The Heads on Fire Community

Today at fab lab we are to present our cell phone holder project to Pam a parapalegic woman. Pam has multiple scoliosis which is a disease according to the medical journal is that your immune systems attack your nervous system which means your fighting with yourself instead of an outside invader such as viruses and bacteria.  Our project started out from scratch only working with the measurments we took.

Over the past few weeks we have been gathering together the materials needed to make a cell phone project for a quadripalegic woman. She is unable to make alot of movements in her limbs so it makes her hard for her to communicate with people on our cell phone. She sits in a wheel chair and we plan to extend a bar across her arm rest and the phone will sit on the bar so it will be easier for her to use it. We started out with an acrylic tab that had the dimesnions of the phone and we bent it in a way that it would support the phone without falling.

Today I used the Laser Cutter to make precision cut circles from 1/8 inch wood sheet.

I want build an analog device, a geartrain to demonstrate addition and multiplication.

Machine shop services are very expensive, and online fabrication is not free either.

HOF is providing access to tools, that I could not find anywhere else. Their combination of equipment and instruction is very high quality.

I'm attaching a jpg of the circles as designed in Inkscape, diameters 1, 2 and 3 inches, bore 0.25 inches.

So I'm building a robotic 3D printer based off of the RepRap technology.  This post describes the differences between my design and the RepRap and gives the reasoning for my choices.  It's called the Bambot because it mostly made of bamboo.  I was originally using wood and was going to call it my wobot, but bamboo has a much better strength to weight ratio.

Here's an update on the stucture team's shadow sculpture. The piece represents a communion of cultures that can be found within our community:

This structure symbolize the power and energy. If the structure were being look from the top it will look like the sun. Power and energy is needed in everyday life and if we don't conserve it, there won't be any left in the future. This structure is power completely by solar energy, all the lights and LED lights are being charge in the morning and will light up at night. This structure is self sustainable and can be put anywhere in sunlight and it will work. Also 99% of this structure is press fit. This whole structure can be put together without any screws.

Here are a few pics from the nearly completed structure project:

This stucture represents the energy in a community, both figuratively and literally. It harnesses solar power to light up the flames that surround the structure's center.

Well, I've developed a plan of action on how to repair the three-dimensional printer. It is as follows:

1: Contact Kenji and obtain an estimate on a new Xylotex board.

2: Send for a new one.

3: Program Xylotex board with 4-axis program.

4: Replace board with new one.

The structure team's public installation piece is nearing completion. At the moment, we are installing th LEDs and the last of the wooden pieces. The plan is to add a panel that would activate in response to human touch, thus causing the lights in the structure to activate, as well as adding a solar panel to one of the flame pieces, as to have a constant supply of energy.

The "Library Project" Team, after a month of working on a design of an exhibition, we are finally done with the prototype. Everything fits perfectly, but it wasn't as easy as I thought it would be. It took us a long time to make sure it was stable enough with the press-fit tabs we made on the sides. There were so many small details that we started noticing as we printed more and more prototypes. It was very frustrating because something always use to go wrong, one way or another. However, everytime  we got closer and closer to perfection.