November 30 Meeting: Summary

The Tech Shop tour has been postponed. We will talk about the tour at next week's meeting.

November 30 Meeting: Preview, Part 2

This weekend the club has an option of (1) going to the Tech Shop in Menlo Park for a tour, or (2) going to the Tech Shop in San Francisco for a tour and then going to the SOMArt Come Out and Play Festival. We will take a vote at this week's meeting.

CSM to Tech Shop Menlo Park: 12.3 miles, 17 minutes by car
CSM to Tech Shop San Francisco: 23.7 miles, 32 minutes by car

Tech Shop Menlo Park

120 Independence Dr

Menlo Park, CA 94025

 

Tech Shop San Francisco

926 Howard St

San Francisco, CA 94103

 

The SOMArt Come Out and Play Festival is a free public event, consisting of over 20 games played in the SOMA area. It has two locations: 934 Brannan St. (between 8th and 9th), and Manalo Draves Park (Folsom and Sherman St.) It runs from 12 - 5 pm.

Here are some of the events:

• Propinquity (2–4pm): a mixed-media game designed to evoke both dancing and fighting that uses full body interaction and the use of sound and game play mechanics to produce an intensely social and physical experience.
• Obtain the Briefcase (1–3pm): a street game of running, chasing, hiding, subterfuge, and the fight to locate one crucial briefcase.
• Slothchase (1–3pm): a turn-based tag game of strategy and skill that slows players to a crawl as they navigate the cityscape.
• Third-Person Outer Body Labyrinth (3–5pm): a maze players navigate wearing video goggles to dislocate the sense of sight to a point high above.
• Sixteen Tons (12–5pm): a gallery-based physical and social strategy game that takes real money to win.
• WANTED!  (12–5pm): an SMS-based work of interactive street fiction focused on the adventures of a wild cowgirl.
• Lemonopoly (12–5pm): a real-world lemon trading game which pits Bay Area cities against one another to see who can share the most lemons
• Hearst Collection (12–5pm): an in-gallery art heist game in which players navigate a laser maze to steal pieces from the Hearst family.
• Doodle Defense (12–5pm): an low-tech, whiteboard-based tower defense game in which players race to draw game pieces to beat the onslaught of bugs.
• The Board Game Lounge (12–5pm): a replication of your living room, but with brand-new board games made by local designers--the handmade Berlin Wall Game, The Cove, and Toy Fight, and the high-tech Sifteo cubes.

November 30 Meeting: Preview, Part 1

The bridge building process continues. To help understand which bridges might do better, we will have a brief discussion of truss analysis. You can read the complete overview under the tab "Project 3: Bridge" above.

November 16 Meeting: Summary

Congratulations to the winners of the Arduino catapult competition. You can see all the winners by clicking on the "Project 1: Catapult" at the top.

The speaker John was asked to offer his own design for a catapult machine. Here is his design:

November 16 Meeting: Preview, Part 2

We will look at the electronics necessary for the CNC project at this week's meeting. The base of the project will be completed later.

Here are the stepper motors, inverter IC, MOSFET, capacitors, and diodes:

 

Here is the circuit layout we will be building:

November 16 Meeting: Preview, Part 1

Finally, it is time to test the Arduino catapults. We will test the Arduinos in the computer lab at the beginning of the meeting.

November 9 Meeting: Summary

Some people joined in starting the bridge project. There is enough cardboard for three groups, so two other groups may be formed. Each group gets approximately 5.5 pounds of cardboard.

November 9 Meeting: Preview

We start our new bridge project at this week's meeting.

Objective: Construct a bridge that has the largest load to bridge weight ratio.

Materials:

Corrugated Cardboard 

Glue

Rules:

1.   The bridge must span a 4 foot gap.

2.   The bridge can be no more than 6 inches wide and 3 inches below the height of the testing surface.

3.   There is no limit to it being longer than 4 feet and there is no limit to its height above the testing surface.

4.   The bridge will be loaded with a rope attached to a metal plate that must sit on the bed of the bridge. The bridge must have a hole 1 inch in diameter and a flat surface of 3 x 3 inches to support the plate. The plate will be placed on the bridge at the center of the 4 foot gap and at the height of the test surface

5.   Calculation of load to bridge weight ratio:

R = (weight supported by bridge before collapsing)

(weight of finished bridge)

Side-view of Testing Rules

November 2 Meeting: Summary, Part 2

The catapult project is finished. The catapults will be judged at a yet to be decided future meeting. Members may continue to work on the project during their own time up until the projects are judged. The club will now move on to a new project.

November 2 Meeting: Summary, Part 1

The CNC project was approved to move forward by the club's members. Parts will be purchased, and as soon as they arrive, the project will start on a Friday and continued to the next day, Saturday. This will allow for the project to be completed as soon as possible.

November 2 Meeting: Preview, Part 2

We are developing plans for our next project - a CNC mill. We will discuss design plans and programing requirements. Read more about the project by clicking on the tab "Project 2: CNC" above.

November 2 Meeting: Preview, Part 1

If you ordered a t-shirt, please pay for your order at this week's meeting. The price is $11.35 each.