Robot Robs Blog: May 2013

It's been a while folks. I have been busy with life. I am one class away from finishing a manufacturing degree. I started a new job at Artisan's Asylum as the Facilities Manager. It is pretty much what I was doing at MakeIt Labs just now full time. I enjoyed working with all of my 3D printing customers but this is something new. I spend my days trying to solve problems with people and things to help them be safe and make awesome stuff. Some of the members projects can be seen Here, Here, Here and Here. I have not had a chance to make anything for me yet, but soon hopefully.

On to the show. Libby and I have been busy bees with both of our new jobs. The Wazoo rally team who I crew for also got an unexpected shot of great news. A partnership with Motostar Performance Tires has us going to four national events this year and the full season next year. That means a bunch of testing and learning for the rally team and lots of driving (8,000 miles). I can't wait to see Tim and Marc out on stage putting down some consistent times. This spring, Libby and I went to Motorama, and made some trophies.

Plasma Cut Trophies

At work, we held a competition with Mathworks for self aware robots.

Angrybot was awesome!

More trophies, this time by a member at artisan's Fractal art.

Coolest robot award for sure.

The Iron Lady was pretty darn awesome as well.

Sergio from Mathworks diligently codes to make the computer vision system recognize color blobs.

Show time.

Some days dozens of maple glazed bacon donuts show up at work.

Libby and I went to a concert. Dropkick Murphies, worth it every time

Eventually we make it to last weekend. A friend of ours graduated and had a BBQ some great art on the fence and this is what they came up with.

My parents are going to be in town and my father wanted to come up for a day to work on the cabin. I knew we would need to survey prior to that trip in order to make sure we have a game plan for finishing the roof over memorial day weekend. We made the decision to go camping around 1. We put the chainsaw into the car and grabbed snacks and a few gallons of water. We headed to camp around 8 and got to camp around 11:30 PM. Libby and I rocked out to Girl Talk when we got to the road. Tree number one down. this was about an 8 inch diameter pine. I felt bad starting the chainsaw late at night, but we had no other way to get down the road. We cleaned it up and headed down the road to find the second down tree in front of the parking lot. I love my Husqvarna 445 Chain Saw it always starts right up. I left my tools and flashlights at Artisan's so Libby and I had a single flashlight to share. We first went up to Donna and Gordon's cabin it is a little more leaning and the door is a little harder to close. The heater worked great, and the lights ran fine. We went down to main camp to have a look. We spooked a bird from it's nest in the kitchen for which we all felt guilty. I was very scared when the bird flew at me in the dark and I had no flashlight. Eventually we got the girls to bed and started the fire. We means everyone but me. I checked out our cabin and found zero damage from the winter and that the tarp stayed intact. Hooray! When I saw the lean to in the moonlight, something looked "off". When we got the fire going, I realized "collapsed under snow weight" was more so the case. I was very confident in the assembly even damaged in the unloaded state. Libby and I had much debate over it's ability to fight gravity. My position was if it hasn't come all the way down yet, I don't expect it to this weekend. We finished drinking some apple cider and headed to bed eventually.

Different failures. This side broke apart from the vertical support column

The failure happened right on the joint of the rear composite beam. The two laminated 2x8's were just not enough to handle the snow load distributed. The front beam did not fail, I think due to the additional 2x10 that was added the length of the beam. The rear beam will be getting a doubled up 2x10 on the front and rear to repair this. The gusset supports also failed on this side. I plan to replace them with 2x4's and Lag bolts. With any luck, we will have this guy back up and sturdy in no time next weekend. I recommend that during winter months, we make temporary lolly columns to put in place while no one is around during the winter. Dropping from a 16 foot span to an 8 foot span will improve the chance of not being crushed by snow much higher.

The roof is still broken in this picture. You can see from the broken wood.

This is another view of the broken wood.

We surveyed the cabins and aside from some brush, this is the only disruptive down tree. As tradition would require, it is blocking access to Jim's cabin. We did not get a chance to cut it up for fear of disturbing the baby birds at the nest.

This tree fell and is likely still in the way of the path.

we took a ride into town to try and not disturb the bird to much. Joe and I played frisbee and both realized how old we have become.

One last important note. The Milan Lunchenete has a new chef or something. The potatoes were seasoned great, the eggs were not greasy and they served home made toast.

With any luck my dad and I will get the roof buttoned up next weekend and our cabin can be stay-able before summer.