We'll be back in the Spring!

Just a quick explanation/update:

The Old Green Machines project is very much alive and well and busy. While we have not been blogging much, we have been very, very busy.

We had a minor setback recently when the wood shop had to be closed during the Skyline remodeling that is going on. We came back to find everything pretty much like we left it, except it was now covered in a half inch of drywall dust.... :-(

Students are playing many roles, including being students. Final exams just finished and we are on Winter Break!

The club will continue to take donations and work throughout the Spring. We will be building logic circuits and learning all sorts of things.

De-Soldering

We finally have a working camera, I have an account to blog here with, and we have some pictures of the de-soldering we've been doing for the past 2 weeks. So here we go...

Using a glorified hair drier (a "heat gun"), we can now melt the solder right off the backs of the circuit boards that we remove from VCRs, clocks, or other gadgets. So this means that we will eventually be able to use these parts (capacitors, 7-segment displays, switches, etc...) to perhaps create our own stuff.

When you put the heat gun up to the circuit board the "sharp points" of the solder starts to melt a little bit. You pull and wiggle the component on the other side of the board. When it loosens up enough on the component that you are trying to remove, it will come right off the board. In the end it's actually kinda fun.

Other than that, we have been going as we have before. Taking stuff apart, organizing the new room, and trying to learn a bit more about what makes all this stuff do what it does.~Byron

We made it into the paper today!

Today was the first time that Old Green Machines appeared in a newpaper. You can see the OGM part near the end of this page:

Johnny St. Vrain Oct 12, 2009 in the Longmont Times Call.

Too bad they did not include a link to our blog or website, as the first several calls and emails we got were from people wanting to give us broken monitors.....

One person, though, has a TV that might be perfect for something purchased this last weekend for a mere ten bucks: a Timex Sinclair 1000 computer (including an expansion that takes the memory from 2K to 16K! This old computer will look awesome on a vintage TV. Look for a report to follow when we actually start programming it.

Agenda for Oct 6th

Besides having pizza this week (finally), we have a lot of stuff to do. Until we get these things done, other tasks will have to be put on hold:

1. Get our bins set for delivery this weekend. We need to decide what to write on them and how to write it (spraypaint, permanent markers, etc). Basically we need a logo on these and some contact information. If we get these done, we will have a constant visual reminder at the thrift stores that we are looking for old electronics. They'll be more likely to give stuff to us than throw it away if we have these bins reminding them about what we want to get.

2. MESA forms need to be filled out and returned by next weeks club meeting.

3. We need to take photographs for a MESA article. Our temporary photographer took only a handful of pictures. If someone is willing to be our photographer and is not afraid to take a lot of pictures, please volunteer for this and I will get you a camera to check out for the semester. If you want a short lesson in taking pix, let me know.

4. We have small bins now for all the larger components we will be saving. If you are considering being a dis-assembler, it is important that you familiarize yourself with all of these categories, so that you don't throw anything useful away.

5. We have three toolboxes now and need to organize our tools in them. Our tool room needs to be cleaned up before we use the tools themselves.

6. Those not volunteering and working on any of 1-5 get sink duty, as half our little gray hanging bins have yet to be cleaned up.

Beginning Circuits at the OGM

This week we finally got to do some dis-assembly of donated devices. Students were testing various VCRs and stereo components, and others were starting to learn basic electronic circuit construction. There's something very cool about making a little LED light up:

Website development: a case study

A few days ago I registered the domain "oldgreenmachines.org" so that we could use it for this project. Shortly after I gave ftp rights over to fonrus, one of my programming students who is particularly good at web design.

You can see the site here, and watch it as it develops. Right now there is no content, but we have a nice little scrolling feature that gives thanks to our partners/sponsors.

I'm always impressed by how much my students can juggle and still find time for a project like this.

Next week we finally get to work on stuff in the wood shop--after the pizza, of course.

If anyone has an old electric organ, I have a student that would like to work on it and possibly fix it and donate it to the Skyline music department. We will have contact info on our website, so you can call us if you have one. We'll pick it up from your location--well, within 20 miles or so.... :-)

Rumors of Pizza

Today we headed on down to the wood shop and thought we'd clean up a few more things and then actually start the fun stuff: taking apart stuff. Well, we never got around to the electronics stuff, as we spend two hours cleaning up the last piles of various things that are hard to deal with because...well, you just don't know what to do with them.

Next week we will be creating circuits, fixing stuff, and taking stuff apart, including, hopefully, pizza.

Our new Domain Name!!!!

We have officially purchased the domain oldgreenmachines.org which will host the official website of the OGM project. Right now the site is under development by fonrus, a member of the Skyline Programming Club.

Also, after hours of grueling labor, the wood shop will be open for Old Green Machines business this Tuesday, September 22nd! The club will meet first in the computer lab and talk about a few issues such as promotion, recruitment, and blogging. Then, we will go to the wood shop and start working on the huge amount of donated old electronics equipment we have....

Our newest partner: Ecocycle

Ecocycle is now a partner with us! We look to them for guidance on some of the recycling issues that we're unsure of. Hopefully this project will help educate people about recycling in a new way. Seeing the effects of toxic pollution is bad enough (did you see the 60 Minutes report?), and we may try to investigate local issues that way. More likely, though, we'll just keep looking at all the usable stuff that people toss out in the trash. We're not dumpster divers (yet), but that would be an interesting topic, indeed.

This is tougher than it looks....

We don't have pictures to show all the work we've been doing the last few days--we've been too busy moving stuff and cleaning up grease and grime.

The OGM project really needs some more students to help promote the club and get more members.

Our next steps:

1. We need to make fliers and a poster or two to spread the word about who we are and what we do.
2. We need a logo and some cool designs for our project--and maybe a catch phrase or two.
3. We need to get our future home cleaned up soon, as we are currently homeless... :-(

Once we get the old wood shop in shape, we'll be able to post more about what we like to do. The problem right now is that we haven't been able to do any of the fun stuff. We're too busy boxing up dusty old junk and scraping years of oil and dust and dirt off of the surfaces.

Our First Dissection: Common HP tower

There are so many of these HP Pavilion computers all over the place. If someone says they have an old computer you can have, it will often be one of these, as they were extremely popular.

These are quite compact inside, making upgrading a little difficult, but not impossible--sort of like working under the hood of a Toyota Tacoma after working on a Ford F250....

In the final picture you can see all the parts. Now, each of these parts could be further dissected, and we will post those in the future. Here's what's in the final picture:

• Power supply
• Outer casing
• Hard-drive
• 3.5" disk drive
• Motherboard + CPU
• Modem card
• Sound card
• 2 strips of RAM memory
• Fan (from the CPU)
• CD drive
• Power Switch
• Various wires and other connectors
• About 25 screws

Pictures of the Cleanup

Before:

After:

We are working hard!

Today several students and I moved all those old gas engines into boxes and moved them out. We only had one big oil spill and we cleaned it up. We will post pictures soon so you can see the progress.

Also, Ecocycle has responded and I'll share the details on that!

Stay tuned.

Looking for help

While we're moving to our new location in the SHS woodshop, the Old Green Machines project can use your help.

Students needed to:

1. Blog about the OGM project, telling the community what we do.
2. Take pictures of our work, for use in the blog.
3. Help move heavy boxes.
4. Help produce fliers and posters for display at Skyline.
5. Help design project logos, artwork, stencils (for on collection bins), etc.

If you are interested in helping out, please come see me in room 551 (the Math/Science computer lab).

Things we could really use from community donations:

1. Tools (pliers, screwdrivers, etc.)
2. Storage bins of all sizes.
3. Towels, sponges, buckets, and rags.
4. Soldering pencils, a vacuum cleaner, and a can or two of compressed air.


If you have any of these items and want to donate them to the OGM project, please see our website for information on how to contact us.


Developments this last week:

Karen Hunter of St. Vrain Valley MESA informed us that we would be one of two MESA programs this year at Skyline. This complements Skyline's already popular MESA computer science courses: Intro to Programming, Computer Science (using Python), and AP Computer Science. Intro to Programming has six sections offered this year at SHS!

We are working on a partnership with Ecocycle. Stay tuned for details on that as it develops.

Agenda for Tuesday Sept 8th

1. We need to design some posters and fliers to go up around school.

2. We might be able to set up a display in a display case of one of each of our categories:
A--stuff we fix and give back
B--electronica obscuria (strange old stuff we find)
C--complete dissections (show ALL the parts in a device)
D--something we made from all the parts of something else

I want you all to be able to do these, but for now we'll have a few that I've done in my garage for examples. We should also blog for each one, as those are four of our main blog categories. Here's what I have for each category:

A: fixed a meditation water sculpture that the Boulder Humane Society had tested and found to not work correctly. Just had to open up the water pump and find the cat hair all wrapped around the main drive shaft in there.
B: I can pull out about 7 or 8 examples of those automatic timers to turn lights on and off, ranging from the early 70s to now.
C: ? Not sure. Why don't we do this on Tuesday and we'll document it for the blog and keep the parts for the display case. Maybe a telephone would be good.
D: My mood lamp! :-) Hopefully it can be powered in the display case, with a dark background....

3. Mrs. Baker's 8th period class would like to have a few students come down and talk about the Old Green Machines club, and what we do. I'm not sure who would do this, but you could take stuff with you and give a demo. This will have to be a bit later, though.

4. We need to get some large bins and make a stencil or something so we can spraypaint our logo on them and put something like "when this is filled, call us at 720-494-XXXX and we'll come pick it up!" Then, we need a few volunteers to go deliver these to some more thrift stores, and to the ones that already give us stuff.

5. There IS NO NUMBER FIVE.

We have a home!

The Old Green Machines project got a new home today in the currently unused wood shop at Skyline. Two students from the club braved the fumes and took these pictures. As you can see, the shop has recently been used to store a whole bunch of stuff. Besides all the gas engines from the small engines classes of the past, there's just a lot of stuff all over the shop that got put there for one reason or another. Kind of like a coffee table that collects a pile of ... stuff.

We love it. There are six large tables in there that we will be able to use and keep set up while we work on various OGM projects. Two of the tables will soon be used to get older (but not too old) computers up and running for a community outreach project. The other four will be for the "factory" of the OGM project: testing, fixing, dissecting, and reusing all sorts of things that otherwise would have been sent to the landfill.

We have contacted nearby Ecocycle in an attempt to form a partnership to help educate people about electronic waste. It also looks as if St. Vrain Valley MESA will be supporting our program, although we need to work out the details on that. We will post updates here as they occur.

This Project is now Launched....

After a month or two of searching for a title, defining our purpose, and basically just dealing with the start of a new school year, the OGM Project is open for business.

When some members of the Skyline Programming Club decided to learn more about the inner workings of computers, in particular the logic gates and other electronic components, a can of worms was opened. What could we do with junk parts from old electronics trash? If something can not be fixed, at least the parts could be used to either repair other devices, or perhaps to make something completely different. Junkbots, mood lamps, sound effects generators, and all sorts of cool contraptions are possible. If all else fails, at least we have some fun, learn a little about electronics, and help the community a bit.

If you have some old electric or electronic device that appears to be broken, we can try to fix it for you (NO GUARANTEES of course, as we mess up a lot and learn from those mistakes).

If you want to donate working electronic devices to us for us to use, you can. We can not accept computer monitors or old televisions (too much lead in the glass tubes), but will take almost anything else.

We are also in need of things that you may not think of when you think of an electronics project: things like towels, buckets, storage containers, paper towels, safety glasses, and tools, especially Phillips screwdrivers. Do not assume that we won't need it, just ask us. :-)

We are looking for ways to recycle hard to recycle items as a service for the community. In particular, things like old VCRs. We are willing to do the dissection and separate the parts into groups of materials. We can recycle the scrap metal, but we are looking for places to recycle the plastics. If you have advice on this, or are interested in working with us, let us know. Current charges for recycling an old VCR are $8.00 each. If we can do some of the processing and come up with a more economical solution, we will.