Carol and I want to thank Makers Randall Jesse, Mike Grundvig, Kevin Simpson, and Vince Thompson for helping insure that Saturday's, Rocket Science Day – October Sky, was a success. It was cold and a little windy, but we managed to launch 70 rockets and made a lot of kids very happy (after all, that’s our goal).

Also, the 3-D Printer parts for the first buy-in all arrived safely and Mike proclaimed them worthy.

John Kuhns

H.M.S. Beagle

Get ready for October Skies!

Build Nights are held at the HMS Beagle from 6 to 8 pm.

Sept 11 - We're building rockets, you can choose from three options:

• Paper rockets for air powered flight are free to build.
• DIY model rockets from old tubes are free to build. Small Estes rocket motors for these rockets can be purchased at the HMS Beagle store.
• Purchase a full rocket kit from the store and assemble it at the Build session.

Sept. 18 - Build an electronic launch controller, the parts will be available at a special price of $10 for this build only. This controller will feature:

• LED continuity/arm lights, audible buzzer warning with arm and launch activators.
• Battery holders for 6, 9, and 12 volts that are externally connected.
• Heavy duty 15 foot long detachable launch leads

All these rockets may be flown at the annual "October Sky" rocket launch on October 6 at the HMS Beagle parking lot.

Randall "The Rocketeer" Jessee will be leading this build with the help of the MAKE:KC and HMS BEAGLE Crews. 

NEW LOCATION and TIME - Returning to HMS Beagle Science Store this month.

Last month we heard from Dan Green and his son about TinkerCad, an easy to use 3D modeling program available for free through the Internet. They showed us how parts are drawn then shared their design for chess pieces. We were able to see how easy it was to take one of the pieces, a Rook, and push a button to have it printed on a 3D printer. Tom Collins was generous enough to bring his MakerBot in for the demonstration. One of Dan's goals is to include this as a process for immersive education in schools teaching 21st. century skills and innovation by including the STEM based Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math skills at a younger age.

3D Printer Build -

Come out to learn about our 3D Printer Project.

We are in the process of organizing sessions to build 3D printers that can be inexpensive enough for use by educational organizations, home schoolers, and individuals. Mike Grundvig will be discussing our design and selection of parts based on the ORD Bot Hadron 3D printer mechanical platform with a few design improvements. A dream in the Replicating Rapid Prototyping (RepRap) communities is to build 3D printers that can in turn build other 3D printers. This dream of robots building other robots is approaching reality by many hobbyists based on numerous RepRap designs including the popular MakerBot.

The Hadron design does not require another 3D printer to build parts for us. Instead, we are specifying industrial grade components combined with the modular MakerSlide linear bearing design to create a rock solid tool for 3D part production. In turn, we hope to minimize or eliminate the amount of tinkering required with other RepRap designs to keep them running properly. Our goal is to buy parts in bulk to get quantity pricing and save on shipping, fabricating some of our own parts using CNC equipment, and for our initial build, supplying parts at cost. Our goal is to keep the cost for parts around the $600 price range. We are also looking at ways of staging the builds so the cost of parts can be spread out.

October 2, 2010, Rocket Science Day at the HMS Beagle Science Store.

(Photos by Jason O'Reilly)

The morning started off a little cool and breezy. The crowd of kids and adults were having fun launching rockets. By the afternoon the crowd had thinned some.