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Haystack Mountain School of Crafts

Making LED Dragon Night Kites with Jie Qi

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After Jie Qi’sTechnical Assistant presentation at the Haystack Mountain School of Crafts, many Haystackers were interested in making the LED dragon night kites she had presented in her slide talk. We assembled the interested parties after dinner and had an impromptu kite making workshop. We made many kites from balsa wood dowels, tissue paper and “happy birthday” banners (for the tails), then strung them together into a long chain.

Unfortunately, our night kite flying was foiled by a complete lack of wind.  I feel that the disappointment we felt at the lack of wind was offset by the great time we had making the kites. You can see a video of what the kites would have looked like in action if we had wind.
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Categories
Haystack Mountain School of Crafts

Fab Lab Haystack Projects – From Haystack Students – 2011 Session 2 – Week 2

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I just spent 2 weeks at the Haystack Mountain School of Crafts helping students there contextualize and make use of the new permanent fab lab there.  Here are some projects that the Haystack students created.

Jungil Hong – Copper Colander

Jung created a small copper colander by taking a round piece of copper, drilling a pattern of holes in it with the ShopBot (with help from Jonathan Ward), and then shaping it.  Later, handles were added.
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Lu Heintz – Copper Lungs

Lu created copper lungs by first etching the lung pattern on the copper and then cutting them out on the ShopBot (with help from Jonathan Ward) and then shaping them.lung lunglunglunglung

Jennifer Cooke – Light Box (wood)

Jennifer was participating in the Wood / Interactive Objects collaboration workshop at Haystack.  She lasercut and laminated plywood together with mirrored acrylic and wired LEDs to a central pot to control the LEDs.  Photos show a work in progress.
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Categories
Fab Academy Providence -Year II - Teaching

Old School Fab Academy Providence Polaroid Portrait: From the Days When Cameras Were Furniture

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Krystal Grow of AS220 Photo shows the Fab Academy students how to operate the giant, working Polaroid camera, made of cast iron and wood.
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Krystal then took a two group photos of Fab Academy AS220.

Thanks Krystal!!

Categories
Fab Academy Providence -Year II - Teaching

MTM Snap Shield

Although Jonathan Ward had our MTM Snap running on his last trip to Providence, he recommended that we replace the individual stepper boards with the Arduino shield that he and Nadya Peek had created.  It seems some faulty wiring had cooked two of the stepper drivers and that we needed the increased capacitance of the shield. I milled, stuffed and assembled the shield.  Now to test it.

Stuffed MTM Snap Arduino Shield

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Freshly Milled MTM Snap Arduino Shield

MTM Shield