Nuts and Volts - February 2008

RESOURCES

■ The Robot Group www.TheRobotGroup.org

■ First Night Austin www.FirstNightAustin.org

■ EFX-TEK www.efx-tek.com

■ Parallax Serial Inkjet Kit http://tinyurl.com/yt8g6h

■ PingPongPrinter Demo Video www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Ep5OC 3E02I

Rick Abbot is a master machinist and serves on the Board of Directors for The Robot Group, Inc.

Vern Graner is President of The Robot Group, Inc., in Austin, TX and may be reached via email at vern@txis.com.

I’d like to thank the Austin Word Woman herself, Kate Howard, for her help in crafting this (and other) articles. Thanks Kate!

project has moved further along, I’ll try and post some updated videos/pictures to TheRobotGroup.org website.

SHOW US YOUR BENCH!

To wrap up my column this month, I’d like to ask a favor of you folks, the readers. Recently, the topic of what I’ve dubbed the “Habitat For Hobbies”

came up among some of The Robot Group members. We started discussing the ideal workbench for crafting and repairing electronics and robotics. I’ve always been curious about how people get things done in their own workspaces, so, I’d like to ask Nuts & Volts readers to take a picture of their workbench and send it to me. Include a description of the tools you think are essential, what you do like and don’t like about your current layout, and what you would consider a perfect workspace for projects. Please feel free to offer any advice that would benefit someone just starting out, or that someone ready to remodel their workspace would benefit from knowing.

I plan to combine the advice and photos for a future article. I’ll be taking a picture of my workbench (a.k.a., Disaster Central), so don’t be embarrassed to send in a picture of your workbench — warts and all! Please email your submissions to vern@txis.com. Thanks! NV