Darek, Tom, and Tim have been working hard the past few weeks to get an RC R2D2 ready for Wolcott’s Memorial Day Parade. It began with an old Pepsi cooler as the base to work off of. A salvaged hoverboard was used to drive R2, and hobbyist RC plane electronics were used to drive him. A 15W amplifier paired with an arduino played sounds and songs from the series.
It even made the news! (can be seen at around 0:18)
This past weekend some NESIT members worked on laser cutting 3D models. They used slicer for Fusion 360 to slice the model, and our 60w Epilog laser to cut the layers from 36×24 sheets of cardboard.
Derek has started working on an awesome new project, a mini motorcycle. Looks great so far!
Huge thanks to Orbit Plastics for donating their Autotran pad printing line! This machine is capable of printing all sorts of graphics onto just about any item you can think of. Its a wonderful machine and we look forward to getting it working.
At the NESIT Makerspace (in lovely downtown Meriden, CT in the 290 Pratt St. Building) there’s a Zeus 3D Printer. As it’s not always obvious how to use it Dave R. has created a video on the subject.
We’ve also added the video to a section of the website we’re entitling Hardware at the NESIT Makerspace And How to Use It.
NESIT is holding our bi-weekly open house. Stop by and check out what everyone’s working on. Or just say Hi!
Chris will be bringing in the Monoprice Maker Select Mini to see if some of it’s design defects can be repaired. The Mini appears to have a couple of serious deficiencies in power cable movement and belt tension that should be easy to fix. Find out more about it at MPSelectMini.com
NESIT members have retrieved and assembled a mill for working metal. Our new mill is a free-standing unit pictured above during it’s assembly!
Stop by to see it in action.
If you’re unfamiliar with what a metal working mill can do see the video (courtesy of MIT) we’ve embedded below. MIT’s Tech TV service isn’t working perfectly; to view, press the play button.
Monday is open house night at NESIT Makerspace in Meriden, CT just off Rt 691 with convenient access from Hartford, New Haven, and all of central Connecticut.
What’s been going on? Tom and Sam have been at work readying their rocket for launch in the metal and wood shop. From this recent picture taken in the 3D printing area it looks like it’s almost ready to go!
Kevin was going over the art of leather working on Wednesday at NESIT. Tooling and died patches of leather are useful in a variety of crafts.
Case in point. If you look close at those patches you’ll see Playstation buttons tooled into them. We’re not sure what he’s doing here; possibly designing a giant Playstation controller?
Andrew’s workshop on the art of crafting chainmail lead to the successful creation of chain mail cloth by quite a few folks in attendance. Using a simple jig to twist the wire into loops, cutting with a leveraged pair of snips, and properly connecting the links is all that’s required.
Sign up for the encore presentation on MeetUp and stop in to learn how the mail is made! NESIT will also be open for our usual Wednesday night open house hours.
