Kickstart a Makerspace

Adapted from "Kickstart A Kid's Makerspace," by James Floyd Kelly; Make Magazine; Vol. 38; April/May 2014.

When I run across a good idea I occasionally take exception to parts of the idea's premise. Take this article by Mr. Kelly. He has an awesome idea. He states, "Young makers grow up to become world-changing engineers and leaders." I agree wholeheartedly. So, why would I take exception to his idea?

Because I don't think it should be limited exclusively to kids.

Many people have great ideas. Some people are late bloomers, and don't get an original idea until later in life, in their 40s, 50s, or 60s. Why should brilliant technology be provided exclusively to the young? Aren't we really interested in fostering ideas, regardless of age, gender, or race, or religion?

Blacktooth laser cutter

 The notion of placing technology in the hands of our youth makes complete sense. After all, we adults want to raise thoughtful adults to take care of us in our old age, after our days of making and creating have been replaced by sipping cool drinks on the beach reading our favorite yarn. But, like I said, placing tech and ideas in the hands of more than our youth seems like a good idea, especially those college-aged youth who never had an opportunity to be creative, and adults back-in-college who may want to be entrepreneurs and create jobs.

Kelly outlines a couple of paths to follow, a low-cost Makerspace valued at about $11,000; and a higher-cost Makerspace, valued at about $24,000.

CNC router

I don't want to re-create Kelly's great article here; we can all read and evaluate. We should all consider the long-term value in investing in such technologies from a variety of perspectives. Nothing bad, and much good can from these experiences.

If you don't read Make magazine, you should.

Also, check out makezine.com for thousands of ideas for making, creating, building, wiring, and programming.





 

Capturing Bugs and Measuring Nitrogen with Arduino and RaspberryPi

Professor James Hardin's (JCSET) research interests lie at the "intersection of sensors and engineering design." (Personal website) In pursuit of those interests, James is working on a couple projects integrating his research interests with biology and the natural environment.

One project (left) is a simple nitrogen sensor. Using an optical contact sensor and some Arduino hardware, James and an undergraduate student created a nitrogen sensor for measuring nitrogen within a leaf. Merely lay the leaf atop the sensor (the small, white cylinder), and the microcomputer will measure and report the nitrogen bound within the leaf.

The second project is far more complicated. A field biologist needs to conduct an insect inventory of a test site. Perhaps the field biologist is looking for a collection of diagnostic insects, or perhaps, is looking for a certain insect.

Today, a field biologist would have to spend days upon days in the field, setting traps, shaking bushes, etc., and hope to collect some good samples.

What if ... what if the biologist could set a number of automated traps? These traps would collect an insect, trap the insect long enough to snap a pic, and release the insect back into the wild. The insect snapshot would be processed digitally, a form of facial recognition image processing technique applied, and the insect species would be identified and the pic classified. The pic and info would be transmitted via MMS/SMS to the biologist comfortably sitting in a field office or lab.

Dr. Hardin is working on a prototype of this insect trap. As shown (left), the white PVC Y-joint serves as the basis for mounting trap components. A RaspberryPi controller operates the mechanism for trapping the insect long enough to capture an image. Attached to the trap is an Android phone (right), the brains of the device.

The phone captures the image, processes and classifies the image, and provides a means to geolocate the insect. Once processed, the data is sent via MMS/SMS to the biologist, wherever that person might be stationed.

Dr. Hardin research demonstrates the utility in drawing the disciplines of engineering, biology, and geography together in the analysis of the a biological problem. His device captures an insect, performs non-invasive testing and initial interpretation, the results of which are transmitted back to a researcher who can integrate the data into a geographic database for spatial analysis.

Dr. James Hardin can be reached at jhardin@murraystate.edu (MSU/JCSET).

Murray State IEEE Chapter Heads to IEEE SoutheastCon 2014

March 14th - March 15th, 2014 brings the annual SoutheastCon. Held at the University of Kentucky, the IEEE SoutheastCon brings together IEEE teams from around the Commonwealth to participate in a hardware-based competition, i.e. build a robot to accomplish some goal.

This year's Student Hardware Competition brings a challenge very appropriate for both Kentucky and the time of year. The 2014 challenge involves designing a robot to shoot a projectile from various distances to emulate the playing and shooting dynamics of basketball.

What better challenge than one aligned with basketball, SEC tournament play, and NCAA March Madness?

The objective will to build a a robot that operates on a simulated basketball court. The robot must follow three lines with randomly positioned shooting blocks and then fire a dart while positioned on top of the shooting block. Winners will be decided by number of points earned by completing goals and completion time so the highest scoring robots will be both fast and precise.

Friday and Saturday, teams will assemble and test their robots. Saturday afternoon, teams will compete, culminating in the awards ceremony Saturday night. Throughout each day, other activities are available, ranging from leadership training workshops, workshops on renewable energy, and RaspberryPi tutorials.