We’re looking for five interns to help us out this summer. It’s an opportunity to do something different, gain experience in a variety of fields (machining, computer software and hardware, woodworking, electronics, graphic design, etc.), and work with a mentor with expertise in your field of interest.
While the internships are unpaid, each intern is provided a $200 budget for their project, courtesy of the Lynchburg Morning Rotary Club.
Internship begins on June 12th and ends on August 4th.
Requirements:
10 hours per week: 4 hours on Tuesday and the other 6 hours decided on an individual basis. We’re looking for self-motivated individuals capable of recognizing problems and finding solutions.
Duties:
Time should be equally divided between the following four duties:
Space improvement projects: Depending on your interests, this might mean building a drill press storage cabinet, optimizing our computer network, web administration, social media, etc. Sometimes you’ll have specific assignments, but you’ll also be expected to find your own projects. If we need a paper towel holder, 3D print one. If the drill bits are hard to find, build a storage case for them.
Prepare for and assist with classes and workshops: Setup the room layout, computers, materials, and experiments.
Clean and organize the space: vacuuming, sweeping, taking out trash, putting tools where they belong, etc.
Personal projects: Interns are expected to make something that they’ll write about and present to the board of directors at the end of the internship. This should be something that is personally interesting and takes advantage of the resources at Vector Space. The requirements are intentionally vague; this is your opportunity to be creative.
Here's one of our interns from the Summer of 2016 talking about his experience.
(Lynchburg) On Sunday, March 26th from 12:00pm to 4:30pm, Vector Space will present the Lynchburg Mini Maker Faire, the first maker faire in our area in partnership with the national movement started by and in collaboration with Make: magazine from Maker Media. This event will take place on the campus of Randolph College.
In the words of Maker Media, a Maker Faire is, “Part science fair, part county fair, and part something entirely new. Maker Faire is an all-ages gathering of tech enthusiasts, crafters, educators, tinkerers, hobbyists, engineers, science clubs, authors, artists, students, and commercial exhibitors. All of these ‘makers’ come to Maker Faire to show what they have made and to share what they have learned.”
Maker Faire launched its first event in 2006 and is focused on showcasing makers across the spectrums involving technology, art, craft, science and engineering. The Lynchburg Mini Maker Faire encourages makers to come out of their workspaces and garages to demonstrate their talents for the local community, while inspiring others to find out how things are made and possibly even pick up a new hobby or interest in a skill.
We are proud to be partnering with Randolph College by making Lynchburg Mini Maker Faire a part of their annual Science Festival. Come out and enjoy hands-on activities, amazing exhibits, locally made products for sale, food trucks, a group build project and more. This event is free and family friendly as there will be activities for those ages four and up.
We would like to thank our partners and sponsors Make:, Vector Space, Randolph College, clutch Magazine and Opportunity Lynchburg. For more information please visit www.lynchburgmakerfaire.com or call (804)387-1519 or email info@lynchburgmakerfaire.com
The hardware development community at hackaday.io put together a challenge to build something awesome in less than 1Kb, so we decided to join the fun. Here's our entry.
despite all of your friends who like to say that "heat goes up", heat actual moves according to this equation,
$$ \frac{\partial T}{\partial t} = \alpha \nabla^2 T $$
If you're wondering what on earth that means, you have two options: study differential equations for a few years or watch the colors change on our LED board. This LED board displays our solution to the 2D heat equation, written in less than 1Kb of program space, which we've entered in Hackaday's 1Kb Challenge. If you were to heat up a 14.5x10.9 inch sheet of copper, the heat would move through it exactly as our board displays. The same temperatures would be at the same locations at the same time. Don't believe it? Grab your thermocouple and follow the details over at Hackaday.
Give the gift of making! This holiday season, gift your loved ones with access to the tools, materials and community to create anything they can dream up.
Vector Space membership (age 18+) includes access to the computer and electronics lab, textile room, wood and metal shops, 3D printer, lounge, and classroom area. Members recieve tool safety training and an RFID tag to grant entry to the workshop 24/7. Project storage space and basic materials are included (plywood, sheet metal, resistors, printer filament, etc.). Throughout December, you can purchase a three month membership for just \$50/month - a \$30 discount!
Gift memberships are actived once the recipient signs up, and can be used any time. Questions? Find us at info [at] vector-space [dot] org.
Workshop Pass
Workshop passes are for ages 12+ to participate in any of our available workshops. Tools and materials are always included, and everyone leaves with something they've made! For a limited time you can purchase 5 workshop passes for just $150 - a $25 discount! Sewing, 3D printing, bookbinding, electronics (Raspberry Pi and Arduino), leather working, metal and woodworking (lathe training) are workshops that will be available in 2017. For a current workshop schedule, visit: http://vector-space.org/projects
This Saturday's drag races were the second set of races in the Nitro RC series. In the week leading up, students were scrambling to get their cars together in time. Axles were rethreaded, wires re-soldered, a clever fix for a pull start that didn't quite fit, and a significant amount of carburetor tuning, ensuring each team would have just the right mixture of air and fuel.
The race they were preparing for was a 50 yard drag race. On race day, just an hour before the start time, Team Turbo finished assembling their car only to find that their steering mechanism wasn't working. They tried a few simple fixes before realizing they had over-tightened the hub carrier when installing new axles on the front wheels. This caused too much resistance on the balls that allow the wheels to pivot, so they quickly went back to work tearing off the front wheels to make the fix. At this point, the other teams had made their way to the track to start warming up.
JJ Racing was coming off a win and had picked up a sponsorship from Pipette Repair Service the previous week, so they were considered the favorite. They replaced all of their suspension springs to get a stiffer ride for this race, and their warm up laps were looking good. Purple Power had spent more time than any other team tweaking their carburetor, and it showed. They were doing wheelies just to intimidate the competition. Meanwhile, team Doubtful Confidence left their car unstarted before the race; partly as their own form of intimidation, but mostly for fear of breaking their rather delicate pull start.
The first race put JJ Racing against Doubtful Confidence. Once Doubtful Confidence started up their engine, you could see the fear in the other racers' eyes. The green flag waved and they came roaring off the start leaving JJ Racing far behind. It was clear that while JJ Racing had their car in a very reliable configuration, they'd need to get a little riskier if they wanted to win. Next up, Team Turbo went up against Purple Power. Purple Power took off while Team Turbo remained at the start line, engine screaming as the drive shaft had become disconnected from the transmission. Purple Power took the win, but not without losing a wheel.
The races continued, working through the double elimination bracket. As the pressure of the competition built, last minute solutions to problems began to get creative. Team Turbo tried a few tricks to keep their drive shaft engaged, but without time to resize the shaft like they needed to the best they could do was wrap the coupling in duct tape. It was a noble effort, but unfortunately didn't do the trick. Meanwhile, Purple Power knew the lost wheel was going to be trouble, as it was much worse than just a loose nut. They ran back to Vector Space to super glue the wheel and axle, only to find that it simply didn't have the strength. They were given the five minute warning when in desperation they caught sight of some trash in the parking lot, a water bottle to be specific. Jason ran over to grab it and began duct taping the bottle on in place of the missing wheel. "It'll act like a ski", he said. Everyone laughed, and then the green flag waved for the race against their powerful opponent Doubtful Confidence.
We were surprised how quickly Purple Power came off the start. The water bottle broke a leak but the car seemed to only get faster. I stood alone at the finish line, not expecting much of a race until I had to jump out of the way of what was the fastest ski car I've ever seen. The finish was unbelievably close. I couldn't tell who won, but among the commotion everyone seemed to think it was Doubtful Confidence, not our water bottle underdogs. Fortunately we had a camera on the finish line, so I ran it back to Vector Space to upload the footage. I had to slow it down frame by frame until it was clear, before emailing the image to Jordan, and running back to the race track. On my way I heard a unified burst of astonishment as Jordan showed them the photo of Purple Power taking the win. From that moment on, Purple Power took on a new name: Team Water Bottle.
Doubtful Confidence ended up coming back from the loser's bracket, defeating Team Water Bottle twice to take the win. As usual, it was an exciting day for Nitro RC racing.
Thanks to our sponsors for supporting these teams.
A few months ago, Jordan and I decided to build a chalk drawing robot. Our plan was to enter the Amazement Square 2016 Chalk Festival, draw an exact replica of the Mona Lisa, and walk away with the gold. We built Chalkbot over the course of three nights. Jordan focused on the electronics, wiring the stepper motors and programming the Arduino with a gcode interpreter, while I built the gantry and other mechanical aspects. Justin was there to lend some help in both realms.
We were pleased with Chalkbot's artistic talent . It wasn't drawing the Mona Lisa, but it made a pretty cool looking wolf. So full of confidence, thinking about how we would spend our winnings, we took Chalkbot to the Festival and unleashed his talent. In less than five minutes, it was clear that Chalkbot was the worst artist in sight. Embarrassingly, we had only ever tested him inside, on a smooth surface. So when it came time to draw on rough, uneven asphalt in the 95 degree summer heat, we'll just say that many things went wrong.
Not to be deterred, we vowed to rebuild Chalkbot, and this past Saturday began our endeavor to do so. We held our first member build, which involved nine Vector Space members, fueled by caffeine and bagels, working diligently on a CNC build from Thingiverse . They divided the work: cutting conduit, assembling various parts, building circuitry and programming the motor controller. The plan was to work on it for three hours, but they couldn't tear themselves away. At the end of the day, they had built the workings of a significantly improved CNC.
And while the members of Vector Space plan to use it as a CNC router, using it to make Christmas trees, airplanes, signs, 3D puzzles, and all sorts of other bizarre ideas, Jordan and I intend to attach a piece of chalk to it and defeat all humans at Chalk Fest 2017.
