After several years of trying to keep the dream alive in Provo and not being able to find a suitable location, we are moving everything to a location in Arkansas where we will be building the worlds largest Makerspace. The current space will close at the end of 2019.
The new space features 220,000 square feet of building space including huge open span warehouse spaces and a 2 story office building.
Everyone is invited, and there will be a dorm where visitors can stay while working on projects that take advantage of the huge space available.
The address of the new space is 2622 West 17 street, Pine Bluff AR, 71603.
It’s about 40 minutes south of Little Rock AR.
Thank you to everyone who has made our time in Provo special.
2016 was our best year yet! We got the water jet cutter working, and met many new people! We also had some setbacks, but have more than made up for them by the awesome things that have happened, and things we are looking forward to.
Here are some pictures of things you may have missed over the last year.
Ben cutting valentines giftsCutting tank treads for Red Devil on BattleBotsKelie (left) and Jeremy (right) show off a stone gearDr. Mary Fenley holds an aluminum peace signWinchester poses for his silhouettePlywood silhouettes of Winchester and John FenleyEphraim uses the latheAllen uses the grinderDan (left) designs a part, while Ashley (right) prepares to do chasing and repousseJohn, representing ProVolt (left) and Beth, Representing Make Salt Lake (right) attend a meeting of makerspace organizers at the White HouseSwag from DC from spaces we connected withAles (center) and 2 BYU students (left and right) work on a robot handKelie (right) shows off his Batman grappling hookMike (left) and Lloyd (right) experiment with liquid nitrogen
Shout outs to Andrew, Joe (x3) , Jaan, Omar, Chris(x2), Wesley, Jordan, Pam, Brad, Jason, Wil, Brian, Patrick, James, Wisteria, Martin (x2), Amy, Davido, Roy, Kevin, Eric (x3), Ryan, Hillary, Andrea, Michael, Nicco and others who weren’t pictured, but have made 2016 a very exciting year for us.
Special Thanks to Jim Williams, Boomerang Books, Jerome Miles, and New Vistas for supporting us by buying lots of water jet time, Ben, Kelie, and Allen for their outstanding volunteer work, and to Steve Fordham, Pam Watkins, Damon Downing, Habitat for Humanity, and Dr. Mary Fenley for their generous donations. You have made 2016 a success!
We recently got our vinyl cutter working after a whole lot of troubleshooting. We traced the serial signal with an oscilloscope from the computer, all the way to a chip deep inside the machine. When we looked up the chip, we discovered we were transmitting to it’s transmit pin, and really just needed a serial null-modem (crossover) cable and now it works great. Check out this Silhouette Sticker machine we took to the Barnes and Noble Mini Maker Faire!
Anyway, we’ve been using it to make stickers, and decals, and the other day I even made the shirt I’m wearing in the video above!
The Vinyl was placed on the shirt.
The shirt was protected from over-spray, and 2 coats of green T-shirt spray paint were applied.
We have been looking for projects to keep the water jet busy, and one thing we have had some success with is cutting tile. So a few days ago, we approached the Habitat For Humanity Re-store to see if we could get some broken tiles donated. They were more than happy to help us out, and get rid of some of the stuff they couldn’t sell.
I was worried that my trailer would break when they loaded it on. I’ve never had that much weight in it before.
We started sorting it, but mostly there were too few of any particular design to make it worthwhile. But that’s perfect for some of the projects we have been brainstorming.
Logo tiles are awesome!
These 5 inch high tessellating geckos take 3 minutes to cut. Also we can do numbers, or letters, or anything else we can think of, and now we have an essentially unlimited supply of material to work with.
We should have had a party because ProVolt turned 2, but real stuff has been happening, so something like an arbitrary date fell through the cracks.
Two weeks ago, I was at the White House! I went to represent ProVolt at the Nation of Makers meeting, and met with over 170 other makerspace organizers. I took 80 stainless steel keychain bottle openers to give to people.
They were a big hit, and everyone was surprised when they held them and realized that they were metal, and not plastic.
We received a letter from Provo city requesting that we stop having our meetings at the current location. While ProVolt has been operating in an RC zone, we are not a commercial enterprise, and the response from every neighbor I’ve talked to has been positive.
We’re lucky that we have another space to operate out of right now, but it is severely cramped already.
Melting and pouring Aluminum has been a pleasant recurring event here. The latest incarnation is a propane powered beast that performed much better than the previous coal-fired and electric versions.
What better way to celebrate Pi day than to eat it? But what if you love cookies? Last Thursday we tried something new and fabricated a Pi shaped cookie cutter out of sheet metal.
The first step was converting the drawing to a file to be cut on the water jet, and making a metal version of the cookie, just because…
Next, we used the water jet to cut out a rectangle the right length, complete with rivet holes. We contemplated which order to make the bends so that the bends wouldn’t collide with the un-bent material, and we decided to start at the inside of the legs, and work our way around so the rivets would be along the top. After careful measuring on the model, we made the first few bends using a hand held sheet metal bender, and the larger vice mounted bender.
We made the last few bends, and after a bit of final adjustment the result was beautiful!
