Well, our Prusa and Huxley are 
Cool Stuff Collective is ITV’s “Gadget Show for Kids”, and we were lucky enough to be asked to demonstrate 3D Printing technology for the “Future Tech” slot of today’s episode.
Josef Prusa tweets his approval
Intro to 3D Printing Course at South Hill Park
We met Martin Franklin, Digital Media Manager for South Hill Park Arts Centre, at Reading Geek Night and he expressed an interested in hosting our Build Party. Fast forward a few months and with his help we have teamed up with digital artist Riette Hayes-Davies to give a weekend course on 3D design for 3D Printing at South Hill Park on the first weekend of March.
Riette is a Google SketchUp Pro and will be teaching the basics, and we will be talking about 3D printing and printing out the fruits of the weekend’s labour.
For more information and to book a slot, visit the event page.
TVRRUG Inaugural Meeting
Last Tuesday, 27th September saw us descending on Copa with our RepRap yet again for the first ever meeting of the Thames Valley RepRap User Group or TVRRUG for short. The focus of the agenda – planning the first Thames Valley Build Party!
Brighton Mini Maker Faire 2011
Image courtesy of Rain Ashford
Saturday 3rd September was the first ever Brighton Mini Maker Faire at the Brighton Dome, and what a roaring success it was! With something over 5,000 people in attendance, we were run off our feet – the organisers should be extremely proud of themselves. We certainly had a fantastic time, and hope to be back next year. Continue reading Brighton Mini Maker Faire 2011
OGGCamp11
… a free two-day unconference (unscheduled conference) for anyone who loves anything related to technology, data, culture, community, open source…and more!
AUGUST 13 & 14, FARNHAM MALTINGS
Just about recovered from Saturday’s revelry, and what a great time we had! The atmosphere was really open and friendly, and the interest in our Mendel was evident from the moment we got it out of the car. Some had never seen a 3D printer and some had already completed their own, but whatever the level of familiarity reactions were almost entirely positive.
We gave away lots of OSHW logos that we’d printed out and attached to business cards with a paperclip. Some of our example prints in particular attracted a lot of attention e.g. Martijn’s Tornado, the 3D Printed Roller Bearing, and perhaps unsurprisingly being an open source event, the head of the Android mascot. Continue reading OGGCamp11
Finally Fixed Jerky Flash Videos in Firefox on Kubuntu 11.04!
For months, ever since I installed Kubuntu 11.04 on my brand new shiny laptop, Flash videos have been jerky and frequently crashed the whole darn machine when played full screen. The “Official” advice regarding x64 Firefox and Flash didn’t help at all, but I never managed to get around to Googling the problem and finding a solution… Until now!
Several threads on Ubuntu Forums suggested the Flash Aid Firefox Plugin, with many people reporting success. Now I am one of them! Although I didn’t achieve success at first, I had to do the following:
- Install FireAid plugin
- Restart Firefox
- Run FireAid Wizard
- In a command terminal, type:
sudo apt-get remove --purge flashplugin-nonfree
sudo apt-get remove --purge flashplugin-installer
sudo apt-get remove --purge flashplugin64-installer
sudo apt-get autoremove
sudo updatedb
sudo mkdir /etc/adobe
echo "OverrideGPUValidation=true" >~/mms.cfg
sudo mv ~/mms.cfg /etc/adobe/
- Reboot
Really I probably did it backwards and should have done 4 and 5 before 1, 2 and 3, but nevertheless it worked
Unexpected Texture Effect
On a whim I decided to push our 0.5mm nozzle and see exactly what the biggest layer height it could achieve whilst retaining print quality is. The idea was to speed up printing large objects that do not require high resolution, but the results were an interesting textured effect that I rather like. Continue reading Unexpected Texture Effect
Importance of Wade’s Spring Tension
Having the right spring tension on your Wade’s extruder can be the difference between a useful part and a broken part. Continue reading Importance of Wade’s Spring Tension
Backlash Battles
If you have wonky circles or infill not meeting the edges in your prints, then you likely have backlash. There are several potential causes of backlash in your 3D printer, which makes it a particularly tricky problem to iron out. I’ve been trying to eliminate the backlash in Mendel, and have had some success. Continue reading Backlash Battles