Between the Lines

Hip Hop Architecture Camp in Portland this Week

This week, a very special week long camp is going on in Portland Oregon for middle school kids. Hip Hop Architecture with Michael Ford is here, and I volunteered Monday and Tuesday and will be back again before the week is over. “The Hip Hop Architecture Camp™ uses hip hop culture as a catalyst to introduce underrepresented youth to architecture, urban planning and design.“ Attending this camp is free (Autodesk is one of the proud sponsors) and is a fascinating... Read more →

Happy Birthday ADX Portland

Saturday I went and helped celebrate 7 year for the local Portland Maker space ADX. If you are in Portland and need a great community of makers, this is it. “ADX is a hub for collaboration where individuals and organizations make and learn. By sharing tools, knowledge, and experience, we’re doing things better – working together. Our makerspace, learning center, and custom fabrication shop allow anyone to bring their idea to life. In our 24,000-square foot facility, high-profile designers work... Read more →

DIY Meetup + Potluck in Portland Friday

A local 3D Printing user group the Portland 3D Printing Lab is holding a meetup at our new Portland office this Friday to share stories of the projects they are working on and share some food. If you are in the Portland area, interested in 3D printing, and meeting other awesome local Makers, then consider attending this free meetup and definitely bring something to share for the potluck. Join Us Read more →

What is CAM

I just ran across a nice article on the Fusion 360 Blog that explains the bones of CAM (Computer Aided Manufacturing) for someone with little experience. Computer Aided Manufacturing (CAM): The Complete Introduction for the Beginner’s Mind Read more →

Know Your Tools, Learn Your Craft, Make Anything

I love that our Autodesk Pier 9 has open sourced the manuals and instructions as workshops with lessons on Instructables on how to use much of the equipment located in the Pier 9 workshop. It is a wealth of learning and practical knowledge on some of the equipment. There is currently 25 different workshops covering the equipment the wood shop, metal shop, CNC shop, and the 3D print shop. The workshops contain lessons on knowing the equipment and how to... Read more →

Raspberry Pi Starter Kit from Pimoroni to Give Away

I have a new and amazing Pimoroni Pi Starter Kit with about everything you would need to make something with Raspberry Pi. I would love to gift it to a teen that is totally interested in STEM and technology that would complete the build and provide a follow up of their project and experience. Do you know a teen or advanced pre-teen that would love this and do something with it? Email me Read more →

Attention Teachers - Building a Maker Mindset at Your School

There is a free webcast tomorrow and you should attend if you are involved in helping prepare students for a bright future of creative and design thinking skills. “Are you a teacher interested in creating change through design thinking? Perhaps you’re interested in learning about how cultivate a maker mindset in your classroom? If so, we have a webinar for you! Join us Wednesday, March 21st, for the latest in our Tinkercad Teachers Webinar Series: “Building A Maker Mindset At... Read more →

Instructables Minecraft Challenge 2018

Perfect contest for kids and young adults to win a 3D printer! “Pack up your torches, swords, pickaxes, and loaves of bread to get yourself ready for the Minecraft Challenge! Demonstrate your Minecraft mastery with intuitive gameplay tutorials or show how your gaming talents translate into the real world with Creeper crafts, edible Endermen, stuffed Strays and much more. Instruct others with everything Minecraft for a chance to win a Creality CR-10 3D Printer with Glow in the Dark Filament,... Read more →

Know a Kid?

If you know a kid, then you should also know Tinkercad. Tinkercad is free and browser based with nothing to install. Tinkercad is the perfect exploration and fun tool to create things easily in 3D and even 3D print them into physical creations. It has been amazing to see what kids (adults too) create by using Tinkercad. It provides an easy way to understand spatial relationships almost like using the modern tinker toys or playdough. You don't need to teach... Read more →

Autodesk Design Night – Material World

If you haven't yet attended an Autodesk Design Night event in San Francisco or locations around the world, you are definitely missing out. For the low ticket cost to attend these fast sell out events you get great food and drinks, music, exhibits, hands on activities, and top industry speakers all for around $25. Eat! Drink! Make! Learn! Last evening in the Autodesk Gallery in San Francisco there was Design Night – Material World held. There was great Learn and... Read more →

Most Popular Speaker at Autodesk University 2017

The most talked about and lined up for speaker at Autodesk University 2017 was, well a real speaker this year that you could build yourself. At Autodesk University, a group of attendees participated in a Product Innovation Platform track organized and designed by Autodesk’s Garin Gardiner. Participants designed the speaker starting from the speaker body in Autodesk Fusion 360 and the circuits in Autodesk Eagle as well as generating the CNC G-code to machine the parts. Those that were not... Read more →

Big Robot Fight October 17th

Watch the Giant Robot Duel on October 17th at 7:00pm PDT MegaBot was designed using Autodesk software such as Inventor and Fusion 360. Team MegaBots: Autodesk The Giant Robot Duel will premiere on twitch.tv, the world's premier live-streaming platform. Subscribe to our twitch channel to watch the Duel with millions of your closest friends: twitch.tv/megabotsinc While you're at it, you should just go ahead and follow us on these other platforms to get all of the juicy behind-the-scenes details between... Read more →

Fidget Spinner in Fusion 360

Fidget Spinners are all the rage, whether you love or don't care for them, they are here. A couple weeks ago at the Autodesk Lake Oswego Oregon office we held our annual Kids at Autodesk Day, where employees brought their children to work where we have several activities for them planned. One of those activities was designed and led by Garin Gardiner. Garin developed and led a class to walk the kids through the design of a fidget spinner and... Read more →

Kids at Autodesk Day

This has to be one of my favorite days of the year at the office, and I remember my grown children attending back in the San Rafael HQ office many years ago. Our employees bring their children in and each office organizes a series of activities. In our Lake Oswego, Oregon office (Portland), we held our Kids at Autodesk Day last Friday. The kids from young to older teenagers signed in and got their own Autodesk badges and then a... Read more →

Premiums Instructables for Teachers and Students

Students & teachers get free premium Instructables memberships! Take online classes & explore educational projects. Examples of Instructables for teachers and students: 100 STEAM Projects for Teachers Instructables for Young Engineers If you are not aware, Instructables is a gem for learning how to make almost anything. With step by step instructions called Instructables you lean how to do everything from science projects to building a boat and even to baking a rainbow layered cake or building a campfire or... Read more →

FIRST Robotics World Finals

This weekend hundreds of teams from around the world will descend on Houston Texas for the FIRST Robotics World Finals. This year the finals will be split into two cities, Houston this weekend and St Louis next weekend. The team I have worked with for 2 seasons now that use Autodesk Inventor and Fusion 360, Portland’s own Catlin Gabel high school Team 1540 Flaming Chickens will be there competing. You can watch the video feeds over the web. https://www.firstchampionship.org/watch-live The... Read more →

Fusion 360 Meetup in Portland Oregon this Week

If you happen to be in beautiful Portland Oregon this week, want to meet some of the Fusion 360 team and see some cool things then sign up for the free meetup. Michael Aubry of Autodesk has organized this meetup and will be joined by others from Autodesk like Brian Ekins and Fusion’s Keqing Song. I will also be attending this meetup as I can’t get enough Fusion 360 info. Fusion 360 Meetup - What's New in Fusion & CNC... Read more →

Designing More than Robots - The JuiceBox Project

For almost two seasons I have have had the pleasure to work with an amazing and inspiring group of young high school students involved in the FIRST Robotics competitions at Catlin Gabel in Portland Oregon. The FIRST Robotics Team 1540 the Flaming Chickens are also looking for ways they can make the world a better place using technology and design. One recent example that has been the project they worked on with the Catlin Gabel InvenTeam to solve a local... Read more →

Autodesk - Making Starts Here

Teachers, get the Maker Program Starter Kit and help your students get into the STEM/STEAM maker culture and making things by developing your maker program. Makers are better problem solver and better prepared for success in the world. “The Maker Program Starter Kit provides step by step instructions to guide new maker educators through the process of building their first maker program. “Maker education is a hands-on approach to learning that creates opportunities for anyone to develop creative confidence while... Read more →

More Languages in Tinkercad

14 new languages plus English we now support 15 languages in Tinkercad to help more kids around the world make things in 3D! There is not much that sparks the imagination of a child more than their very own design being 3D printed into something real and physical. Tinkercad is not really just for kids as it can be fun for adults as well. Nothing to install as it is cloud based and it is free. https://blog.tinkercad.com/2017/01/17/tinkercad-update-now-available-in-15-languages/ Chinese (Simplified) Chinese... Read more →

FIRST Robotics FRC STEAMWORKS 2017

Details of FIRST STEAMWORKS 2017 Robotics Game Revealed And they were off as of just over a week ago on January 7th reading the game rules, discussing strategies, and then talking about design of their robot to best compete this year. This is my second year participating with Team 1540 Flaming Chickens. Last year among the thousands of teams they made it to the World Finals. Team 1540 already has their design all designed in one week and sourcing parts... Read more →

Hands-On CNC Training at Autodesk University

The very first Fusion 360 CNC full day hands on training will be held at Autodesk University for AU attendees to register to take. The training will be led by by John Saunders from NYC CNC. Learn how to create your custom CAM toolpath in Fusion 360 followed by hands on machining using the Tormach 440 machine. Read more →

Girls Generation Robotics Competition

This past Saturday local school Catlin Gabel hosted a robotics competition for PNW regional FIRST Robotics teams where only girls would be the robotics challenge team drivers and pit staff. Teams used their robots and a competition field from last seasons Stonghold competition. Despite the big storm outside, the gymnasium was packed with hundreds of team members, parents, and teachers, volunteer mentors, and FIRST Robotics regional personnel. What an awesome and inspiring event for not just girls, but everyone that... Read more →

FIRST Robotics Team Event Girls Generation October 15

The events are starting for FIRST Robotics teams here in Oregon with a great event "Girls Generation” just over a week away on October 15th. My Catlin Gabel Team 1540 Flaming Chickens are hosting this event at their campus in Portland www.catlin.edu/map. Only girl team members may drive the robots and be in the pits.Teams will be playing using last years competition robots from Stronghold. I hope you will join us at the event and see how much fun it... Read more →

Create a 3D Human Skull

Have you ever wanted your own 3D skull or other unique object? Now you can make any 3D model you create or find on the web into a real physical 3D object of cardboard or clay without a 3D printer. Check out this tutorial created by David of Make Something using the free and fun Autodesk 123D Make to create a full size 3D skull. You can create some really cool abstract sculptures from cardboard as well. You could use... Read more →