You would not belive how satisfying doing something like this is. Next time you feel like you need some emotional payback, I recomend you invest a hour or so in organising something - something at makerspace.

soSetimes your working on a project, and well it just doesn't go right. Your glue came undone, or your electrical connections are intimittent, or its just taking much much longer than you had anticipated. It can be frustrating.

the canoe has been launched for about two months now. I've broken nearly every part of it. I broke the bottom mast step. I broke one of the aka (outrigger) holders on the waka (main hull). I broke the aka-ama mounts. (ama is the outrigger pontoon). I discovered the ama was too small, and did not have enough bouyancy when sailing with the ama on the downwind side. I cracked the forward aka, but strengthened it before it broke through. I broke the top mast step, and the rudder stock.

Dom will be launching the boat he made up at makerspace this sunday by freyberg at 2pm, come have a nosey!

Chiphacker is a collaboratively edited question and answer site for electronics & micro-controller hackers – regardless of platform or language. 

epoxy is AWESOME. It makes boat building easy. If your peices of wood arn't quite the right size and theres a gap, it doesn't matter. you can thicken the epoxy and fill the gap. you can make the outside of something really durable by reinforcing it with fiberglass, or use it as a glue, by mixing in a power to thicken it. you can buy special powders to do this, but I just use flour. you can thin it down so it soaks into wood, sealing it and protecting it from water - and hardening the surface.

the first step in building the boat is drawing the design onto the plywood. it is critical that the design is drawn correctly, or else how will it be cut correctly?

I started I was just using a tape measure but soon discovered that 1) the (cheap) tape measure was lieing to me, and 2) I was occasionally misreading the marks, and 3) pencil marks are too wide to be really accurate.

reprap extruder now squeezing out molten plastic!

sorry guys, too late at night to rotate image!

If you'd like to retrofit MIDI to a DR-110, here's how to do it using a Highly Liquid MIDI-to-trigger kit.

The Boss DR-110 is pretty famous for its great sounds and cheap price. I picked this one up on the internet for not much, in perfect condition, complete with carry case. But in it's original state it's not much good to me, since it doesn't have MIDI.

It's a boat (model)! [continuing on from part 1]

Unfolding a round 3d shape into a flat one is a tricky problem. A flat panel can be bent up into a cylendar or U shape no trouble, which is perfect for the middle of an outrigger canoe, but the ends must taper in gently. to allow the ends to fold in, you must cut out sections from the end of the panels. these cut-out sections are called "darts".

This weekend I was lying in the sun listening to music when half-way through a song it cut out. Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaargh! I absolutely can't stand music suddenly cutting off - it actually hurts. Anyway, that made me annoyed enough that I decided to do something about it.