Building a Better Sink Strainer

Well, after changing the little metal kitchen sink strainer for the zillionth time, I decided that maybe I should try to make a better one myself...

This is what I wanted to replace:

This is what I was aiming at:

And this is what I got: 

After a few attempts, this is what I got: 

It worked!

Some cool things:

• I made it in 2 parts that snapped together! No supports needed during printing and no glue needed to assemble!
• It actually works!

But, the inner wall of the rim was very very thin, and the bridging during the printing of the basket seemed fragile.

So, I came up with a new design:

But that didn't fix the bridging... So one more design with round holes in the basket walls:

This is what the printer printed!

Here's the photo album!

Oliver's Machine

Not the real one, duh! It's just a simulation!



The code is available in my github repo.

Mollecular Modelling and 3D Printing

This can be 3D-printed to get a cool something....

The process used:

1. Open the .pdb file in Pymol (opensource, free if you install yourself).
2. The molecule will appear.
3. To the right of the molecule, click on the "S" then the "As" then "surface" (this calls the "show as surface" command, which hides everything but the surface; it's important to hide everything else since unwanted artifacts may be present and screw up the 3D printing later on...)
4. Again, to the right of the molecule, click on the "C" then the "by element" then the 3rd "CHNOS...." from the end. This sets the color scheme.
   
5. Use the menu bar to set maximum display quality:
   Display / Quality / Maximum Quality
6. Finally, from the main menu, save as VRML2:
   File / Save Image as / VRML 2...
7. Optionally, in case of slow Internet upload speeds, zip compress the resulting .wrl file before uploading to Shapeways.

If you need other formats, e.g. STL :

1. Open the previously generated .wrl file in MeshLab using the menu:
   File / Import Mesh
2. Save a copy in the format of your choice using the menu:
   File / Export Mesh
3. Again, optionally compress to save space and upload time.

Guess Who Spoke at 30C3 ...

Watch me Talk!

The ArduGuitar is an electric guitar with no physical controls, i.e. no buttons or knobs to adjust volume, tone or to select the pickups. All of these functions are performed remotely via a bluetooth device such as an Android phone, or via a dedicated Arduino powered blutetooth footpedal. The musician still plucks the strings, of course! This talk will give an overview of the technology and particularly the voyage that took me from nearly no knowledge about anything electronic to enough know-how to make it all work.I will explain what I learned by collaborating on forums, with Hackerspaces and with component providers: “How to ask the right questions.” The guitar with its Arduino powered circuit and an Android tablet will be available for demo; the code is all available on the github arduguitar repo with the associated Arduino footpedal libraries.

Also,  read about it on Hackaday!

Arduino & the Maker Movement

Where it all started: the Arduino

A presentation about the Arduino and how it has changed the world in only 5 years:
http://www.ted.com/talks/massimo_banzi_how_arduino_is_open_sourcing_imagination.html

Robot Control via Google Hangout

An example of how you can assemble a bunch of different technologies together to make something incredible:
http://www.adafruit.com/blog/2012/11/07/how-to-make-an-led-blink-from-a-google-hangout/

Hackerspaces:

An inspirational talk by Mitch Altman at the Brussels TEDx 2012 about the community of people building stuff with all this technology:
http://www.tedxbrussels.eu/2012/speakers/mitch_altman.php

A place to do it all in Brussels:
http://hackerspace.be

Some starting points:

Arduino: http://www.arduino.cc/

Raspberry Pi  a full computer for 35€, the size of a credit card!
http://www.raspberrypi.org/

Arduino supplies & kits:
http://www.antratek.com/Arduino-Kits.html
http://www.iprototype.be/products/kits/starterkit
http://proto-pic.co.uk/proto-pic-starter-kit-for-arduino-uno/
http://proto-pic.co.uk/arduino-starter-kit/
http://robotbits.co.uk/arduino/cat_7.html
http://snootlab.com/ 

Shops in Brussles:

• Cotubex (Ixelles near the ULB & cemetery)
• Capitani
• MB Tronics (really good selection of components at good prices) 

Books: 
Getting started with Arduino
Making things talk

Inspirational free books:
Low tech sensors and Actuators
Orignal Hacking Manual