We’ve had a few knitting machines rattling around the space over the years, but when fellow gadget lover Josh dropped off the lace carriage for our Toyota K747 knitting machine, I figured it was time to take it past basic stockinette stitch and explore the machine’s punch card mechanism.

Like most decades-old machines, a layer of dried oily gunk coated many of the moving parts. There are also a few broken/missing pieces. I’m in the process of cleaning / fixing the machine, and trying my best to document it as I go along. I got a hold of the K747 Service Manual, and started diving in. It’s oiled up now, and the next steps are to repair the broken needle selector and write up a program to generate punch cards for the laser.

 The picture above shows the offending broken lever. These 12 little blue levers tell the machine which needles to push out for the patterning, but lever #3 is broken so it never engages. Getting in to replace it is a bit daunting, in fact just getting to that lever in the first place was a bit of an event, I’m going to attempt to fix it with Sugru first. If that doesn’t work, then I’ll be makerbotting a replacement and praying I can get it all back together after dismantling it.

Since the machine is loud and takes up space I generally only work on it during the day when there’s more room, but if there’s sufficient interest I’d be happy to demo it at an upcoming craft night.

You can see more shots of the inside of the machine over on my blog: Knitting Machine Teardown Part 1 and Part 2.

Earlier this week I went to MICA in Baltimore (and last month to CDI in Winston-Salem) to meet with a diverse group of very forward thinking individuals on the topics of art, science, education, innovation and all the ancillary things that get wrapped around that, in other words: the whole universe.

Folks from the NSF, NEA, several academic institutions, hackerspaces, and industry came together to start a discussion about advocating for an educational system that reminds us art and science do not need to be taught separately; and that formal and informal educational spaces have benefits of working together and sharing their research, be it citizen scientists and tenured professors, k5 to grey, cats and dogs, and other predetermined groups that result in mass hysteria. Creativity happens everywhere, in every subject matter, as does science – this is something we’ve witnessed at NYCResistor from the amazing projects people bring in every Thursday night at craft night. Our tagline at NYCR is we learn, share, and make things – not unlike the goals and missions of academic institutions.

The group has been given legs from a joint effort from the NSF and NEA and has yet to choose a name and website to point to, but is called NSEAD (Network to support Science, Engineering, Arts and Design) under the grant proposals. I am hopeful in the initiatives we will all be able to accomplish together. Members of this group previously have founded the STEM to STEAM initiative, including Art in the STEM curriculum and held a congressional hearing along these efforts. The discussion is just starting, and is being seeded with thoughts of innovation without walls, economic development, open research, art/science mashup exhibits, and even elephants. I’m honored and excited that the DIY community and hackerspaces have a place at this table.

Stay tuned, tell me your thoughts, and hack on – whatever your day job is.

-pip

C’mon out this Saturdaytonight at 8pm for our monthly first Saturday party. It’s our excuse to get the place cleaned up and in party shape. It’s a BYOB chill and chat extravaganza!

Update: I hear barbot may be making an appearance.

Update 2: Witness the firepower of the fully armed and operational BarBot (and other photos from the party):

Shelby shows us how she made her beautiful Dr. Who pumpkin carving, and then gave it light and sound!

Kevin Green, who is making a new Arduino compatible rapid prototyping board, approached us to see if we’d be interested in chatting about his new project. It’s essentially like an Arduino, but instead of just having rows of headers that you can plug anything into, it’s designed to accept any of a bunch of pluggable sensors and parts. It has a breadboard built in, and it dresses like a New Yorker (that is, all in black), so it looks pretty rad. I asked Kevin a few questions about the project, which you can read after the jump, or you can head straight to his kickstarter here

Who are you, and why did you start this project?
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