Coffman High School teacher, Jim Roscoe, with the help of students, built a 3D printer last spring and is now turning out plastic items that can be used in a number of scenarios. The machine melts plastic from a spool to make 3D items.
“All the information for this is open source,” Roscoe said. “The parts for the machine were made on a machine just like this. Now we can make another one.” The electronics and machines for the printer had to be purchased, but Roscoe said about $600 went into the machine that usually sells starting at $1,500.
The printer took about a month to put together plus some time to calibrate. The machine has been used to make parts for the Dublin FIRST Tech Challenge robotics team that Roscoe coaches. It also has other applications around the school. “We’re going to partner with the school store to make things,” Roscoe said, showing off small Coffman Rocks plastic figurines. “I have a product design class that will work on that.”
“We’re thinking up many uses.” Roscoe said, “We print something every day. This will have applications in math, science and physics. There are shapes you can make with it that you really can’t make in another way. You can make very complicated shapes.”
Consider the Source

Arduino project for catching my cats on the kitchen counter, while they’re up there doing food intelligence work 🙂

Arduino nano in iPod Touch box. Switch arms toy gun, Knob controls trigger distance. Opto-isolators fire toy gun.

Maxbotic ultrasonic rangefinder senses distance and determines if sonar field has been interrupted ( by cat). The gun just makes a silly little ‘p-tang’ sound and flashes a red LED in it’s barrel. The cats seem to completely ignore this 🙂

Consider the Source

His was a positive influence. And as the world morns the loss of Stephen Covey we have highlighted his Seven Habits in the hope that you will make them your own. We highly recommend buying his book and digging a bit deeper into the qualities that have changed the lives of so many who value personal growth.
1) Be Proactive
As human beings, we are responsible for our own lives. We have the independent will to make our own choices and decisions, and the responsibility (“the ability to respond”) to make the right choices. You have the freedom to choose your own fate and path, so having the independent will, imagination and self-awareness to make the right move makes you a proactive, and not a reactive, person.
2) Begin With The End In Mind
Mental visualization is extremely important. Covey says that all things are created twice: first, the mental conceptualization and visualization and a second physical, actual creation. Becoming your own creator means to plan and visualize what you’re going to do and what you’re setting out to accomplish and then go out and creating it. Identifying your personal statement and your principles will help.
3) Put First Things First
With your power of independent will, you can create the ending you want to have. Part of that comes with effective time management, starting with matters of importance. Then tasks should be completed based on urgency after you deal with all the important matters. If you deal with crises, pressing problems and deadline-driven projects first, your life will be a lot easier.
4) Think Win/Win
If you believe in a better way to accomplish goals that’s mutually beneficial to all sides, that’s a win/win situation. “All parties feel good about the decision and feel committed to the action plan,” Covey wrote. “One person’s success is not achieved at the expense or exclusion of the success of others.” If you have integrity and maturity, there’s no reason win/win situations can’t happen all the time.
5) Seek First To Understand, Then To Be Understood
If you’re a good listener and you take the time to understand a concept, it will help you convey your opinions, plans and goals to others. It starts with communication and strong listening skills, followed by diagnosing the situation and then communicating your solution to others.
6) Synergize
Synergistic communication, according to Covey, is “opening your mind and heart to new possibilities, new alternatives, new options.” This applies to the classroom, the business world and wherever you could apply openness and communication. It’s all about building cooperation and trust.
7) Sharpen The Saw
Sometimes you’re working so hard on the other six habits that you forget about re-energizing and renewing yourself to sharpen yourself for the tasks in front of you. Some sharpening techniques include exercise and nutrition, reading, planning and writing, service and empathy and commitment, study and meditation.

For those considering an in depth exploration of Positive Qualities, we also recommend the work of Jim Downs. His Positive Qualities Chart and the companion book are essential references. The Positive Qualities Company website gives an overview of the attributes embraced by Covey and others making the most of this life.
Consider the Source

The Open Source Robotics Foundation, Inc. is an independent non-profit organization founded by members of the global robotics community. The mission of the OSR Foundation is to support the development, distribution, and adoption of open source software for use in robotics research, education, and product development.
One major project is ROS (Robot Operating System) which provides libraries and tools to help software developers create robot applications. It provides hardware abstraction, device drivers, libraries, visualizers, message-passing, package management, and more. ROS is licensed under an open source, BSD license.
This video shows a robotic arm driven by the ROS software and operating as a picker/placer.

Consider the Source

You no longer have to win an election, be an elite athlete, or possess movie star looks to have power. We are entering the age of the Citizen Influencer, in which every person has a chance to get behind the velvet rope and be treated like a rock star. So says author Mark W. Schaefer in his new book Return On Influence.
It’s no secret that Facebook and Google keep running accounts of our every move, want, and desire with a cold completeness and unnerving efficiency that would shock even George Orwell. This trend of social scoring is creating new classes of haves and have-nots, social media elites and losers, frenzied attempts to crash the upper class, and deepening resentments.
Social scoring is also the centerpiece of an extraordinary marketing movement. For the first time, companies can—with growing confidence—identify, quantify, and nurture valuable word-of-mouth influencers who can uniquely drive demand for their products.
Companies with names like Klout, PeerIndex, and Twitter Grader are in the process of scoring millions, eventually billions, of people on their level of influence. And they’re not simply looking at the number of followers or friends you’ve amassed. They are beginning to measure online influence through extraordinarily complex algorithms tweaked daily by teams of PhD-level researchers and scientists. They’re declaring their judgments online, too, for the entire world to see.
Although being publicly rated and compared has a significant icky factor, we can’t ignore the breathtaking business opportunities. The good news is that in this new world of social influence, even the obscure, the shy, and the overlooked can become celebrities in their slice of the online world.
You too can be an Internet celebrity.
You too can earn your way into the influence class.
You too can discover the power of your own return on influence.

A Michigan man moves massive blocks in his backyard using simple contraptions.
Visit W. T. Wallington’s website at: http://www.theforgottentechnology.com/

Flying robot quadrotors perform the James Bond Theme by playing various instruments including the keyboard, drums and maracas, a cymbal, and the debut of an adapted guitar built from a couch frame. The quadrotors play this “couch guitar” by flying over guitar strings stretched across a couch frame; plucking the strings with a stiff wire attached to the base of the quadrotor. A special microphone attached to the frame records the notes made by the “couch guitar”.
These flying quadrotors are completely autonomous, meaning humans are not controlling them; rather they are controlled by a computer programed with instructions to play the instruments.
Penn’s School of Engineering and Applied Science is home to some of the most innovative robotics research on the planet, much of it coming out of the General Robotics, Automation, Sensing and Perception (GRASP) Lab.
This video premiered at the TED2012 Conference in Long Beach, California on February 29, 2012. Deputy Dean for Education and GRASP lab member Vijay Kumar presented some of this groundbreaking work at the TED2012 conference, an international gathering of people and ideas from technology, entertainment, and design.
The engineers from Penn, Daniel Mellinger and Alex Kushleyev, have formed a company called KMel Robotics that will design and market these quadrotors.
More information: http://www.upenn.edu/spotlights/penn-quadrotors-ted
Video Produced and Directed by Kurtis Sensenig
Quadrotors and Instruments by Daniel Mellinger, Alex Kushleyev and Vijay Kumar

Bedding retailers Sleep Train and Sleep Number have pulled their ads from the Rush Limbaugh show due to his impetuous slurs against a young woman attending the Georgetown University Law School. Quicken Loans and Auto Zone withdrew shortly thereafter.
The Republican-controlled House had rejected the request of Democrats for Sandra Fluke to testify on the Obama administration’s policy requiring that employees of religion-affiliated institutions have access to health insurance that covers birth control. Fluke was later given a chance to talk to Congress on February 23, although lawmakers were on a break and just a few Democratic allies were on hand.

Fluke spoke of a friend who had an ovary removed because her school’s insurance company wouldn’t cover the prescription birth control she needed to stop the growth of cysts. She said that Georgetown, a Jesuit institution, does not provide contraception coverage in its student health plan and that contraception can cost a woman more than $3,000 during law school.

On Wednesday, Limbaugh unleashed a lengthy and often savage verbal assault on Fluke. The pretentious gold mic’d pulpit from which this bullying occurs is supported by a cadre of simpleton followers who consume the products and services advertised on his show. So far the most idiotic response, by a sponsor, to Limbaugh’s bullying was that of ProFlowers. No thinking man is going to use that service to send flowers to a woman unless, of course, she’s a pro.

The following list contains the contact information for sponsors that, for some reason, are currently running ads on Mr. Limbaugh’s low fidelity program.

Century 21 Real Estate LLC
International Headquarters
1 Campus Drive
Parsippany, NJ 07054

ProFlowers
Sales or Service: 1-800-580-2913
Phone: 800.580.2913

eharmony
300 N. Lake Ave., Suite 1111
Pasadena, CA 91101
media@eharmony.com
626.795.4814
FAX 626.585.4040

CARBONITE, Inc.
617-587-1100
177 Huntington Avenue, Boston, MA 02115
carbonite@mailnj.custhelp.com
Direct Dial Office: 617-587-1100 EXT:1115

Mid-West Life Insurance Company of Tennessee
9151 Grapevine Hwy.
North Richland Hills, TX 76180
Phone (800) 733-1110
(web banner ads on rushlimbaugh.com)

LegalZoom.com – confirmed and long-time advertiser
800-773-0888; Fax: 323-962-8300

Citrix Online (GoToMyPC)
6500 Hollister Avenue, Goleta, CA 93117
Phone: 805-690-6400; Fax: 805-690-6471
info@citrixonline.com

American Forces Network
MyAFN.net

Mission Pharmacal Company
10999 IH-10 West Suite 1000
P.O. Box 786099
San Antonio, TX 78278-6099
Telephone: (800) 531-3333
Bennett Kennedy – Citracal Product Manager

Life Quotes, Inc.
32045 Castle Court
Evergreen, CO 80439
1-800-670-5433
info@lifequotes.com.au

“Once manufacturing is outsourced, process-engineering expertise can’t be maintained, since it depends on daily interactions with manufacturing. Without process-engineering capabilities, companies find it increasingly difficult to conduct advanced research on next-generation process technologies. Without the ability to develop such new processes, they find they can no longer develop new products. In the long term, then, an economy that lacks an infrastructure for advanced process engineering and manufacturing will lose its ability to innovate.” — Pisano and Shih
Aevia — Consider the Source

The material has been dubbed “ultralight metallic microlattice,” and according to a news release sent out by UC Irvine, it consists of 99.99% air thanks to its “microlattice” cellular architecture.
It is so lightweight that the research team consisting of scientists at UC Irvine, HRL Laboratories and Caltech say in the peer-reviewed Nov. 18 issue of Science that it is the lightest material on Earth. As yet,  no one has asked them to run a correction.
“The trick is to fabricate a lattice of interconnected hollow tubes with a wall thickness 1,000 times thinner than a human hair,” lead author Tobias Shandler of HRL said in the release.
To understand the structure of the material, think of the  Eiffel Tower or the Golden Gate Bridge — which are both light and weight efficient — but on a nano-scale.
The material in the picture above is made out of 90% nickel, but Bill Carter, manager of the architected materials group at HRL, said it can be made out of other materials as well — the nickel version was just the easiest to make.
As for the uses of such a material? That’s still to be determined. Lorenzo Valdevit, UCI’s principal investigator on the project, brought up impact protection, uses in the aerospace industry, acoustic dampening and maybe some battery applications.
Aevia — Consider the Source