Archive October, 2012

The Wood Lathe

30 October, 23:45, by EvaB

With his wood lathe that Alex Ciccone has generously lent to DIYode, he has made some truly handsome items.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

He has created this lovely turned bowl, the knife holder and the dimmer switch knob out of butternut.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Alex is planning on more projects to come.  We are looking forward to them!

DIYode Socials in October

30 October, 22:48, by EvaB

Waverly Neighbourhood Fun Night

An area covering from about Woolwich Street to Victoria Road, and from about Woodlawn Road to Eramosa Road hosts the Waverly Neighbourhood Group. Community minded residents of this area are supporting educational, recreational and social programs for young and old, such as gardening, toy washing, and neighbourhood Fun Nights.

DIYode was pleased to be invited to the last Fun Night on October the 19th. Many DIYode built items were around for the enjoyment of not just the kids. There was an egg bot http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=noK_m-f1yDE, a computer controlled egg decorator. There was  The Cyclospinnerator   http://www.diyode.com/2012/10/the-cyclospinnerator/ , from which pedalling madly on a bike produced colourful works of art. There was a harmonograph http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9f5J86ibL2o, that, with the aid of gently swinging pendulums, produced spiral images that differed every time it drew. There was an air vortex cannon that when aimed at innocent bystanders set t-shirts and loose papers flapping.

The most fun for everyone there was definitely the pinata. All the kids, and some adults too, tried to knock holes into a giant pumpkin hanging from the rafters of the stage. This was done with air pumped paper rockets. Cries of delight rang out with each hit, and even bigger shouts came when the rockets knocked loose some of the goodies inside.

Scary Movie Night at DIYode

On Saturday October 27th, some DIYode families got together at the shop to see animations and films with a halloween theme. There was pumpkin carving, popcorn eating, and hours of enjoyment. Thanks to Mark for arranging the event.

 

The Cyclospinnerator

30 October, 15:11, by Simon Clark

So, it was time to hack together something fun a few weeks back. We wanted to build something for kids, something we could take around to events that would engage the little people.

We got an old broken stationary bike off of freecycle, took it to bits, removed all that was unnecessary, moved the gears to the front, made a new plywood wheel, an 8 foot rope loop and another wheel on a lazy susan bearing attached to a round table top, and lo-and-behold, we had created our cyclospinnerator. Check out the video to see it in action.

DIYode Trillium Grant Ceremony

30 October, 14:38, by EvaB

NEWS
The DIYode Community Workshop has received funding for several innovative and capable prototyping tools, thanks to a $15,000 grant from the Ontario Trillium Foundation (OTF)  http://www.otf.ca/ .  MPP for Guelph, Ms. Liz Sandals will be joining OTF representatives in congratulating us at a ceremony on November 2nd at 11am. The event will take place at Diyode at 71 Wyndham St. S, Unit B.

“This grant will be instrumental in helping us support Guelph’s community of innovators and Do-It-Yourselfers. When you give capable tools to capable people, exciting things have a tendency to happen.”

Simon Clark, President, Diyode Community Workshop

trillium foundation logo

 

 

The Ontario Trillium Foundation is an agency of the Government of Ontario.

The CH-0 Blog. (Container House Zero)

22 October, 21:23, by Christoph Kesting

Is it worthwhile?   Can steel boxes be any part of a home which endevors to be off the grid & net zero? What is “Net Zero”?   Can a home grow its own green footprint on its roof & walls?

Here’s a story of a 5 tonne piece of industrial waste that wants back.  Back to the fields & forest.

here’s a link to the CH-0 blog

 

The Bird House

15 October, 15:41, by Simon Clark

The BirdHouse

Four years ago, I built a little cedar cabin in a forest.  I have a solar panel on the roof, its near a river & is a short drive from the city. I was inspired to return to my rural roots but knew I needed to also be living and working in the city.  The building of this cabin, which I call the BirdHouse, is a dogged pursuit of how to connect a lighter ecological footprint as well as a lighter economic footprint.   Often, there is quiet voice which says, ‘look to nature’.  When visitors perch for a weekend at the BirdHouse, they appreciate the lack of stuff.  The smaller simpler living.  The collection of sounds which form a soundscape.  Coyotes at night in the distance, geese on the river, the fireplace crackling.  I am fascinated by the stories of people who are living happy and wealthy lives in homes which are light.  Living in homes that are sustainable, resilient & dynamic.  Homes that are built to follow the rhythms of nature, obtain a yield from the sun’s energy, rainwater & wastewater.  If there’s a question mark or lightbulb for you at this moment, come for a quick visit to the website:  thebirdhouse.org 

 

For a recent radio interview, we played soundscapes from the container.  Here is that interview:

Interview on local radio, CFRU (part 1)
Interview on local radio, CFRU (part 2)

 

 

Thanks for dropping by.   Thanks to our friends who are Sponsors as well.  My name is Christoph Kesting.
ck@thebirdhouse.org & (519) 831-1012  &  http://www.facebook.com/ckesting 

The Speakers from SoOnCon 2012

07 October, 23:36, by EvaB

Christoph Kesting of DIYode spoke about art creating vision and vision helping us and those around us. He will be creating a comfortable, beautiful home out of an ordinary shipping container at the rear of the DIYode parking lot. Follow him on his container-house-ontario blog.  He will be facilitating workshops to show anyone how to do it themselves.

Bob DeGregory is from Kwartzlab, another makerspace in Kitchener. He described how before modern technology, people were using low tech means to move large, very heavy objects. He spoke about a few techniques to move rocks weighing tonnes, all by hand.

Bernie Rodhe is from Kwartzlab as well. He has created an artpiece made from an arduino (a microprocessor) and LEDs in the shape of a lady’s face. The soundwaves from the area around this piece are instantaneously displayed by the LEDs, making an active and ever changing light dance.

Mel Wilson spoke about how a small chip, the WIZnet 5100, can help your small Arduino microprocessor communicate on the internet. This WIZnet chip has four built in internet sockets and an ethernet interface. As with everything Arduino, the coding is open source, and allows another big step in Arduino functionality.

Matt Harding of DIYode has an idea for a guitar that outwardly looks like it has a regular wooden body, but betrays a sophisticated electronic interior making cutting edge sound. He hopes to produce it and offer it for sale in a novel way.

T. Shawn Johnson of DIYode spoke about the Mystic Maze Project, which is a community built maze that can be installed anywhere an event takes place. Portable sections of the maze can be sponsored and decorated by patrons. His goal is to create a maze large enough in which one can get truly lost.
He also gave a talk about various free digital 3D programs and their attributes so that we can create our own three dimensional models ready for printing, laser cutting, or milling.

Glenn McKnight’s talk was about Solar Electric Systems for Remote Off-Grid Applications. The size of a small suitcase, this kit is able to be deployed for use as power for lighting and medical equipment in remote locations without realiable sources of electric power. He is collecting teams to help assemble these kits to be deployed worldwide.

Seth Hardy is one of the cofounders of Site 3, a makerspace in Toronto. He has developed a safe “flame effect” device. We certainly noticed the large balloons of spectacular fire outside!

Ben Grossman of Guelph is a multitalented musician. He and his son prepared a collection of salvaged and hacked electronic components and old toys to show us what strange and interesting noises they can make.

Carl Penny of Site 3, a makerspace in Toronto, is a multitalented artist. Carl mentioned many projects he has completed, including chain mail and scale mail that were expertly knitted into fascinating wearable art. He laser cuts leather as well as sheet latex, then transforms them into unique items of clothing. He makes clothing components from 3D printed plastics and metals. Site 3 participated in Burning Man 2012, for which he programmed motion capture gloves which controlled jets of fire to respond to movement in a real life action game.

Dan O’Connell, a robot enthusiast from Kwartzlab in Kitchener, created a very lifelike boy that rides on a trike….except it’s not a boy. People think something is a bit off when they see it only to discover that it’s a robot. Dan explained all the pieces and how they all fit together.

We assembled our name badges with the contents of a small bag of various electronic components. DIYode’s own Simon Clark has put together a kit to teach soldering, some rudiments of electronics, and some basic programming sketches. He calls the finished project the “CodeShield”.

Tony Thompson from DIYode spoke about where the art of soldering electronic components has been and where it’s going. He discussed various types of breadboards, as well as the soldering process, and which soldering wires and fluxes to use. Something to consider for now and the future is that the size of components is shrinking to the equivalent of a grain of ground pepper. Tony, can you help us?

Zak Homuth, one of the cofounders of Upverter, reviewed the history of this company, which is a “design and collaboration platform”. The open source software they developed lets a user draw the plans of circuits that will lead to hardware components. It’s easy to create a circuit on the fly and past projects submitted by other users are availabe to review as a guide to basic circuit design. Upverter can help bring an electronic idea through the steps to physical product.

SoOnCon 2012 at DIYode

07 October, 00:30, by EvaB

Diyode CodeShield V1.1

05 October, 21:37, by Simon Clark

Last weekend was SoOnCon, Southern Ontario’s annual hackerspace / makerspace / community workshop. This years was hosted by Diyode, and as is tradition, we were tasked with coming up with an interesting badge. We took this as an opportunity to throw our resources into the codeshield, get some proper circuit boards made, and get a hundred or so of the shields out into the wild.

We were very lucky to have some great sponsors for the project primarily Upverter, but also Innovation Guelph and Miller Thompson, and a private donation from Guelph lawyer Robert Berry. This support allowed us to put together 100 badge kits, each including a code shield kit, an arduino Uno, a battery pack, and a custom laser cut acrylic badge.

We’re kind-of marking this as the official launch of the code shield. There’s a wiki up at http://diyode.com/codeshield where we are rapidly posting documentation, source code, schematics, and will soon be linking to the board design on Upverter.

We had a new guy come by last week. He’d been given an arduino, and when he said ‘what’s this’ someone kindly pointed him our way. So with very little code experience, no electronics, and freshly soldered code shield, he sat down and started playing. It was interesting to watch him progress from running the sample code, modifying the sample code, trying new combinations, adding in new components, functions, etc. In very little time, he was rocking the arduino, and felt confident enough to start thinking about working with his own components. I went home that night with a smile on my face.

We’ll continue posting more code, and will soon be putting together some proper curriculum. I’ll be taking the boards into the classroom with some grade 4 and 5 students to see how they work with it. If you really want a board, drop us a line at the info address, but right now we’re reserving them for people who are willing to contribute to the project.

To the DIYode Blog – Hurrah!

04 October, 22:19, by EvaB

We at DIYode are a happy bunch of makers. There are so many projects that have been completed, are in the process of being completed, or are in the gears of our heads, waiting to materialize.

This is the spot where we will feature who is working on what.

Please come back often to see us!

Through the blog, DIYode will be able to show that we all can “do it ourselves”. We invite you to come on out and see us, too. Our open house is at 9:00 on Mondays. There are a bunch of us there at that time, and we can give you a tour and answer your questions.

See you then!