Video Tour Houston's Texas-Sized Hackerspace (Video 2 of 2) 45
Steve Cameron: This is kind of cool. It’s 3D-printed differential. Let’s see, what can I say about any of these things. This is a computer-generated castle model. So I wrote a computer program which generates the model and then 3D printed it. So, that’s kind of neat and it’s randomized. So, every time it comes out a different castle.
Yes, it’s the Utah teapot, famous, showing up in computer graphics all the time. This is kind of neat. This is a Sarrus linkage. So, one of our members, Frank Davies, he was working on trying to make some kind of – so one of the ideas behind the Mendel project is to make a 3D printer that can print itself, but obviously in its current form, hardly anything is 3D-printed. This is trying to make a rigid access out of that’s all 3D printed. So, this is actually kind of cool.
Timothy Lord: That’s his own design?
Steve Cameron: That is his own design, yes. Keep my hand here, the E-stop button. This part is going to be produced in two different programs; the first one is going to drill this 24 bolt hole ____1:53 for some rare earth magnets. This is part of the plot. It’s not using gear contact. It’s been using magnetic coupling between magnets on the respective wheels. End program.
Timothy Lord: So ____2:36 up on the shavings.
Steve Cameron: You can’t. It’s aluminum.
Timothy Lord: On this part outside it, what’s the design?
Steve Cameron: What’s the design? Well, I very loosely modeled it after an old Delage racecar that has an airplane engine in it. So, the back is – I was originally going for kind of a conical shape, but that turned out to be too difficult. So, I just kind of made this boat tail, which is, some pieces of plywood that are kind of bent and then this piece which is made of fiberglass and foam. The rails are steel, standard Go-Kart stuff. The steering wheel is cut on a CNC Plasma Cutter out here at the TX/RX Labs. Let’s see
Timothy Lord: Is that aluminum?
Steve Cameron: Yes, it’s aluminum. Eventually I’m going to try to put some wood to make it like a sports car steering wheel, but I just haven’t got to that part.
Timothy Lord: Isthat made from melted down cans?
Steve Cameron: No, it’s just piece of sheet metal or not – yeah I guess sheet metal that Bill Swann got for me. He found it somewhere in some metal yard. These pipes are just cosmetic. I think a V12 would rip the tires of this thing, obviously.
Timothy Lord: How aboutthe seat, is that foam backed underlay?
Steve Cameron: Yeah. Let’s see, it’s kind of hard to take apart. Yeah, it’s just vinyl stuff I got at a fabric shop, over some foam and some plywood parts, it comes out although it’s not super easy to get it out. And then, up here, we have where I keep my wine. ____4:28 but it is a Versace wine stopper.
Timothy Lord: Perfect end to a car.
Steve Cameron: Thanks. So, this is where we keep our Hackerspace army trucks.
Timothy Lord: Every Hackerspace needs some army trucks?
Steve Cameron: Of course. These actually belong to a couple of our members and we use them when we have to haul big heavy stuff around. When we move from our smaller space, that truck right there was the main bearer of the burdens.
Timothy Lord: Now ____4:58 desert patrol of some kind?
Steve Cameron: I believe that is Unimog. Oddly enough, this is not the only Unimog that members of the Hackerspace own. There was one previously, although this looks like a slightly different model than the other one. This one looks actually in better condition. So, I believe this is a Swiss army truck.
In here, we have more electronics stuff. These space are mostly rented out to members of the Hackerspace. We had sort of unexpected demand for renting out table spots and so most of our actual public space for people that aren’t renting is kind of gone. We’re working on fixing that. That’s what all this sort of construction is about. I don’t know what to say about all that stuff in there. We can’t see it, so.
Timothy Lord: Yeah, I understand that these counters here, you’re making counters that are going to be just like the
Steve Cameron: Just like these counters right here. So, basic, concrete
Timothy Lord: These must weigh a ton.
Steve Cameron: They do weight a ton. They’re not walking off by themselves anywhere. And then you can see the base is square steel tubing that’s welded together.
Timothy Lord: Also, not walking off.
Steve Cameron: Also, not walking off.
Timothy Lord: You got a library over here.
Steve Cameron: Little bit. Few books, few old-fashioned books.
Timothy Lord: Now, at 14,000 feet approximately, just the end of the space, I understand that you are looking for more space as well.
Steve Cameron: Yeah, I don’t know a whole lot about what’s going on there, but I think we had so much demand for space here that we’re probably going to rent out. We’re talking about renting out. I heard talking about; I don’t know what’s going to happen with this. There is a warehouse next door that we may or may not be interested in.
One of the things we like to do is, is out in the shop area we have the metal working staff and we have the wood working staff and it’s nice to keep those apart from each other because the metal working guys don’t like saw dust in their machines.
This is getting really retarded (Score:1)
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TX/RX member here.
Yes, in any sufficiently large population, you will get such people. However, when we get people who are "misogynistic, homophobic, narcissistic dorks who ... talk trash about their girlfriends behind their backs," they find out pretty quick that we do not put up with that kind of thing. They either learn that this is not the place for them or to learn to keep that sh!t to themselves.
Our members represent just about every orientation and gender identity, all religions and races, all ages,
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More to the point, some geeks and tinkers can overcome personal tendencies towards toe-gazing and mumbling in order to get access to tools and hardware far beyond their own ability to purchase, install, or maintain.
Trust me. I could become the friendliest damn geek in South Texas if it got me routine access to welding booths, a full power wood shop, plasma cutters, and CNC gear.
But of course, I'm not in South Texas, so this is unhelpful to me.
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You don't know, but you think you do, and that is ignorance.
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Then you would loose that money pretty quickly. As a member of Tx/rx I can assure you that the lab owns exactly 0% of things done in it. The exception is things that are contracted out (which the developer is paid for, and thus far hasn't happened). We've made all sorts of exciting things there and we can do whatever we want with them. Not everything's about money you know...
Re:This is getting really retarded (Score:5, Informative)
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TX/RX member here. (I'm the guy in the guy in the brown shirt, working with the concrete.)
I'm about as introverted as they come. I don't like large groups of people, especially if they are non-technical people. At the Labs, we really only have crowds during the "open houses" (like the one when timothy came through). The rest of the time, particularly during the week, it's usually just a small number people that I can have meaningful, interesting, and technical conversations with, or work on neat projects wi
how are they scammy or unethical? (Score:2)
TX/RX is unethical and scammy
Citation required, on both of those. How are they unethical, and how are they scammy?
aw yeh dude (Score:1)
What kind of citation do you want, bro?
Repeat Content (Score:4, Informative)
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Why do you feel it needs the specific purpose to solve world issues?
Why can't a bunch of like minded people pool their money and buy space/equipment that would be otherwise hard to come by?
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Conspiracy theory much?
Also they have a stated goal:
Our goals are to bring creative people together, to serve as an incubator for imaginative solutions for everyday problems, to make opaque scientific and technical concepts accessible to everyone through education, and to provide much-needed services to our community, made possible by the skills and passion of our membership.
http://txrxlabs.org/about-us/ [txrxlabs.org]
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We all wish he was kidding.
That's the kind of mindless derp that passes for critical thinking in liberal arts circles. There are dozens of regular /. posters with the same attitude.
Re:To quote Ed Byrne (Score:4, Funny)
Oh the Humanities!
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Your rancid bayer aspirin hole just granted my fetid cock access to the deepest reaches of your rectum by opening up for it like a circular door from a science fiction movie. Maybe I should use my dippysack to dippy-dippy-do your foul asshole, and then smooch your disgusting bowels! What say you?
Hackerspace? (Score:3)
It's a workshop. We don't have to keep inventing new words when there are perfectly good ones available.
Re:Hackerspace? (Score:4, Interesting)
* The term seemed to growing in usage and how it was being used described a reasonable chunk of what we were trying to do. I dislike new terms for the sake of new terms, though I am not 100% sure that is the case here, and it would have been going against how the terminology seemed to be evolving.
* Workshop and similar words invoked images of a for profit business(Tx/Rx is a non-profit).
* Workshop correctly invoked thoughts of metal working, wood working, CNCs, but did not invoke thoughts of programming, soldering, circuit design, or a tight knit community. At least to the small number of people I asked when we were trying to decide what we would call ourselves.
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I agree that there's enough novelty that "workshop" isn't a strong enough word. And I agree that any word beginning with "work" isn't really very appealing. But for a lot of people, the social angle is somewhere between "irrelevant" and "frightening". Let's face it. A lot of hackers treat social interaction as just another tool, and the kinds of social interaction you're talking about in the hackerspace social concept doesn't solve any problems they have right now. Or, maybe more fairly, any problems they r
Why the vitrol and hate? (Score:3)
I simply don't understand where the hate is coming from. Here is a space where a group of like minded people can get together and share creative ideas and/or create their own stuff without having to own expensive equipment. Is it the old adage that people fear what they don't understand? Good on this place for doing the Sunday breakfast thing. A good non-threatening way to introduce the community to what you are all about.
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