iPhone apps? Hey, we know a dude...

BriTer Ideas LLC
http://www.briterideas.com

BriTer Ideas was founded by Brian Slick, a Mechanical Engineer who always swore that if that if he could go back and do it all over again, he'd be a computer programmer. When the current recession took his engineering day job away from him, he seized upon the opportunity to pursue that long-neglected passion.

The focus of BriTer Ideas is to develop software for Apple's iPhone/iPod touch platform. Their first offering, SlickShopper, has been for sale on the App Store for a few weeks. SlickShopper is a grocery list application aimed at simplifying both the creation of a shopping list, and the shopping experience itself.

A graduate of Purdue University (albeit as an M.E.), Brian has dabbled in programming and scripting for years, but SlickShopper represents the first home-grown effort that has turned into a salable product. BriTer Ideas is off to a great start, and is hard at work on bringing more capabilities to SlickShopper, as well as pursuing other projects. We are more than happy to entertain partnerships and/or contract work for iPhone development. Send inquiries to contact@briterideas.com

West Coast Roasting - REALLY good coffee (Seriously. REALLY good)

West Coast Roasting Co.
http://www.wcrcompany.com

About WCR:

West Coast Roasting Company was brought into existence in March of 2005....no wait, maybe it was in February of 2003, when my wife, Melissa, introduced me to The Coffee Roaster in Sherman Oaks, California. I went to buy some freshly roasted beans, and I left two hours later with an offer from the owner, Dick Healy, to apprentice as a roaster...or maybe it was when during my travels in the Middle East I was first served a cup of Turkish coffee prepared the original way, boiled in a finjan over an open fire with cardamom and sugar, and I was hooked.

Wherever it originated, our search for great coffee has led us to start our own small roasting company, with the goal of providing the best beans we can find, bar none; each batch slowly drum-roasted to its optimum level to allow the flavors to develop without obscuring the flavors of the coffee with that of the roast.

There is no sense in going to all the trouble to get those amazing beans if they are not fresh when you get them, so each batch is roasted to order and shipped (or delivered, if local) within 24 hours. You can’t beat the aroma and flavor of freshly roasted coffee just a day or two out of the roaster!

Because West Coast Roasting Company is a very personal business, we'd also like to give back, and in a personal way that will truly impact someone elses life. There are many fine charities to choose from, and many worthy causes, but the one that speaks to us most is the genocide in the Sudan. We feel it is ignored, overlooked, and abandoned. We will be donating 25 cents from each pound of coffee sold to the International Medical Corps. They provide essential services to the refugees of that conflict, and each donation doesn't just improve someones quality of life, it saves lives. Please click on the link to read more about what the IMC does, and where the money goes.

We are excited about our new business and the selection of exceptional, handroasted coffee beans we offer. We hope to show you how good coffee can really be!

Andrew Browning - he makes cool stuff with big machines

Andrew Browning

Face@FaceCo.net

Preface:

I am a 22 year old tinker who has long been fascinated, sometimes to the point of destruction, with disassembling, reassembling, repurposing, redesigning, and generally making Stuff. I was exposed to machining when I was eight, when I made a hawaiin sling for spear fishing; with which I caught a very large bass and poked a very small hole in a friend of mine. I've been making things my own and making things of my own since then.

Skills:

Summary:

Well rounded manual mechining

CNC milling, including 4th axis

CAD/CAM skill including basic organic forms and assemblies

Mechanical and electrical systems engineering

I am proficient in Solidworks and MasterCAM. I am comfortable in a few other software suites, listed below in decreasing order;

AutoCAD R14

MATLAB

Ashlar Vellum CAD packages

Inventor

Pro/e

I am proficient on manual knee mills, engine lathes, and surface grinders. I am comfortable with most other standard shop tools, including some sheet metal devices such as turret punches, rollers, and manual brakes.

I am comfortable using HAAS CNC mills, including both basic indexing and live 4th axis work. I have a basic knowledge of generic fixturing methods, although my real world experience is a bit lacking beyond basic workholding.

I have a solid understanding of mechanical systems, with special focus on powertrains and pneumatic systems, backed up by a solid working knowledge of electrical control systems. I am very good at developing complete systems, though I lack some finesse in engineering peice parts.

Technical experience:

Beside my general messing about, I've been competing in robotics competitions for about 10 years. I've made robots for FIRST, battlebots, a local electrothon racing club, and a local underwater ROV club (tethered submarines used to do tasks assigned by the local nuclear power plant). I've also done various small robots for technical classes in high school and college.

My battlebots experience is the most diverse, including nine 120lb and four 15lb robots. The two most important things I've learned from the experience are organization (including project organization, task allocation, and documentation) and how to work with budgets ranging from $1,500 to $75,000.

I recently graduated from Dunwoody College of Technology in Minneapolis with an AAS in machine tool technologies, where I spent time on both manual and CNC machines.

I worked last summer at Sapphire Engineering, an ISO-9000 certified engineering and manufacturing firm focused on building metered fluid pumps and fluid control products for the medical industry. There I spent time lapping, honing, deburring, and assembling products made from several plastics, stainless, titanium, and crystalline alumina (sapphire and ruby). I also did a few rework operations to bring previously machined parts into spec.

I have designed and built, from scratch, a functional electro-pneumatic paintball gun. I was too young when I completed it to know how to get it on the market, and it is now unfortunately obsolete.

Almost everything I own has been personalized in some way.

First post

First post to test. More content later.