Tinkering Engineer

We are makers.

We make mistakes.
We make progress.
We make enemies.
We make friends.
We make time.
We make money.
We make assumptions.
We make apologies.
We make fools of ourselves.
We make up.
We make movies.
We make up stories.
We make excuses.
We make amends.
We make wine.
We make beer.
We make breakfast.
We make lunch.
We make dinner.
We make clothes.
We make guesses.
We make decisions.
We make it worth while.
We make out.
We make babies.
We make love.
We make war.
We make peace.

We make.

TechShop Pittsburgh had their open house tonight, and I took my two boys. It was packed, but they seemed to enjoy it. It looks like they still have a lot of items to move into the shop, but I was definitely geeking out on what was there already.

Plus, they were letting people do some MIG welding. My boys suited up and tried it out.
Continue reading “TechShop Pittsburgh Open House”

If you’re an alumnus/a of Carnegie Mellon or a student/administrator/faculty, you’ve probably heard of the Loyal Scot program. It’s a program designed to increase alumni participation and outreach. To become a Loyal Scot, you must:

1. Update your contact information to stay informed
2. Get involved (volunteer, attend events, etc.)
3. Give back, i.e. donate some money
4. Show your pride by wearing the CMU logo, liking CMU on Facebook, etc.

Once you’ve done all this, you’re a Loyal Scot. And what does that get you?
Continue reading “I’m a Loyal Scot…..So Now What?”

Here’s a costume I built for my son for Halloween. It’s made of EVA foam. I used Pepakura and the videos from the awesome TheHeroTutorials videos on YouTube put up by user Stealth from the RPF forums. The design files came from user unheard on www.405th.com. Many, many, many thanks to these two individuals for their videos and design work.

Here’s a video of the voice-to-led function that lights up the mouth piece when he talks.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q9UTA8cP97Y

And here are some pictures:

So there’s this.

Alcoa is one of the entities supporting this, but there’s no mention of Pittsburgh. They’re opening a TechShop in Pittsburgh, and you’ve got places like Pitt and CMU nearby that are working on pretty high tech stuff.

So…..why no Pittsburgh?

If Jenn sent you here, here’s a scan of the popcorn form you can download. If you have no idea what I’m talking about, never mind.

Right click on the link and select “Save as….” to get it.

Popcorn Form

Here’s Toothy the Timer, a little project I made to help my kids brush their teeth for the right amount of time. I originally made a through hole version, but I wanted to make an SMD version to help me practice surface mount soldering.

http://youtu.be/1TksuoMT4sA