Champaign-Urbana Community Fab Lab

Mitch Altman is giving the "Variety of Cool Kits" workshop, Saturday 15-Feb, 2pm at the Urbana Makerspace.

What: Learn to Solder, with a variety of cool kits!
You can easily learn all of the skills you need in a short time.
Make a project, and take it home with you!

When: Saturday, February 15th, 2pm-5pm
Most projects take about 1.5 to 2 hours

Where: Makerspace Urbana <https://makerspaceurbana.org/>
202 S. Broadway Ave in Urbana
at the Urbana-Champaign Independent Media Center (IMC).

Who: You! All ages, all skill levels -- It is fun to make things in the

The K-Droz association organizes ArtFab3D, an international contest for artistic works made by digital machinery. It will distinguish the works and artists showing the potential of CNC machines in artistic production at its best. The works, which should be submitted as photos, must be manufactured using CNC techniques, such as 3D printing, CNC machining, laser engraving, vinyl etching, water jet cutting, plasma cutting, etc... The contest theme is free and participation is open to all.
K-Droz will award a prize of € 250 to the winner and up to 5 designers will receive media coverage in several countries.

Possibly of interest to some, a lovingly constructed little web site with a lot of "paper toys": The Toymaker.

These simple projects are pretty cool, and meant to be cut out with scissors.  But there are a lot of ideas that could easily be adapted to laser or paper cutting machines.  (E.g., The Heart Butterfly).

7pm Allen Hall this next Monday, the 3rd.

http://www.news-gazette.com/news/local/2014-01-31/ui-grad-returns-campus-encourage-hackerspaces.html

A fun way to learn about Inkscape for Minecraft enthusiasts.

http://vector.tutsplus.com/tutorials/illustration/playing-with-isometric-projection-in-inkscape-to-make-a-minecraft-scene/

Bob McGrath is pleased to bring us a new tool for rapid prototyping! The ‘boxmaker’ creates a six-sided box with tabs for press fitting.  The output is a PDF file which can be edited with Inkscape or sent directly to the Epilog laser. The output can later be edited to add decorations or adjust the layout or features. The program has a command line interface, with 12 arguments, some of which will not need to be set by users. Find a shortcut for the new boxmaker on the desktop of any PC in our lab and give it a try (for free). Check out pictures attached to this post to get an idea of what the process, program and product looks like. You can also find a nifty new tutorial here, too: http://cucfablab.org/book/beginner-cuc-fab-lab-pressfit-boxmaker

Special thanks to Rahul Bhargava for getting us started with some initial code. Find additional release notes attached below.

Anyone ready to prototype a new product or service?

The Knight Foundation is particularly interested in funding ideas in open govenment, media, and similar topics.  Information on recently funded initiatives here.

More info at:

http://www.knightfoundation.org/funding-initiatives/knight-prototype-fund/

A story on NPR and other media about 3D printing with food.  It sounds like there are a bunch of low cost systems coming available, so this is getting into a state where the CUCFL might get one.

We'll have to change the instructions.  For one of these printers, don't put anything except food in it. :-)

Since we are starting a new year, the Fab Lab Makers have decided to try a new time for open labs. Beginning on January 11th, the open lab for youths will be every Saturday from 2pm until 4pm. We will still have projects and ideas available to anyone who comes in just to explore the lab, as well as volunteers to help you with the equipment if you have your own project ideas.

The Fab Lab will be closed this upcoming Sunday (January 5th 2014) due to excessive snow and limited staff/volunteers, sorry!

We'll plan on being back in action starting Tuesday, January 7th.

Radical DIY (located in Missouri, I think).

If you don't have this bookmark, you probably want it.

http://opensourceecology.org/

Frankly, I don't think I really need, say, an Aluminum extractor.  But a DIY rototiller might be nice....

Join us this Sunday at the Fab Lab to wrap gifts and to make cards, ornaments and other crafts for the holidays!

Chocolate snacks will also be present.

Join us for a Holiday Potluck this Thursday from 6-9 at the lab. Bring a dish to share and come work on holiday gifts, cards and other creations. Free to participate but if you don't bring food donations to the snack bin are encouraged!

A free online tool to create a vector font from your own handwriting - http://www.myscriptfont.com/