From Shop Floor to Software

The FindLaw site says that when law-enforcement officials subpoenas Facebook, it gives them almost all the information you have posted online, your pictures, and your log-in and out times included. Well what is the big deal? Anything you post online is not private. People who publish compromising information and then complain that it is not kept private are idiots. For more information

The Shapeoko from Inventables in Chicago is said to be the world’s first open-source CNC mill that can create precision parts from plastic, wood, and metal. The kits to build the machines cost from $199 to less than $999. “The machines’ affordability is helping usher in the age of desktop manufacturing,” says, Inventables CEO Zach Kaplan. In addition, the combination of free, easily accessible open-source software and online storefronts such as Amazon and eBay provide a marketplace for manufactured goods that is fueling the growth of U.S. manufacturing and entrepreneurism.”

The Mechanical Shapeoko kit costs $199 and is designed for experienced CNC machine builders that will add electronics and modify the machine to get it running to suit their needs. The Full kit, which costs $649, includes everything needed to create a working machine, including tools and electrical components. It is intended for those who are comfortable completing the build, but want to source their own materials and tool bits. The Premium kit includes everything, as well as materials and milling bits. It was designed for those with no problems rolling up their sleeves to complete the full build. This $999 kit includes card stock that can replace the milling bits while novice operators learn how to use the CNC mill without risk of injury.

Inventables is accepting pre-orders for the Shapeoko kits April 2 through April 22, 2012 at www.inventables.com/technologies/cnc-mill-kits-shapeoko. The kits are expected to ship by June 22, 2012. Full refunds will be issued if fewer than 150 orders are placed.

I just returned from San Francisco, where Autodesk held its Media Summit 2012. The point of the event was to hear about all the newest products from the company. The big news is that it recently introduced what it calls Autodesk 360° PLM, which resides on the cloud. This is Autodesk’s first PLM offering. Subscription customers get it as part of their subscription. Otherwise, you pay for the time you use, on-demand. According to Carl Bass, CEO of Autodesk, Autodesk 360° PLM already has two million unique users. He says it supports a fundamental shift in the way that most people will do their work. The computer platform today comprises “mobile, social, and cloud” — not so much client-server arrangements, says Bass. It is not the only cloud-based program that is showing success in measurable terms, says Bass. The company launched the cloud-based AutoCAD WS about two years ago and Bass says it has had seven million users since then. Some users access it on their Androids or iPhones (the “mobile” part of the above paradigm). And Sketchbook is being downloaded 150,000 times a week.

Why is cloud-based software so interesting? It is almost infinitely scaleable. Also, that high-tech programs are now easily available via the cloud or downloaded onto mobile devices has lead to the democratizing of design. Small firms working globally can now win large jobs. Everyone has access to technology.

Hudson, OH, March 15, 2012 – Hudson Inventors Club welcomes all inventors or those who are interested in any aspect of invention. The club holds its meetings the first Thursday of each month (the next meeting will be April 5) at the Hudson Public Library. Diverse speakers give interesting talks on everything from how to best patent your design to how to talk to big-box buyers, and more. There is also time to network at the event. The meeting is held in a special, reserved room at the library. Questions? Call Leslie Gordon (440) 785-9946. For up-to-the minute developments, visit http://hudsoninventorsclub.wordpress.com

On April 5, we will start the meeting at the Morgan Entrepreneurship Center at the library. The research librarian can show inventors how to best use it.

http://www.hudsonlibrary.org/MorganEntrepreneurshipCenter/MorganEntrepreneurshipCenter.html

I am currently in Florida, not on vacation, but to visit my elderly parents, one of whom is now in a nursing home suffering from dementia. I visited my Mom yesterday in the Home. It is a curious combination of horror and incredible beauty. The horror comes from watching scenes such as the old impeccably dressed gent trapped in a wheelchair who keened and cried as if he were a baby. He kept trying to get up out of the chair, but didn’t have the strength. I thought to myself while watching him that he was making a futile effort to “escape.” The beauty comes from watching the beatific faces of the Haitain aides who take care of the “clients.” It is like looking upon the face of pure love itself. Such tenderness. Such concern. Such care. Such patience. Many of the patients have a look of stark surprise, partially I believe from the drugs they are given but also from a wonderment that they ended up in a Home. The human effort to find meaning was still evident however. One man placed small stones in neat piles atop tables and surfaces. I suppose that action means as much as those that so-called regular people perform daily. For example, is not the daily grind of going to work kind of like placing small stones in neat piles?

A Honeywell competition challenges engineering students to solve manufacturing issues using simulation software. The UniSim Design Challenge is held in conjunction with the Honeywell Users Group (HUG) Americas symposium, the company’s largest customer event in the world, and is open to students pursuing engineering degrees at accredited universities in North and South America.

Students must use Honeywell’s UniSim Design Suite software to create ways to make plants safer, as well as more efficient, reliable and sustainable, while continuing to meet ever-growing production demands. The Americas competition is one of three held globally and is one of several Honeywell Process Solutions (HPS) initiatives designed to encourage engineering studies.

Winners of this year’s competition will be flown to Phoenix to attend HUG Americas, where they will present details of their entries and network with industry experts and potential employers. The conference will be held June 10-15 in Phoenix.

UniSim Design lets users design and test processes before they are implemented in manufacturing plants. This lets new plants begin production faster, safer, and also helps existing plants improve operations and, in some cases, helps plants use less energy in production

For more information

A leading manufacturer of precision motion control systems, PI (Physik Instrumente) L.P. says it is the first nano/micropositioning company to offer its own informative, (mostly) non-commercial app for portable devices like the iPhone and iPad as well as Android phones and tablets.

Available free from the Apple App Store and the Android Market, the new Piezo University app offers illustrated glossaries, tutorials on piezo physics and mechanical design, and links to important industry resources.

“Dirty Jobs” is a well-known show on the Discovery Channel where a guy named Mike Rowe goes around and does the dirty jobs that most people look down on: cleaning out sewers, shucking mussels, and the like. But his presentation this morning at SolidWorks 2012 says that it is, in fact, regular Americans doing such jobs that makes civilization hum. He says there should be no distinction between “white collar” jobs and “blue collar” jobs because in the new paradigm, the changing face of modern manufacturing is that of connectivity. Thus, the guy who gets dirt under his finger nails can also be a brilliant inventor such as the person who invented a high contraption to boil down diner scraps into kind of a hard soup to feed to his pigs on his pig farm. The food would otherwise have gone to waste. He says “dirty” jobs involve the nobility of work and the hidden way we are all connected. HE SAYS MAYBE NOT ALL KNOWLEDGE COMES FROM COLLEGE, and there is now a lack of steamfitters and welders. The “dirty job” philosophy is that of team work; efficiency; and — a big one here — imitation. Imitation in his words is the capability to do the same thing over and over with excellence. A brilliant guy may have invented the cell phone, but everyday workers in China must put them together over and over and faultlessly so the phones work well. So, according to Rowe, it is possible to do “drudgery work” t with dignity and even joy. It is about the fun of the challange and even the pleasure and pain. So curiousity and motivation is the “sticky tissue” between innovation and imitation.

Several readers have written in and asked how one gets a certain iPhone app. You can typically get it by searching for it by name after tapping the “App Store” icon on the phone itself. Others you must first download iTunes to your computer; then search for the name of the app in iTunes itself. When you find it, “synch” your phone to iTunes to download the app into your phone.

More questions? Ask Leslie.Gordon@Penton.com

The company repurposedMATERIALS (www.repurposedmaterialsinc.com) says it is looking for by-products from industry that would be candidates for “repurposing”. Repurposed materials are defined as used assets that have value “as is” to another industry. Examples given include insulation made from roofs torn from dismantled commercial buildings ($5 a sheet); durable flight cases that were originally made to store and protect items during valuable transport ($50); treaded rubber from tire tanks for traction flooring or low water bridges ($350). According to the company, repurposing is creative reuse. It is not recyling as in the famous sustainability slogan “Reduce, Reuse, Recycle.