How to UnMake a Makerspace build thread: Why I make things, Part 2 My Biggest Influence.

Full disclosure, I work often 7 days a week.  I scheduled this post to happen on fathers day so I could let my dad know how important what he did with me when I was younger.  Turns out that is next Sunday, but it is still on the schedule for publication.  Happy father day Bob Masek, you are a pretty great father!

I have a lot of influences in my early life.  I could go on for hours about so many memories from the early morning Saturday morning infomercial tool guy to my excitement at the sears wish book every year.

Let me give you some back ground on the legend that is Bob Masek.  He is a stubborn man.   I think he may have gotten it from his mom.  Grandma would get an idea, and you could either be on board, or be on board.  How stubborn you ask?  His CB handle was the plow.  He got it while working at Boyscout camp in upper Wisconsin. He would plow through tasks with a force that I have not ever seen paralleled.  They built things, drank beer and enjoyed the woods.  It is not that dissimilar to what happens at most maker spaces.  He went to college for mechanical engineering and took a job in Peoria IL at Caterpillar where he met my Mom at a ski club.  He worked as a young engineer until they realized that Bob Masek was a talker.  He ended up as some type of fleet sales engineer.  I never fully understood his job when I was younger.  They ended up in NH and made three little kids.  My sisters all own drills, and can change a tire so they were not ignored.  I however loved turning wrenches.  

On Saturday mornings we would go down to his workshop.  He had a workbench made of an old hollow core door with a 1/4 inch sheet of Masonite on top of it.  It had a few coats of shellac and a Craftsman machinist vice with bend handles from using cheaters on them.  It wasn't just a work holding device.  It was an anvil.  It was a bearing press.  It was a sheet metal brake.  It was a flattening die.  It seamed like every thing we did involved that vice.  a 13 inch black and white tv sat on a shelf and it played this old house, the New Yankee Workshop and American Bandstand.  Dad would always try and show how cool he was by knowing the hip music.  This system would involve messing with the antennas and adjusting v hold, h hold, ans some other knobs that I can't recall.  

I don't know if we even owned safety glasses.  When things didn't fit, we had a wide assortment of hammers, pry bars, cheaters, brass punches, and other implements of destruction.  Under the bench we had boxes of "the good chemicals you can't buy anymore," power cables, extension cords, masonry tools, paint, and other things you might file under hoarding.  Then there was his craftsman tool chest.  It had a silver frame with red drawers.  Every drawer was overloaded.  and the slides required constant maintenance.  Each tool had been hand engraved with RBM his initials.  All of my tools are initialed with RJM, just like my grandfather.  5-piece Offset (45°) Box End  was my favorite set of wrenches to use. Anytime we would run into a metric bolt it was a "communist conspiracy".  

I vividly recall going to Hammer Hardware and Osgoods Hardware.  We would go and look for the one bolt we needed.  We would go to all of the specialty shops to get car parts, vacuum parts, springs for the dishwasher at the Maytag place.  This was not a time of Amazon Prime.  It was a time of a file cabinet with every manual to everything we bought.  Parts diagrams were not a searchable document.  It required phone calls, filling out hand written order forms with checks and waiting weeks for parts to show up.  Many a time we had to give up and fabricate the replacement part or modify something to work.  As time has gone on it was no longer affordable to replace the windings on a motor in the Shop Vac, it is cheaper to replace the entire unit than to buy just the part.

I was brought as a Bohemian.  I didn't realize it at the time, but the statement was actually a slightly raciest commentary on how cheap the Czechs were.  In order to be cheap, we had to be resourceful and efficient.  I want to give a few examples of working with my dad and how he came up with creative solutions to complex or non existent problems.  

CAD- Cardboard Aided Design

We used to cut up file folders for everything.  Before I could manipulate things on a computer in Solidworks, I learned to visualize it.  We would build a scale model of each room and all the furniture.  If we wanted to rearrange the room, we would take out all of the little scale footprints and move them around by hand.  As kids, this taught us spacial reasoning and an understanding of not just the size of things, but how to think about the human factors of floor plans.

Calibrated extension cords.

My dad was stubborn and would not hook into the city sewer.  He made a scaled drawing of where the opening was but we did not own a tape measure that was long enough to measure it.  He had two extension cords that were marked off with the proper lengths.  He could have done it with string, but knew that the value of an extension cord meant it would not disappear anytime soon.

Labeled Light Switches

In my house as a child, we had a bunch of switches.  They all did something.  Every switch was labeled with an embossed brown plastic strip.  

The List

Every Saturday morning we would get a and written list with check boxes on a little yellow notepad.  Steps would be detailed, order would be based on scarcity and work center limitations.  Each kid would get one and have to complete it by the time we would go get hot dogs from the hot dog lady for lunch.  Now we all make lists when we need to get things done.  

I don't think he thought about giving me something extra when growing up.  I think he firmly believes that being able to fix things was a necessary life skill.  This is something that everyone needs, they need exposure to making.  My father gave me experience with many different vocations from breaking the cheapest taps available to stripping slotted screws and a dash rounded bolt head for flavor.  We didn't just fix the house, we built rockets.  We changed oil, rebuilt carburetors, and soldered circuit boards.  I never heard my dad say he couldn't do something.  I got my willing  ignorance of what I can do, and do it anyways from him.  He got it from his father.  

When he needed to learn something he did it with books, I have Google and YouTube. He let me break his tools, and then was nice enough to let me bring them to sears for a replacement.  He let me make mistakes.  He let me fail when I needed to.  But at the end he helped me finish the project.  From all of those many memories I get to have him looking over my shoulder shaking his head with befuddled look on every project from memories. (He isn't dead, he just lives just north of the middle of nowhere IL and can't use Skype)  I don't think it had to be my dad, it could have been my mom, a neighbor, or a teacher.  It could have been you.  If you don't have a kid, find one who needs an adult and show up.  They need someone to tell them they can do it.  If you do have a kid, teach them to change a tire, wire a lamp, and use basic power tools.  It is more important than this weeks Real Housewives of the OC or the big game.  

How to UnMake a Makerspace build thread: Why I make things, Part 1 Emotional Needs.

You know they sell that at Walmart for like 20 dollars right? 

I do, but thanks for letting me know.  I could for sure buy something close to what I want for a very small amount of money mass manufactured in china that is very similar to what I am making.  But I want it to have the USB port able to continuously deliver 2 amps and dissipate the heat. Why would I computer model, 3D print, make a custom PCB for greater cost than the off the shelf solution that takes 16 hours to do?

Because I can!

I may actually have some deeper emotional needs than just "Because I can".  In life I can't control much.  It gives me anxiety when things are out of my control.  I put great effort into understanding the world around me.  Issac Newton, the father of modern day science, watched as the entirety of human knowledge became greater than anyone man could understand as he ushered out the age of alchemy.  Since I likely won't be able to understand all of recorded human knowledge I need to grab what I can.  We all have different learning styles, my strongest tendency is towards kinesthetic learning. Specifically project based learning.

By doing a project, I retain a greater portion of the subject matter.  The hands on creates emotional connection to the parts of the project and the lessons learned.  For anyone who questions this, take a look at a broken tap or stripped screw and tell me you don't have an emotional response.  I know I do, I can still picture exactly the first tap I broke in a fighting robot.  I can remember every tap I have broken.  Each time I can also go back to the point where I had to reflect on the failure.  Did I repeat a dumb mistake, or did I fail in a new and different way?

Making satisfies some of the Human-Givens approach list of ten required emotional nourishment.

1.  Sense of competence and achievement

By finishing a project, I get a high.  It is similar to the high I get while at the gym pressing atlas stones or dead lifting.  A raw guttural response and an explosion of energy.  I have a physical manifestation of what I have learned and put into practice.   

2. Meaning and purpose — which come from being stretched in what we do and think.

It may for a short period of time, but I have a purpose, make a thing.  When I choose a project, I choose it based on pushing limits of what I have done in the past.  

3.  Privacy — opportunity to reflect and consolidate experience

I reflect on what I do as I step through the learning process.  This is an internal process usually focusing mistakes or as Gui calls them "opportunities."  The only way to avoid screwing things up is to not do anything.  My projects often have a lot of opportunities for learning.

And that about covers it for working in my basement alone.  That leaves me with a gaping opening with the rest of the list.  For most people they need a third place.  After home and work, they go to church, bowling, or a bar.  It usually will knock out the most of this list.  But I don't fit at most of these places.  I got this from Fighting robots and Crossfit.  I was working as a 3D printer Application Engineer when a friend and co worker pointed out an article in the Nashua Telegraph. Earlier in 2011 I met my wife and after our first date it was like that was how my life was always supposed to be.  To a far less degree but with the same conviction I knew what I had walked into when I entered MakeIt Labs.  I could check off some more boxes on the list.

4.  Security — safe territory and an environment which allows us to develop fully

The space was accepting of failure.  Just like at CrossfitTuff, everyone cheers you on when you are trying. They give you ideas and share experience.  They give you the one piece you need or lend you a tool.  When you say "hold my beer and watch this," more than one person offers and they film it for "Science."

5.  Attention (to give and receive it) — a form of nutrition

Kevin Smith says that one of the basic human needs is to be heard.  In order to have someone listen you need to say something.  I can tell stories of things I have done in the past, but as time goes by the minds eye's focus starts to become less clear.  Did I get pulled over at 107 or 117 MPH?  I can very clearly however tell you about the Unified Chart of Accounts for Non Profits and how it is designed to fill out the 990 tax form.  My audience may not car so much about the content every time, but they hear my passion.  On the flip side, I enjoy hearing about other peoples projects and learning.  I have a lot of experience, sometimes people become apologetic as they explain what they assume is a mundane task to me.  It never is, I am always excited to see the passion in peoples eyes as they get that eureka moment

6.  Sense of autonomy and control — having volition to make responsible choice.

Lets be serious.  Doing things is dangerous.  Walking down the street you could get hit by a 16 ton anvil falling from the sky.  The chance is remote, but it could happen.  Walking into a room with power tools is going to increase that danger by an exponential factor.  Every tool is designed to deliver energy in some type high discharge function.  A trained cyclist can output 400 watts at peak for short amounts of time.  The Plasma cutter can output 11,000 watts of power continuously for 45 minutes.  10 milliamps at 100 volts can kill a human.    That tool can kill you 110,000 times over in 5 seconds.  Ever used a bandsaw? No better tool exists to cut meat and bones in a butcher shop.  You know what we are made of? Mostly meat, some bones.  The shop is a direct representation a humans need for making good decisions.  Every injury I deal with begins with some version of the statement "I didn't think."  

On the flip side what you do also effects others.  By leaving the shop better than you found it, you are setting up the next user for success.  By leaving a mess, broken tools, or an unsafe condition, you are being selfish.  You can receive gratification by leaving things better than you found them.  

7.  Emotional intimacy — to know that at least one other person accepts us totally for who we are, “warts 'n' all”

I don't think I deal with this much at the space, Paul generally grunts and drinks beers.  That may be as good as we get.Experiences may vary on this one.

8.  Feeling part of a wider community

When I walk in, I say hello to a bunch of people.  They all know my name.  I can often go for weeks at a time and only see my wife, Dunkin Donuts employees, and Inmates.  How many of you can say that everyone at your work, customers and co workers, want for the place to do well and be better?  I may not always agree with the path, but we want the place to be better just the same.  It gives us a reason to work past our differences.  All you have to do is try not to be a jerk.  To be fair, we like them to. 

9.  Sense of status within social groupings

Maker spaces become a Meritocracy.  We have co authored a term Do-ocracy as a community.  The doers actions become louder than the "experts".   How much do I weigh your input?  How good does your R4-D5 unit replicate the original?  

I am not comfortable with excepting the world around me.  I need to make it better.  I need to know that when I am gone, what I did will be looked upon as a net positive on the balance sheet of life.

I leave you with Adam Savages talk on Why We Make.

Columbus day Cabin Construction

It's been a while since my last post.  I am almost half way through the semester and needed to reward myself for doing psets.  So I get to write a blog post every time I finish.  This is the photo journal of our Columbus day weekend trip.  

Friday evening Libby was not feeling well and I was tired so we decided to hold off on traveling up north till Saturday morning.  i went to pick up Libby and she rallied to head up north.  We put on some Nerdist Podcasts and headed north.  As we pulled into camp, it started to rain.  We unloaded the tools and brought everything up to the cabin.  The tarp blew off and we had some minor flooding in the corner of the cabin.  We first put the tarp back up and started to organize tools.  Joe, and Roserin  put in the two windows while I put in the door.  Libby and I now had a place to set up our tent and be protected from the elements for the night.  It was still damp in the cabin and cold. I got a load of wood so we could have a fire for the night.  Libby finally got to tell the story of getting sick from last fall to all of the campers around the camp fire.  We headed to bed not to late and tried to keep warm.  

Sunday morning we got up and headed down to the Milan Luncheonette   The best cup of coffee in Milan‽  Libby and I swung down to Berlin to pick up some screws and headed back up to camp.  I cut up some logs and loaded stacked some wood with the other campers to get us some wood for the winter.  As the sun started to set, I finally got into the mood to work on the cabin.  I headed up and got some help from the girls.  Libby and Mary hauled plywood on the roof since they are awesome.  As we were putting it up, I secured the panel with a rope so it would not fall on Libby and Mary.  I used a tree as a brake to keep the rope from flying out of my grip.  As I put tension on it, I ripped the tree out of the ground.  I flashed fear as I was worried it would drop the panel on the ladies.  We eventually got it up and Joe went up on the ladder to screw things in.  He was the star in this system.  He worked hard as we lost the sun to put up the First and last panel of the roof for the weekend.  We then finished up and pulled the tarp back over the roof.  I set our tent back up inside and got everything ready for bed.  We made dinner and enjoyed the campers until about 8:30 when Libby said she might want to go home tonight.  For those that don't know her, you need to physically drag her away from the woods and a campfire when great people are around.  So I knew "might want to go home" was code for we are leaving early, but I need you to make the decision for me.  So we packed everything up and I asked Joe and Jim to tie down the tarp in the morning.  We drove home and just in time as we got to the bottom of the hill, freezing rain started coming down.  I knew we had made the right decision to head home and we got home at around 1 AM.  

We had a great if brief trip.  We need to head up in the next few weeks to finish getting the roof buttoned up for the winter.  If anyone wants to come up for a high density trip, we could use a hand.  

Moylan's enjoy gluten free cake cooked in a home made oven.  

Fire is awesome.

Pulling up panels to the roof.  

H kid checks out the door.  She approves.  

Joe gets conned into helping put up some roof panels   

Suspenders.  I can't tell you how much I like these suspenders.  

Libby sporting her Team Masek Shirt.  

Joe and I watch as Libby and Mary do all the hard work.  

We have a door!

Joe screws down some roof.  iI looks so cool as it starts to take the shape of the rafters..  

Building Construction Inspection Department.  The proper bribes were paid.

A note on suspenders.  Masek men have tragically been plagued with what the Medical Profession call "Lackitus Buttickus"  Also known as no butt.  For years I have battled gravity and my pants.  I decided I am not going to take it anymore.  I bought Craftsman Padded Suspenders and It has not only improved my work, but also made me easier to work with.  Prior to this, I had four things that would aggravate me while working on projects.

1.  Too hot out and I am pouring perspiration (it was 50 degrees out so this was temporarily fixed for me.   

2.  I made a mistake via poor planning or lack of materials.

3.  Someone has misplaced or broken one of my tools.

4.  My pants are falling down which limits my leg mobility and frustrates me.  It also makes me uneasy when I am on a ladder because my leg mobility is limited.  Suspenders = pants at a reasonable Height   

Now, I am down two two with one additional seasonal aggravation   

More Fire   

A picture is worth a thousand words (SEO fail)

It has been a while since my last update.  Libby and I have been doing work every now and again.  We have hit a few mile stones.  I finished both of my summer courses with a b and b+.  My knee is starting to get some strength back and I am getting confidence back.  I have been getting to the gym and was able to get the 95 pound Atlas stone up.  I am still struggling with eating well, but Libby has made it her mission for us to eat healthy.  Enough of me, on to the construction.

Libby and I laid out a bunch of the larger rafters.  After a few false starts, we added a MakeIt Labs approved self pretension device (bungee cord).  We got some 4 tooth blades and this system worked pretty good.  The saw has a limited duty cycle so it we couldn't hammer through it.  A little tension and a lot of breaks made it work.  It was plenty hot and humid so the breaks worked out of me.  I am not very pleasant in 90 degree, 89% humidity.  

More boards, you can see in the back ground some rafters made up of two planks.  This was done so we could reduce our impact on the environment.  Or I didn't want to spend money on more wood.  

Libby kicked some but and made two more stairs for the entry.  The stairs may have been a bit ridiculous, but we had all the material so it was essentially free.  We continued the stairs with the same design as the previous two.  Libby took the dimensions and angles and cut up all of the suport beams.

She laid out the boards on the ground and traced out what the pattern should be.  

Everything gets cut up and loaded into the trailer.  

Walls!  Well, some of them, we started putting up the sheathing.  From this experiment, star drive (torx) is better than square drive (Robertson).  We spent the day screwing everything together and making sure all the walls are solid.  Libby was amazed by how much sturdier the structure became when we added the sheathings.  I expected it, but still it is such a gratifying feeling when you push on a structure and can feel the stout lumber push back without yield.

The only wall without a window.  Fireplace goes here.  You can see the header structure of either 4x6, or laminated 2x6's with a plywood filler in between.   

The walls went up on the previous day.  Sunday, Libby and I put up some roof parts.  We started by building each peak section.  I pre-cut the Plywood in Nashua at MakeIt Labs and Libby assembled them up at the camp.  

I put them all up.  Not because Libby didn't want to help, but she is to short.  The two smaller ones were able to be lifted and hoisted into place.  

Screwed down from the top these parts were solid.  

It was hot that day so Libby and I took less pictures than we should have but we did manage to get a photo of me flipping up the large peak wall section.  Libby assembled it (she is pretty much the best)  We tried to put it up in the lifted position.  Failure.  We went with the lever screwed onto the board again to get it into place.  

Maine wall peak section up!  it is waiting for the main beam.

Way to hot.

Still to hot.  Since we did not have the availability of a crane, we made some dead-men that were cut to the exact length of how high the beam needed to be.  This process was far tougher than I figured it would have been.  We finally got it up but the composite of a 4x6 and 4x4 ten foot long 14 feet in the air was "challenging."   

I have some spare wood for Joe's cabin I borrowed to build scaffolding.  I screwed a 2x4 into the 2x10 to make a strong platform.  This made work up in the air far safer.   

Representing Crossfit Tuff with the shirt, not my dough like physique.  Always Hydrate either way.

Libby being cute.

That's a lot of rafters.  To bad heights make me uncomfortable.

Piles and Piles of tools.  Batteries are the limiting factor up at camp.

Every hour or so, I stop working and have to clean up the entire work site and organize tools.  Before each stage of construction I like to lay out my tools and find all of the materials needed to complete the next task.

Once I put in the windows, I lose my workbench.

5 and 6 inch deck screws are great.  However, they don't have threading throughout the entire fastener so they can unscrew from the second chunk of material, but still be stuck in the first.  It just sucks.  

I found some sucker, Joe volunteered to help put up rafters.  I am moving down the scaffolding   

Some photos just show a transition.  I spent more time prepping and cleaning up than actually working.  Libby was a star putting up with me and my limited mental capacity in the heat.  

SHe was smart and found a place to rest that was cool.

Sucker.  Volunteer.  Without Joe, I would still be up screwing in rafters.

Just removing the dead men when we got the center beam secured.  One of these days I may even figure out what they are called.  

Joe without a shirt dominating the Rafters.  

The energon is almost charged.

It almost looks like the model.  With any luck, this will be stupid sturdy.  

Monday we put up the secondary beams as we fought time and an oncoming rain storm.  

Libby looking so hot she fogs the camera.  

the two side beams up and installed thanks to Joe.  We beat the rain.

Libby hauls up little laminated rafters.  

H kid with her little caterpillar friend.  She is pretty much awesome.

Joe kicking but as we put up the two smaller main beams.  

Onto the other side.  The carriage bolts I put in to hold the beams together had to be adjusted. They were in the way of the junction at the end of the cabin.

Screwing down the rafters on the smaller section.

Libby helps clean up.  A clean work area is a safe work area.

It is starting to take shape.  You can start to see why I made the center beam laminated and jog up so I have an open span.

Look at you rafters.  You look strong.

Libby's upgraded stairs.  It is far easier to use them now.  With any luck, it will make snow covered entry easier in the winter.  

From the future sleeping position.  

From one side of the cabin,

What the center section looks like.

I am proud of this connection.  Everything fit for the most part.  

Down on the stairs.

Either a wood stove, or a propane heater will go here.  

What it looks like from a two year old's perspective.

Bob Masek helping put on some plywood.

Heidi hauls up windows.

Carol and Heidi with some team work.

The wood has curved.

This might actually work.

Now for side two.  Heidi and bob have a go at it.

Window one in.  Looks good to me.  

My dad and I talking about discussing things.  This may sound more like arguing.  

My dad proud of my work.  That is something that really helped make this project worthwhile. Both of my grandfathers built things out of scrap pallets like I tried to for most of this cabin.  Without him, I would not have my job, Libby, or any of my skills in making things.  Thanks Dad, and I love you!  

JB and Betty in the first photo from my 365 Robot photo project.  101101101 days a year.