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I received my MakerBot upgrades last week and got a chance to put them through their paces this weekend. After having so much trouble with the original out-of-the-box setup, I'm so excited by the progress I made the past few days! Here's the list of things I suggest every MakerBot operator purchase: MakerBot filament spindle MK1 MakerBot heated build platform  with relay board MakerBot MK5 drive gear Aluminum idler (either  Brian Reifsnyder's  or one from MakerGear) MakerGear plastruder Here's the lot of them in action: The filament spindle is a great enhancement. It's nice to be (mostly) unconcerned with the filament getting tangled up and stopping a print midway through. I say mostly because so far I've had a couple jams. Only one actually caused the filament to strip. The jamming occurs because the filament slips off the spindle and gets wedged underneath. I suspect this problem will go away as I use more of the filament, but I'm trying to come up

Note: If SL4A crashes on start up, be sure to uninstall any installed r0 interpreters and upgrade them to the new r1 releases. Loads of new goodies this time. So, what's new? Features: Added WebView API which makes it possible to easily build scripts with a GUI. Added HTML interpreter . For scripts running in the foreground or displaying WebViews, context and option menu items can be added. Added search support to the API browser. Added undo and redo to the script editor via volume up and down buttons. A new, significantly improved terminal experience. Time and date picker dialog APIs. Additional signal strength APIs. Additional Wifi APIs including locking. Additional telephony APIs. Removed phone call recording since this is not currently possible in Android. It is now possible to specify that startActivity() should block until the user closes the started activity. Bluetooth connections can now be established to a particular device address. Attachments can be a

I received my deluxe MakerBot kit (batch 15) a couple weeks ago and had a blast putting it together. The instructions are quite well done (especially for the Cartesian robot, the extruder instructions could use a little work). I've been taking notes of all the little things I had to do to get it working. This is not a project for people that are afraid to break things or are expecting the ease or immediate satisfaction of building a Lego model. It's a complicated machine with lots of possible points of failure. That being said, it's super cool. First, if you're considering buying a MakerBot, or already have, take a look at this list of things you'll need in addition to the kit. I'll highlight a few things here that I found especially useful: spray on silicone lubricant (Amazon has good stuff ), good digital calipers and a small, metal ruler, a one-side razor scraper (get something with a handle), and an ISP programmer (e.g. a USBtinyISP ) for burning b

We'd like to introduce our cats to the interwebs. While many of you may already know Helo from his previous   appearances , Miranda, at just 3 months old, is a newcomer. She's a Persian kitten, and very photogenic, just like her big brother. Don't mess with my kid! Wait, where is my kid anyway? Helo is from the block. Like his namesake, he's a big pussy. We rescued him in San Francisco, fixed him up, and made him almost respectable. He remains the master of the house, though he is frequently victimized due to his hesitance to hold the high ground. I'm Commander Shepard and this is my favorite store on the Citadel. Miranda is a German princess, bred to be brushed, beautiful, and served. Like her namesake, she wears a skin tight cat suit and is both spunky and snuggly. She takes grooming seriously and is trying to groom our tramp Helo into something respectable and a little less wussy.

After far too long, SL4A r0 has been released. So, what's new? Features: Interpreters are now installed as separate APKs. Scripts can now be bundled into Script APKs that do not depend on SL4A. Added support for running multiple scripts simultaneously. You can view, stop, and connect a terminal to running scripts in the Script Monitor. The number of running scripts is indicated by the notification icon and in the notification itself. Lots of performance improvements to start up time and memory consumption. For instance, interpreters are now run in a single process instead of being wrapped up in a shell process and facades are loaded lazily. Security has been improved by requiring scripts to authenticate themselves with the RPC server. This happens automatically and prevents malware from connecting to a running SL4A RPC server and assume SL4A's permissions. The Bluetooth API is now blocking, easier to use, and more robust. It is now possible to deprecate APIs before ch