Summer 2012 activities

Trent working on the Replicator at LVL1

This summer we have a Co-op working on a closely related project through the Co-op Makership at Louisville’s LVL1 hackerspace : rapid-prototyping sensor housings for the bend sensors. Trent Lowry is using a 3-D printer, then casting some fittings that are compatible with our PVC parts. The uniformity should be much better than our current gluing method.

Deployment plans this summer include the most students yet. Sensors are going outside between Lexington and Louisville. We will have more dataloggers, and our newest ones can transmit data long distance. There will be plenty of soldering and gluing to do as usual.

Field-portable inverted microscope stage

Need to take a microscope outside? We tried and liked this USB scope from Adafruit, but needed an inverted microscope for a portable project so we laser cut an acrylic table for it. Here are the plans in pdf format. The back and sides are 5 inches across, cut from 1/4 inch thick clear acrylic, the top is 1/16″ (thin so you can still focus 200x on your items) and the nuts and bolts are 6-32 nylon. We had some Mcmaster nylon parts already: 94812A113 (nuts) and 94609A153 (bolts, were a bit long but easy to cut to length)

Here’s a picture of a sensor from the upside-down scope