Power Racing Series season wrapup: i3′s medal count: Nine!

I3 Power Sports has completed another hugely successful season of PPPRS racing. We fielded two cars this year, and both collected a good number of medals, for 9 total. I3 was represented at all three races: Kansas City MO, Detroit, and Evanston IL. The I3 banner and name were on display, and there was a lot of contact with other maker-spaces and event-coordinators. That contact alone could define this as a successful endeavor for the space, but a big clutch of medals is nice too!

The season began in late June at Kansas City Maker Faire. Car #13, racing as SuperLuminal Racing, made the trip. As a brand new car and team, this was somewhat of a ‘shake-out’ race. Despite that, the car performed well, we qualified second, and we took home two bronze and a silver. It was also discovered that ‘SuperLuminal Racing’ is more syllables than the announcer likes to say, so we adjusted for future races.

The biggest race of the season took place at Detroit Maker Faire in July, and both i3 teams competed. #3 was freshly rebuilt before the Faire, and #13 (now “Tiger Hacker”) was running at half-power due to a controller issue. Despite this, we still represented. Our own Karen “Cannonball” Corbeill, on #3, took gold in the 15-lap races and the endurance race, finishing first for the weekend. Sean on #13 was handicapped on speed but buoyed by reliability, and managed to take bronze in the enduro.

The season finale took place at Evanston IL’s Mini-Maker Faire. Both of our teams made the trip, and the field was again large, with just a few less teams than Detroit’s race. The track was short and tight, which favored both of our teams. Sean was back to full speed on #13, and laid down the fastest qualifying lap. Even after multiple attempts by multiple teams to beat it, the time stood at 14.8 seconds. I3 took 3rd and 4th in the drag races, and then Cannonball cleaned up on #3, taking bronze in the 15-lap heats and gold in the endurance race, earning I3 2nd overall for the series!

Thanks to Jim Burke, Patrick Callahan, and the whole crew at PS:1 for putting on the races. And Thank You to Tom G. from Milwaukee Makerspace for loaning us an awesome controller for #13.

If this is Friday, it must be Open Shop!

Last night’s tabletop gaming meetup was a great success, as I counted over a dozen players at three simultaneous games. Games of what? I haven’t a clue, I was working on other stuff. It happens again in two weeks!

Tonight is Open Shop, meaning non-members are specifically invited to bring a project to work on, help with someone else’s, or just come check the place out. There should be a member around by 7-ish to open the doors, but much earlier is possible too. Follow us on Twitter to get up-to-the-minute info on that! (Or just look at the upper-right box on this very page…)

Android meetup wrapup: Many lessons learned

Last night’s Android meetup was busy! And almost nothing went according to plan. In no particular order:

Did you know that 0603 resistors are smaller than the tips of most tweezers? My Galaxy Tab bricked itself last month, and the recovery procedure involves some fine soldering to make it think it’s a dev-board, so it’ll accept a new bootloader over USB. (Much software/driver fiddling remains before I know if it worked, however.) On the plus side, CarrierIQ’s evil rootkit can’t spy on me if the phone is dismantled and strewn across a workbench… (But they might still sue anyone who expresses the opinion that they’re evil, ha!)

Matt independently confirmed the long-standing theory that replacing broken screen glass is a royal pain. During that process, a cheap heat-gun failed, so the hot-air rework station was pressed into service as a glue-softener.

Attempts to share the meetup via Google+ hangout were thwarted when it was discovered that mere mortals cannot simply offer a public stream of a hangout. Apparently only accounts specially blessed by Google can do that, and work is under-way to get that done. We may try UStream next time.

Also, a wedged-up Android Market was unwedged, and a phone was rooted and had CyanogenMod flashed on it, which is the sort of warranty-voiding stuff you’d probably expect at such an event. Join us next month on the fourth Tuesday (That’s 12/27) for the next installment!

Maker Faire Detroit Safari Tour

Come along on a safari adventure tour with our driver Mark, Camera operator Nate, and Tour guide Nick as we explorer Maker Faire Detroit 2011 via the i3 safari tours

Red Bull Creation Challenge: Live Blog – Last 20 Minutes

With the end in sight the interviews start.
Sneak peek at our creation.

10:40 – Mission Control standing by for last minute support as the team sweats through interviews and finding that last bolt for the warp drive.

10:48 – LESS THAN 15 MINS LEFT! (UNCONFIRMED VOTE VOTE VOTE!)!
LETS WIN THIS WELDER.  Hit the “LIKE” button on our team page http://t.co/eXAdMRo

11:01 – Meet up with our team at 3pm @ McCarren Park, Brooklyn for the judging of who will be the next Red Bull model…. Creation winner!!
Interviews and photo ops shall now commence

11:49 – Loaded up ready to roll.  http://twitpic.com/5o5o7k

12:00 – Seems the top two liked projects were tweeted. We are one of them. “@RedBullCreation Inventions like these can be admired as of 3pm today at McCarren Park. #rbcreation yfrog.com/keifwij yfrog.com/kkhjayj

12:52 – Today at 3pm http://yfrog.com/z/kffu5zjj

3:30p – JCB: Just heard from the team, all is going very well and they’ve dubbed their creation the SquiggleTrike.