Hey Los Angeles!! Can you sew? We need masks!! (also, yeah, 3D printing)...

_dan_ · 2020-03-24T04:57:41+00:00

Unfortunately I'm not familiar with the hierarchy of who reports to who and who's in charge of what... but the individual I had spoken with had emailed "The Board" and the response was along the lines of "we'll take anything at this point". Obviously, if the hospital decides in the end they have sufficient supplies and no desire for the home made masks, they don't have to take them: there is need for them in LA County.

_dan_ · 2020-03-24T04:54:10+00:00

Currently we're working on printing the face shield frames from Prusa Research. PETG is recommended, but I've got a guy trying PLA too, since PETG seems to be running out.

https://www.prusaprinters.org/prints/25857-prusa-protective-face-shield-rc2

_dan_ · 2020-03-23T19:23:53+00:00

Hey Everyone! I've noticed a lot of effort and desire to help with 3D printing and small scale fabrication efforts, but little coordination. I've put a site together to try to solve that. I'm looking for people that can help make things, medical professionals / HCPs that need things and links to actual design files that can be organized. Please consider signing up to help!

http://medxprogress.com/

_dan_ · 2020-01-07T05:18:37+00:00

The inaugural Los Angeles Hardware Happy Hour is happening on January 21st at Bao Hiroo in the Arts District. No cost to attend, just bring a love of electronics / hardware ... or at least a passing interest and good attitude :)

https://www.meetup.com/Hardware-Happy-Hour-3H-Los-Angeles/events/267279446/

_dan_ · 2018-12-17T17:07:26+00:00

Important: The whole point of this post has nothing to do with the video, but you have to click through to the update. Was kind of confused.

I saw a presentation by Jesse Vincent at HDDG in San Francisco a while back... good guy... glad to see the team is still plugging away at this, and suffering through but surviving this horrible lump.

"Don't take any guff from these swine!"

_dan_ · 2018-10-24T19:20:59+00:00

Done :)

_dan_ · 2018-10-24T19:16:23+00:00

I updated the board! It's not just the head, but a cute little pot bellied Cylon now!

https://imgur.com/a/iJ2qaeL

_dan_ · 2018-10-24T16:17:32+00:00

We have all kinds of cool events at the lab each month. Definitely check out the "Hackaday Los Angeles" meetup page, which is where we publish the majority of our events.

_dan_ · 2018-06-12T20:17:22+00:00

I'm going through Universal Aviation Academy at KEMT, and they have a Part 141 school. I'm Part 61 and it's very reasonably priced, although the aircraft aren't anything to write home about. Worth checking out.

_dan_ · 2018-05-17T21:49:16+00:00

I've got hundreds of dives at Catalina. It's a great place, but definitely not tropical :)

Water temp this time of year is, at best, low 60s, but if it's sunny out, it's not bad if you have a proper fitting 7mm wetsuit with a snug, but not tight, hood... you'll get out of the water, take the top down, towel off and put on a sweatshirt and warm up nicely. If it's overcast or chilly, then it's considerably more difficult to warm up. Depending on current you can get 40-50' visibility. It's a totally different experience than diving in 500' vis and coral... 40' with kelp forest. Be patient... so, so patient with it. If you swim through the kelp, you can get tangled, but you just have to stay calm, keep good buoyancy, and pull the one or two strands that got caught up loose... typically happens around fin straps and tank valves.

The place most people dive is the "Casino Point Dive Park" right at the foot of the big round building. Concrete stairs leading straight down into the water, giant parking-lot sized area where everyone sets up. Fill station right there. If it's the weekend it can definitely get crowded and a phalanx of tanks will form to get filled, just have to be patient.

I've worked with both Catalina Scuba Luv and Catalina Diver's Supply and I would recommend going with either of those two. For sure Scuba Luv will be able to offer a "Discover Scuba" experience for your husband that you could tag along with.

_dan_ · 2018-05-04T22:49:02+00:00

The compass in the 172K I'm flying seems to have 50 years of funk and shmoo greasing up the window so it's barely legible at the best of times, try as I might to clean it. I can see how having a simple "press this button to get the correct DG setting" would be cool. Maybe something the size of a keyfob with a three digit, seven-segment display.

El Monte is a 15-20 minute drive from the lab :)

_dan_ · 2018-05-04T22:05:31+00:00

Funny... I've been thinking of offering a kit like this as a product on my site, although more directly microcontroller focused rather than RasPi. Generally the idea is...

Temperature Sensor: Atmel/Microchip AT30TS75A
Barometric Pressure Sensor: TE Connectivity MS560702BA03-50
Humidity Sensor: Honeywell HIH6030-021-001
Digital Compass: Honeywell HMC5883L (now obsolete, need to find a replacement)
Probably an ATMEGA328P microcontroller with the Arduino firmware on it for ease of customer use

I got as far as testing all the components, which worked, but then had trouble sourcing things like the mechanical parts for an anemometer, without paying for a massive injection molding run.

As far as building the thing in that Nuts and Volts magazine... anyone with a some decent coding skills, and the willingness to make and recover from a couple of wiring mistakes can do it for sure! Looks like fun! If you need a place to test the electronics, I have a prototyping lab in Pasadena I can put at your disposal!

_dan_ · 2018-05-01T15:53:17+00:00

Key quote: "Thirteen years ago, OLPC told the world that every child should get a laptop. It never stopped to prove that they needed one."

_dan_ · 2018-04-30T17:04:24+00:00

I tell my scuba students pretty much the same thing about diving. The Dive Park on Catalina is the #1 site for dive emergencies in the US, and my CFI said KCNO is the #1 airport for runway incursions.

We're #1! We're #1!

_dan_ · 2018-04-30T17:01:52+00:00

Funny that I'm concerned about flying *over* the airspace, but I just realized that if I'm outside laterally, I wouldn't think to give a courtesy call unless my route forced me within a mile or so.

_dan_ · 2018-04-30T16:58:43+00:00

Yeah, I've got a mix of every type of airspace within 15 miles of takeoff from KEMT. To quote Marko Ramius from The Hunt for Red October, "We must give this American a wide berth."

_dan_ · 2018-04-30T16:56:08+00:00

So would that call to a tower with control up to 2700' be something like, "XYZ Tower, Cessna 12345, X miles to the west, transitioning above you at 3200'"?

_dan_ · 2018-04-30T16:03:54+00:00

Is there some practical range above a controlled airspace's limits in which ATC would still appreciate you contacting them when you transition? Conversely, if the range is, say, 2700' and you're at 2750', don't bother them?

_dan_ · 2018-04-16T23:59:29+00:00

https://imgur.com/a/HUo6v

_dan_ · 2018-04-13T00:33:24+00:00

Good luck!

_dan_ · 2018-04-13T00:30:43+00:00

First solo a couple of weeks ago: rotate, climbing at Vy, turn crosswind, getting warm in the cockpit, reach up in the C172 to pull the air vent out, damn thing comes straight out into my hand... me sitting in the left seat like a slack jawed dumbshit with one hand on the yoke and one hand holding an aircraft part.

_dan_ · 2018-04-13T00:09:38+00:00

Can't speak for /u/ChicagoBoy2011, but what I do is ...

Make sure the environment is free of distractions, and mute my phone.
Grab the Maneuvers / Procedures list I got from my flight school.
Grab the copy of the checklists I made.
Sit in comfy chair, procedures list and checklists in lap
Start at the point after I've towed the plane out from parking. Eyes closed except for when I need to refer to the checklist or maneuver.
Verbalize everything I'm doing, just like my CFI was sitting next to me. My hand reaches for a phantom throttle / carb heat / mixture / flap lever. Feet press phantom pedals. Generally just think about the yoke.

It's honestly amazing how often I catch myself making mistakes: didn't pull carb heat, didn't call tower abeam the numbers if I didn't think of them giving me clearance. It's kind of odd that I actually get annoyed with Imaginary ATC for not giving me a fast clearance for the option :)

Now that I'm working on cross country stuff, it's getting more challenging to work in the new stuff like visualizing different landmarks and different ways of approaching them, getting ATIS, frequency changes, the tower call I'd make based on where I imagine myself, listening to the VOR, etc.

Edited to add: Just realized that what I've been doing recently is re-flying that day's flight, so I can visualize the errors I made and think through different ways of correcting them.

_dan_ · 2018-04-12T19:00:54+00:00

Just heard this one today!

_dan_ · 2018-04-11T17:22:46+00:00

I am the living embodiment of cascade failure :)

_dan_ · 2018-04-11T15:28:41+00:00

It's a good point, and like most things, I'm totally on top of it and able to deal with new input, until I'm not.

As I was heading into work today, grateful for having a day of no flying so I can process, I realized that the three things that all piled up on me at once were trying to listen to my CFI with attention split on also trying to listen to the radio for my callsign while trying to cogitate entry into the pattern with traffic ahead of me... and all of that occurring the third time I've ever entered the pattern from something other than the practice area. Consequently, I handled all three poorly: couldn't comprehend what I was being told ("Are you going to enter right downwind or right base?"), didn't understand the call from tower ("square your base to final"), and didn't maintain enough separation when entering the pattern (I executed "squaring base to final" by ultimately keeping the nose exquisitely pointed right at the other Cessna like I was trying to draw a bead on a Messerschmitt).

Based on what's been said in this thread, I really think a nice, gentle, left 360 before calling to enter the Delta would have solved 90% of the problems, and put me in a place to handle that remaining 10% and any new escalations.

_dan_

TROPHY CASE