The chair is done!

What a crazy life. First I stay up all night busting my ass to finish my chair before the crit at 7 am on Friday, and now I find myself sitting in the Salt Lake City airport waiting to be picked up by a bunch of crazy burners to take me to Burning Man. Rediculous. I'll be incommunicado for the next ten days or so, but I promise a full debreifing when I get back.

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IT'S ALIVE!!

My CNC is finally finished! I'll post some pics of it to the flickr album later. Of course, that means that I can now devote all my time to finishing my chair. Oh, and packing for Burning Man of course.

It's going to be a long, fast week.

One way or another...

I'm getting my CNC machine running tomorrow. The cable I thought would arrive Wednesday still isn't here, but according to the friendly mail guy said that a package from Peoria would take two to three days, so it should arrive tomorrow. In case it doesn't, my partner-in-crime Nate thinks we could rig something to take it's place pretty easily.

Soon, my precious, soon.

So.....Close......

OK, so over the weekend Nate and I finished getting (almost) everything we need and wiring up all the electronics for the CNC so we could start testing it. Sunday evening we plugged it all in, launched Mach3, and entered our first bit of G-code.

Nothing.

Checked and rechecked the wiring. Confirmed that the motors were receiving power. Tweaked the settings a bit. Still nothing.

The following morning I called Probotix, the guys who we bought the electronics from, and they helped me confirm that the fault did not lie with what we got from them; the computer simply wasn't talking to the breakout board. Feeling out of my depth (electronics and Windows computers are not my area of expertise), I decided to try the one thing I could think of that might help: reinstall the driver software. I call Nate and tell him what I learned from the Probotix guys (very helpful and patient, I would highly recommend them) while I waited for the computer to restart. While I had him on the phone, I tried testing the setup again.

Success! The motors MOVED!

Thinking I was close to finishing, I started installing the motors on the machine. Then I noticed that some of my tweaking from the other day meant that I'd have to do some rebuilding to make things line up again. Ok, very doable, I figured I'd still be done by the end of the day. Unfortunately, I forgot about the small 10-pin ribbon cable I needed to get until just after the two electronics supply places in the city were already closed. So now I have a CNC machine with all three motors mounted, but electronics that's only capable of running two of them at a time. Today I have DesCom, which means not much time for the machine, but damn it, I will make time get those wires and finish the thing TODAY!

Boy, you'll be a burner soon.

I was working on my CNC machine last night (snugged up a lot to reduce play, installed router) in the shop which happens to be part of the local burner community, and as often happens people were trying to talk me into going to Burning Man. Usually I can't because of school, and said so, until someone mentioned the actual dates of the festival.

It starts on the 31st. My final crit is on the 27th.

Holy shit, I could make burning man.

Next thing I know, I'm being handed a packing list while someone looks up on their phone how much a flight to meet the caravan in Salt Lake City would cost. Turns out if I fly out the evening after my final crit, I'd easily be able to meet the group en route, and then drive back with them after the burn. There's already space for my stuff in a trailer, and a spot waiting for me in a camp. All I have to do is say yes so they can find me a cheap ticket.

Bloody hell, I'm going to Burning Man.

Plans!

Ok, plans for the quarter are coming together. At this point it's looking like I'll be heading out to Boston in early September, hitting the Maker Faire in NY later that month, then driving back to Cincinnati in time to fly out to Oakland in mid to late November.

In other news, my CNC machine is coming along quite nicely. I finally got the electronics back from my friend who's been really sick with pneumonia, and got the X axis stepper motor installed. I wanted to start testing the software, but I discovered that the computer in the shop I'm using doesn't (yet) have a parallel port on it. Thankfully, our driver board also has a USB port, so I'll just bring a cable from home next time.

I also picked up a copy of Makers by Cory Doctorow. All I knew about the book was that it was somewhat of a manifesto for the maker movement, so I was expecting non-fiction. I was therefor quite surprised to read the dust jacket and discover it to be a fictional narrative in a genre that could be described as "makerpunk." I started it last night and it looks like it's going to be quite a ride.

Blogger, my old friend, we meet again

Poor blog, I've really been neglecting you, haven't I? Well, fear not, for I now have a reason to post to you on a regular basis for the next three months!

How is this possible? Well, let me explain: Instead of getting one last coop for the fall quarter, I've decided to take a travel quarter instead. This will let me investigate my CNC shop idea further, and form the basis of my senior project (not to mention the business plan I'll use after graduation). Now, one of DAAP's requirements for taking a travel quarter is that I document what I do, to show that I'm spending the time productively. This is where you, my dear blog, come in. Now, not only will you be used to make my final deliverable for my quarter, you will also be the repository of all the information I gather, AND you'll keep everyone up to date on what the hell I'm up to, which is why my LJ friends will now see all of these posts as well (we'll see how well this email-posting thing works). Here's to lots of productive blogging!