Hak5 Visiting CodeChops and EMS
Darren Kitchen from Hak5 is currently on his Hack Across America tour. "What is Hak5?" you ask. Hak5 is an internet show that deals with all things hacking. Darren will be stopping by CodeChops this Friday night to do a talk about "Alternative Internets for the Coming Zombie Apocalypse." The fun will begin with the talk at CodeChops at 5:00PM. Then at 7:00PM, Darren and crew will head over to Eugene Maker Space to hang out and talk all things hacker, geek, etc.
So come down to Eugene Maker Space this Friday night at 7:00PM and "Trust your Technolust" with the Hak 5 crew.
More information available at Hak5's website.Add Media
The Science Factory and EMS at the Mythbusters show!
Science Factory and EMS Fliers
The Mythbusters came to the Matthew Knight Arena last Friday March 15, 2013. The Science Factory had a table to promote themselves as well as the upcoming Eugene Mini Makerfaire (June 15, 2013). I was invited to help them out and was able to bring a few EMS fliers to put out on their table to help promote our own group.
Vaccuum Powered Ping Pong Ball Cannon
The Science Factory brought some conductive and non-conductive play dough. Attendees were invited to build working circuits out of the play dough. The Science Factory also brought their own vacuum powered ping pong ball cannon that was quite impressive and caused a stir. For more photos and videos, check out the Eugene Mini Makerfaire website.
Make-O-Rama Timelapse Footage
The first EMS Make-O-Rama was held last Saturday, Feb 23 from 11AM to 4PM. We had a good turn out. We had a good portion of our membership turn up to help out either by showing off projects or talking with visitors. We had a ton of snacks, drinks, pizza, and good conversations. A few people were able to solder electronic components to a circuit board for the very first time, which is was exciting. Austin set up a GoPro camera to take time lapse footage of the event. You can check it out below. Clif also took some photos during the event and uploaded them to the EMS gallery. Check them out!
Eugene Public Library Event
The Eugene Public Library hosts events for young kids on Sunday afternoons. A few months back, Eugene Maker Space was invited to host one of these events at EPL. We accepted the offer and on February 3, 2013, six members from EMS went to the library to run the event.
The age group for these events is typically ages 3-7, plus parents of course. We thought that building and launching paper rockets would be a great event for this age group. It's also relatively inexpensive for us to host since we already have two available rocket launchers and the rockets themselves are made from just computer paper and masking tape.
Board Elections and Annual Meeting
The EMS annual membership meeting and board elections are coming up very soon. The meeting will be held on Saturday, December 8th at 1:00 PM. The meeting will take place at Eugene Maker Space. If you want to vote in the board election, please make sure you have your dues paid up for the month of December and you filled out the membership form and waiver at some point in the last year. We will have an online voting system so if you can't make it to the meeting you will still be able to cast your vote. More details on this to come!
Annual Meeting and Board Elections
It's just about time for us to hold our first annual meeting since Eugene Maker Space was founded! The meeting will be held on Saturday, December 8th at 1:00PM.
At this meeting we also have to elect our new board. There are currently five positions on the board and all members in good standing will get to vote to fill those slots. We are working on an electronic voting system that will allow you to vote online in the event that you cannot make it to the membership meeting or otherwise do not wish to attend. This should help us reach our quorum so we can officially elect the new board right away. More details about the electronic voting system will follow, but the most important thing to note is that the polls will close on Saturday, December 8th at 2:00PM. That is exactly one hour after the meeting starts. This will give candidates some time to speak their peace before the votes are all cast.
Do you think you might want to run for a board position for 2013? Please do! This is your chance to step up and make a difference in this community. If you think you want to run for a board position, please send an email to the discussion list or talk to some members in person to let us all know why you want to be on the board and what you can bring to the table. Another member must nominate you for a board position. If you wish to nominate someone for a board position, please send an email to the discussion mailing list with a subject line of "NOMINATION - Member Name". That will make it easy for us to keep track of nominations. Nominations will close on November 30th, so make sure you get all of your nominations in before December 1st.
We encourage all members who are interested in this voting process (or are interested in running for a position) to familiarize themselves with our current governing documents. You can review the most recent version of our governing documents on the EMS wiki:
http://www.eugenemakerspace.com/wiki/Sites/EugMakerSpace
If anyone has any questions about any of this, feel free to email board@eugenemakerspace.com and one of us will help you out where possible.
Open House Party Saturday
Our open house party is tomorrow from 11:00AM to 4:00PM at 687 McKinley St. Suite #2 in Eugene. We will have projects to show and tell, soldering kits for people to learn soldering, food, and more! If you've been looking for an excuse to finally come check out Eugene Maker Space to see what we are all about, this is the time. This event is open to anyone and everyone so bring your friends and family.
Welding Booth!
Recently some EMS members have been learning to weld. Unfortunately, the shop hasn't been very welder-friendly. We have the one welder but we really didn't have a good place to weld. The only place we are able to plug in the welder is in the far back corner of the shop, and the only surfaces we really have to weld on back there are the concrete floor or the wooden workbench. Neither of those are very good options. Another problem was that we didn't have a good way to protect other members from being flashed from the welding arc. We had no safety screen. And still a third problem was that we had all of our welding gear separated into a few areas of the shop, so there was never a good way of knowing just what exactly we had or where it all was. Well, fret no longer!
After visiting HeatSync Labs in Arizona a couple of weeks ago and seeing their awesome welding booth, it really got me motivated to make something in our shop that would enable our members to weld more easily, and more safely. The problem was making welding readily accessible but not taking up too much space in our already crowded shop. After some thought and planning, I managed to cobble something together that I hope will work out well. I mounted a custom curtain rod in the corner of the shop near the 240V power outlet and stuck two 6' x 8' welding curtains on it. Now we should have enough room to store all of our welding gear in or near this small 6' x 5' square and be able to weld simply by pulling back the welding curtains and securing them shut. The curtains also allow us to keep that large square open when the booth is not in use. This way, the welding booth doesn't take up a large square of the shop at all times.
The welding booth is not yet completed, but I hope to have it mostly completed by Friday night, before the big open house on Saturday. I still need to do the following:
- We should be getting a decent welding table tomorrow to put in the booth (Donated!). Now we will have a surface to weld on!
- Move the welder into the booth wherever it makes sense.
- Put some adhesive Velcro on the curtains so we can attach them together easily and quickly.
- Cut the white shelf on the wall so the curtain can close all the way to the wall.
- Replace the zip ties with actual curtain rings.
- Install some kind of ventilation to get the fumes moving out of the shop.
- Put up some signage about general usage and safety in the welding area.
I'm sure there is more to be done than just that, but those are the top priorities for now. I hope this booth will work out well for everyone. It shouldn't take up much space when not in use but it should provide easy access to the welding equipment whenever one has that urge to fuse metal together.
Welding Booth Closed
Welding Booth Open
Star Wars Uncut Entry
A few EMS members have been working on entries for the Star Wars Uncut: The Empire Strikes Back project. This is a project where the entire "Empire Strikes Back" movie is split into many 15 second chunks. Anyone is welcome to sign up for one of the 15 second pieces. That person's job is to then re-create that 15 second scene in their own way. All of the clips are later put back together to form a full length feature film. Ben recently posted his entry to the film. Can you figure out what scene this is?
What’s happening at EMS?
What's been happening at EMS lately? Lots of stuff! First off, I (Rick) have been working on a relay box for Halloween. The ideas is to be able to control 120V circuits with just an Arduino.
Relay box
Bob is still working hard on his DIY laser cutter. It's been coming along great so far!
Laser Cutter
Weston continued working on his home made prototyping station. He hopes to build a station that will have everything he needs when prototyping new electronics projects.
Prototyping box
Ben, Kassie, and Michelle have all been working together on... a movie? Why not? This is Eugene Maker Space! Making movies is still making! They are filming a couple of scenes for the upcoming crowd-sourced movie, "Star Wars Uncut: The Empire Strikes Back".
Film set?
What have you been making lately? Come down to Eugene Maker Space and hang out with other local makers!
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