Super Smart

The guys from the wind lab were super smart.  Super duper smart, to be exact.

One of the guys, Carson, can will any thought into a reality.  For fun he decided to build a 4-axis computer controlled milling machine.  He also decided that, to save money, it should build itself.  Danny and I stopped by to check it out one weekend.  This is all in his man-cave basement.

The first step was to build a basic two axis mill.  With this mill, he cut some of the parts he needed to make it 3 axis out of wood (3rd axis is up down z-axis). But, wood isn't vary stable, so he cuts a better design out of wood and replaces all of the parts he first cut by hand and with the basic machine.

Now, with a better more stable wood machine, he starts cutting parts out of metal, and replaces all of the wood parts until the entire design is stable.  Genius.

The reason he is having all of this fun in his basement is because he thinks he'll be able to cut the mold for the wind-turbine-wing with the machine when it is finished, fur less money than buying a machine or having another company do it.  Because I made the files for the mold, I helped explain some of my old work so he can manipulate it and use it in the future.  Here is a video of the computer program determining how to cut the shape:

In the video it shows the path the drill bit will chase in order to make the contour. Interesting enough, the current design involves a LOT of cutting and tool changes, which adds up to like 100 days of continuous cutting to make the entire wing. I suspect once Carson gets a hold of my solid models he'll have a breakthrough of sorts.

But back to this dude. He wills things, and then they happen- it is insane what he has built- he's truly an inspiration.

He built a pool for his daughters, he built a race car for him and his dad to work on, he built model airplanes to race, he modified and raced a rc motorcycle (even going to Las Vegas to compete in the world championships), he pretty much built his whole house, he's built 3 different 3D printers with unique functionalities- the list goes on!  He also gave me two big RC planes to fool around with while I'm here in Germany.  I look forward to fixing them up.

I liked the water closet (WC) he built in a closet in his house for guests.  A lot of small bathrooms are really crowded, but he picked great items and this bad boy was roomy:

What does it mean when you start thinking bathroom remodeling is cool?