DACS General Meeting By Drew Kwashnak When I hear the term “hacker” I envision somebody hunched over in a dark basement, sinisterly typing on the keyboard and drinking cola by the light of a computer terminal. This media-induced image could not be farther from the truth for the hackers from CT Hackerspace, who came to the December General Meeting to give us a glimpse at the new renaissance of do-it-yourself (DIY) makers. Bill Saturno, Rob Limbaugh and Jeff Meyer from CT Hackerspace talked about their current group project, building a 'McWire' RepRap, or 3D printer, so they can build the pieces for a larger, faster and more capable 'Mendel' RepRap. RepRap stands for Replicatable Rapid Prototyping machine, which enables creating parts or a prototype in hours in-house rather than sending the plans out to a shop and waiting for a month to get something back. The process used with the 'McWire' and 'Mendel' RepRaps is called Fused Deposition Modeling, meaning they create complex shapes by applying a layer of material on a moving bed, much like frosting on a cake. Once the layer has been applied the bed is dropped, or the nozzle raised, and another layer is applied. In Fused Deposition Modeling the material, often plastic, is pushed through the extruder, a heated nozzle much like a hot glue gun. Other methods for printing in 3D include Selective Laser Sintering and Photolithography. Selective Laser Sintering is where a laser fuses the shape desired on a layer of the material in powder form. This method is suited for making complex shapes where some part of it needs to be resting on a platform. The un-fused layers act as that platform, and falls away when the object is completed. Photolithography is where a liquid polymer reacts and solidifies when hit by the light from a projector. As the resolution of projectors keeps improving, photolithography allows the creation of more complex shapes. The RepRap built and demonstrated uses a number of components, some common like rollerblade ball bearings for guiding the moving table, other parts more custom such as the circuit boards. There are kits available that can speed up the process, though the documentation may not be as available or complete as one might expect. A working 'McWire' RepRap can cost, materials and software, approximately $600 to build. This price depends more or less on how much time and effort one wants to put into the project using common hand tools or how many pre-made component kits one wants to purchase. The software used usually does not need a lot of computing resources and is cross-platform so it works on Windows, Mac and Linux. The hackers in CT Hackerspace have more in common with Michelangelo, Nicolo Tesla, Alexander Graham Bell and Apple's Steve Wozniack than they do with cybercriminals. The mindset of the hacker is to find innovative out-of-the-box solutions to problems. A Hackerspace is a place where the hacker community can come together and socialize, share their resources, share their knowledge and build things. Members collaborate on individual or group projects in an open, community led environment. For more information on CTHackerspace see http://www.cthackerspace.com
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