Today the LCS moves in to the new space (partly)
Volunteers get stuff and bring it in through the back door
Today we opened up the new space and brought in some tools. Mostly for the wood shop: Clamps, band saws, wood lathe, sanders and carving tools.
Some of the stuff
Oh, and some routers too! The kind of routers that shape wood, not the network kind that download porn. Yes, lots of good stuff for making banjos. And other things as well.
At the Harmony Library:
Isabella Bird talks about her trip to Estes Park
In 1873 Isabella Bird took a trip to Estes Park and the Rocky Mountains. In her 800 mile journey she passed through the little town of Fort Collins and later wrote “By the time we reached Fort Collins I was sick and dizzy with the heat of the sun, and not disposed to be pleased with a most unpleasing place. It was a military post, but at present consists of a few frame houses put down recently on a bare and burning plain. The settlers have ‘great expectations’ but of what? The mountains look hardly nearer than from Greeley; one only realizes their vicinity by the force of their higher peaks”. Then of course 1873 was the year of the great locust plague, so who could blame her? But compare it unfavorably to Greeley? What a bitch!
Some actual work was done at a local maker space:
Jim Z tunes his Theremin Vox
From now on, when I talk about the ‘HUB’, I mean the Fort Collins Creator Hub. If I talk about the ‘LCS’, I’m talking about the Loveland CreatorSpace. Today was the day to tune the old Theremin. The problem with tuning this thing is that when you try to get in and turn the potentiometer in the circuit, just ‘being there’ changes the sound envelope and that can be very annoying. Good thing nobody was at the LCS today because I would have annoyed anyone within 200 feet of the damn thing. The idea was to make some sort of remote tuner that would not interfere with the Theremin circuitry; with a piece of plastic coat hanger no less.
Note the rubber sculls are still attached since the last time I took this puppy out to play!
Special show today at Science Toy Magic in Old Town Fort Collins:
Matt shows off some of his toys
Which could be boomerangs or gyroscopes or radiometers; Included with this performance is a detailed explanation of how it all works. That’s the real show at this magic store: You learn about physics and you like it.
If you see people looking down a copper tube…
It must be a demonstration of Lenz’s Law. The ‘Law’ says that any induced electromotive force will create a current whose magnetic field opposes the magnetic flux from the original induction. It kinda shows how electromagnetic circuits obey Isaac Newton’s ‘Third Law’, com’ on, you know this one: For every action there’s an equal and opposite reaction.
No music this time:
Women of science
From left to right: Dr. Gillian Bowser, Natural Resource Ecology Laboaratory, CSU; Dr. Emily Fischer, Department of Atmospheric Science, CSU;Dr. Sara Rathburn, Warner College of Natural Resources, CSU; and Dr. Paula Cushing, Curator, Denver Museum of Nature and Science.
This working group on Women, Population and the Environment offered the public a speaker series titled, “Exploring the Influence of Gender in Science and the Environment” We had to come because Dr. Cushing is an arachnologist who helped revise Spiders of North America: An identification manual. She had to sign my copy! Lots of young women science majors in attendance, none of them spider doctors.
Sponsored by: Women’s Services and Gender Resources, School of Global Environmental Sustainability, National he Renewable Energy Laboratory, and Ripple Effect.