Do you work with a laser cutter? You probably have big boxes of acrylic scraps then! We made a quick how-to article with videos and photos that show exactly how you can DIY yourself a system for pressing these old scraps into new cool sheets for more laser cutting! You just need a panini press and a car jack!
Meanwhile here's some cool other opportunities and experiences also available!
GOSH Elections!
Did you know that Andy is a council person for the amazing organization, the Gathering for Open Science Hardware? It's a great community collective where we steer funding and opportunities to people building and using open-science tools! For instance we just gave away 100K to Open Science Events around the world https://forum.openhardware.science/t/results-regional-events-funding-round-2/3831/11 as well as ANOTHER 100K to cool collaborative projects, and are putting on the Global Gathering in October!
But Andy's term on the council is expiring! and so now it's time to elect new people to the council!
Do you know someone who would be awesome at helping guide the #opensource#openscience community?
Growing up watching Fern Gully all the time, it freaks me out to see a bulldozer in the jungle! But we can do very helpful things with these powerful machines too! After 17 years of neglect, the mostly volunteer group has some big renovations for beloved Pipeline road! for instance anyone who has walked pipeline road knows these terrible puddles that are sometimes impossible to get by. They are there because the original drainage channels on the sides are clogged. Well now we can create quick channels to let them drain! If you have ever driven on pipeline you definitely remember the giant potholes and washouts! Those too are created by mudslides and erosion.
Creating paths in the rainforest is less like clearing a trail, and more like directing an ephemeral river.
just today with the bulldozer we managed to scrape decades of erosion off the original asphalt (Some spots a meter thick!) and make the whole trail much more passable!
There are ways to horribly mis-use any kind of tool for interacting with nature. Every science experiment will cause some interference, and one must confront the potential harm you will do. The key of any technology is to learn how to be gentle. For instance, when they first built Pipeline road, the US government just clear-cut and bulldozed the forest in huge swaths every direction. To repair it though, we have a much more difficult task of trying to salvage what's there while minimizing interference of the forest.
Overall, I think it's important for people to understand that forestry trails are a technology themselves. Folks tend to take nice paths for granted, and think they are just part of a forest that people happened to walk through.
But there are folks working tirelessly to keep this access to amazing natural areas open and as accessible as possible! These paths let locals, tourists, and scientists all share access to the incredible biodiversity around them.
Help baby sloths!
Little baby sloths need your help! They can't drink cow milk, and we can't find powdered goat milk in panama anymore! if you are coming from a place with powdered goat milk and want to donate some, please bring it to panama! Or donate directly to the https://www.appcpanama.org/
