[SGVHAK] Adventures in cacao and cardboard (Was Re: Tux-Lab open work session on Saturday afternoon, 1/17

[Tux Lab]

Do we want to make google cardboard VR goggle for hardware freedom day?
Papermart has 24"x18" - 3/16" thick corrugated cardboard for $0.58 per
sheet.  We can cut two pairs of goggles from each sheet.

We will still need the 25mm diameter 45mm focal length lenses, and the ring
magnets.   With sufficient time, we can buy them in bulk to get a better
price.

What about programming the android phones?



On Sun, Jan 18, 2015 at 1:53 AM, Lan Dang <l.dang at ymail.com> wrote:

> These open work sessions at Tux-Lab are quite fun because you just come
> for as long as you like and you work on whatever you want in the company of
> other people who like to tinker. HAK is not just about tinkering with
> electronics and hardware. It's about making things and experimenting.
>
> We roasted coffee and cacao beans. We used the Hot Top coffee roaster. 8
> oz of cacao beans yield 6.4 oz of roasted cacao nibs, which is a pretty
> good yield.
>
> Cacao nibs are sold at health food stores for about $13 per pound. A pound
> of cacao beans is about $5 from Grand Central Market in downtown Los
> Angeles. There are various applications for cacao nibs aside from the
> obvious one of making chocolate.
>
> We decided to try making cocoa tea, which required grinding the nibs to a
> coarse powder. This required three passes with a burr grinder. When we got
> to a fine grind, things started clogging up due to moisture and oils in the
> nibs. We discussed the difficulty of grinding cacao finely enough to make a
> smooth chocolate. You can't get it done with a coffee grinder. Maybe a
> flour mill. Or a rock tumbler using stainless steel balls?
>
> We tried to brew it like coffee using both a drip filter and a vacuum pot.
> we also tried putting it in a tea bag and steeping it. we also tried making
> a hot chocolate mix by adding two spoonfuls of ground cocoa to two
> spoonfuls of sugar to about 4 oz of hot water and a dash of cream. It was
> pretty good in all its incarnation, though you ended up chewing on the
> grounds with the last method.
>
> Other things people worked on were circuit boards, arduinos, and web
> application. I learned how to use my Singer sewing machine. We broke down a
> cardboard box that used to hold paper and used it to laser cut two sets of
> Google Cardboard vr goggles. The template requires a minimum cardboard size
> of 9 in X 22 in. It needs some adjusting to account for eyeglasses and
> phone cases. It would be nice if we could programmatically change the
> *cardboard* template depending on head and phone measurements. It may
> also need a little adjustment if the material is of a different thickness.
> It worked okay for our cardboard, which had a thickness of 0.13in.
>
> Since we were playing with cardboard, we thought it might be cool to
> figure out other things we could laser cut and fold. Or maybe we could
> laser cut a jigsaw puzzle.
>
> Lan
>
>  ------------------------------
> * From: * Lan Dang <l.dang at ymail.com>;
> * To: * Hardware Hacking Special Interest Group <hak at sgvhak.net>;
> * Subject: * [SGVHAK] Tux-Lab open work session on Saturday afternoon,
> 1/17
> * Sent: * Fri, Jan 16, 2015 8:29:12 PM
>
>   Hi all,
>
> John is kind enough to host an open work session at Tux-Lab this Saturday
> afternoon.   We just gather at Tux-Lab to hang out and work on our own
> projects.  Please come by if you want to work on something.  The gate will
> be open between 2 and 4pm, and you are welcome to stay as long as you like.
>
> Some of us will be making soap and roasting coffee.  I have a project that
> involves finally learning how to use the Singer sewing machine I
> appropriated from my sister.   I'm sure others will be working on small
> electronics or coding projects.
>
>
> Tux-Lab
> 58 West Live Oak, Arcadia, CA.
> *The address is Live Oak Ave, but the parking lot entrance is from
> Welland. Once you enter the parking lot, 58 is the building to the left.*
>
> The street intersection is weird around here, so I suggest you check out a
> map to see how to get on Welland.
>
> Let me know if you have any questions.
>
> Lan
>
> PS The joint SGVHAK/Hackaday Projects meetup was great.  I will try to do
> a recap tonight. There were some pictures retweeted on @sgvlug
> https://twitter.com/sgvlug
>
>
>
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