Saturday at 10Bit

[Don Smeller]

It used to be the common wisdom that brides could expect good luck only if they utilized:

Something Old, Something New, Something Borrowed, Something Blue

But times, they are a-changin’.  Update that to:

Something Recycled, Something Razored, Something Hackered, Something Lasered

Don S was AWOL from 10Bit last Saturday May 21.  He was in Ohio playing Father-of-the-Bride. 

Hannah came down to San Antonio at Christmas-time with wedding preparations on the brain.

She laser cut her “mr & mrs” banner out of plywood, and her “love” cake-topper out of white acrylic.

Who knew that modern brides must learn vector graphics in addition to everything else on their list.

This Saturday, May 28, the practice plywood for the “mr & mrs” sign got recycled by Micheal.  He cut the round cornered triangular piece. Micheal and Ken are making struts for a colossal sized Delta printer. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AYs6jASd_Ww

Speaking of colossal 3D printer, Malik was in town, back from a term at College Station.  He jumped in and helped Micheal.

Randy is a STEM teacher with end-of-year antsy kids on his hands.  No problemo.  He has them re-purposing 2-liter bottles to make compressed air powered rockets. Ultimately the rockets are muscle-powered because he hands them a bicycle-tire pump.  He used the lathe at 10Bit to make bits and pieces for his 2016 version of the rocket launcher.

A dude named George brought in the 12x8 bio-specimen-holder on the right. It looks flat but it is actually about an inch deep.  George’s son the doctor, wants a not-so-deep version to hold rice-grain-size 3-day-old zebra fish embryos while they are passed under an automated analyzer.  Ray Good, James Manley, Don Smeller and Ken Runner jumped on it, wrangled the Dyno-Myte CNC mill back into service, wrote some G-Code, found some donated scrap acrylic and produced the version on the left.  

Militza and Peggy and Don painted.

First-time visitors, a young couple, Dustin and Carly took the tour.  He’s a manufacturing engineer making fiber-glass reinforced oil well pipe.  She’s got an education degree but is going on to get a nursing certification.

Greg played tour operator.

A fellow named Brazos (like the River) checked out our wood-working equipment.

Techena (call me “T”), emigrated from Zimbabwe, works for Best Buy.  He came to check out our wifi system.  He’s going to prepare a quote and recommendations for upgrading.  10Bit is limping along with “home” electronics; it’s probably time for “commercial” quality wifi.

Next Saturday, Jun 4, we’re going to hear music from a guitar made from scratch, at 10Bit, played for the first time.  David learned to play Flamenco guitar while he visited Spain.  He’s a Brit, an engineer, tired of making turbine engines in England, wants to make guitars, and teach people how.  It’s a pot luck, and 10Bit’s 6th anniversary.  Y’all come.

Don S

[Randy Ohman]

I hope to be down again sooner than later, but in the meantime I would appreciate it if folks would keep an eye out for my Leatherman knife.

[Peggy Guillory]

I loved this review of the last days at 10Bit.p

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[Don Smeller]

Saturday was a combination 10BitWorks Sixth Anniversary and Farewell Party for David Payne and his lovely Annaliese who are going home to England.  David entertained all comers to his studio lair with guitar music played on hand-made guitars.   He aspires to become a “luthier” and has spent the last 5 months riding the bus to and practicing that craft at 10Bit.  He built two guitars, the second one was decorated with the name “Orsino”.  He had to explain the reference.  Duke Orsino speaks the opening lines in Shakespeare’s “Twelfth Night”: “If music be the food of love, play on. Give me excess of it. . .”  

Apart from the party, It was a typical 10Bit Saturday with focused people working on sundry pet projects:

Peggy struggled to “gray back" the middle distance of her mountain landscape water-color.

George stopped in to pick up the CNC-milled holder for the zebra fish embryo experiments.  Some background: George’s son, George Jr is a doctor doing cancer research at M.D.Anderson in Houston.  George Sr (our guy) is trying to help by developing a tray to hold the teeny specimens.  Turns out, junior needs to line-up the embryos head to tail like this: —>   —>   —>   Which may be easier, actually.  We experimented with deep laser engraving of narrow little rectangular pockets.  Think of a cemetery plot with 8 rows of a dozen graves each, pre-dug and waiting, empty.  But think tiny.  Think 4 mm long x 1.5 mm wide x 2.5 mm deep on 9 mm centers. In clear acrylic.  We laser-engraved a 3 x 3 demo array.  George was stoked.

Jeremy was all about laser etching an ink-drawn flower with his GF’s name below.  In glass.  We got the technique working and a sample run shows that it’s going to be beautiful.  It’s just a matter of cleaning up the vector graphics file.  Jeremy is on it.  

Sean brought in a pile (pile-up?) of quad copters.  He got the big one flying again.  Not well, but nonetheless flying.  Yay Sean.

Don S made progress on his knock-off of Picasso’s “Three Musicians”.

The Burbank High robotics club convened their regular Saturday session amongst the partiers.  Bryan Q the advisor was there as was Jonathan, the out-going president.  He graduates tomorrow, Sunday.   Yay Jonathan.  Seth & Gabriel will continue the tradition.

John designed and 3D-printed joints for his collapsible carbon fiber walking stick.

Sue started to knit a something-or-other for her new niece.  Kevin served as yarn rack.  They were all gussied up, ready to go on to the symphony.

Charles and Bruce held their regular first-Saturday meeting of XCSSA.  Charles brought in a 50 pound monitor, a relic of the cold war, with a gray scale screen.  Bruce was waist deep in parts to a game controller.

Vincent learned to tin the leads from a stepper motor before putting them under the lugs of a motor controller board.

James trained his INMOOV robot with voice commands.  He taught it basic things like: “Lift left arm”.

Ken showed up with a probe to measure the power of the CO2 laser.

Chris pursued a rig to enable his quad copter to swap / recharge batteries without human intervention. Angela has an interview Monday for a teaching job in the neighborhood near the Witte.  We’re rooting for her.

We welcomed new people to the space:

Peggy lured her son Travis, and a friend Jack to visit for the first time.

James hosted his mom and dad, Tammy and Tommy; sister, Juliana; and a former fellow Cox employee, Mary.

At least 3 pairs of new people took the tour:  

Markus & Sam

XXX & YYY

ManA & WomanB who were into tiny houses. 

(We’re not very good with names.)

And then there were the celebrity sightings:  

Greg and Salina  

Mikel and Amanda

Mike G

Mary and Ariana

Micheal

Andres

Don Wright

A few others checked “Good to See You” on the Meet-Up site but I didn’t spot them:

John Frazee

Stephen Graf

Kevin ?

Mike ?

Altogether I tallied 49, mostly from memory.  There were surely more.

It was a potluck.  Thanks to all who brought stuff.

Special thanks to Ken who set up a new grill and cooked dogs and burgers and sausages.

Special thanks to James who paid for a radio ad on TPR.

Don S

  

[Matt Grooms]

Don,

 

Your ‘Saturday at 10Bit’ attendance & activity reviews are simply the best! I really miss the regular installments you made in the past. Reading them each week helped me keep up with goings on and who was doing what. Hope you find time to make more of them in the future. I think they’re a great marketing tool as well. Sounds like the party was fun, sorry I missed it.

 

Matt G.

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[Les Hall]

Oh yeah, this is good stuff!  Makes me feel like I'm there while I am trapped far away.  Keep on Truckin'!  

Les

Les make something today!  

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[Don Smeller]

1	Don Smeller	Never got to paint. Tutored folks in OnShape, Inkscape, Laser cutter software.
2	Dan	Into Christmas Lights and motorized wheel chair to tow lawn mower.
3	Sebastian	Lived in Europe, wants to go back and renovate castles
4	Jackie	Mother of Sebastian.  Works DOD can't talk about it.  Super smart.
5	Jim	Laser cut-out of seagull.  Learned enough Inkscape to do job.
6	Margaret	Wife of Jim
7	George Eisenhofer	Learning OnShape. Adding ABC, 123 to WellPlate. Trying to join.
8	Militza Cunningham	Painted aspen tree scene.
9	Chris Hardee	Made lightbox. Added features to quadcopter.
10	James Manley	Gave tours.  Tended aquaponics.
11	Carlos	Lives in the neighborhood, checking us out, took tour.
12	Mika	Son of Carlos, took tour.
13	Anthony	Air Force cyber guy. Has 3D printer.  First timer.
14	Greg Bluntzer	Tapped on computer.  Agricola gamer.
15	Sean Kelly	Worked on quadcopter. Agricola gamer.
16	Ray Good	Trouble shot Burbank 3D printer.  Rookie mistakes!
17	Andres	Building a digital clock.
18	John	Cleaned up lathe.  Getting ready to make joints for walking stick.
19	Jeremy	Finished glass etching of flowers.    Soldering.  Soldering.
20	Gabriel	Burbank 3D printer.  Made wire harness, right this time.
21	Sacha De'Angeli	Brought wood. Used the table saw.
22	Mike Geris	Treasurer's report.  We're in black.
23	Ken Runner	Monthly meeting preside.

Ray, Don and George developed the “wellplate” shown in use at MD Anderson Cancer Center.