NortHACKton

Ballistics Day pics

08/08/2011 widget 2 comments

Despite some initially poor weather, it dried out, brightened up, and the wind died down to allow us to launch some stuff! Check the flickr feed here. For those interested in the telemetry data from the payload we sent up, it looks like this.

Rocket

Quite a short run as the rocket didn’t take long going up or down. Acceleration data isn’t terribly readable – the peak acceleration is obviously off the +- 4g scale of the accelerometer.

One bad data point on the pressure causes the smoothed graph to have a small dip in it, but otherwise the data appears consistent (if unverified).

Temperature data isn’t useful, the sensor is cooling from a previous high of 35C from being wedged into the rocket nose cone.

Plane

Mat’s plane made a couple of trips up and down and around. The temperature data again doesn’t appear to useful, as the sensor is much less responsive than the barometric one (they’re in the same package). Currently it’s not used for altitude calculations.

News ballistics, rocketry

Ballistics Day: 6th August 2011!

27/07/2011 widget No comments

We’ve fleshed out (a little) the plans for the ballistics day for this year. It will be held in Delapre Park, hopefully very close to the NSME facilities (inside the park, next to London Rd). If fate intervenes and we need to be further away, we will mark up on the NSME gates where we are, for ease of navigation in the park.

We’ll start gathering at 11am, but will not be aiming to launch anything before midday. So if you’re coming to watch, you don’t have to be present from the very beginning. We’ll run until we get bored, which will be 4pm at the earliest. In case of (mild) rain we’ll have a marquee and the NSME clubhouse will be available in dire emergencies. It has toilets, and a water supply for the filling of water rockets, so you don’t need to bring litres of water with you.

The firing range will be marked off with traffic cones and rope. This is not an insurmountable barrier, particularly not children or toddlers, so if you bring children it is very important that you do not let them cross the ropes when someone is launching. Also, unless you’re launching something, you should not cross the ropes either.

Please bring your own rockets and tennis-ball launching devices, and launch with us! If you want to make a water rocket, use a plastic bottle from a fizzy drink and add fins, nosecone, and anything else you like with card or cardboard. Why not turn the afternoon into a picnic and bring food and a blanket? You might even be able to launch your drinks bottle!

News ballistics

Meeting notes

27/07/2011 widget No comments

We had a (very small) meeting this week, which mainly consisted of planning the Ballistics Day (details in a second post). I also attended the NSME committee meeting and that was also productive:

If we start supplying bracket specifications to the NSME someone will produce the resulting brackets, possibly producing cardboard ones first to check fit. We’ve agreed doing one axis at a time would make sense. If the mill is useful to the club they would then consider purchasing the parts that are still Martin’s. If the endeavour fails or is unused by the club then Martin’s parts can be given back, and the rest sold.
A marquee will be left in the clubhouse for use if required on the Ballistics Day. There is also a water supply and hose for steam trains and water rockets which we can use.
The NSME are impressed with our railway clock, but do not desire one of their own, as it would not be in keeping with the station’s aesthetic.

News ballistics, nsme

Stirling Engines – harder than they look

12/07/2011 widget No comments

Alan gave a very interesting talk on Stirling Engines, and buoyed by his information that they’re very simple and have few moving parts, we tried to make one.

Surprisingly, this didn’t work, possibly due to:

Poor tolerances
Wrong materials (it’s supposed to be a steel can for a better temperature differential)
Patrick
High mechanical friction

In other news, the Ballistics Day approaches, 6th August. A poster is being prepared, and will be posted on here shortly.

News stirling, talk

Neural networks talk

14/06/2011 widget No comments

Monday was a busy evening in the end! Mat demonstrated a robot that he’s building (no details, it’s a secret!) for a competition at the end of the month, and took advantage of the concreted courtyard in the NSME. Adrian brough some Nanodes to show to the group, and I (Stephen) talked about neural networks, ably assisted by Nicholas. The slides are on the wiki. This was attended by some visitors from the Northants Linux User Group (mailing list here) who hopefully haven’t been permanently put off.

I investigated how to polish 3D printed stainless steel, and Alan tried another form of light-painting, where a long night exposure is taken, and the subjects are lit with a flash gun and many flashes. Pictures hopefully to follow.

Mill

We’ve not done anything with the mill regarding controlling it yet, and so we discussed that as well. The feeling was that we should continue the computer control of it, but only with the assistance of someone who could manufacture the brackets required. We will ask the NSME for assistance, rather than attempt it ourselves.

Next meet

The next meeting is on the 27th June.

News cnc, meet, neural network, talk

Picture taking

31/05/2011 widget No comments

Monday’s meet was relatively quiet, but this gave Alan and I an opportunity to turn the lights out, and try some photography tricks. The first was an art form of blurred photography called Bokeh. By placing a cap over the lens with something interesting cut in it, all the highlights that are out of focus become much prettier.

Secondly, we tried light-painting. As can be seen, we’re not terribly good at it, and are slightly transparent. We have learnt more for the future though. This could be run as a workshop in the winter, when it’s nice and dark outside.

Dates

I’ll host a talk on the 13th on Neural Networks. No previous knowledge required! It’ll start at 8pm on Monday 13th June. There will be a project night, for people to come and do whatever they like, on Monday 27th June. Alan will give a talk on Stirling Engines on the 11th July. The space will open at 7pm on these dates, and you can still come and work on talk nights.

For those who’ve missed it, we’ve also moved the date of the Ballistics Day to 6th August (still a Saturday), so that more people can come.

News bokeh, photography

3D Printing/Prototyping Talk Night

12/05/2011 msraynsford No comments

Monday night is our next Talk night, this months topic being 3D printing and prototyping. We’re hoping for a good turnout after the NSME open day 2 weeks ago.

The talk starts at 8pm but we’ll open up the NSME clubhouse from 7pm onwards.

There is a chance for some practical work after in the form of paper crafting. Bring a windows laptop if you’d like to design your own 3D model to assemble. If you’re just interested in the paper craft assembly I’ll have some simple models to hand. So bring a scalpel, metal ruler and something to cut on.

The software you require is pepakura and a trial version can be downloaded from here. http://www.tamasoft.co.jp/pepakura-en/download/designer.html

Look forward to seeing you all on Monday.

Uncategorized none

Another Ballistics Day

07/05/2011 widget 1 comment

It was very popular last year, so we’re running another; a Ballistics Day will be held by Northackton on Saturday 23rd July 2011. We’ll be in Delapre Park, close to the NSME ground, and holding a competition for equipment that can launch tennis balls to in a set of trials. We’re looking for precision throwers as well as distance ones, so there should be something for everyone in there.

Last year we had water rockets, chemical rockets, trebuchets, a torsion catapult, a lot of bungee cord, a badminton racquet, a bow and arrow, and something that didn’t have a name.

We’ll aim to start around 11am, and run until we’ve tired of firing everything off. We’ll have the facilities of the clubhouse to hand, and there are shops much closer than at the Racecourse Park. Once the ballistics have finished we’ll have a BBQ if the weather holds.

Save the date: 23rd July 2011!

News ballistics

3D Printing Talk

02/05/2011 msraynsford 1 comment

Our next evening talk, Monday May 16th, will be about 3D printing, the different types available in both professional and DIY versions. We will cover everything from the ground up so the talk shall be suitable for people with no prior knowledge on the subject. New people are always welcome along and all our talk evenings are free. We shall be at NSME from 7pm onwards with the talk starting at 8pm. It is generally informal in its style so if you have any questions during the talk please feel free to ask them. Talks aim to be about 30 minutes but interesting ones tend to ramble to about an hour. The clubhouse will be open afterwards for more specific questions or general project work.

(The Makerbot, just one type of DIY 3D printing)

News 3d, cnc

NSME Grand Opening

02/05/2011 msraynsford No comments

Today was the grand opening of the NSME extended tracks. We set up a stall to illustrate the things that NortHACKton do. We spent a lot of time talking to the public and hopefully made a few new friends. Over 2000 people rode the trains today, the exact number is unlikely to be known as they ran out of commemorative tickets. That meant a lot of people to talk to.

The rolling ball sculpture and pinball machine were a great hit with kids and a great opener for conversations. The chain mail shirt and quadcopter also garnered a lot of interest. It was great to have people asking questions about projects and then being pointed to the appropriate person to chat to. Thanks to everyone for coming down to lend us a hand, lets hope we get some increased interest to our next workshop.