Maker Spaces

Maker spaces or hacker spaces(as some are called) are a great place to meet people and learn from them as well.

From spaces.makerspace.com/

"""
What’s a Makerspace?

To describe them simply, makerspaces are community centers with tools. Makerspaces combine manufacturing equipment, community, and education for the purposes of enabling community members to design, prototype and create manufactured works that wouldn’t be possible to create with the resources available to individuals working alone. These spaces can take the form of loosely-organized individuals sharing space and tools, for-profit companies, non-profit corporations, organizations affiliated with or hosted within schools, universities or libraries, and more. All are united in the purpose of providing access to equipment, community, and education, and all are unique in exactly how they are arranged to fit the purposes of the community they serve.

"""

They have tools from hand tools to drill presses to 3D printers to CNC machines to laser cutters. Some are even biological groups opening up spaces for people with that interest to do experiments with the maker spaces equipment and supplies.

Most maker spaces have a membership fee which can be costly, but I believe that many have open house days where you can visit the spaces and even get help with your projects.

I belong to the one in my city and have built different projects there for my lab. In one of my next posts I will be discussing some of the pieces that I have 3D printed at my maker space. I don't have a 3D printer but there is one at my maker space. There is so much different expertise there to help with electronics and programming, etc. I am glad I found this space.

If you don't have tools or space to work in, need help in learning how to use an arduino, etc. you should look into one today.

You can look for a space near you at:

http://hackerspaces.org/wiki/List_of_Hacker_Spaces

or

google "hacker spaces", "maker spaces" your "city".

Revisiting the Incubator Repair

Incubator

I have been working on improving my incubator. I picked up this incubator (see an earlier post) and had to repair it to get it to work. It is basically an old metal box. As you can see I have adding corrugated plastic to the sides and top. This will help keep the temperature stable for my cultures to grow in. It also makes it much easier to clean, disinfect and sterilize . The metal had a acid type smell of old metal. Once cleaned up and the plastic inserted this helped take away the small. I am not sure how long the plastic will last but it is inexpensive and can be found at hardware stores. Therefore I can replace it when needed.

Incubator

Older Incubator

I picked this old incubator up very inexpensively. It was not working. I took it apart and the wiring was removed. I rewired it and tested it out. The heating panel works and so does the thermostat.

It is an old metal box. I intend to add some insulation, either Styrofoam or corrugated cardboard or plastic to keep the temperature more stable. At first I thought maybe I would mount it on the outside of the incubator but as I think more about it I believe it might work better on the inside as this might be easier to clean than metal walls.

I will revisit this when it is finished.

I now have 2 incubators the earlier one I built which goes up to about 30 degrees C and this one which goes up to at least 40 degrees.

I found this link to the pdf file for The Amateur Scientist by C. L. Stong. This is a classic with experiments in archaeology, biology, physics, electronics, etc. These are projects from Scientific American's The Amateur Scientist column.

http://ia801502.us.archive.org/33/items/TheAmateurScientist/Stong-TheAmateurScientist.pdf