RoboGames Fri-Sun, June 15-17

REMINDER: RoboGames Fri-Sun, June 15-17! If you’re in the Bay Area, don’t miss this and get tickets!

Holy Heck, The International RoboGames is coming up and this year it’s going to be a doozy!

At Maker Faire you saw a tiny segment of what’s going to go on at
Fort Mason Center in two weeks: cocktail bots, kinetic art automata,
loopy lego league challenges, robot kung-fu, and of course the
ever-popular Combots Fighting Robots!

RoboGames will have much, much more.

There will be a huge Maker presence at Robogames! The Make Magazine
Firetruck will be there, The Dorkbot PlaySpace and Swap Meet will
provide you with an opportunity to get rid of all *your* electronics
junk and go home with someone else’s, and the Federation International
RoboSoccer Association is holding The Robot World Cup right in front of
your very eyes! Three days of bot smashing, fire-fighting,
maze-solving, cocktail making, lego-bashing robot goodness for you and
the whole family!

Remember, Dad doesn’t want a razor for father’s day, he wants RoboGames!!!

Tickets are on Sale Now on our website! Be the first on your block
to come check out the Fourth Annual RoboGames!RoboGames (formerly
ROBOlympics) – Link.

from MAKE Magazine

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What is RepRap?

RepRap is short for Replicating Rapid-prototyper. It is the practical self-copying 3D printer shown on the right.

The RepRap project became widely known after a large press coverage in March 2005, though the idea goes back to a paper on the web written by Adrian Bowyer on 2 February 2004.

RepRap
will make plastic, ceramic, or metal parts, and is itself made from
plastic parts, so it will be able to make copies of itself. It is a
three-axis robot that moves several material extruders. These extruders
produce fine filaments of their working material with a paste-like
consistency. If RepRap
were making a plastic cone, it would use its plastic extruder to lay
down a quickly-hardening 0.5mm filament of molten plastic, drawing a
filled-in disc. It would then raise the plastic extrusion head and draw
the next layer (a smaller filled disc) on top of the first, repeating
the process until it completed the cone. To make an inverted cone it
would also lay down a support material under the overhanging parts. The
support would be removed when the cone was complete. Conductors can be
intermixed with the plastic to form electronic circuits – in 3D even!

WebHome < Main < Reprap

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Retro Roundup: One year ago on Lifehacker

• Skip straight to the operator with your dirty mouth
  “The IVR operator gave me a list of options, I said, “F*@#!” and he said: ‘I think you said you want to talk to a customer service agent. Is this correct?’”
• How to dual-boot Windows XP and Windows Vista
  “[Do] you want to dual-boot XP and Vista? Here’s how I got it done.”
• Catch World Cup soccer live
  “Wired highlights several ways the rabid soccer football fan can find free, streaming, live video of the big games as they happen.”
• Install Kazaa… Get Fined $750 – The RIAA’s Newest Plan of Attack?
  “Is it true that I can get in trouble for just having “Shared Folders” on my computer?”
• Geek to Live: Carry your life on a thumb drive (or iPod)
  “When I think back to the first computer I had with a hard drive bigger than a gigabyte (‘I’ll never run out of space now!’) I have to laugh.”
• Download of the Day: Ghostzilla
  “Ghostzilla makes your browsing as inconspicuous as possible.”
• Feed your family of 4 for $45 a week
  “The Hillbilly Housewife web site outlines an incredibly frugal way to feed a hungry family of 4 for a week for only $45.”
• Getting the best shave
  “Merlin Mann has a nice writeup of tips for getting the best shave possible.”
• Calculate your life expectancy with the Death Forecast
  “The Death Forecast figures out how long you will live based on a set of survey questions about your lifestyle, health and family history of illness.”

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Over at the Core 77 blog is a nice post on Giles Miller’s (of the Farm collective) take on corrugated carboard as a material for designing furniture. His work transforms the material while, at the same time, creates a visually interesting structure that is durable.

The blog from Blue Ant Studio has posted a plethora of chair designs in recent days- coincidental timing relative to our current project. Follow the link above to sift through the postings of the last several days.

Also at Blue Ant is a feature on their designer of the week, Charles & Ray Eames.

If you are in need of either hard-to-find parts and/or parts in quantity, then McMaster-Carr or MSC Direct may be you ticket. Both sell a range of items: fasteners, electrical components, raw materials, paint, and even janitorial supplies. Prices vary, some items are less expensive than your average Home Depot, especially in quantity, others that are hard to find are spendy. Either way, if you like hardware stores, these are great places. Shipping costs are reasonable and the items arrive within a day or two.

… a poster of the illustrated history of rocking chairs.

Detail #1 : Detail #2 :Detail #3

Here is a variety of chair design thanks to Design Boom and Sam.

Link

Here are places to begin your for research for the final project:

Eames

History of Chair Design

Wikipedia

If you do not know who Buckminster Fuller is, it is time to take a look. Many of his ideas are relevant to the current assignment. Fuller is know for many things, most notably the geodesic dome and tensegrity. Have a look, there are many great images here.

Link

Tensegrity projects ideas at Make.