Winter is hanging on like clinical depression, which means it’s that time again for the greatest 3D-printing festival on the planet Earth. It’s time for the Midwest RepRap Festival, next weekend, March 18-20th in Goshen, Indiana.
I can’t explain why, but for some reason the Midwest RepRap Festival is an oasis of building, doing, and hacking right in the middle of the county fairgrounds for Elkhart County, Indiana. It’s free for everyone to attend. The event isn’t choked with vendors, leaving the people who actually do stuff left to fight over a few picnic tables on the outskirts of the venue. It is, by far, the most community-centered event we go to every year.
If you’re wondering what you can expect at a 3D printer convention in the middle of nowhere, check out a few of the posts we’ve published from MRRF over the last few years. We’ve seen 3D printed waffles, resin casting with 3D printed molds, bizarre movement platforms, Bioprinting, and stuff from Lulzbot. That’s just the stuff that has deserved its own Hackaday post: we’ve seen the world’s largest 3D printed trash can, R2D2, battle droids (it’s even money if BB-8 is going to show up this year), a Printer made out of K’nex, and the most beautiful 3D printer we’ve ever seen. There was a T-shirt cannon powered by 300 psi shop air.
Every year I write a post announcing that we’ll be heading to MRRF next week, simultaneously praising the event as one of the greatest ‘maker’ and ‘DIY’ meetups, while pointing out the local WalMart parking lot has a place to park horse-drawn buggies. Both observations are true. For one weekend a year, Goshen, Indiana is the place everyone reading Hackaday should go to, and that is why we are once again proud to sponsor this glorious event.
Come join us! Yes, we’re in the middle of corn fields, as Brian likes to point out. But it’s always a great turnout, and lots of fun. See you there? I hope so!
I can’t seem to get my printer to work. Would it be appropriate to bring it with me for help?
Yes. There will be more than enough people to give you advice and turn a wrench.
I usually try to bring a trunk full of tools and parts for people that need help with their printers. I’ve even had nights where people bring their stuff back to the hotel and drink beer/work on it till we can’t solder straight anymore.
Awesomeness :) I’ll see you there Brian Benchoff. And, I’m bringing 2 other people.
Also, I’ve been working on something called IPFS, or the InterPlanetary File System. Effectively, it’s a single Git repo for the whole world, backed by Bittorrent and DHT for auto host detection. I’ve put together a repo of open source 3d printer software available from IPFS.
If you install IPFS, use the localhost link. Else, use the ipfs.io link, as they serve a IPFS->web gateway. Do note, running the program is much faster than the gateway.
http://127.0.0.1:8080/ipfs/QmRBWNHKvz4AmTGN4QyJ4bQMd4fb5vfTdacjkb6PSHsJ2X
http://ipfs.io/ipfs/QmRBWNHKvz4AmTGN4QyJ4bQMd4fb5vfTdacjkb6PSHsJ2X
(I did this because the internet at MRRF was overloaded last year. The 4H grounds did significant upgrades to their infrastructure, so that my IPFS share is probably not needed, but it still shows an extremely powerful technology in action.
“…Winter is hanging on like clinical depression…”
Man it’s beach weather here.
Locative noun without recognizable antecedent.
You know if they would only use English instead of Latin which hasn’t been taught to you yet, we probably would learn more in English class.
For example. Wrong: noun, verb, and adjective. Right: namer, teller, and doer. From a WW2 era book I had in high school, still being used 30 years later in our in English for dumdums class. I learned more in that one year than all the rest of English classes I took!
That term about part of a bicycle, sheesh! Sometimes it is left dangling. Never did learn to recognize it even if I saw it on the sidewalk.
Look at the plans of a Apollo moon rocket labeled and described in lurid detail in 4th grade English on the web. Umbilical? It’s not a word yet. You cant use big words yet in a small word world.
Okay, then, soko wa doko?
Remember Brian, according to Steve it’s a /vase/ not a garbage can. :)
g.