January 2020 STEAM Camp Overview of Learning Program
Contents
Overview of Learning Program
General
The STEAM Camp is a 9 day hands-on immersion that involves class time and build time. There are about 3 hours of class time per day, where we teach about collaborative design techniques, do design reviews, or other learning activities. There may be several invited presenters who will provide presentations from remote locations. Most of the time is spent with hands-on learning - whether using design and collaboration software tools - or doing hands-on builds. All learning takes place across multiple disciplines: science, technology, art, design, build, documentation, and most importantly - collaboration. The 9 days are divided into 4 days of collaborative design boot camp, and 5 Project Days. All of this is done collaborative, where in addition to the instructors doing their part in presenting material - we rely on participants teaching each other so that we create an immersion learning environment where everyone contributes.
The event is built around increasing participants' capacity to work collaboratively, by documenting and building upon each others' work. Moreover, this collaboration takes place globally. The January 2020 STEAM camp takes place in 3 locations - Belgium; Richmond,Virginia; and Texas. So when you join, you are joining a larger collaborative effort. This effort does not stop at these 3 physical locations, as we also have a Remote Participation option, as we broadcast our content between the 3 locations and between Remote Participants, who may be located anywhere that a video connection can be found. The remote participants have access to the Developer's Kit of tools and parts that everyone in the physical locations will be working with. As we broadcast the event live, Remote Participants have the chance do do all the builds alongside of us, and to participate hands-on in all the builds or experiments. Remote Participants can thus collaborate fully in uploading and downloading design, while engaging in rapid prototyping - to move the collaborative design effort forward in a significant way. Our goal is to leverage open design, fully open source toolchains, and open processes to involve as many people in our modular design. By breaking down projects into small parts or modules, we are able to involve a large team in effective, parallel development across the globe.
As an important addition to the collaborative mindset - we teach how working together can get more powerful results - both as a metaphor for the power of collaboration - and literally. For example, the battery pack that each person builds - with decent power by itself - can run the Raspberry Pi Tablet for 5 hours. But we demonstrate much greater power when we stack multiple battery packs together from all the participants - to make a cordless welder that can weld for one hour of time.
We are building continuity and community into the learning program as well. To prepare, students are encourage to download our software suite, OSE Linux, to become familiar with the tools before participating in the live event. The learning experience continues after the Camp, where we invite all onsite + remote participants - as well as participants from former STEAM Camps - to addition follow-up sessions. These sessions are held on Saturdays - for 2-4 hour Design Sprints, where we follow up on design and documentation projects, or possibly even pivot to other collaborative design. Our intended outcome of the STEAM Camps is to provide the collaborative literacy that allows all of us to work together. We are especially interested in technology that matters. We do all this while building a community of early adopters of the forthcoming open source economy, where a new paradigm of collaborative design replaces competitive waste.
All work aims at the release of marketable products that can meet real needs. We offer the special value proposition of lifetime design - where users can maintain or upgrade each product based on its open source, easy-to-build design, which uses common, off-the-shelf (COTS) parts in addition to parts that may be fabricated digitally such as with the 3D printer. Our goal is to foster an entrepreneurial spirit, where people contribute to their local economies, while collaborating with the greater world.
Detailed Curriculum
Days 1-4
What are the critical tools that we need for effective collaborative design? These tools involve, first and foremost - Collaborative Literacy - a mindset and a practical process - that enables people to work together for the common good. Beyond these soft skills is a set of hard skills and interdisciplinary technical knowledge that enables one to come up with creative and effective design.
On the first day - we introduce Open Source Ecology's collaborative design work and provide an overview of our vision and practical techniques that can get us there. We introduce our philosophy - which we believe has the potential to tranform the world's economy from proprietary to collaboratve - with an accompanying cascade of positive change throughout the world. We dive immediately into practical tools of collaborative design - where each person builds a basic, rapid prototyping 3D printer from scratch, and runs a first print on the same day. The 3D Printer is called D3D Universal - a 3-axis machine with quick-connect tool heads - where we build addition tool heads on the second day.
On the second day, we dive into the design aspect - with a crash course on FreeCAD - an open source computer-aided design (CAD) tool. In one hour, we will teach you how to go from an idea in your head - to a basic design workflow - and end up with an object that you can print readily on your own 3D printer that you just built. From then on, you will do a number of simple designs in FreeCAD as you build your design skills. All the things you design will be practical tools like a razor, screw driver, tool holders, etc - that you then print and use through the rest of the program - and upload online so anyone can benefit from it or improve it.
The practical designs of the second day include a plotter pen holder and an electric motor holder. You can either print out existing designs that we have provided - or you can design your own or modify them. The pen holder turns your D3D Universal into a CNC pen plotter for drawing pictures or circuits - or a simple CNC mill/drill. You will learn how to control these machines with the same Universal Controller as the 3D printer - by uploading new software, generating control code by hand, or using software such as Inkscape, KiCad, or FreeCAD to generate tool paths for your plotter or mill. Because D3D Universal has a height sensor, you will learn how to level the workpiece automatically - whether you are plotting or milling.
The intent of these exercises is to learn how these machines work, to the point that you can design and build a modified, larger, or more robust version that can be used in production. While the tools built are entry level and focused on education, they have a clear path of extensibility and scalability that allows them to become workhorse machines. With the tools and skills gained, and a support community to help - we encourage people to start open source microfactories that contributes to the local economy based on global, collaborative design. For example, we are including the design our our professional grade printer - D3D Pro - with the SD card that comes with the D3D Universal - so that you can bootstrap to professional grade production. You can print more parts with D3D Universal, and reuse most of its parts - to build D3D Pro. Same goes for scaling up from D3D Simple - to a larger CNC Torch table for producing metal parts - by printing the required parts for a much larger motion system. In fact, our build techniques can be applied readily to heavy machines which use a Universal Axis with 3" steel rods.
On the third day we shift to electronics. We learn basic circuit design concepts - using analogies to mechanical and hydraulic circuits. We cover hands-on topics which culminate with the build of a cordless welder controller by an Arduino which we made ourselves. We will make 2 versions of a basic Arduino Uno compatible, starting from a bare microcontroller chip (Atmel 328) and supporting components. We will learn how to solder everything using a stripboard. Then we will use a second way: with the CNC drill that we made on Day 2, we will drill holes automatically using a toolpath made either by hand, or FreeCAD, or with Inkscape. We will then draw the connecting leads by hand - making the Art of STEAM happen - and etch the board with ecological etchant. In this process, we will learn what a microcontroller is - and how to design a working one from scratch. This is an exciting exercise because it shows basic techniques and produces a working product. Milling, circuit board design, microcontrollers, electrical components, toolpath generation, soldering, and etching are covered. For the etching part, we will 3d print a bath container, and agitate it by moving it back and forth on the D3D Universal print bed - to get a controlled etch result. If we have ambitious participants, we have an option of building in a bluetooth wireless module into the Arduino Uno circuit - so we can control the Arduino wirelessly using the Raspberry Pi/Beagle Bone Tablet/Film Studio that we build during the 5 project days.
On the fourth day, we delve into battery packs and power electronics. First, we will design and build simple battery packs, which are stackable for higher voltage or current. We will 3D print a power board with 3D printed screw-down terminals for making wire connections. While our Universal Controller is a simple example of a board for holding electronic components - the build on Day 4 will be used for 4 purposes: a small working welder (60-180A), AC light dimmer, DC motor controller, and charger. The focus here is learning about power electronics: how to use an Arduino to build a switching power supply that controls either outlet power or battery power for useful purposes. We will use the Arduino Uno that we built on Day 3 as the controller, to which we will upload the software for the four different functions. We will learn about control logic, how to write simple programs for Arduino, how to use feedback to control electonic devices, and how to measure voltage and current.
Days 5-9: Raspberry Pi Tablet and Film Studio
With all the tools and skills learned and built on the first 4 days, we will build a Raspberry Pi/Beagle Bone Tablet with a focus on use as a Film Studio for documentation, podcasting, and video production. Here our imagination can run wild with different approaches and options - and we will focus the team effort on building a practical product that is usable for web, email, video, photos, communications, and other productivity. Our special insterest is a suite of video tools for documentation and broadcasting. The idea is that we iterate on the design - after the STEAM Camp and in future STEAM Camps - until a marketable product is complete.
The basic package for the workshop revolves around a Raspberry Pi 4B quad core 1.5 ghz and 4GB RAM - a powerful base for a practical tablet. We are including a 7" touch screen, Camera v2 8 megapixel module capable of 4000 pixel horizontal resolution (4K) to work with, and 30W LED light module that can act as a film light or a shop light. These parts are all included in the STEAM Camp admission.
From there, we will design or adapt and 3D print a case and battery pack - using the 18650 batteries from Day 4. We will focus on modular design - comparable to the promise of a modular electronic device like PhoneBloks. From the perspective of OSE - the value propositon is that the tablet becomes a lifetime design - where lifetime design can be achieved by open source modularity. Parts can be replaced, upgraded, modified, or added on.
While our main interest is a video production suite, we can suggest additional ideas such as a phone module to add phone functionality for about $40 (not included) or other infrastructure around the basic tablet:
- Tripod, Camera stabilizer, film/shop light module, or built in light
- Camera Slider or rotor - using the motor from Day 2 and 3D printed planetary geardowns, or a 3D Printed Linear Bearing, to make a practical camera slider of any length with a modular/stackable track. This would be a great exploration of mechatronics covering mechanical design, precision motion, geardowns, etc.
- Charger and larger auxiliary battery packs - for doing all-day time lapses or longer.
- Weatherproof or underwater case.
- Wireless microphone - for the film studio
- Wireless loudspeaker
- Wireless headphones
- Phone addition - perhaps using a Pi Zero for $5 with a phone module to create built-in phone
- Bluetooth keyboard
These are just some ideas. On the evening of the first day - we will have a discussion on which specific modules we would like to work on, and what extra parts may be needed. Only the parts mentioned above are included in the STEAM Camp cost (Pi 4B, touchscreen, camera, and LED light, and wiring) - which combined with 3D printing and other parts already available from the first 4 days - provide plenty to work on. We are also open to other ideas, and we will coordinate across all participants across all locations to maximize collaboration if anyone wants to purchase additional parts on their own. Assuming fast shipping such as Amazon, purchases would arrive by the Project Days.
Participants are encouraged to make specific suggestions for projects related to the Pi Tablet prior to the STEAM, so that additional parts may be secured if needed.
