Category: Events

“Hack Your Half Term!”: Kids Open Afternoon @ the Space

Nothing to do during half term? Want to come and find out what you can do in a Makerspace?

One of our smaller LAMM members will be hosting an open session aimed at younger people who want to learn what a Makerspace is and there will be hands on stuff to do, play with and make. Adults also welcome, especially if accompanied by a young person 😉

When: Wednesday 17th Feb from 12pm to 5pm.

Where: LAMM Space, Unit 5 Sharpes Mill, White Cross Business Park, Lancaster, LA1 4XS

What: A whole host of interesting possibilities!

We will have small robots to play with like the MBot. You can use an app or a remote control to send it around the Space, or you can programme it to follow the path you want:

building the Mbot
Building the MBot

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Or maybe you want to have a go at making yourself a key ring on the laser cutter or a paper shape on the Silhouette cutter…

acrylic laser cut star keyrings
acrylic laser cut star key rings
A mirrored acrylic keyring
A mirrored acrylic keyring
rainbow paper cut skull containers
rainbow paper cut skull containers

Or have a school bag that lights up in the dark…

Backpack with electroluminescent wire
Backpack with electroluminescent wire

Or maybe you just have some almost-broken charger cables that need a little Sugru to “hack it better”…

How to fix a cable with Sugru
How to fix a cable with Sugru (from Instructables.com)

Or maybe you have something you want to take to bits to see how it’s made, or learn to solder, or learn how to use a 3D printer (we have several 3D printers in the Space).

Come with a plan, or come to experiment.

Most of all, come and be a Maker!

(For the health and safety conscious, there will be at least one adult full member present at all times, and children must be accompanied by an adult.)

 

 

Wine and Cheese Night

So recently we decided to run a Wine and Cheese night, for all the members to get together and chat, drink wine, and eat cheese! Helpful, as several of us members enjoy Cheese, Wine (or in this case, Port), and each others company.

After the initial sorting out, including Claire cutting some signs for each Cheese out of Acrylic on the Laser Cutter, we started digging in – many thanks to Ian and Claire for sourcing the Cheese, and Mark and Louis for sourcing many of the Chutneys on show.

There was a large selection of cheese, as can be seen above – the most popular was unarguably the Snowdonia Original, although the Irish Original Porter dissapeared soon after. An unusual one was the Sticky Toffee Cheddar, which was… well, sticky and tasted of toffee. Interesting in a non-disgusting way by all accounts.

All in all, a wonderful event, with only one dissapointed member – Ben the dog, who was on crumb watching duty the whole evening.

If you missed this event, and would like to see us do it again (or something completely different!) Then let us know, or if you would like to organise an event, then again, let us know!

Until next time!

Hacking the space – March 2015

So this weekend on Saturday 7th and Sunday 8th of March we had our first major hack the space day, and much was achieved!

  • Workshop area now has a chip board flooring to prevent us causing damage to the laminate flooring in Unit 5
  • Kitchen worktops are cut to length and fixed to the units
  • Big shelving units are screwed to the walls
  • Donated equipment and parts were moved from the Shadowcat offices to the space
  • Laser was moved location along with the PC (including some comedy moments of Bob discovering how thin the metal was and bending it)
  • Laser modified to replace the USB cabling so the software licence dongle lives inside connected to a USB hub all nice and neat
  • Laser usage counter box purchased and wired up at one end. We worked out where to connect it in the cutter but didn’t quite get to connecting it due to lack of ferrels
  • Tested issue with datum button for Just Add Sharks – don’t press the datum button in Z mode with the honeycomb and slotted beds in as it will crash the head. The limit switch now needs moving
  • TV donated by Graham as spares or repair was mounted on the wall and the first signs of issue started to show with it. Percussive maintenance fixed this so there’s probably a dry or loose joint that we need to find
  • Blew up the new board for the 3d printer that Bob brought with him (whoops – looks like the power connector was soldered to the board the wrong way around)
  • Got the chip from the new board to work on the old Gen7 3d printer board gaining a working board out of two not working boards
  • PAT tested the pillar drill, which passed!
  • PAT tested a PSU from Ian’s house, which failed and went back home with him in disgrace
  • Realised that we can’t run the extractor past 21:00 in the evening as it’s too noisy for the surrounding houses – sorry to the people who rang up to point this out. Noted and we will stop at 21:00 in future.

So all in all a very productive couple of days! Massive thanks to Bob Clough from Hackspace Manchester (Hackman) who came up to see us to use the laser cutter and and help out. The A-Maze-Balls project is looking very exciting in the flesh (that’s what Bob was cutting out).

Come and see for yourself at our open evening this and every Wednesday from 18:00 onwards!

A-Maze-Balls box being cut:

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Laser cutter in new location on top of chipboard flooring:

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