General Stuff

I hadn’t ridden a bike since I was ten, I’ve had surgery on my head recently… and this event involved consuming alcohol. That being said, going was a great bad idea! Luckily Krux had an extra working bike for me to use. Needless to say we had enough ‘blink’ between the two of us to decorate my ride. He even got me a shiny red helmet to protect my fragile brain… just incase. The route started at the Huntridge tavern down town which is riding distance from our usual Saturday meetup at the shop. We left just before sundown and joined the horde of people prepping in the parking lot. It didn’t take long to discover that the apparent theme was green due to it being 4-20, something that failed to occur to either of us. No one in our group really bought into the green paraphernalia trend though. We…

This past Saturday was Robo Day, an event at the Cheyenne campus of the local college where humans could come and acquaint themselves with their future dominators. Syn Shop was offered space at the event so myself and a few of the other robot enthusiasts brought our babies down to show to the world. My delta robots, Jeden, Sznurek, and Squanto made their debut as I demoed Jeden all day with an interactive GUI : Krux finished repairing Nomad the previous weekend and had him running with a new upgraded brain and power supply. In addition to the hulking beast on wheels we brought stationary, the little treaded rover that resembles Wall-E : I had the honor of sitting next to ‘Amber’, Mark’s lovely white delta robot… who as of that particular day could only move on a thrusting z-axis. Nathan had his cute spider-like hexapod crawling about while he…

I decided last week that my next set of goggles will be Polkamatic. Previously I had been mulling over the notion of creating a radio themed pair, but that was less quirky and less interactive than the recent Theremin goggles I have finished… and I can’t allow myself to digress. ‘Polkamatic’ goggles? What the hell is that? Well, my interest in sound and the fact that I am a blazing Pollock have intersected into this lovely idea of an interactive sound mixer consisting of polka riffs and the like. These goggles will look like they were carved from wood, will have floral babushka fabric for straps, and no less than two bellows to simulate working accordions. Silly? YES. Very silly… I have the image of a one man band contraption with moving parts and knobs in my head… the only problem I’ll face is running out of surface area on…

So while at the shop this saturday Krux got the ShopBot moving and doing at last! It seems like the frame is square and all the parts are in their correct orientation because the logo turned out great. Good job!

Imagine a whole field of these guys swaying, bobbing and dancing in sync to the thoughts and mental cues of their Mommy, myself. Count on seeing it for real this summer…! Now that Christmas is over I can afford to focus some more attention on getting that army of delta robots made. I’m still not sure if I’ll have the volume featured above ready in time for the Mini Maker Faire next month (in fact there is no way), but I’m going to try like hell to have an array of at least four to show off. Do these look familiar? YES, YES, They do! I disassembled my two prototypes from the summer this afternoon and have started compiling them into one better working robot. I have enough regular sized servo motors to make exactly four deltas, so I’ll use what I’ve got. In other news, I’ll be doing my soldering…

Time to talk about the amazing thing that happened this weekend… It feels like I have been waiting forever and it’s crazy to know that everyone else has been waiting five times longer than I have… but finally, FINALLY the keys were given over to us and the SYN Shop is for the most part, ALIVE and open. The wait began for me towards the end of this summer when my dad brought me an article promoting the shop and its booth at the upcoming First Friday. He prompted me to read it claiming he had found the thing I had been searching for in the Vegas community. It was true that ever since I had moved back to my native city from college in Chicago, I was craving the type of environment I had in my technology department… a sort of studio space but for tech geeks and the…

Today I bought a Dremel. HOW COME NO ONE HAS EVER TOLD ME ABOUT THESE THINGS?? I mean, it has never occurred to me in the past to google “miniature all in one metal shop” so how could I have assumed that something so helpful existed? Having one would have saved me a lot of trouble and limitation. If you don’t know what they are, which many of my friends did not, it’s a little machine that looks like an electric toothbrush yet comes with a zillion versatile attachments that do everything from cut steal, drill holes, to carving and polishing. If you make robots at home like me and have gone on believing that you are stuck depending on a college shop room to do all your modifications… go to Home Depot and change your life now! The highest end model is nice and will cost you about 100…

I suppose I should begin by introducing myself. Well, I am Sarah, a student from Las Vegas, Nevada with a long history in visual arts. For the past decade I’ve been sharpening my skills as a painter, digital illustrator, graphic artist, and sculptor from my beginning days in high school at the Las Vegas Academy of Performing and Visual Arts, all the way to the Art Institute of Chicago. It was in Chicago that I made the leap from the more tradition mediums to the realm of art technology and began thinking I was more of an engineer than just an artist or designer. I don’t have much background in programming languages, circuit building, or metal fabrication, but I did pick up some basic skills in Chicago at SAIC in their Art Tech program. If I had stayed there it would have been to continue down that path. Even though…