  We have several up and running, but they were dissassembled for welding.  Mine is the one on the left, the other two are students.  Not bad for a bunch of 8th graders!




The end of the tri marches ever closer.  Just started leathers in one class and bicycle repair in another- LOTS left to do!

One last thing- real quick update on the Mendelmax 2.0.  I got an email from Maker Tool Works the other day saying they had discovered a bug in the beta kits and were in the process getting parts made to fix it. I opted to have the original parts shipped now so I can start assembling- the new parts will be free of charge other than shipping- part of the deal with it being a "Beta" kit.

The kit wasn't even originally supposed to ship until yesterday, so they aren't too far behind. I understood up front that the printer is still under development and that this was a possibility, so I'm not too worried. Still havent seen hide nor hair of the drivers and controller board though... getting a little worried about that.  Hopefully more info coming soon!

Di Acro Radius Fingers, Part 3.

Finished them up, and they halfway work!

I made another pipe just like the one in the last post, and added a few extra bar mounts.  The next issue I had to overcome was the fact that with spring back, the brake wouldn't get me anywhere near a 90 degree bend.  Of course, that means drilling more holes and cutting more pieces.







I attached those pieces to the folding blade...




And then welded a rod to them that sticks up maybe 1/4" above the edge of the blade.




The idea being that the bar is up higher than the top of the fingers, and can push the metal being bent past 90 degrees to accomodate for spring back.

Seems to work...











Those are pics of an aluminum tank I'm working on for my "cafe" racer...  First attempt.  I doubt it will turn out the way I want it, but thats the way the learning process goes.  Gotta make scrap sometimes to make something nice. 

I'm hoping to use the radius fingers for tool box lids, but they are definitely going to need beefing up first.  On my list of things to do.

Thoughts on Teaching: Year 4.

Halfway through my 4th year and absolutely loving it. It's always crazy busy- between coaching a Lego robotics team, getting projects organized, maintaining tools in the shop, making sure all of the supplies stocks are adequate, and trying to jump through all of the insane hoops provided by the government and now getting ready to teach an evening community class... It's tiring. That said, again, I'm loving it.

 I feel like I'm finally getting down how to balance classroom management but still maintain a fun environment where kids can work, do their own thing, and have something to show for it. Long ways to go still, but progressing in the right direction.

One of my favorite aspects of teaching so far is all of the things I've taught myself. I started teaching these classes with a fairly basic understanding of several different subjects and almost NONE in some of them. Now I feel very confident in the all of them- I can get pretty fancy in Sketchup, I understand how the Lego robots work and can troubleshoot and program them fairly quickly, sheet metal working is a breeze, my welding has increased leaps and bounds, and I've learned even more about small engines in the process of figuring out how students can screw them up.

 What does that give me? A desire to build. To go further. To continue. I remember Nintendo had a commercial when I was growing up- it showed this cube of letters at the end really quick and I could never figure out what the heck it said... I finally did and I like it.

Seems like I'm at the next level, and I'm looking forward to the challenge. Lots of fun things coming up- talked management into letting me add a 3D printer this year, and its on its way. Can't wait to build that and get it working! Currently teaching a new 8th grade class- where we actually get to weld a LOT and we're building some pretty cool working model air engines. Looking at expanding in the CAD area to a more professional program- Rhino or Solidworks- neither of which I have a clue how to work but would love to figure it out.

There are long days, there are the students that like to do things just to tick you off, but at the end of the day I usually still want to come back the next. If I don't, sticking around for a while tinkering on some new project to show my students usually changes that. There's always some lame politician, some other distraction you have to deal with, always seemingly pointless hoops to jump through. Sometimes you just have to grit your teeth and gitr done. That reminds me... There's a few things I have to get done.

Sorry to be all rambley, wasn't intending to write a discourse. Anyways, that's the state of affairs in the dorkpunch garage. Keep your stick on the ice.

Di Acro Brake Radius Fingers, Part 2

Little more done on the radius fingers.  Cut out and welded a cover over the pipe to make it a little more rigid.  When I was testing it, when I clamped the pipe it squashed out a little bit.  I also needed to make the whole thing a little thicker to get more clamping pressure.





Next step was a little more tricky.  Attached two of my mounts, set the pipe in, and lined it up by lifting the folding blade up until it pushed the pipe back evenly.





Couple of quick zaps with my little 110v wire feed and viola!





Still have another mounting bracket to add in the center, and I'm going to make one more just like it but I'm going to cut it up into shorter lengths- maybe a 6" and two 3" fingers.  They will also all get additional supports and more welding, but for what I plan on doing with them even the way this first one sits is probably good enough.

Di Acro Brake Radius Fingers

Got a little more done on my radius fingers.  Made up a quick little jig to align pieces for drilling by zapping a couple of fences on to a chunk of u-channel.  The channel is then clamped down to the drill press table after the first piece is lined up.




Drilled a passle of holes...







Next step was to bend the clamps.  Easily accomplished with a big hammer and a vice.



Assembly!








Installed.




This is only part of the top half.  There will be a support welded to the side that rests against the brake, and the half round of pipe gets welded to the bottom to act as the die.

It seems to work okay, but I need to shim the pipe down a little to get more clamping pressure.  There was one snafu- I was hoping to be able to make compound? bends like the piece below, but the radius of this set bends to much metal up- meaning if I turn the metal 90 degrees from the first bend and try and bend it again, it doesn't fit under the bar where the fingers mount.  Means I'll have to make things in more pieces and then weld together later.  Ug.

 

Fun day at school today- had a practice lockdown drill, and they did it between classes (students all out in the halls).  I thought for sure about half the school was going to get stuck in the hallways, but it sounds like everyone got in a room- even if only 3 made it mine!!!
 

MakerGear Plastruder Assembly

Began assembling the "plastruder" from MakerGear today. This was one of the more expensive pieces, which I guess is understandable as it is the business end of the printer. I bought it in kit form here: http://www.makergear.com/products/plastruder . For only $10 more I could have gotten it with a pre-assembled hot end, and having mostly built mine now I think the extra money is a bargain unless you really enjoy teensy wires, solder, and wet ceramic paste.

Maker Gears instructions were pretty good, and can be found here: http://www.makergear.com/pages/stepp...r-instructions . There were a few things that I found confusing, mainly putting the larger pieces together, but overall its pretty straight forward.

Start by assembling the hot end. This is covered nicely already in the link above, so I'll just include a pic or three of what I did.

Start with this little ball in the center, attach clips to it, attach wires to the clips, and solder. The little ball is a piece of brass with nichrome wire wrapped around it and a first coating of ceramic already applied.



Thread it onto the included bolt and washer (these are only used to hold the pieces together while putting the paste on).



Apply goopy paste.



The paste looks ugly but when you cure it it smooths out nicely. To cure it, you have to zap it with 12 volts for 2 minutes to heat it up, then let it cool, then repeat several more times. The heat cures the ceramic and hardens it apparently...







Putting it all together was a little confusing to me, but it was pretty easy to figure out.

The directions for this part were pretty straight forward.





On their website they have about 4 different choices of assembled plastruders, and none of them seem to match exactly what I have, so here's what I figured out. Here's all of the parts in an exploded view.



Follow the pics, its pretty straight forward. The black plastic tube gets slid into the notch in the wood. Notice the screw in the bottom of the pic is shorter than the one in the top... Thats important in a minute.




The wood plate is attached to the plastic extruder block.




See the shorter screw? Don't know why they didnt just use 2 short ones...




Install the stepper motor. The one screw is short so it doesnt hit the motor.




The rest of these pics just show the innards of the hot end. Once the hot end is complete, its not really something you take apart. It's designed so that you just take the wood plate off, and everything from the black plastic tube to the nozzle comes off as one piece.



Still needs the temp sensor and covering installed.  Plan on letting the ceramic cure overnight, and zap it a few more times tomorrow just to be safe and then finish it up.
 

Thats where I'm at now. Tomorrow I will finish the hot end with the temp sensor and wiring, and them I'm out of stuff to do until the rest of the printer shows up- probably not until the second week of February.

I figured it would be a good idea to record the time I've spent on this. I'm only going to count the time I spend working on the printer- not counting time spent sourcing parts, scaring up funds, figuring out software, etc.

So far, with the assembly of the plastruder and wiring of the power supply I'll call it an even 2 hours. This DOES include time spent re-reading the instructions and double checking I was doing things right.

Time today: 2.0 hrs.

Total Time: 2.0 hrs. 

Printer Parts!

Parts started showing up today!  Got the stepper motors, the power supply, and the plastruder.




I bought a few limit switches with the stepper motors, not sure if I will end up needing them or not.  The power supply looks pretty straight forward, although it looks like it got dinged in shipping- one corner is a little bent.  The plastruder... "Some assembly required".  Looks like fun!

Here is what a plastic printed part looks like.





Still playing with the edge former, starting to get some decent results.  Here is the "speed bump" for the back of the seat on my cafe.  The cover will be cut off on the bottom and attached to a piece of wood that will act as the seat base.  It will be hinged so the cover can swing forward- plan on storing a small can of premix in there just in case.  Not sure what the back will look like, but plan on having a tail light inset into the bump.






I have got to get better at takin pictures... 

Edge Forming.

I suck at it.  Had an idea for a quick little project to try and get better at using my edge forming machine.  I gave up after practicing with a few scraps but the project came out great anyways!


Usually things like this end up as scrap when I touch 'em.

Drew up a shape on a piece of paper real quick, traced it onto some aluminum and hacked it out.



Ran it through the slip roll to give it a bit of a curve and tried it on with some duct tape. I did run a bead around the edge with the edge former, 'bout the only thing I can do with it.





Did a little creative measuring... Made some brackets to mount it to the headlight ears, and viola!









Now maybe someday I'll start on the tank...

In other news, I get to wake up at 4:00 a.m. tomorrow, sit in a car for 2 hrs with a bunch of 8th graders, spend all day at a lego robotics tournament, and then come home.  Yay.  Ahh, who am I kiddin, its going to be fun.  I'm sure I'll have pics to share of the event in the next day or two, hope they do a great job!