November 2009
2 posts
1 tag
Tinkering — November 14th
More tinkering again this Saturday.
We built a hot-wire foam cutter for the space, which should come in handy with our upcoming drumkit workshop.
Playing around with the BlueBoards we got. Congrats to Kean for solving the downloading problem.
Congrats to everyone for pledging for our new CNC Machine! We’ve reached our target in under 24 hours! I’ll put in the order tonight, and...
October 2009
3 posts
Robots and Dinosaurs Halloween Party & Movie Night
This Saturday we had our Halloween party and movie night.
We started off with talks on Iphone Programming, CNC machining and more. We’ll continue these talks in future for all sorts of topics, so stay tuned.
As an Australian tradition, in lieu of Pumpkins, we had Mellon carving!
We’ve also got some more pictures up here: http://www.flickr.com/groups/robotsanddinosaurs/
1 tag
Tinkering -- October 24th
Had our usual weekend tinkering this Saturday.
Breaking News: We got our own Slurpee machine!
Some highlights:
Got a slurpee machine!
SuperProbe manufacture
Making the DSO kits we group-ordered
Made a prototype drumkit for future workshop stuff
Juggling & Poi practice
3 tags
Superprobe
I came across the Super Probe two weeks ago, and just had to make one. I had a bunch of the PIC 16F870 microcontrollers left over from an earlier project, and the rest of the parts were all easily found in my parts collection.
It is a really simple circuit, with so many useful features:
- Logic Probe (L 3.7 V, P > 0.5us pulse)
- Logic Pulser (0.5 us pulses at 5, 50, 500, 5k Hz)
-...
6 tags
Geigerduino (part 1)
Over the last couple of months, Gav and R3becca have been discussing a new project idea - the Geigerduino. The idea being to be able to build an simple device that can detect cosmic rays or other radiation using a Geiger-Müller tube and an Arduino, and then publish the details so others could do the same.
In late August, whilst having an R&D group dinner at Rockdale McDonalds, Gav quizzed me...
September 2009
3 posts
2 tags
Member's Projects: Bret's Flight Simulator
This post is to describe a particularly epic piece of work by one of our members, Bret. He’s built a full-sized flight simulator cockpit in his house! Here’s his description:
The simulator was inspired by a visit to a facility in the north of Sydney which maintains and operates some impressive aircraft (but it would be improper to disclose who that would be :-) )
During a flight...
2 tags
MakerBot Assembly Day! 5th September
The MakerBot Assembly Day was a rip-roaring success! Thanks to all those who attended and helped our bot crawl into life.
It took us quite a few hours, and a little cursing, but eventually we’ve got the 3D printer moving and extruding to our hearts content.
There’s a lingering bug with build ‘burping’s, but we do have to same something to work on for next weekend.
Some higlights:
Max gave a...
2 tags
Tinkering -- August 29th
More tinkering this Saturday.
Thanks to Jason for kindly setting up the Wifi & Router for the space. That should come in very handy for getting data sheets at 3am.
Adrian was testing out his project, the Servo Shield for the arduino, which will be capable of driving 16 simultaneously.
In other news the MakerBot printer has arrived! Next weekend we’ll be assembling it together.
August 2009
4 posts
5 tags
Tinkering -- August 22nd
At it again with tinkering on the weekend.
Some highlights:
We made some ferrofluid demonstration cells and gave them away
Set up a MythTV box, which will come in handy for our movie nights.
Bec’s project of welding up some brackets for a planter
Troubleshooting a Behemoth of an Oscilloscope, kindly donated by Kean
2 tags
Member's Projects -- 'Light Interrupted' by Adam...
Introducing a new category here on the blog, Member’s Projects. We’d like to show off some of the things people are making, taking apart, remaking or whatever! Our first project is by Adam Synnott, and is called ‘Light Interrupted’. It was recently featured in ‘Serial Space’ in Chippendale.
Light Interrupted
Light Interrupted is a rear projected FTIR multi-touch display using a combination of...
1 tag
Tinkering -- August 8th
Another get together this Saturday.
Some highlights
Chris gave his buffer overflow presentation, with demonstration code
Max did some experiments in underwater propulsion
Some tinkering with the R&D Robotic Jugband, the bellls work now!
Playing with high voltage Nixie bargraphs
3D printing again
[gallery]
1 tag
Tinkering -- August 1st
We just had another Saturday get together in the space. Loads of people arrived and participated. It’s starting to get crowded in there!
Some things which were playing around with include:
MakerBot 3D printing
The Robots and Dinosaurs Jugband
Tinkering with some servers and Xboxes
High voltage photography
Space maintenance
and a few other things
Status: This was a triumph!
July 2009
2 posts
1 tag
Tinkering -- July 25h
We had our usual tinkering get together on Saturday. Here are some of the things that happened:
* Chris & Anna decorated the walls with cool space invaders stickers!
*Added a spiffy new doorbell to the space.
* We got the 3pi robot working and layed out a quick course for it. It can follow lines and solve mazes. Surprisingly quick for such a little thing…
* Gav & Ev got...
1 tag
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Robots and Dinosaurs is a collaborative space in Sydney for people to share tools, equipment, skills, and ideas - and to learn from and teach each other.
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