Projects:

[introduction] cad/cam, modeling, software

[press fit structure] laser cutter, vinyl cutter, plasma cutter/router

[printed circuit boards] pcb fabrication, board stuffing -

[cables] making molex<->serial and soic8<->parallel cables

[hello world] microcontroller programmingS

[coffee or tea] 3d scanning and printing

[input devices] sensors, instrumentation, light, sound, temperature, position, proximity-

[flexures] waterjet cutter, CNC milling and turning

[output devices] LEDs, OLDEs, LCDs, video, speakers, motors

[pdms] molding, forming, and casting

[internet zero] communications and networking

[manu] laser micromachining, confocal microscopy

The principle of confocal imaging was patented by Marvin Minsky in 1961. In a conventional (i.e., wide-field) microscope, the entire specimen is flooded with light from a light source. Due to the conservation of light intensity transportation, the part of specimen throughout the optical path will be detected by a photodetector or a camera. In contrast, a confocal microscope uses a pinhole to eliminate out-of-focus information. Only the light within the focal plane can be detected, so the image quality is much better than that of wide-field images. The thickness of the focal plane is defined mostly by the objective lens, and also by the optical properties of the specimen and the ambient conditions. - Wikipedia entry Read Minsky's "Memoir on Inventing the Confocal Scanning Microscope"

Links:

cnc router tutorial (N51)

www.matthewtrimble.com