A crazy truck driver and sewing progress.

To start with I had a wild experience today leaving school.  While walking to my bus stop I saw a traffic jam at the main campus entrance.  As I approached I discovered a over-sized load truck with a crane on it.  As I got closer I saw it had run into a sign turning into campus and they had a reciprocating saw and were cutting down the sign. 

I then managed to get to my bus stop and the truck managed to get free and moving.

Sorry bout the video quality/camera work

 It preceded onto campus after much effort from both Seattle PD and Campus police to get the lead car past the congestion and then my bus arrived.  We rode most of the way around campus with out incident until we reached the tight turn at the top of the hill by Meany Hall.  The truck was stuck again.

They were turning cars around.  And even turned a bus around by backing it on to a side street.  At this point I decided to leave the bus and walk toward the freeway to catch a different bus.

The front bus was just turned around, the third bus from was the one I exited

 I then walked toward the freeway planning to catch a 511 from the freeway stop, but at 45th and Brooklyn the 855 caught up with me so I just got back on that bus.  In total it took almost 2.5 hours to get home....

Adding boning to the lining of the bodice

Boned lining on the dress-form.

Mocking up the lacing

Laying out the kilt pattern on the tartan (from my measurements and on the tartan pattern)

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Progress on dress

Tartan in the house...

8 yards of double width MacDonald tartan (for two kilts) and 8 yards single width Dunbar tartan (for one kilt)

The start of a wedding dress...

I have officially started cutting and fitting my soon to be sister in-laws wedding dress.

We also have received the tartan so kilts will soon be in work...

With the changes to the Community Transit schedules and my schedule for summer classes I am walking over 1 mile a day.  It is nice to have a little extra motivation to walk (since I have to) but this week has been very hot and I can't wear shorts to work.  I may have to start changing before I go to school and after I get back to work.  Tomorrow I think I may try my zip-off pants.

Everyone be sure to drink lots of water on these hot summer days.

Watch for more pictures of the dress and kilts in the next few weeks...

A short break...

I get a break this week before summer quarter starts.  I chose to take classes over the summer so that next year will not be so heavy (only 362 more days to graduation!).  I am taking two classes "Intro to Mechanical Design" and "Finite Element Analysis."  I hope they do not consume too much of my time as I am still working and I am helping my brother get ready for his wedding.  I am making the wedding dress and helping make kilts. Yes, I said kilts...  I will be wearing one in the ceremony.  And my wife is making the cake.  Maybe I will post pictures of all the wedding stuff when it is done.

I have been enjoying tinkering with my new printer over at RepRap Breeding.  If you have not been there you should check it out.


I have also been finishing up the video I am doing for the Hall Health Center on campus.  I will post a link once it is done and up on the UW web site.

Approching the End of Another Quarter

As I work to finish up the last of the things for this quarter I realized I had not made a post here in a while.  I have been making many posts over on my RepRap blog, but none here.  I have been spending most of my "spare" time, when not working or at school, either working on my Mendel or working on a film for the UW Hall Health.  It has been a very bust quarter.  I have started looking forward over the next year to determine what classes I need to take each quarter to graduate next spring.  I am also planning the things I need to do to support my brother's wedding in August.

This next year will still require a tight schedule but will go by before I know it.  I will try to post a little more regularly here, but also be sure to follow the progress of my Mendel and the ongoing exploration of its capabilities.

RepRap Mendel, Metrix Create: Space, & Engineering Discovery Days

It has been a little while since I last posted.  I have been busily working on getting the Solheim Rapid Prototyping Laboratory RepRap Mendel completed for the UW Engineering Discovery Days.  We got it working after several problems with our electronics and a lot of help from the people over at Metrix Create: Space.  Be sure to check out the pictures (here) of us working on it down there.

Here are some additional pictures of the Mendel and the first prints that we were able to get from it.

Now we are going to work on improving the print quality, repairing the electronics better and starting construction of a few more bots...