This weeks post is split into two, the first half is about a bearing made at the lab this week. The second half below the 4 photos from this week you will read about my adventures in Alberta and how I relate them to the community. This week  Atrain decided to outdo me and print a better bearing. If you frequent Hacklab, you may have played with the bright green printed bearing that is stiff and does not seem to be effective. Both of these bearings are open source, the bearing design is generated in OpenSCAD and is personalized to your printer. You can find the design on Thingiverse. Well Atrain did just that, went ahead and printed a bearing out of orange ABS on the Cupcake printer. The Cupcake is the oldest 3D printer the lab has, and of late it has been receiving quite a lot of TLC and some upgrades causing it now provide the Ultimaker with a bit of a competition. See the photos to see the great print quality, and the bearings in action.

Close up of the bearing.

Atrain preparing the 3D bearing for a test spin.

The Bearing in action.

The bearing resting,

LED's behind a defusing medium.

I have been a little lax this month on posting new photos.  This has not been out of laziness, or the excuse there is simply no room on my camera. No, I have been away travelling around Alberta and volunteering at the annual  Canadian Institute for Theatre Technology conference (CITT). This year the conference was held in Calgary and while in town I took the chance when I had it to visit Protospace, Calgarys hacker space.                                 .

Moving Head fixture. This light on closer inspection is mainly built of stepper motors and controllers. The case contains atleast 9 stepper motors.

The CITT conference is an annual trade show for industry Representatives, Technicians, and more. Over the last few years of volunteering at the conference I have seen more DIY, RaspberryPI, Arduinos, 3D printing, and approaches to theatre discussed in a hacker and maker mindset. Theatre has always been a hacker and maker space, using little to no resources and lots of ingenuity, and usually little time.                          The diverse background of those in theatre, are possibly akin to those in the maker and hacker community.  Each person in a hackerspace has unique knowledge and skills. I forsee in the future theatre nestling or cuddling up to the maker community. The future should be an interesting one.