I will be giving public workshops on this cool new Arduino-compatible prototyping device at Fuse Factory on September 4 and Idea Foundry on October 3rd.

The workshop features the M5StickC prototyping device from M5Stack. The “stick” is a compact Arduino programmable device that contains its own screen, battery power, and extendable sensors. It also provides full Bluetooth and wifi capability. Workshop students will learn the basics of programming the stick to add interactive display, light, motion, sound, and connectivity to their projects and prototypes. Each student in the workshop will receive a M5StickC kit to work with and take home. sign ups: 

http://thefusefactory.org/events/beyond-the-arduino/

https://app.getoccasion.com/p/n/swStXnZZ#

I have had a great opportunity to help with a pop up maker space, the “Innovation Station” at our local VA center.

The space is open for one month only but it has given  exposure to making opportunities to a new audience who are full of ideas and life experiences. The project board quickly filled after opening with problems presented by both patients and staff of the center. Significant progress was made on moving a number of these projects into a prototyping phase.

A number of workshops were held in  addition to many one-on-one conversations and mentoring sessions. Innovation Station has been a great success thanks to the VA center, Local Tech Heros and a substantial group of volunteers

As I prepare to start teaching with the M5StickC I am collecting a testing hardware accessories. I’ve just gone through a small pile produced by Seeed Studio that use their Grove connector, also found on the stick. Next up will be a bunch of more commodity sensors and actuators commonly used with Arduinos. My notes on this research can be found here.

Capital University has a great Music Technology program (https://www.capital.edu/music-technology/) and I have collaborated with its director, Chad Loughrige, on a number of projects. One area we have collaborated on is developing simple video game environments for the students of his Audio for Media class to add all the sounds and music to.

I have created two basic first-person-non-shooter game environments in Unity for Chad’s students to work on. These environments used free and low cost assets from the Unity store along with custom coding and other tweeks. They are not full games, rather they are short experiences with 20+ opportunities to add sound effects and music.

Chad and I led the students through a quick tutorial on Unity using these games and then he took them deeper into the FMOD middleware package (https://www.fmod.com/), where they could implement sophisticated looping and zoned music and triggered spatial audio effects.

Although these are more “A” (if that) than “AAA” games, they have provided a platform for the students to dive in on and quickly start using professional tools the audio side.

As of the summer of 2019 I am developing new projects in Unreal. I’ll cover the reasons for the platform switch in a subsequent post. Meanwhile Chad and his collaborators are expanding the opportunities for Music Technology majors to do work on audio for gaming and VR.

Then read on here. I posted a short essay with my suggestions based on my experiences leading MakerX (www.makerx.org) through its first two years of annual festivals.

MakerX The Columbus Maker Expo is an annual festival celebrating creating with technology. I lead the development and planning of MakerX.

We held our second annual MakerX at the Ohio Expo Center (aka State Fairgrounds) on April 6, 2019. Over 90 exhibitors participated and we had 1300 people in attendance (a big bump up from 2018).

Full information on MakerX is available at:  http://makerx.org/

Planning for MakerX 2020 is underway and announcements will be made on the website in Fall 2019.

I’m now a Scholar in Residence at Capital University in the Columbus, Ohio area and just couldn’t resist the urge to establish a new maker space–or as I prefer to call it–a prototyping lab. We are still in the very early days here with only one room, a couple 3D printers, and some scrounged computers and furniture. Still, we already have a number of students coming in and doing cool projects. Next up will be outfitting the electronics bench and then we will see where things lead…..

MakerX The Columbus Maker Expo will take place on April 21, 2018. Full details, including the call for exhibitors and venue information, can be found at:

www.makerx.org

MakerX is an independent maker festival that consists of a celebration, learning, and networking event for everyone in interested in the exciting new technologies of digital design and fabrication.

We are now accepting proposals to exhibit at MakerX!

We are seeking exhibitors who are: makers, inventors, tinkerers, teachers, clubs, meetups, hobbyists, professionals, makerspaces, schools, universities, start-ups, and corporations who want to share their knowledge of the world of digital design and fabrication.

The list of what we would like to see at MakerX is equally long and open ended. It certainly includes robotics of all sorts, drones, 3D printing and other digital prototyping and production technologies, electronic technology of all vintages, digital art and music, entertainment technologies, engineering innovations, game development, industrial design, AR/VR/mixed reality, digital biohacking, high-tech manufacturing, and technologies of citizen science.

In addition to this core we invite exhibits that round out a stimulating and fun event and remind us where our digital age has come from and where it may go: for example, cosplay of the sci-fi and steampunk variety, production crafts like blacksmithing, steam engines, DIY vehicles and art cars.

Tickets to attend MakerX will be available in January. In the meantime, please check it out at www.makerx.org, submit your proposal by December 1, and pass this announcement on to anyone you think might be interested.

MakerX is an entirely volunteer effort. Event contact: Bill Ball, billball@capital.edu.

I have sold several hundred of the prototype boards discussed here on Ebay. I made less than a dollar on each but it was fun to connect with like-minded hobbyists who seem to have found the boards quite useful. I’ve gotten bored with filling small orders and plan to keep the remaining stock of manufactured boards for my instructional endeavors. But I wanted to make the files for manufacturing new boards available.

If you want to have your own PCBs made you are free to do so as long as you keep the tinkerfarm.net as the only website on the silkscreen. This includes for commercial use. The Gerber files can be found here. The original blog post specified the manufacturer I used in China and I will note that I never had a problem with them across several orders.

This is a self-watering (aka bottom irrigation) planter that I created as an easy 3D print.

It can easily be scaled to fit your space and plant, although 50% is probably the realistic minimum size. The full size version works well on a window sill.

This is three-piece print is designed to print well on any 3d printer without supports. If you have it, it is a good idea to use a second color for the float to make it more visible.

More information can be found on the Easy 3D Print page. The STL files are available on Thingiverse.