7:30 – FP

• Heading out early to go to the PAD lab and try printing out the mouse.
• Updating sim and models on the laptop. Done, and hooked up to the hardware!
  
• After talking to Tom for a bit, it looks like it might make more sense to buy a cheap deskside system and strip it for parts rather than buy the components.

9:00 – 4:30 FP

• In a bit late due to dentist app’t.
• Let’s see if we can learn how to slice geometry today!
• It’s really easy. Select the object that you want to modify (in object mode), then click on the ‘Object Modifiers’ (crescent wrench) tab
• Add a ‘Boolean’ modifier. It can be ‘Difference’ ‘Union’, or ‘Intersect’
• Select the object that the first object will be modified by in the ‘Object’ Field
• Click ‘Apply’ – That’s it!
• Next, let’s see if we can make some useful cuts in the mouse. Done! 
• Useful link to Modifiers in Blender: http://wiki.tesnexus.com/index.php/An_introduction_to_Modifiers_in_Blender

8:00 – 5:00 FP

• In prep for getting the mouse, I’m going add hand navigation to the demo.
• Done. I added a “move model” choice in the Gl_ShaderWindo base class that sets a float[3] of the current desired(?) model XYZ. It’s up to the inheriting class to do something with it. In this case, I moved the hand origin in XZ space and left the position of the rotating cubes alone.
• Checked in.
• More modelling training

8:00 – 4:00 FP

• Was able to successfully print out the mouse yesterday. It printed “solid” in that it had structure on the inside to allow the piece not to collapse. I also wound up printing it at about 1/3 scale so that it only took an hour to print as opposed to six. Still, I’m pretty happy with the result. Below is the Blender version on the left and the MakerBot printout on the right:
• 
• Set up an account with Shapeways so that I can print out a more substantial model. And so that I don’t have to sit around for six hours waiting for something to print. Along the way, I learned why my mouse model was solid. You need to generate inner and outer walls and connect them. The printer doesn’t know how to handle printing two sides of a two-dimensional plane. This is controlled in Blender by detecting ‘Non-Manifold’ surfaces. If you find them, that means that the normals in that area are behaving oddly, and need to be fixed. Maya had a ‘clean up option, but blender doesn’t. Still working on how to completely fix a surface, though I do have it to the point what it looks pretty reasonable. We’ll see if Shapeways accepts it.
• It was accepted, but came out as the wrong size. Trying to scale it now. Well, that seemed to work.
• It’s now in the printing queue, and should be here by the 22nd!
• Found the problem with the shape. There were edges *inside* the original shape that I rotated that were confusing the calculation of the normals. Next, time – delete those before rotating.
• Made a fixed version and uploaded it to Shapeways.
• Filled out AMPERE paperwork.
• Make some dice. Done!
•