Halloween Party 2011, OCT 29, 7pm

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We’ve got quite an event lined up.Ā  Halloween is fast approaching, and if there’s one thing nerds like to do, it’s wear nerdy costumes.Ā  JOIN UP! CHECK-IN, RSVP, YELP–SQUARE–TWEETLUR–BOOK or whatever you kids do these days.Ā  Just fill up all the internet tubes! yadda yadda. Spam this out to your friends.

We’ll have some phat beats dropping and mad costumes.Ā  We’ll also entertain serious discussions about how awesome Jurassic Park was, your favorite molecule, and hopefully… HOPEFULLY someone does the ninja rap, Go ninja go ninja GO!

The thing that makes this event extra exciting is it coincides with Ted’s 40th birthday. This means two things for you: free booze (thanks Ted!), and an excuse to heckle an old man about his age, you ungrateful people!

To cap it all off, we’ll be making ice cream with liquid nitrogen. Yeah, you read that right.Ā  LIQUID.NITROGEN. Insanely fast, insanely cold. What more do you need to know? Go get your calendar right now and put a big ol’ circle in the shape of a pumpkin around the 29th!

PINEWOOD DERBY Workshop Tonight! 8-10pm

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Our friends over at AIGA Detroit are hosting a pinewood derby. We are helping out by giving participants a space with tools to plan and build their derby cars. The actual race day will occur sometime in January, but there will be a series of workshops leading up to the event. Here is a little blurb from their website on the next workshop day:

 

Monday, October 24, 2011
October 24, 2011
8:00 PM – 10:00 PM

Join us for our second workshop designed to help participants prepare their cars for AIGA Detroitā€™s Greased Up Pinewood Derby to be held this January. This workshop will focus on continued tips and how-tos so you can transform your block of wood into a speed racer or a magnificent show car. Experts will be on hand to lend advice or bounce ideas off of. Come meet fellow racers and start working on your wheels at I3 Detroit. Hand tools and supplies will be available (pens,pencils, draft paper, sand paper) but feel free to bring anything else you might need to help in the drafting of your vehicle.

 

I3 Detroit 1481 Wordsworth
Ferndale, MI 48220

 

$15 for Non-AIGA member
$10 for AIGA members

 

Please RSVPĀ hereĀ if you plan to attend the workshop to ensure we have enough kits available.

 

*the workshop price includes a full Derby kit which contains a block of wood, axels and wheels and use of the I3 space and tools!

If you are interested in constructing a lightning-fast derby car, go ahead and hit up that eventbrite link in the post, and meet us at i3 Detroit on Oct 24th! We hope to see you there!

Unobtanium: Obtained!

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Despite our DIY ethos, there are many things we just can’t build ourselves. Subtract one from that list, because a formerly-unavailable component is now available in the US.

Pictured at left are the ubiquitous female jumper wires, used by experimenters everywhere. They come from China, via a number of suppliers. But if you want a different length or just to DIY for the principle of it, you’re out of luck. You could buy the pins and salvage the housings from PC case wiring, but that’s hardly a reliable source, especially for the useful single-pin housings.

The housings are available from all the usual suspects, except the single-pin version, which wasn’t available anywhere. Until now, that is! The story of how that happened is a bit more straightforward than you may think, and the details are after the jump. Read more

Recently at i3detroit…

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Wondering what we’ve been working on lately? Here is a tasty sample. Sorry for the awkward formatting. Probably a gallery layout would have worked better, but hey. You get what you pay for, and I pay what I get for, if you know what I mean! šŸ˜‰

 

Want to see more? Stop by during our next open shop friday!

Keenan is hacking a one of the three Roombas he got on Craigslist for $60. He'll be adding his own custom controller board. Here he shows of the mounting bracket that was printed with our Makerbot.

Guest Eric came in to fix his cracked aluminum bike frame.

Steve is making some slick coolant pumps for the machine tools.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dustin, Roger and Matt (our new president) are showing off some acrylic parts, hot off the laser cutter. They'll be assembling a spindle to hold material for the makerbot.

Two Classes, One day. Makerbot and PCB design

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SUNDAY SUNDAY SUNDAY!

Makerbot-TheCupcakeCNCLives964_jpg_550x350_q85Come get your Makerbotting on. We know what you’re thinking, and yes, it’s a verb now. We said so. Come on down to learn how to print magical pieces of plastic from our makerbot. It’s free, and nutritious as long as you don’t eat the actual magic. That will probably make you sick. Eat a vitamin pill and some baby carrots instead.

Also, printed circuit board (PCB) design 101. Resident expert Roger is stepping up to the plate to cram some knowledge in your eager little heads about how to churn out PCB designs with the best of em. This class won’t cover actually fabricating the boards themselves (that’s a whole ‘nother class), but should get you well-off enough to be able to submit the design to a fab-house online or etching it yourself using some fancy chemicals (again, that’s another class).

ALL SEATS JUST ZERO BUCKS!

SUNDAY SUNDAY SUNDAY!

 

10/16/2011

4:00pm-5:00pm – Intro to Makerbot

5:00pm-7:00pm – Designing and Procuring PCBs