For the past 2 months a team of makers has been frantically designing and building a glider for Redbull Flugtag.  It was one of the most fun projects I have ever had the privilege of working on.  Thought we did not place in the competition I wanted to share what we have learned and share some CAD files for future Flugtag builders to find and reference if they wish.

Team Flies at All:

When I put up the call to see if other members where interested in participating I was shocked when almost 20 people came to the first meeting.  At that meeting two opposing directions were posed for our entry.  One was a craft that would be as crazy as possible that would just be fun to look at and not attempt flight in a meaning full way.  The second was “team flies at all” who thought the fun part of the project would be the challenges of making a craft that would generate lift.  As the next weeks went on that second team was the only group that kept meeting and planning.  

Material choice and testing:

At one of the first design meetings Jon Drayna brought in a sample that he had worked on that week that would become the structure of our design.  It was 1 inch pink insulation board laminated on either side with 2mm strips of wood.  This made the normally flexible material very ridged while still being extremally light weight.

With this structure in mind I went to work in Fusion 360 and modeled up a craft.  Using a paper added to a google drive the team was sharing I was able to design a parametric air foil that would in theory provide high lift at low speed.  I even devoted the weekly Fusion 360 class to making an airfoil.  Below is a link to that class and the parametric airfoil Fusion 360 file will be in the link at the bottom.

We chose to cover our wings with window cling film.  I think this is one of the best choices we made.  Even though the film required lots of care it was cheap and light weight compared to alternatives.  On the day of the event we saw boat vinyl and lots of other materials but I stand by our window film.  Another decision that I was happy with on our craft were the ridged supports in the front and back of our wing.  Lots of teams chose not to do this and their air foil shapes were lost due to the shrinking material. 

Our biggest lesson:

If you have ever attempted to do something for the first time before you know that it usually doesn’t work.  We all had lots of optimism about our chances to “fly” but it takes practice to learn new things.  You can’t make an omelet with out breaking a few eggs.  On Flugtag our point of failure was the cart.  We knew that if the back of the cart were to push up on the back of the glider it would push the nose down right into the water.  We had taken care to design a two part cart that would we thought drop away from the craft with the use of a one way hinge mechanism.  The idea was as the front of the cart holding the glider went off the edge it would fall down bending at the hinge and not creating leverage lifting the back of the glider.  Maybe it was swelling due to humidity or jus the paint being sticky but this was our point of failure.   You can see in the video the cart breaking part of the tail as it forced it up and as soon as it fell away the wings started to work.  It was too late at that point though.

I use used a bad word in that last paragraph, failure.  At least most people think of it as a bad word.  Lets reframe that right now.  Failure is what happens on the path to success.  Failure is what happens when you are pushing your self far beyond your current capabilities and knowledge.  No one has ever learned something from success it is failure that teaches us and failure that motivates us.  

We failed to fly but we succeeded at working together to build one of the coolest projects to ever come out of this building.  It was so much fun working with everyone that pitched in for an hour or two or for weeks on end.  The bravest member of the Makerspace, Faith, got to stand on a stage in front of 50,000 people and answer questions about what a the Milwaukee Makerspace is.  I have zero regret except for maybe not jumping of the edge of the ramp…

Open Source Everything:

We learned so much.  You can take a look at our CAD files and build images and learn with us.  All are at the link below for you to copy and improve.

Open Source Project Link.

3 years ago I started participating in the Grow Beyond Earth contest.  It’s a collaboration between NASA and the Fairchild Botanical Gardens in Florida.  The goal is to create a device that will grow food on the International Space Station.  That sounded like fun to me!  Year one focused on designing the growing area to take advantage of the 0G environment and fit in a 50cm cube.   I was fortunate enough to be a finalist and walked away with some prize money.  I was not able to participate in the 2nd year but I am back in for year 3. 

This year the focus is on creating a robotic harvesting and planting.  If you want to read all about it you can do so at the Make:Projects link below.  This has been a fun project and I learned so much.

https://makeprojects.com/project/0g-garden—year-3-professional-entry

Are you a boat or home owner?  Do you wish paying your bills was more fun?  Do you have stacks of cash sitting around just taking up space?  Well this is the project for you!  Over the next month we will be designing version 2 of the Rain Maker.  It’s a tool that you load with cash and then launch at about the speed most of my project eat cash lately.  Version 2 you ask?  That’s right most of the longer projects we model in class take me several attempts to get right.  Here is a link so you can see it in action. 

https://www.instagram.com/p/CYP6pMlIizE/

The first draft lets me work out the ideas and see if I can get a working prototype.   In this case I knew I wanted to try over molding like our favorite tool company here in Milwaukee and I was not sure if my cash accelerator device would work.  About a hundred hours of printing later I can tell you it does and I learned a lot of do’s and don’t when over molding on 3d printed parts.  I do really like the feel of the urathane rubber in my hand and it is so much fun to see money shooting our the front of the tool.  This is going to be a fun one so join us Mondays @ 7pm or watch the series on YouTube.

Over the past few months I have been playing with 3D fractals to create slip cast pottery.  I found a free program called Mandelbulber 3D and you know me, If it’s free I’ll take 3.  It’s shocking to me the availability of free software like this.  Right now I am just scraping the surface on what the software can do but I have a few examples of shapes made in the software posted on Thingiverse.

https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:5138435

Creating the fractals with the Mandelbulber is fairly straight forward.  Just experiment with varying a few values and click render.  The hard part is getting the shape to be cast-able with out having to make a 27 part mold.  A few weeks ago I pulled the first cast from my first successful mold.  This is part fractal and part Fusion.  The foot of the cup is part of the fractal pattern and the body of the cup is a shape designed in Fusion 360.  Although the final product warped in the kiln I think it was a good proof of concept.

After the shape is created digitally you have to make it physical.  My go to method is usually my 3D printer.  The constraints that make a part easy to 3d print without supports are similar to the  constraints that make a part easy to remove from a mold.  To make the slip cast mold I don’t print the cup but a plastic mold of the cup, there are two reasons for this.  First if you are going to make lots of slip casts you are going to need more than one mold.  Because of the time it takes to cast each cup you will need to pour several mold each day.  Second with a hard plastic mold you can make a soft silicone part.  This saves me from making a large silicone Mother Mold of my 3D printed mold.  My Mother Mold is half of the 3D printed mold with the full silicone cast part inside.  It’s worth noting that there is 15-18 percent of shrinkage from pour to final firing so you will need to scale up your prints to an almost comical size. 

(photo coming soon)…

On a side note I did some experimenting is soaking silicone parts in IPA to expand them.  This is a fun exercise if you have never done it.  To expand a part just place it in a container of IPA for several hours.  I let one part sit over night and go about the amount of growth I was looking for to but the part shrinks down slowly when removed from the IPA and the growth amount is not very predictable.  Below you can see an example of how much larger the part grew and the final fired piece from this process.

I am in the process of printing my molds right now so tonight at the open meeting I might have printed molds to show.  I also have other shapes to pass around.

Make sure not to miss this weekend’s Nerdy Derby at American Science and Surplus. Adrian and the rest of the nerdy team will be helping kids and kids at heart turn blocks of wood into rolling masterpieces of speed. If you have not been to a Nerdy Derby event this will be one not to miss.  3D printed wheels have been coming in from printers all over the city and from our Makerspace 80 at a time.

Building a car is easy and there will be a nice long track to race down once you’ve finished your creation.  You start by picking a block of wood and some wheels. After a bit of nailing its off to nerdy up your car from piles of amazing decorations. Makers are encouraged to decorate, test, and re-decorate. Everything that you glue onto a car affects the way it moves down the track. See you there!

Tuesday meetings often turn into training night at the Makerspace.  So many members come the the weekly meeting that it can be easy to find something new to learn.  Last week was no exception when Pete gave an intro to screen printing.

It seemed like a straight forward process and I would encourage people who want to try making a t-shirt to email Pete to get checked out on the machine.

After walking the class through the basics of preparing the silk with the design. Pete set up an example print and let his small class of makers give it a try.

Before #2: My front door, in need of paint, some aesthetic happiness, a fixed doorhandle, and summer. My desire to add a little decoration to the door is, in part, what led me to the Makerspace. I had an idea for panels to go on either side of the door, but no equipment for making what was in my head. When I saw that the Makerspace had cnc routers…

IN THE MIDDLE

I took photos of leaves from the oak tree in our yard:

I traced the leaves in Illustrator, and — by looking at the structure of the tree — made my initial design. I exported the file into svg (with hints from Shane), and Ed helped me use Cambam to convert the svg file into the gcode that the Mogul desires.

After generating the gcode, we cut the first panel. For me, watching the cutting was like Christmas: exciting — while for Ed, stepping me through the process, this must have been like a long slooooooooow Christmas, watching the design appear through the three passes the router bit made to cut each (complicated) path. (In truth, Ed’s patience and help were the real Christmas present for me.)

This panel was an experiment for me, to learn about how thin and delicate the connecting pieces could be in such cutting. And I learned: what you cannot see in the picture above is how two of the leaves broke off quickly.

In the next Illustrator file I made (which I then cut on the Mogul with Steve Pilon’s also very generous and patient help), the leaves overlap and made their stems thicker. You might be able to see this in the final picture below, which shows the panels painted and mounted. Merry Christmas!

THE END

Some great information on using a router table from Rockler is available here:

• Router Table Basics

A great video for absolute router beginners, Steve Ramsey also has a bunch of other great woodworking videos:

• Router Basics  router tables start at about 6:45

How to make a picture frame using a router table, another Steve Ramsey YouTube video:

• How to make a simple picture frame using a woodworking router

An overall pic of the router table.

A tight picture of the top of the router table showing slots for clamping jigs, fence, and anti-kickback devices.

A close up shot of a craftsman router mounter under the router table.

I’ve known since I met my Makerspace Geek husband that he could fix ANYTHING. It didn’t always look pretty but it would work. I’m reminded DAILY just how talented he is. Unfortunately, over the years, being somewhat of a minimalist, I ran out of things to put on his Honey-Do List. I would find myself, at times, racking my brain trying to think of something he could fix or make. Because after completing a task and joyfully erasing it from the fix-it/make-it board, he was happy, contented and fulfilled. Lo and Behold he discovered Makerspace. I should celebrate the day as one would a major holiday. It has transformed my little geek into a big geek. He LOVES Makerspace and I love that he has a place to go where he can share, with other like-minded individuals, all the geeky thoughts spinning in his head. He still shares some of that with me but I know that oftentimes my head kind of goes on blank mode and I find myself just looking at him, trying not to nod off and listen. After his joining and I got over his starting every sentence with something about Makerspace, or his approaching total strangers and handing out a Makerspace card, or striking up conversations with family and friends and droning on for, what seemed like hours, about Makerspace, I surrendered. Why??? Because it makes him darn happy, that’s why. And who doesn’t want to see someone they love being happy??

So now when we’re eating dinner and I see him chomping at the bit because he wants to be at the club, I wish him well on his merry way and sit back to a quiet evening. If I’m awake when he gets home I get to hear all about the goings-on. I admit to crashing, often before he gets home because when he does he’s often so jazzed that I then have trouble falling to sleep .
Thanks, Makerspace, for making a space for him