Pumping Station: One

A quick note: my open source Scanning Tunneling Electron Microscope project has been mentioned in the MAKE blog.

PS:One GP, Pumping Station: One’s Power Racing Series team, is proud to present the video evidence of our early-bird test run.  In order to earn 100 points towards the main event at Maker Faire: Detroit, we were challenged to create a video of our car driving, at full speed, on a straight-away run of, at least, 100 feet.  You can check out the proof of our progress below:

Photo by greenchartreuse on Flickr

Fire starters are an easy and convenient way to get a fire going without messing with loose newsprint or dry tinder only for it to go out when somebody breathes on it.  There as many recipes out there for these things as there are BBQ sauces. This one is my tried and true favorite of many.

Ingredients:

• Paper-based egg cartons (the classic kind, no plastic)
• Old candles (can be found for next to nothing at thrift stores)
• Sawdust (for flavor)

Instructions:

Melt the candles down in a pot/pan that you never want to cook in again.  This can be very dangerous so do use some common sense.  While the candles are melting, cut the bottom of your egg cartons out removing the lid and the flap on the opposite edge that holds the lid closed.

Once the wax has melted entirely so there are no solids left CAREFULLY pour them into your egg carton trays.  If you have a funnel, this would be a lot safer. (safety = 1 / fun)  While the wax is still in liquid form, sprinkle a generous amount of sawdust over the tops of each and let them dry all the way until they are room temperature again.

After they are all dry cut each individual pod (12 per carton) out with the peaks of the carton split equally.  This will make for an easy wick come lighting time.

Thats it!

Now you’re ready to start your charcoal grill, backyard foundry, etc. with minimal set up time and the best part is it can cost you nothing!  As with any open flame, it’s a good idea to have a fire extinguisher around too.

Here is the what I spent my weekend doing:

Friday: cut my new window blinds to size using the PS1 bandsaw

Saturday: filled, sanded, painted my window frames, hung the new blinds

Sunday: finished everything I didn’t complete on Saturday, and I made three batches of jam: I made orange marmalade, lemon-ginger marmalade, and apple-lemon jam.

Leave your weekend projects in the comments!

In The Laboratory by Henry Alexander

Art museums appear to be impenetrable fortresses after closing time. What is often unknown to the majority of the visiting public is that the majority of these collections are stored and cataloged outside of these main halls. In many cases up to 99% of museums’ collections are stored away never to be seen for decades, if that often.

Over the last 8 months I have researched the difference between movie museum security and the reality of museum security.

Just published is a some of my results in the Journal of Physical Security at Argonne National Laboratory.

You can find the article here.

Or here.

My friend Mary and I are (very) amateur animators who won a competition for the ChicagoOperaTheater last year with this  summary of their 2009 season.

This year, the Chicago Opera Theater gave us the opportunity to do longer-form summaries of their 2010 season.

Here is our summary of Moses in Egypt:

Read the rest of this entry →

The official Pumping Station: One twitter account, @pumpingstation1, now aggregates and re-tweets information that our members tweet with the #psone hashtag. This way, instead of having to rely on a tiny group of people to make “official” tweets to the account, the account will automatically disseminate information about projects, events, and impromptu PS:One-related excitement from members. It does so via a twitter bot script that i wrote in Python.

So, follow us on Twitter, and stay up-to-the-minute with all of the news, events, and information from our space!

This is a formal call for Pumping Station: One T-Shirt Designs! As some of you may be aware, we have a 4-color screen printing machine at the space and we’re looking to use it to make some sweet schwag for our members and soon to be members!  Deadline is Midnight March, 18th 2010 which is one month from now. The selected winner(s) will be chosen by the current Board of Directors and will be produced into a run of t-shirts that will be sold by Pumping Station:One. Prize is a free t-shirt of your design! Details after the break: Read the rest of this entry →

With great pride and humility I present my Cylon! This is my very first dabble into electronics so I am pretty sure that the whole thing will burst into flames at any moment. The eye(s) are soldered onto a generic board I bought and are hooked up to a freeduino that I made during a transistor thursdays class awhile back. In a future model I hope to hook up a range sensor that will only turn on the Cylon when someone steps in front of it. For now, however, enjoy the simple pleasure of sentient robots!

Saturday, February 20th from 2pm-4pm:

Learn to make and play the didgeridoo! There will be a demonstration of how to make a simple didgeridoo from PVC pipe, followed by a lesson in achieving the basic drone. Circular breathing will be discussed, and all attendants will receive their own PVC didgeridoo with which to practice.

Sign up here: http://didgeridoo.eventbrite.com