The annual “Children’s Farm Festival at Peden Farms” was September 28 & 29.

Over 1200 k,1,2 kids plus adult chaperones (and some younger siblings) each day roam the area, checking out animals , games, demonstrations and activities of all kinds, or a hayride.

We had a 3D printer going, printing some pumpkin charms. Many people have not seen a 3D printer in action, so this is their time to see and ask questions.
We also had a “pumpkin piano” aka makey makey.
(I put copper nails into the pumpkins and alligator clipped to them)

  PumpkinPiano1 (video)

We also had pipe cleaners and craft sticks to make…. butterflies or people or pumpkins or spiders. I did start with 180 butterfly cutouts on day 1, but those all got used up before then end of day 1. We used glue dots to attach things so the kids could do it themselves (though glue dots are new to many kids)

We had over 200 kids stop at our booth each day. It was a good mayhem.

I just thought I would laser a ruler onto a 6″/15 cm craft stick…

I used https://cuttle.xyz/dashboard to do the design.
I made a box the size of the stick (1.8 cm x 15 cm)
I positioned it so the left corner is at the origin
I put a line/tick mark at 0.5 cm (& made it 0.6 tall)
I copied/pasted the tick mark and used my right arrow key to walk it over to x = 1.5 cm to be a 1 cm tick mark. I repeated that process for the remaining tick marks

Then I added a text box and picked a Single Line Font because I want to score the numbers  NOT engrave them (engraving takes too much time and with wood, scoring comes out fine).
I also made the text a little smaller.

I copy/pasted the number, then walked it right with the arrow key
{after entering a number, you have to click somewhere on the work plane, off the text box, because the cursor is still in the text box…then you can select the number to copy & paste and move}

I made the box/frame one color and the tick marks and numbers another color so they would show up in the laser software as 2 different operations. I dont want to cut the box (I want to ignore it) because I am printing on a craft stick.

I exported the SVG, imported it into Glowforge, then set the speed at 350 and power at 40.
In my glowforge machine, i set a small piece of square acrylic against the front wall so I could put the crafts stick in the middle as well as have it lined up horizontal

a short video walkthrough

The Indiana State Museum and Historic Sites in Indianapolis held a Tinkerfest o n September 16 from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. https://www.indianamuseum.org/programs/tinkerfest/  A day when visitors could fiddle with various technologies, materials, maker stuff from the 25 exhibitors.. There were about 500 attendees, mostly young kids.

For our booth we had :

sections of PVC pipe to build with…
  

batteries & bulbs

building with coffee stirrers and pipe cleaner pieces

and

making bracelets with pony beads

(somehow I did not get pictures of those 2 activities)

Get yourself some 6″ craft sticks (you could use 4″ popsicle sticks, but the short length changes things..like how easy to assemble and flexibility) and some rubber bands (not long ones, but sturdy ones – 2.25″-3″). You also need a plastic bottle top or small paper/plastic cup. And of course some projectiles.

Catapult 1

This one is simple. I used 12 craft sticks and 3 rubber bands.
Wrap 10 craft sticks together, slide 11th one between the bottom and next one up.
Use a rubber band to attach the 12th as a launch arm to the 11th
Glue a pop top/cup onto the launch arm.
To launch :
     hold down block of 10 sticks with one hand
     pull launch arm down with finger on other hand
Variables :
     slide launch arm further in/out of the block of 10
     add more sticks to the block of 10 (or remove)
     make launch arm longer (attach another craft stick)
     make launch arm stronger (attach another craft stick to make thicker

Catapult 2
This one is a little more difficult to put together, more parts, tension pulling things in…
Also, as designed it shoots too low.
It takes 11 sticks and 16 rubber bands (if I counted correctly)
I don’t know/have a special way to wrap rubber bands around sticks…some mix of over, under, twist, around…
Make a square base and two uprights

Attach the uprights to the base.
They will want to fall in because of tension.

attach a top cross bar to the uprights

attach a bottom cross bar
(double up rubber band on the cross bar, wrap around the upright to connect back to crossbar)

Put launch arm in front of bottom cross bar, but behind top cross bar
Put rubber band around the bottom of the launch arm and wrap it around the back of the square base (this is your tension)
(You could try more than one rubber band here to adjust tension)
Glue projectile holder to launch arm

To

launch, hold the base with one hand and pull back on launch arm with finger of other hand

As designed, it shoots too low, so you get very little distance
You either have to angle the front up somehow
or
you need to make the launch arm stop sooner— maybe instead of a cross bar on top, we attach it lower…

We are looking at an Energy Education grant and part of an idea might be those hand crank generators.

We have some DC motors lying around doing nothing, so I wanted to turn one into this. So I used tinkercad to design a wheel that could connect to the motor spindle. The spindle is 2 mm and the dowel is 6 mm.

The joy of #3Dprinting is that holes dont necessarily come out the same size.
In version 1 they were too small.
For version 2  I designed them to be 3 mm and 7 mm…which ended up too big.
Also in version 2 I decided to have a cylinder for the dowel to sit in.
Version 3 I went with 2.5 mm and 6.5 mm
The spindle hole was still too small but the dowel rod fit fine

I decided to measure the size of the wheel (gear). It is 39.5 mm but the design is 40 mm.

I printed these on an Ultimaker 2+

We have a Lulzbot TAZ , so i printed v3 on it..the holes are too big

Anyone have a good solution???

#MakerSpace #STEM

punkin chunkin time will soon be upon us, so we thought about building a catapult. Then we thought about building a table top version for STEM for Elementary Teachers and to take to schools/events.

I am working with 1/2″ PVC, and made one from scraps.
We are thinking to NOT glue it so some things can be adjusted, like launch angle.
The dimensions for the pieces are :
(the scraps are close to these dimensions)

24” (1) arm 
12” (2) uprights 
12” (4) long legs 
7” (2) short legs 
10” (4) cross pieces 
4.5” (2) cross pieces (not exactly sure on this size)
This is 13.25′ of pipe ($5 for 10′)
Not sure if I should try to shave a few inches here and there to get it down to 12’…

You also need 6 – 90 degree elbows (~$3) and 5 – T’s (~$3)

I decided to buy 7″ rubber bands.
The tape on the launch arm is to try to catch the rubberbands high up on the launch arm
I might need to change that to a screw or bolt or eye bolt.

I also wanted to design a way to hold a tennis ball (or tennis ball sized object).
A round food container would work, but I 3D printed a cup. My first thought was 1 hole in the middle to bolt it to the launch arm.

But that didnt seem too stable. So I designed a mount with 4 screws that could slide onto the PVC. The hardest part is getting it to fit the PVC. You have to make a hole larger than the OD of the PVC (how much larger is trial and error with your printer). The screw holes I walked out from the center because that is the only common reference for a circle and a rectangle.

The shortest screws we have in the space are 1/2″ – could use shorter ones (1/4″?)

A colleague was creating some 3D printed balloon cars to show his students an example of something you could use a 3D printer for in STEM/Physics classes. The car is a demonstration of Newtons 3rd Law of Motion. I had the thought that those would be good for me to have in the maker van to take to schools or events, so I kept printing after he did his couple (and he shared his files). 

The car is a 2.5-3 hour print depending on layer height (0.3 vs 0.25). The wheels are only about 15 minutes. Both are printed in PLA, car on an Ultimaker 2+ and wheels on a tiny Snapmaker. We are using bamboo skewers for axles. Though that has pros & cons. One pro is you can sand if it doesn’t fit perfectly. The cons are it often doesn’t fit perfectly (skewers are not all the same size) and skewers are not often straight. 

When making a vehicle with wheels, you have to decide on your axles first. That dictates the hole in the wheel and the way you are going to attach the axle to chassis. These cars have holes printed through them. Other car designs (like wooden ones) often use eye screws to hold axles. 

I am wondering about making the car a little smaller… reduce print time and filament use. Though I would have to fix the hole size for axles

short video on YouTube https://youtube.com/shorts/g4UwZfBGhrU?feature=share  )

Makevention ( http://makevention.org/ ) is a family event that happened on August 27 at Switchyard Park. It is a gathering/exhibit of many of the makers around Bloomington to showcase what they do. It is put on by Bloominglabs , a public makerspace in Bloomington. There were about two dozen exhibitors of all variety (circuits, sewing, pottery, woodworking, robotics team, cosplay, screen printing, parkour…). There were around 200 visitors to the event. 

Our booth had the traditional “batteries & bulbs” to let people learn how to light up one LED with one battery. The bigger attraction was the “hammer & nails” where kids got to nail some boards together or put some nails/screws into a board to create string art. We had around 35 kids and 20 adults stop by and get their hands active. Kids love making things, and they love tools. I really want to find some sponsors to help us create a pop-up wood shop capable of having 36 kids building, then do an all day event once a month.

I want to make some conductivity testers and I don’t want to buy battery holders…

So I designed a box in tinkercad, 1 mm

larger than 2 AAA batteries (44.3 mm x 20.4 mm x 10 mm) and only 1 mm thick for the floor & walls. I also made it 5 mm taller than the batteries would be so that I can attach alligator clips to. It took 4 grams of filament and 10 minutes to print.

Biggest flaw is that I forgot the slicer settings were for brim

I added a couple of layers of copper tape across one end to connect the 2 batteries.
I also ended up adding some foil to fill in the space

I added 2 sets of strips at the other end that go up & over the top to connect the alligator clip. I did 3 strips each time.

I will add a third alligator clip in order to put the “test object” in the circuit.

There are some STEM/Maker events coming soon to get students involved, some locally and some nationally…

IC3D Toys for Tots #3Dprinting (Christmas Drive)
Have some 3D printers with some idle time. Print some Toys for Tots
They share certain files to print
Last year the community donated 69,000 toys
https://www.ic3dprinters.com/2023-toys/

September 22 & 23 – Make Education Forum (Virtual)
a great meetup of Maker Educators
https://make.co/events/education-forum/

October 17 – Global Maker Day (Virtual)
“Create Locally, Share Globally”
sharing & sessions that day
some challenges posted ahead of time
make & share to the hashtag #GlobalMakerDay
https://www.globalmakerday.com/

October 21 – Punkin Chunkin in Bloomington, Indiana
I am hoping a few schools would like to participate with a catapult of some kind
https://bloomington.in.gov/parks

I imagine the U.S.D.O.E. will have a #STEM “competition” announcement for this school year.