Category Archives: Hackerspace

At FamiLAB we have a deep sense of community and want to help others in these tough times. With COVID-19 becoming more prevalent in our state, we wanted to ramp up our PPE donations but that means we need your help! A few months ago Coca-Cola donated more than 6 tons of plastic sheeting to various PPE Projects across the state. Orlando received just over 1.5 tons and FamiLAB is proud to have cut and donated almost 2,400 shields and over 3,000 ear savers to Orlando Health. Many more shops, […]

Team FamiLAB has been hard at work planning, shopping, and prototyping their interactive game for the Maker Effect Foundation’s Makeathon 0.0. The event is a charity ‘makeathon’ much like a walkathon but with making, caffeine, and friendly competition. We’ve already raised the minimum to compete, but if you’d like to help support the foundation’s efforts in the maker community please donate to our team at: https://www.classy.org/team/240126 We made a video introducing the team, and posted our plan — granted, the plan was a thumb dancing to the Commander Keen theme. […]

For Mother’s Day this year I decided to design a mantel-piece gift for my mum with embedded electronics. With the right tools, going from design to finished product can be quick and fun!

Another year has come and gone, we are another year older and hopefully wiser. This past Saturday, FamiLAB held its annual meeting in our classroom, where we discussed the current state of the lab, its history, and we selected the new members of our board of directors. We replaced three members of our board at the meeting, and I would like to thank the departing board members, Mike King, Jamie Szafran, and Jackie Jeffrey, for their service to the lab. If and when you see them around the LAB, please […]

One of the benefits of having such a diverse and vibrant community as you can find at a decently sized Hackerspace like Familab is access to a wide variety of people with different skills and different levels of proficiency. I came into the lab enthusiastic to learn more about electronics and mechanics for prop design, and brought with me a background in VFX 3D Modelling which I have been applying to 3D Printed prop design that I could pass onto others… or so I thought… My first class today as […]

The local chapter for Gliding Stars is having a annual show May 2019. Using a Space Theme we needed an astronaut, Saturn, Moon, the sun, a satellite, and a rocket. Using foam board, the outlines were cut using a ¼ drill bit. Thanks to Mechalich, I was schooled once again on the Wood CNC machine.  This project had me ready to throw the CNC out the door! Side note, keep using machine regularly to retain skills. V Carve Settings: One problem I had was that it was not cutting into […]

It’s that time of year again! As the post-Thanksgiving food coma fades and we all realize that the holiday season is upon us, everyone turns to picking out the perfect holiday presents for friends, family, and white elephant gift exchanges. As you do, we’d love to remind you that if you shop at https://smile.amazon.com/ch/27-3490023 , Amazon donates a portion of eligible purchases to FamiLAB. It’s an easy way to help support our community this winter season (and especially on Cyber Monday)! It’s also almost #GivingTuesday , a global day of giving […]

Every since the movie ‘Honey I shrunk the Kids’ I’ve wanted a remote control lawnmower. Even more so during July in Florida when the temperature and humidity compete for the high point. I always thought about it but never moved on it until a friend gave me a half finished project before he moved out of state. I’m not sure what he was going to build but he kept all the suspension for from the Jazzy mobility scooter (that’s my best guess as to where these parts came from). Since […]