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Messenger bags made from recycled life vests

Posted: February 28th, 2010, 8:00pm MST

Lisa Katayama spotted this cool shoulder bag made from an old airplane life jacket. Unfortunately, no, it doesn't work as a life vest anymore.

[via Boing Boing]

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Remixed Ikea bar

Posted: February 28th, 2010, 6:00pm MST

Portuguese design students Diogo Aguiar and Teresa Otto built a temporary bar out of Ikea bins for the annual Queima das Fitas celebrating the end of exams:

Year after year, the students of Oporto School of Architecture are invited to think on a temporary bar to represent their institution with the expected dignity, as an outstanding architectural object. The given implantation, the fast construction and the low budget are some of the premises which must be considered.

The proposed bar stands as an iconic cube of light, composed of modular parts. Taking advantage of the IKEA build-by-your-own world, the project is a parallelepiped made out of different depth storage boxes which give it the modular diversity on its textured skin. After winning the competition, some adjustments were done and the bar grew to 4,7 metre high, standing as a visual reference.

Built in one week with the help of students, it was completed one month after the jury announcement. A total of 420 boxes were first fixed on a wooden structure and then attached to the main metal structure, on site. A huge LED net was fixed behind the boxes, allowing the bar to dramatically change its appearance: by day a white abstract and closed volume; and by night a box of changing light following the DJ set.

[via Dezeen]

Thanks for the additional info, João!

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CRAFT weekly recap

Posted: February 28th, 2010, 3:00pm MST

This week on CRAFT we saw:

Articulate Matter - A Sculptural Web Comic

The Making of David Ellison's Tables

Photoshop Cooking

DIY Play Laptop

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"Artist in residence from outer space" dies

Posted: February 28th, 2010, 2:01pm MST

Images from the McCall Studios website.

Sadly, famed science fiction and space exploration artist, Robert McCall, has died. He passed away on Friday, of a heart attack, in his Scottsdale, Arizona home.

Anybody who's paid even passing attention to sci-fi, the space program, or postage stamp art has seen Bob McCall's work. He painted the images on the 2001: A Space Odyssey poster, painted the amazing space mural at the Smithsonian's Air and Space Museum, and created many of the images found on NASA mission patches. His friend Isaac Asimov once described him as the "nearest thing to an artist in residence from outer space."

I remember pouring over his images as a kid and own a well-traveled copy of Vision of the Future, the Ben Bova book dedicated to McCall's work. He will be sorely missed by spacey visionaries everywhere. [Thanks, Rachel!]

Famed space artist Robert McCall, 90, dies

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Recycling design competition

Posted: February 28th, 2010, 12:00pm MST

Background: The Recycling Designprize

It is an „open" competition which invites all creatives and designers with professional or semi-professional education to submit their works and concepts.

We ask for the design of objects made of "garbage" and/or industrial rests of production. The objects should be made for daily use or for décor. The objects should be planned for production in "smaller" or "bigger" series in the frame of an institution of employment promotion. It is not allowed to use materials which are marked with the "green point" (which is a special german collection system for the packing material of consumer goods).

The aim of the designprize

Via the use of "littered things" (from industry, handicraft), garbage, "residual material", useless things shall become useable. The developed products shall be displayed for sale in institutions of employment promotion and generating so a social usability. The production of "clever", "beautiful" and "useful" objects which award a prize conduce the environment and are a contribution for employment promotion.

[via Core77] Read more | Permalink | Comments | Read more articles in Events | Digg this!

Free shipping in the Maker Shed ends today

Posted: February 28th, 2010, 10:21am MST

Today is the last day to take advantage of free shipping in the Maker Shed. So what's the catch? The offer is available on orders of $125 or more, shipped to an address in the continental US. But what about all our overseas friends? No problem, you can save $10 on shipping for orders over $125. Just remember to use coupon code FEBSHIP at checkout.

Need some inspiration? Check out our new MintyBoost bundle, compressed air rocket kits, or transparent breadboards. We are also taking pre-orders of our Make: Electronics Components Pack 1.

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DIY audio test box

Posted: February 28th, 2010, 9:00am MST

From the MAKE Flickr pool:

Check out Dave's excellent prototyping box built from a child's lap desk.

I frequently work on projects in the living room in front of the TV while sitting on the couch soldering away hunched over a disarray of wires, parts, wires, speakers, cords, breadboards, and tools. Whenever I want to work from the couch I have to go into the studio and make 15 trips up and down the stairs, cables, toolbox, parts boxes, soldering iron, etc. It's always a major hassle. Then, when I've finally completed mocking something up on the breadboard and I want to test it I need speakers, headphones, a sound source and I have to connect it all with alligator clips. It's really inefficient and makes me less apt to start a project because all I can think about is the huge mess it's going to make.

Dave's project write-up includes a great description of the build process as well as wiring diagrams. Awesome!

More:

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Gimbal-mounted kid's snack bowl

Posted: February 27th, 2010, 8:00pm MST

This product by Löopa is called the "gyro-bowl," in spite of the fact that, since it does not exploit conservation of angular momentum, there's really nothing "gyroscopic" about it. I haven't purchased, used, been given, been paid to endorse, or otherwise had any first-hand experience of this product, but the idea is certainly clever.

[Thanks, Billy Baque!]

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Permalink for 'MAKE_Magazine/2010/02/27/Tonight_10pm_ET_%e2%80%93_%e2%80%9cAsk_an_Engineer%e2%80%9d_%e2%80%93_Another_Make__Electronics_night_and_more_'

Tonight 10pm ET – “Ask an Engineer” – Another Make: Electronics night and more!

Posted: February 27th, 2010, 7:02pm MST

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I'll be helping out Ladyada with another night of "Ask an engineer" - the weekly LIVE video show about electronics and more in NYC - stop by if you're around! She'll be going over some more chapters in the Make: Electronics book!

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Small-space workbench

Posted: February 27th, 2010, 6:00pm MST

Make: Online reader Conor wrote in with a pic of his small, small workshop -- on top of an old traveler's trunk, underneath his loft bed in a 8x8' room! Kind of reminds me of Adam Wolf's closet workshop except with more Mexican candles. And what's that he's working on? An electric guitar slash bullhorn? The neighbors'll like that.

Readers, anyone else have a nifty solution for a space-deprived maker?

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Two feet of snow

Posted: February 27th, 2010, 2:30pm MST

Apparently, New York received two feet of snow during their latest storm. We were hit a little harder here in Pittsburgh, receiving just a nose more.

Puns aside, this is a pretty funny snow sculpture. My favorite for the season has been the fire-breathing snowman, but I have been too occupied with getting the stuff out of my way to take advantage of it as a building material. Have you built anything fun out of snow this year? [via neatorama]

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Hello, this is me speaking - Roger Ebert

Posted: February 27th, 2010, 1:33pm MST

Bilde
This is amazing, on Tuesday Roger Ebert will be using his own voice (made from old recordings) while on the Oprah show.

After I lost my speaking voice, everybody thought they had this brilliant idea. "Hey! Why don't you just take your voice from your old shows and put it on a computer?" Sounded good to me. I kept getting suggestions: "I know this guy who says it would be easy." Either there wasn't a guy or he didn't think it would be easy. In the meantime, I was using off-the-shelf computer voices on my laptop. My wife Chaz loved a voice named Lawrence, who had a British accent and sounded like a slightly crabby headmaster. Then I found a new Mac voice named Alex, who sounded like he knew when a sentence had ended.   One day I was moseying around the Web and found the name of a company in Edinburgh named CereProc. They claimed they could build voices for specific customers. They had demos of the voices of George W. Bush and Arnold Schwarzenegger. (I amused myself by having them argue with each other.) In August 2009, I sent an e-mail to Scotland and heard back from Paul Welham, the president of CereProc, and Graham Leary, one of their programming geniuses.  They said they needed good quality audio to work with. Hey, no problem. I'd been doing movie reviews on television since 1975 and had hours and hours of old programs. But it wasn't that simple. They listened to the old shows, and discovered (1) somebody else was always interrupting me, (2) I sounded all worked up a lot of the time, and (3) you could kinda hear the soundtracks of movies playing in the background.
....had an idea. Before I lost my voice due to cancer-related surgery, I'd recorded commentary tracks for some movies on DVD: "Citizen Kane," "Casablanca," "Floating Weeds," "Dark City" and, ah, "Beyond the Valley of the Dolls." These tracks had been recorded separately from the movies, so they could be edited to fit scenes. They might be "pure" audio. I asked two friends of mine, Ronnie Sass of Warner Bros. and Kim Hendrickson of the Criterion Collection, if they still had the original digital recordings. They rummaged in warehouses and found they did. So did New Line and 20th Century-Fox, studios for which I'd also recorded commentary tracks.

This began a back-and-forth process with CereProc, which had to transcribe every recording with perfect accuracy so they could locate every word. The "normal person" may use 5,000 words, not all of them on the same day. A college professor may use 15,000. Shakespeare used more than 25,000, but he was making up a lot of them as he went along.

Anyway, CereProc didn't need to hear me speaking a specific word in order for my "voice" to say it. They needed lots of words to determine the general idea of how I might say a word. They transcribed and programmed and tweaked and fiddled, and early this February, sent me the files for a beta version of my voice. I played it for Chaz, and she said, yes, she could tell it was me. For one thing it knew exactly how I said "I."

This was the voice I used in predicting the Oscar winners when Chaz and I taped a segment Friday of "The Oprah Winfrey Show." When it was just me talking with Oprah, I used Alex. That show will air on Tuesday, so you can hear for yourself. Yes, "Roger Jr." needs to be smoother in tone and steadier in pacing, but the little rascal is good. To hear him coming from my own computer made me ridiculously happy.

You can check out the CereVoice demos here.

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Maker haiku art print

Posted: February 27th, 2010, 12:00pm MST

If you haven't heard of 20x200, they're site that sells art prints in editions of 200 for 20 bucks each. One of their latest ones (oddly priced at $50 each with 500 printed... they should launch a sister site!) looks awesome and has a fun maker twist, created by Clifton Burt.

In April of 2007, John Maeda quietly posted a haiku he had written to his blog. It was entitled think-make-think, and to me it fulfilled the potential of Maeda's simplicity. Over the next few months, that haiku often found its way to the forefront of my mind. When our studio acquired the remnants of a discarded arrow sign, it was clear to me that think-make-think was a perfect fit, both in form and function.

Buy the print on 20x200.

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Bliptronic + Arduino = Monome compatible

Posted: February 27th, 2010, 6:30am MST

After some investigative hacking, Wil Lindsay added Monome functionality to a low cost Bliptronic 5000 melody generator using an Arduino + Arduinome source code. If the devices mentioned in the previous sentences leave you a tad confused, suffice it to say - the above-demonstrated hack adds nicey-nice versatile functionality to a $50 grid of LED buttons. For more info on how it's done, check out the Arduino sketch and relevant hardware hookup infos @ Stray Technologies. [via Matrixsynth]

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Make: Electronics kits for pre-order in the Shed

Posted: February 26th, 2010, 8:01pm MST

Photos of the prototypes of the Make: Electronics Components Packs. Our art department is still working on lovely sticker art for the cases. Each will also come with a cool Maker Shed Electronics Cheat Sheet (with resistor code values, etc).

They've been months in the making, in fact, the robo-elves in the Shed are still putting their greasy little end-effectors on the finishing touches, but I wanted to show 'em off to you anyway. It's the Make: Electronics Components Pack 1 and Components Pack 2, almost everything you need to build the projects from Chapter 1-4 of our tech bestseller Make: Electronics (e.g. sorry but we don't provide the lemons for the lemon battery experiment -- but don't think we didn't consider it!). In fact, we carefully considered everything that goes into these kits, and what they go into -- nice, sturdy compartmented plastic storage cases.

Pack 1 has over 200 components, Pack 2, over 100. And because nearly all of the projects are breadboarded, when you're done doing the experiments in the book, you'll still have nearly 300 components and two cases to get you off and running in your newfound electronics hobby. We say nearly 300, because some of the parts are intentionally harmed in the conducting of these experiments. But not to worry, none of the expensive ones. What are a few fried resistors amongst friends?

Component Pack 1 sells for $99.95 and is available for pre-order now and will be available mid-March. You can sign up to be alerted to Component Pack 2's availability and price. It too should be available mid-month.

Wanna get free shipping on the Component Pack 1? The Shed currently has a deal. Until the end of February, get free shipping on all orders over $125! Just enter coupon code FEBSHIP to your cart prior to checkout. Prior to entering the code, make sure your cart totals at least $125; free shipping will then be pre-selected from the drop-down shipping option.

And don't forget, Maker Shed also offers the Deluxe Toolkit, which includes the tools you need for the book (and getting started in electronics in general), a copy of Make: Electronics itself, and the newest edition of our popular Maker's Notebook.

In the Maker Shed:

Deluxe Make: Electronics Toolkit
Our Price: $124.99
Do you want to learn the fundamentals of electronics in a fun and experiential way? Not sure where to start, or what tools you might need? We've taken care of all the questions with our deluxe tool kit from the Maker Shed, featuring our best-selling book, Make: Electronics.

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Use your drill press in reverse to make perfectly centered holes

Posted: February 26th, 2010, 7:00pm MST

drill_a centered_hole.jpg

Vik Olliver put up a great tutorial about how you can successfully drill down the middle of a shaft using a standard drill press and cheap vise. To do this, you drill the part backwards, by putting the drill bit in the vise and the part in the drill press chuck. The trick is that you can line up the vise precisely by placing the drill bit into the chuck upside down, lowering the tool, then using it to align and clamp down the vise. Once the vise is secured, you release the drill bit from the chuck (but not the vise), and put the part in the chuck. Of course, a lathe might be preferable, but sometimes you have to work with the tools you have! [via Hack a Day]

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Japanese space elevator video

Posted: February 26th, 2010, 6:00pm MST

I'm not sure what's going on here but it appears to be an ode to space elevators. The uploader's YouTube channel also has similar videos saluting the Pioneer and Voyager space probes as well as one talking about terraforming Mars. [via the Space Elevator blog]

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Maker Business: Jenny Hart's "Crafting a Business" column

Posted: February 26th, 2010, 5:00pm MST

Illustration (by Alicia Traveria) for "The Many Arms of Promotion," by Jenny Hart, Venuszine.

Our pal, Jenny Hart, of Austin's Sublime Stitching, has a monthly column called "Crafting a Business with Jenny Hart" over on Venuszine. There's a lot of information here that's applicable to any type of crafting/maker business.

It seems to me that somewhere between working average day jobs and having your own successful business, there would be a scary transition. How did you handle that? Any tips for crafty women who would like to do the same but who don't have the courage?

You bet it was scary. Lost sleep, constant worrying, and seemingly endless work at two jobs: my day job and my dream job. It still is scary. But the scary part is different now. Attempts at making bigger strides, having more demand than resources to meet those demands, managing money wisely, and trying to find financial backing and business people in the industry who get the DIY movement (psst ... they don't) to possibly partner with. I've often felt very much like running a successful business is discovering the emperor has no clothes. Only, you're king at your own company, which means you're the one feeling naked.

From: Starting a small business is all about being innovative and savvy and learning from mistakes

What professional advisers should a small-business person hook up with at the beginning?

Every business will eventually need a lawyer and an accountant, but small businesses can often do without either for a while. A lot will depend on the kind of business you're running. If you need to incorporate right off the bat or have copyright, trademark, and/or patent concerns, then you'll want a lawyer right away. Even small service firms are wise to have a lawyer available for assistance with wording contracts, partnership agreements, and so on, though you can get a long way on the advice of books, small-business resource centers (many states have government-funded programs to help entrepreneurs with basic contract templates and such), and the occasional e-mail or phone call to a lawyer just to make sure your T's are crossed and your I's dotted. As for accounting help, if you're like us and start out as a partnership (the equivalent of an LLP in the U.S.), you can probably get away with just having a bookkeeper (which is a lot cheaper than an accountant), but if and when you incorporate, you'll need an accountant for sure.

From: Knowing how and when to hire a good adviser

You can read all of her columns to date here.

More:

In the Market:

Ultimate Embroidery Kit $30.00
Have you learned how to embroider yet? This kit will teach you how to get started even if you've never held a needle and thread. Unique, quality supplies all in one tidy package that will have you set for stitching not just one, but hundreds of possible projects. Even better: your kit will be lovingly hand-assembled for you in Austin, Texas.

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Formula One car model from shoeboxes

Posted: February 26th, 2010, 4:00pm MST

Ben Wilson Design did this awesome F1 race car model entirely out of red Puma shoe boxes (for a Puma promotion). [via DudeCraft]

PUMA F1 CAR-D

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Double-whammy lighting/heating energy saving tank hack

Posted: February 26th, 2010, 3:20pm MST

LED tankwater cooling hack.jpg

Flickr user fotogra4er replaced the fluorescent tubes lighting his aquarium with LEDs. Which, of course, make way more light and way less heat for the same amount of energy. Then he upped the ante by cooling the LED lighting bank with circulated tank water, exploiting what waste heat the LEDs do generate to warm it, and thus saving even more power that would otherwise go to the tank heater.

[via Hack a Day]

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Designing a radio with a single type of transistor

Posted: February 26th, 2010, 2:00pm MST

What do you do once you are already a skilled radio designer and restorer? Well, if you are Greg Charvot, you decide to build a shortwave radio using a single type of transistor as an active element. Normally, one would use number of different transistors, each designed to handle different amounts of power and amplifying bandwidth. Limiting yourself to a single type may seem like a mental exercise today (pun intended), but was apparently much more common back when transistors weren't easy to come by, so Greg isn't completely off his rocker. Also, by only using one kind of part, it should make repairs much easier.

Designing a radio like this is a little bit complicated, but not nearly as much as it might sound. The trick is to divide the radio function into manageable pieces, which can then be designed and tested individually. You will notice that Greg's radio (pictured above) is made up of a bunch of small prototyping boards. Each board contains a single circuit with a specific function, and physically separating them makes it much easier to test the parts, as well as swap out the ones that might be malfunctioning. It's also a neat design aesthetic, because it very closely resembles the way you would draw an electrical schematic to represent the circuit.

If you are interested in building a radio, I would strongly recommend giving it a go. Start with a kit, though, and pick one that explains the design of each stage so that you can learn how it works. It will definitely be an interesting experience, and who knows, it could be the start of a new passion! If you have a favorite kit or other guide to recommend, chime in on the comments.

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Is the TechShop model in trouble?

Posted: February 26th, 2010, 1:00pm MST

It sounded like a dream: a health club for nerds, only instead of treadmills and weight sets, members paid $125/month to work with CNC routers, laser cutters, and other high-end gadgets. The first of three TechShops opened in Menlo Park, California in 2006 but two more, one in Beaverton OR and the other in Durham, NC followed.

Currently, only the Cali shop remains open.

Both the TechShop Portland and TechShop Durham have closed their doors and are seeking smaller spaces. In the former case, it appears the shop was evicted after missing two months' rent.

In a Toolmonger.com forum thread, TechShop Durham founder Scott Saxon blamed the economy:

We have just under 25,000 sf here and secured our lease, as did Portland, during financially good times. The economy tanked right after we both started. Lack of funding is not the reason for anything. The reason we are moving is the landlord is unwilling to adjust to the current times. The rent here is simply too much.

We are moving to a much cheaper facility and with our present membership, about the same as Portland, we will succeed in 2010. I believe Portland will do the same. This is not political speak. This is just the way it is as told by the numbers.

Could it also be that the shops are experiencing member drain from the burgeoning hackerspace movement?

What do you think, readers? Is the day of the giant franchised TechShop over, to replaced by smaller, leaner, nonprofit hackerspaces? Will Portland and RDU bounce back along with the economy? Leave your thoughts in comments.

Note: A member of the Portland community asked me to link to the ">TechShop Portland forums which has additional discussion of the situation there.

More:

TechShop - A place for Makers to work on their projects

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Book giveaway + project excerpt: 62 Projects to Make with a Dead Computer by Randy Sarafan

Posted: February 26th, 2010, 12:00pm MST

Enclosure: [download]

62 Projects to Make with a Dead Computer by Randy Sarafan
Book site: deadcomputerbook.com
Buy on Amazon

We all have old, broken, or otherwise junk electronics stashed away in our closets. Randy Sarafan's 62 Projects to Make with a Dead Computer is just what it sounds like and much more, inspiring makers to repurpose mice, scanners, iPods, and yes, computers, to make high-tech housewares, newly-functioning gadgets, and accessories. The projects run the gamut of techniques, and with sections like fashion, pets, and music, there's something for everyone. Not only is the book full of DIY ideas, it also has excellent primers on electronics parts and the safety concerns regarding taking apart and repurposing tech-junk. Once you make your own upcycled projects, you can enter them in Instructables' Dead Computer Contest, where the deadline is March 7th.

Book Giveaway Time!

We're giving away 3 copies of 62 Projects to Make with a Dead Computer. Just leave a comment on this post, letting us know what kind of dead technology you have, just waiting to be transformed. We'll grab the winners' emails from your commenter account, so don't put your email address in the comment box! All comments will be closed by Noon PST on Monday, March 1st. The lucky winners will be announced next week on the MAKE Twitter feed. Good luck!

Sample Project: IR Camera

Over the years, I have collected a number of digital cameras that are not quite broken, but are definitely no longer quite working as they should. And as it turns out, a somewhat-broken camera is the perfect device for dabbling your feet in camera hacking. You already don’t expect it to work exactly as it should, so if you make a mistake, there isn’t the greatest loss. On the other hand, when you succeed in modifying it, the results are often phenomenal and result in experimental pictures that often far exceed all expectations.

Download the project PDF to make your own IR Camera!

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The Man Behind MacGyver: Swiss Army Knife or Duct Tape? @ Lifehacker

Posted: February 26th, 2010, 11:16am MST

340X Lee David Zlotoff
Great interview @ Lifehacker with Lee (who writes for MAKE each month!)... Kevin writes -

With our DIY Week coming to a close, we thought we'd ask Lee David Zlotoff, creator of MacGyver and inspiration to clever makers and hackers everywhere, to share some of his thoughts on DIY, fix-all tools, widespread MacGyver-love, and MacGruber. Zlotoff grew up in Brooklyn and graduated from Brooklyn Technical High School, where he thrived in shop and pre-engineering classes. After landing in Hollywood, he picked up work as a writer on Hill Street Blues, a producer on Remington Steele, and, through a twist of fate and over-selling, creator and producer of MacGyver, the 1985-1992 action series whose secret agent refused to use a gun, preferred non-violent solutions, getting himself out of tricky situations using whatever he had on hand. Sure, some of the stuff at hand seemed a little too coincidental, but the solutions were vetted by scientists and engineers, even if not every step was shown to prevent eager fans from trying at home.

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Tesla's letterhead

Posted: February 26th, 2010, 11:00am MST

I was only peripherally interested in high-voltage electronics when I was in school, but if someone had told me I could have an awesome letterhead like this this one, it would have totally changed my career. It's said to have been used by Nikola Tesla, the brilliant and eccentric inventor that brought us everything from AC power distribution to Tesla coils. [via boingboing]

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Machined billet aluminum toothbrush case

Posted: February 26th, 2010, 10:19am MST

This toothbrush holder by Dominic Wilcox may be slightly over-engineered, but it's always better to err on the side of caution when it comes to toothbrush security. Learned that the hard way.

[via Boing biggity Boing]

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Machined billet aluminum toothbrush case

Posted: February 26th, 2010, 10:19am MST

This toothbrush holder by Dominic Wilcox may be slightly over-engineered, but it's always better to err on the side of caution when it comes to toothbrush security. Learned that the hard way.

[via Boing biggity Boing]

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Back in the Maker Shed: tinyCylon kit & more

Posted: February 26th, 2010, 8:38am MST

We just received a fresh supply of tinyCylon kits in the Maker Shed. Not into Cylons? *gasp* Then maybe a Lux Spectralis or WeeBlinky might be a good choice? All these kits are really easy to solder together, and the end result is a lot of fun. If you do like Cylons, don't forget to check out our How-to Tuesday: tinyCylon kit for complete details on how to make your own!

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Professor destroys laptop with liquid nitrogen

Posted: February 26th, 2010, 7:04am MST

Physics professor Kieran Mullen of OU apparently has a hard-and-fast rule against laptops in class. To drive the point home, he staged a public execution of one by freezing it in liquid nitrogen and smashing it against the floor, where its broken remains were left as a warning to others. Of course the whole thing is staged and the laptop in question was old and worthless, but hey, any excuse to freeze stuff with LN2...

[via Engadget]

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Weekend Project: Magic Photo Cube

Posted: February 26th, 2010, 6:01am MST

Enclosure: [download]

Make a fun and easy desktop cube that magically reveals photos. Thanks go to Ken Wade for the original article in MAKE Volume 21.

To download The Magic Photo Cube video click here and subscribe in iTunes. Check out the complete Magic Photo Cube article in MAKE Volume 21 and you can see that in our Digital Edition.

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Weekend Project: Magic Photo Cube (PDF)

Posted: February 26th, 2010, 6:00am MST

Enclosure: [download]

Make a fun and easy desktop cube that magically reveals photos. Thanks go to Ken Wade for the original article in MAKE Volume 21.

View the PDF of this project. And then subscribe to MAKE magazine for other great projects
you can do over the weekend.

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Fairytale Fashion show 2010 - Diana Eng (video)

Posted: February 26th, 2010, 4:30am MST

Enclosure: [download]

MAKE, CRAFT and Maker Faire were sponsors of the Fairytale Fashion show 2010 with Diana Eng, here's my video - above in glorious HD (m4v here).

The Fairytale Fashion Collection uses technology to create magical clothing in real life. Electronics, mechanical engineering, and mathematics are used to create clothing with blooming flowers, changing colors and transforming shapes. Research and development for the Fairytale Fashion collection are shared online at FairytaleFashion.org as an educational tool that teaches about science, math, and technology through fashion. Fairytale Fashion was created with the support of Eyebeam Art and Technology Center nonprofit. Diana Eng is a fashion designer who specializes in technology, math, and science. Her designs range from inflatable clothing to fashions inspired by mechanical engineering. She is a designer from Bravo’s Emmy nominated TV show, Project Runway season 2 and author of Fashion Geek: Clothes, Accessories, Tech. Diana is cofounder of NYC Resistor hacker group. Diana is currently a resident artist at Eyebeam.

Great show, nice to see everyone from the maker scene in NYC at the show too!

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Illuminate your eye loupe with this Instructable

Posted: February 26th, 2010, 4:00am MST

Dhananjay Gadre is at it again, with a simple yet very useful Instructable for a LED illuminated eye loupe. I always want more light to see the objects I'm trying to magnify. I love how this niftly hack solves that problem!

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Bionic feet becoming reality

Posted: February 26th, 2010, 3:00am MST

Natural disasters like the earthquake in Haiti and man-made tragedies like soldiers or civilians losing limbs to explosives drive the need for better prosthetic limbs. Improved treatments are on the horizon in the form of novel foot and ankle prosthesis which behave energetically more like the human body than existing technologies. These powered devices can efficiently store and return impact energy during walking, and do so at the appropriate point in the gait cycle so that the user can walk more easily. A device designed by engineers at University of Michigan reduces walking energy by over 30%, compared to a traditional prosthetic foot. The researchers recorded cool high-speed video of the device in use. [from R&D Mag]

Another very cool and innovative technology is the iWalk PowerFoot One.

This bionic foot-ankle prosthesis was pioneered by a researcher at MIT, Dr. Hugh Herr. I had the pleasure of meeting him last year and was truly inspired by the encounter. He epitomizes passion for engineering, and is one of the few engineering researchers I've met who deftly and simultaneously applies scientific research and engineering technology to his work. A documentary was made about Dr. Herr, and the trailer is definitely worth a moment to view.

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Mouse usage visualization

Posted: February 26th, 2010, 2:00am MST

Architect Alan Tansey of Brooklyn, NY traced his mouse movement for one day. Click the image to see it full-sized.

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Guitar pedal board

Posted: February 25th, 2010, 10:00pm MST

Maybe it's 'cause I'm still all aflutter over the new guitar kits in the Shed, but I paid special interest to this guitar pedal board and travel case that MAKE subscriber Ian, of Tiny Little Life, sent to us. He writes:

Steps in the construction of a pedalboard that I built for the guitarist in my band. This board is a mashup of a whole bunch of really great ideas I found from other DIY designs online. Plus, its covered in flannel.

A Flannel Guitar Pedalboard

More:

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"PWM Line-Voltage Interface Brightens Your Outlook"

Posted: February 25th, 2010, 9:00pm MST

Latest GadgetFreak is up over at Design News...

Several of William Grill's designs have included pulse-width modulator (PWM) circuits that control LEDs. But what about the control of line-powered lamps and fixtures? You can find several commercial PWM controllers, but build one yourself, save money and learn how to implement a microcontroller-based design. This circuit is no flash in the pan.

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How-To: Treadmill desk

Posted: February 25th, 2010, 6:00pm MST

This Eric Wilhelm's treadmill desk. He's the CEO of Instructables, and he walks while he works. I'd like to do something similar, but with a bike!

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Lovely solargraphy photos

Posted: February 25th, 2010, 5:00pm MST

Polar and horizontal mounts of solargraph 35mm pinhole-can cameras. Images captured in Nuremberg, German. Camera: plastic 35mm film cans, paper: Agfa BS310 RC. [Spotted on the MAKE Flickr pool]

More nifty solargraphy pics in the Solargraphy Flickr pool.

Polar and Horizontal Can-Mount

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Twitter-enabled LED matrix end table

Posted: February 25th, 2010, 3:04pm MST

Jason Moungey of macetech dropped me an e-mail yesterday to let me know that the 9x9 RGB LED matrix table they were showing off at Maker Faire Bay Area 2009 (as shown above) has been upgraded with a Bluetooth shield that lets it receive tweets that control the display. Construction and programming details are available here, and there's a live feed of the table here.

[Thanks, Jason!]

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DIY Music comes to Maker Shed, killer guitar kits!

Posted: February 25th, 2010, 2:01pm MST

I am over the moon with excitement for these new Saga guitar (and banjo, mandolin) kits the Maker Shed is now carrying. I've been ogling such kits ever since Steve Lodefink did a kit-guitar project on his blog. These instrument kits require just enough work that you feel like you've really accomplished something, and you get bragging rights for having built your own axe. The customizing possibilities are also exciting. My credit card started trying to sweet talk its way out of my wallet the second I saw these in the Shed. I think *I've* sweet talked the Shed into sending me a kit to assemble and document for the site. Editorship has its privileges (that and a lot of unseemly begging).

A bunch of MAKE staff members are being similarly seduced by their pocket plastic and the call of these kits. I smell MAKE staff DIY jam band at the next Maker Faire! Move over Spinal Tap!

The kits come in a variety of guitar styles, from flying V to double cut-away, and range in price from $179 - $259. There are two bass models (at $195), two mandolins (one electric, one acoustic), and two banjo kits.

One of the things I'm most excited about is coming up with some amazing veneer or finish and a design for the peghead. Not to mention the creation of my own nameplate to attach to it.

Then my next DIY music project after that will be re-learning how to play the guitar! I haven't played since high school.

In the Maker Shed:

DIY Music section
Offering acoustic and electric stringed instrument kits, synth kits, and sound generators.

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Hack your servo for 10 bit precision

Posted: February 25th, 2010, 2:00pm MST

Enclosure: [download]

From the MAKE Forums:

Hobby servos are great for quick jobs, but if you attempt to do very precise work with them, their limited resolution quickly becomes an issue. Forum user came up with an elegant solution, using a high-resolution magnetic sensor to detect the rotation:

Modified continuous-rotation servos are used extensively by roboticists due to their small form-factor, enclosed motor-gearbox, ease of mounting and high-availability. Some users keep the original drive electronics and the potentiometer feedback element but this approach allows for limited position control and velocity control / profiling. Others tend to remove them and use external control/drive boards and custom-made encoders. Ideally one would prefer to have the feedback element and the new drive electronics enclosed inside the servo. Unfortunately hacks involving optical devices and code-wheels have very limited resolution and require a lot of precise work.
Magnetic encoders use spinning current Hall technology to measure magnetic flux distribution across the surface of the chip. They typically come in high resolutions and require very few external components. The operational setup requires a small disk magnet with circumferential field distribution to be attached on the rotating element whose angular deflection is to be measured, and in close proximity to the sensor IC.

This hack utilises Austrian Microsystems' sensor IC as feedback element for a modified servo. The servo to be hacked is the popular Hitec HS485 HB.

Of course, you could probably just buy a higher resolution servo, but where's the fun in that?

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Industrial designer advocates hackable products

Posted: February 25th, 2010, 1:00pm MST

A lot of makers find themselves annoyed by throwaway products that can't be fixed and are hard to open. Check out this interesting article by Alex Diener discussing the phenomenon from the opposite perspective: an industrial designer's. To illustrate, Diener attempts to open up a busted iron (video above).

Design for Disassembly is a design strategy that considers the future need to disassemble a product for repair, refurbish or recycle. Will a product need to be repaired? Which parts will need replacement? Who will repair it? How can the experience be simple and intuitive? Can the product be reclaimed, refurbished, and resold? If it must be discarded, how can we facilitate its disassembly into easily recyclable components? By responding to questions like these, the DfD method increases the effectiveness of a product both during and after its life.

Our ancient tools, meticulously crafted from natural materials and intended for repair and reuse, are perhaps the earliest example of DfD. During the 1950's rise of consumerism, fueled by mass production methods, cheap labor, and design fashion, disposability became the norm. Over time, the waste created by planned obsolescence and a throw-away culture was exposed. Organizations studied the negative impacts of toxins found in our product waste and governments began to regulate. In 2004, the European Union passed the landmark WEEE (Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment) Directive, placing the responsibility of disposing electronic products with their manufacturers. This tectonic shift was recognized as a sign of things to come by global manufacturers, driving interest in the DfD strategy.

Remember, if you can't open it, you don't own it!

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World Maker Faire community meeting

Posted: February 25th, 2010, 12:00pm MST

Last night many NYC makers, doers, and shakers met at the Martha Stewart Living offices in New York to talk about World Maker Faire, which will take place in September in collaboration with the New York Hall of Science in Flushing Meadows, Queens. Bridgette Vanderlaan from the Maker Faire team posted up some photos to the Maker Faire Facebook page.

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MacGyver of the Day: Electronics Hacker Jeri Ellsworth - Makers @ Lifehacker

Posted: February 25th, 2010, 11:51am MST

Assets Images 17 2010 02 Jeri Ellsworth Nw Trip
MacGyver of the Day: Electronics Hacker Jeri Ellsworth - Makers - Lifehacker - Electronics hacker, chip maker, race car builder, pin ball machine maker, blowing-stuff-up'er...

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This week in Maker Events

Posted: February 25th, 2010, 11:30am MST

Looking to take a break from tinkering on your latest project this weekend? Here are some fine maker events to check out, from The Maker Events Calendar. Wish your event was on the list? Add it to the calendar!

Coming up this week:

Wireside Chat and Artificial Intelligence @HacDC
Washington, DC
Thursday, Feb 25th, 2010, 6pm - 7pm

Handmade Music @ the Hack Factory
Minneapolis, MN
Thursday, Feb 25th, 2010, 7pm - 10pm

Philly Robotics Meetup @Hive 76
Philadelphia, PA
Thursday, Feb 25, 2010, 7:30pm - 9:30pm

Friday Night at The Crucible
Oakland, CA
Friday, Feb 26, 2010, 6:30pm - 9:30pm

Open Shop/celebration @i3Detroit
Royal Oak, MI
Friday, Feb 26, 2010, 6:30pm +

Prototyping With Ponoko / Intro to Documentation Lighting @HackPittsburgh
Pittsburgh, PA
Friday, Feb 26, 2010, 7:00pm - 10pm

Learn to control the Arduino @Kwartzlab
Kitchener, ON
Saturday, Feb 27, 2010, 1pm - 5pm

LVL1 Solder Your Own Freeduino Workshop @ UofL
Louisville, KY
Saturday, Feb 27, 2010, 1pm - 4pm

Public Arduino Night @ theTransistor
Provo, UT
Saturday, Feb 27, 2010, 5pm - 8pm

Hacker EPROM @NoiseBridge
San Francisco, CA
Saturday, Feb 27, 2010, 8pm +

Make:SF @ Tech Liminal
Oakland, CA
Tuesday, Mar 2, 2010, 7:30pm - 9pm

Project Lab with Expert Included
Berkeley, CA
Tuesday, Mar 2, 2010, 3pm - 6pm

Drop-in Arduino and Electronics classes
Berkeley, CA
Tuesday, Mar 2, 2010, 7pm - 9pm

Take Apart Tuesdays @Crash Space
Culver City, CA
Tuesday, Mar 2, 2010, 8:30pm - 9:30pm

Open Night @Interlock Rochester
Rochester, NY
Tuesday, Mar 2, 2010, 7pm+

March 2010 Dorkbot: Kit Night
Seattle, WA
Wednesday, Mar 3, 2010, 7pm - 10pm

Arduino Hacknight @HeatSync Labs
Mesa, AZ
Wednesday, Mar 3, 2010, 7pm - 10pm

Start planning for:

Introduction to Electronics @Metrix Create Space
Seattle, WA
Sunday, Mar 7, 2010, 2pm - 4:30pm

Make:SF @ reMake Lounge
San Francisco, CA
Tuesday, Mar 09, 2010, 6:30pm - 8:30pm

Maker Faire Newcastle
Newcastle, UK
Saturday, Mar 13, 2010 - Sunday, Mar 14, 2010

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Superconductor levitates around circular supermagnet track

Posted: February 25th, 2010, 10:22am MST

Before going any further, I really should say thanks to William J. Beaty, a research engineer in the Chemistry department at the University of Washington, who e-mailed me a few days ago with a link to his page of odd physics videos, which I have been systematically mining for content ever since!

This latest gem shows a piece of high temperature superconductor floating around a closed track made of rare-earth magnets. YouTuber majos explains:

High-temperature superconductor (Yttrium barium copper oxide) floating in the magnetic field of Neodymium magnets. This phenomenon is called the Meißner-Ochsenfeld-Effect and was discovered in 1933. The superconductor has to be cooled with liquid nitrogen which has a temperature of 77 K or −196 °C. If it is placed in a strong magnetic field it remains in its position. It also works if you turn the track upside down.

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Wear It Well, Young Makers (2/27)

Posted: February 25th, 2010, 9:28am MST

Enclosure: [download]

Join the MAKE team along with Pixar and TechShop for the Young Makers program Saturday (2/27) from 11am to 3pm at the Exploratorium in San Francisco, CA.

Our "Meet the Makers" session will begin at 11 am in the McBean Theatre. Our goal is to explore the work of a variety of makers and gain insight into the maker mindset. I will ask some questions, but we hope kids will have their own questions to ask these makers. This program will feature smart fabrics, soft circuits, and wearables. We'll see examples of how electronics is literally being woven into clothing and increasingly incorporated into the world of fashion.

Our featured makers are:

Adrian Freed

Adrian Freed is Research Director of the Center for New Music and Audio Technologies (CNMAT) program at Berkeley. He uses smart materials to teach electronics to kids. He will also talk about how conductive fabrics can enable new ways of making music.
(For more, see Adrian Freed's web page)

Grace Kim

A graduate of the Interactive Telecommunications Program at NYU, Grace Kim will talk about construction techniques in wearable technology (as in the garment shown above). Her work has been displayed at the Future Fashion Event, at Viaggio Telecom in Pisa, Italy, and the Gray Area Foundation for the Arts (GAFFTA) in San Francisco. (For more, see Grace Kim's NYU Thesis Project)

Daniela Rosner

A Ph.D student at the I-School at Berkeley, Daniela will talk about recent developments of the Spyn project, which now uses a Nexus One mobile phone to capture the stories people associate with handmade objects. Her work was featured in this article [PDF] from CRAFT magazine. (For more, see Daniela Rosner and Spyn Project).

In the Open MAKE session that follows from 12-3pm, we'll have several hands-on activities on the Exploratorium floor demonstrating "soft" circuits and working with conductive fabric and thread. (We think that these activities are geared toward ages 12 and above but younger kids can participate but might need some additional support from parents.)

Build Your Own Bling - Make simple circuits (LED-battery) for rings, barettes, or pins.

Sew-a-circuit - Learn embroidery techniques with inspired by electronic designs.

As I've mentioned previously, the goal of the Young Makers program is to demonstrate to kids different modes of making and encourage them to make things. We also hope the program will develop young makers who exhibit their own work at Maker Faire. Members of the Maker Faire team will also be present. Come by if you have questions about how you, your school or organization can participate in this year's Maker Faire.

Gather your kids and their friends and join us at the Exploratorium this Saturday.

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How-To: Basic work table

Posted: February 25th, 2010, 9:13am MST

Randy Sarafan made this work table geared towards making DIY projects and documenting them:

I set out to make a simple work table for my home studio so that I could have a surface upon which to work and document projects. I tried to keep the design as simple as possible as I only have a limited arsenal of power tools, a small vehicle for transporting materials and little patience for woodworking.

This design proved to be successful in accounting for all of these requirements.

More:

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Hands-on with FEZ Mini, a .NET-powered microcontroller (+ robot kit)

Posted: February 25th, 2010, 8:00am MST

Szymon Kobalczyk, one of my collaborators on the Generic Serial Driver for Windows 7 Sensor and Location Platform project, recently posted a link in our forum to the FEZ line of .NET-powered microcontroller kits. Shortly after that, Gus Issa from GHI Electronics (makers of the FEZ) got in touch, and sent kits to both Simon and me. Simon's had a chance to play around with the kit and build the robot shown in the video above:

Two reflective sensors are included in the kit (useful for line following and edge detection projects), and you can order additional components both from TinyCLR.com and other robotics sites. Many construction parts are included in the kit so it is very easy to attach additional sensors or other parts. As you can see on the picture above, I already added a Sharp IR distance sensor in front (so I can teach the robot to not bump on walls). I also added an Xbee expansion board on the back so one day I can control the robot remotely (and my Holy Grail is to connect the robot to Microsoft Robotics Developer Studio).

...

In my previous post I complained how upset I'm that there is no cheap .NET Micro Framework hardware for hobbyists. Now I can take it back. IMHO we finally have a very powerful alternative to Arduino and similar platforms, with the price that won't break the bank (especially with FEZ Mini).

The FEZ comes in two form factors: the FEZ Mini, which has a pin configuration that's compatible with the BASIC Stamp from Parallax; the FEZ Domino, which is pin-compatible with the Arduino USB models (and they even have a beta driver for the WIZnet Ethernet module used in Arduino Ethernet shields).

First day with FEZ Mini Robot Kit

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If Death were a minifig

Posted: February 25th, 2010, 7:00am MST

Flickr user DROP HPC-ANC is responsible for this fantastic mural featuring a Lego version of The Grim Reaper. Sir or madam, whoever you are, wherever you are, I'd very much like to shake your hand.

[via Neatorama]

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Custom DIY MIDI controller boards

Posted: February 25th, 2010, 6:00am MST

Livid's Builder series consists of a central USB-MIDI "Brain" board plus several input boards, each size-customizable for use with LED pushbuttons, rotary potentiometers, or faders. The system could definitely speed-up construction of that controller-of-your-dreams project - just be sure you won't end up wanting a few more buttons after you've drilled/cut the enclosure (guessing I probably would). Specifics available over at Livid Instruments. [via Create Digital Music]

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Model of Herod's Temple continues to grow after 30 years

Posted: February 25th, 2010, 5:00am MST

Model maker and retired farmer Alex Garrard has spent over 33,000 hours bringing his scale model of Herod's Temple to life. Meticulously researched, it accommodates over 4,000 figures and occupies over 200 square feet.

"Everything is made by hand. I cut plywood frames for the walls and buildings and all the clay bricks and tiles were baked in the oven then stuck together," he says.

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Major hackers to infiltrate Rhode Island

Posted: February 25th, 2010, 4:00am MST

How big is Rhode Island? Well, it's about the size of... Rhode Island! Sometimes I feel like part of a strange joke living in the national yardstick. So it is with great excitement, yet great concern that I noticed several major hackers will be descending on Little Rhody for QuahogCon. Is the state big enough to contain celebrity hackers Jimmie P. Rodgers, Mitch Altman, and Matthew Borgatti?

I can't wait to find out. Maybe there will be a hacker showdown at high noon! Maybe we'll all survive the genius onslaught long enough to hear Matthew Borgatti give the closing keynote and hopefully explain how he got so many snakes on that plane.

I'll be sure to share whatever stories I'm able to escape with, but you might just have to experience it firsthand. I recommend bringing a bicycle with lights and an open mind, prepared for talks like gender hacking and maybe a late-night secret bicycle adventure through the streets and alleyways of Providence, led by yours truly...

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Ultra-slow-exposure pinhole photography

Posted: February 25th, 2010, 2:00am MST

Finnish photographer Ollipekka Kangas tapes pinhole cameras to trees and sign poles for months at a time, accumulating some pretty crazy imagery.

Basically solarigraphic camera is a pinhole camera, very slow one. These pinhole photographs taken with a lensless pinhole camera with a extra long exposure. I use black&white paper which is 5-10 ASA. Exposure time can be very long, in some photos up to six months. Usually average camera is hidden in city for one to two months. The picture will appear without developing photographic paper with any kind of chemicals. Exposured paper is scanned in darkness and developed in Photoshop. All the cameras are very low tech, cheap boxes, canisters or film cans. I can take only like 5 pictures in month.

Sun draws many interesting traces in photos, you can really see the time passing by. Some times camera is tilted by passerby or tape just goes loose. Double exposures or traces of humidity can be seen in photos.

[via @GreatDismal]

More:

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The open source restaurant - The Instructables restaurant

Posted: February 24th, 2010, 9:00pm MST

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Follow up to our 12/2009 post! The open source restaurant - The Instructables restaurant. We love everything about this... Springwise writes -

Back in 2008 we wrote about Arne Hendriks's plan to create a crowdsourced restaurant in Amsterdam. As of December, the resulting eatery--called by its founders "the world's first open source restaurant"--has now opened.

At the Instructables Restaurant, which launched as a pop-up event at the historic Theatrum Anatomicum of the Waag in Amsterdam, patrons receive not only creatively-cooked food but also instructions for preparing everything they see, eat and use--including the furniture. For example, someone seeking the recipe for the Tom Kha Gai soup they just enjoyed can either claim it at the restaurant or download it online; and anyone interested in making their own versions of the restaurant's recycled 50-gallon barrel chairs can do likewise.

Everything in the restaurant derives from Instructables, a web-based documentation platform where people share their expertise with others, whether it's cooking, pottery or woodworking. Even the instructions for creating the restaurant itself are now available on Instructables.com.

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Instructables Restaurant is the first open source restaurant in the world. Everything you see, use and eat is downloaded from instructables.com. It is an experiment in "digesting free internet culture". Instructables - Instructables is a web-based documentation platform where passionate people share what they do and how they do it, and learn from and collaborate with others. The seeds of Instructables germinated at the MIT Media Lab as the future founders of Squid Labs built places to share their projects and help others. Instructables supports the use of Creative Commons Licenses for uploaded instructables.

Instructables Restaurant
Everything in the restaurant is downloaded from Instructables, and what we could not find there, we added to its contents. Download it or take the instruction with you from the restaurant during your visit.

The Instructables Restaurant comes with full instructions for everything. In most restaurants you get to buy and enjoy the food. In some restaurants, if you like the furniture you can buy it. But in the Instructables Restaurant you go home knowing how to make the food as well as the furniture. We give you the instructions and recipes!

The Internet is full of passive information, and more is added every second. By really using and implementing this information not only do you plug into a world of know-how but it's also great for the people who have shared their knowledge. That's why crediting them is important!

The Instructables Restaurant originates from the input of others. This creates a different notion of ownership and the intellectual property of a regular business. A lot of the input comes from others. This is what we like about the idea.

The Instructables Restaurant creates a space between limitless information and reality. It's a 2.0 dock station where digital and real connect and communicate.

And of course, you can make your own.

9780596519520-2
The Best of Instructables Volume I. With more than 10,000 projects to choose from, the Instructables staff, editors of MAKE: Magazine, and the Instructables community itself have put together a collection of technology how-to's from the site.

And lastly! I just profiled the brains and brawn (and the brawn and brains) behind Instructables!

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In the Market: "Funky metal trees"

Posted: February 24th, 2010, 8:31pm MST

I love watching Makers Market filling up each day with amazing new work, with offerings that run the gamut from inexpensive geeky gadgetry to one of a kind pieces of art. One of the discoveries I've recently gone gaga over is the wire and wood tree sculptures by Kevin, dba "kaitrees."

As he explains in the above video, the wires he uses to sculpt the trees are continuous, from root to branches and leaves. The wires in the 21" sculpture above started out at six feet in length! Kevin humbly describes his creations as "funky metal trees." Some of them take over a hundred hours to complete. The above piece he estimates at about 160 hours.

Makers Market: Kaitrees

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Scratch-built SLR camera

Posted: February 24th, 2010, 5:01pm MST

This discussion board is in French, but it's still fascinating and rewarding enough to scroll through the postings to see the progress pics of this scratch-built SLR camera. Really inspiring. [Thanks, Jacek Tomasiak!]

SLR From Scratch

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What Was I Thinking? Part 4: Hamsterlamp

Posted: February 24th, 2010, 4:30pm MST

Like my previous What Was I Thinking? projects (light fishture, hangerhedra), this one resulted from an aha! moment that sort of spiraled out of control. Unlike those projects, however, this one has a happy ending, in that something more-or-less good did, eventually, come from it.

It began, predictably enough, with an over-caffeinated trip to the pet store...

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Toolbox: First aid

Posted: February 24th, 2010, 4:01pm MST

In the Make: Online Toolbox, we focus mainly on tools that fly under the radar of more conventional tool coverage: in-depth tool-making projects, strange or specialty tools unique to a trade or craft that can be useful elsewhere, tools and techniques you may not know about, but once you do, and incorporate them into your workflow, you'll wonder how you ever lived without them. And, in the spirit of the times, we pay close attention to tools that you can get on the cheap, make yourself, or refurbish.

Since it's Projects: Failure month, we figured it might be a good idea to cover some first aid in Toolbox, 'cause frequently, when projects fail, danger and injury go hand and hand. Here are a few suggestions for first aid kits and supplies to have on-hand.

Years ago, I contributed to Kevin Kelly's self-published Cool Tools book. As "payment," he sent me the Adventure Medical Fundamentals First Aid kit. I love it and it's become the basis of our home and workshop first aid kit. It's geared towards outdoor use (hiking, camping, and such), but with a few additions, it works great as an overall kit. Along with the tools, med supplies, and medications, it comes with an excellent first aid field manual. It's all stored in a very compact, water-resistant zippered case. At an SRP of $110, this might seem like overkill, but it has pretty much everything you need for just about any type of emergency. If you do any camping, boating, hiking, long-distance cycling, long-trip car traveling, etc., it's worth the price (and you can get it online for $87).

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ASCII keyboard emulator makes connecting to Apple I easy

Posted: February 24th, 2010, 3:15pm MST

Spotted in the MAKE Flickr pool:

Flickr user llemarie wanted an easy way to upload programs to an Apple I replica computer that he was building, because typing them in by hand was tedious and error prone. To solve the problem, he used an Arduino to build this ASCII keyboard emulator, allowing him to copy and paste programs over to the computer with ease. Of course, it's kind of funny to use two powerful computer to program one hobby computer, but for expediency it can't be beat.

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Modular 3D printed Arduino case

Posted: February 24th, 2010, 2:30pm MST

I like this nifty, 3D printed Arduino case that I saw on Shapeways:

IHeartEngineering says:

This is a modular case for the Arduino Microcontroller. It has been designed to fit 6 across in a 1U Rack with a little room to spare. M3 Screws are suggested and not included. The holes have not been drilled or tapped, so you can use #4-40 screws as well.

You can have one made in a variety of materials with prices starting at $77.71. Now, that seems pretty expensive for a project case, but I imagine it's much cheaper than having an injection mold made.

I like the rounded corners, in fact I'm jealous of them. Since I tend to make stuff for laser cut construction there are certain unavoidable 90 degree angles. Unless I bust out a router or get crazy with the sandpaper.

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Reverse engineering old printers

Posted: February 24th, 2010, 2:00pm MST

During their weekly Take Apart Tuesday, the fine folks at the Crash Space hackerspace in LA were planning to convert an old printer into a pen plotter, by disabling the original electronics and hooking directly to the stepper motors that controlled the print head. Unfortunately, things became more difficult when the discovered that the printer actually used a DC motor and optical encoder instead of stepper motors. Fear not, they eventually figured out how to control it, but not before smoking a potentiometer, and causing some other mischief. Their project write-up has an interesting discussion about why the DC motor might have been chosen over a stepper, and the issues involved in driving them directly.

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How-To: Volume pedal as analog control for Arduino

Posted: February 24th, 2010, 1:30pm MST

A simple and useful hack - Sebastian posted his steps for using an old guitar volume pedal as a general purpose potentiometer/foot control with Arduino. Using a Max/MSP patch, he converted the data to MIDI control channel messages on his computer. More infos over at little-scale.

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Dremel attachment for MakerBot

Posted: February 24th, 2010, 1:00pm MST

The correct name for the MakerBot 3D printer is the Cupcake CNC, suggesting that all sorts of attachments could be substituted for the usual plastruder -- in this case, Andrew "Clothbot" Plumb created an assembly out of some makerbotted connectors and a length of MakerBeam, allowing the mounting of the business end of a Dremel Flex-Shaft. The result? A mini CNC mill slash drill press.

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Back in the Maker Shed: Drawdio

Posted: February 24th, 2010, 12:30pm MST

Drawdio is an electronic pencil that lets you make music while you draw! Essentially, it's a very simple musical synthesizer that uses the conductive properties of pencil graphite to create different sounds. The result is a fun toy that lets you draw musical instruments on any piece of paper. It's a lot of fun to hack too!

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Set-top box laser-cut stand for videophone

Posted: February 24th, 2010, 12:00pm MST

One my students, Danny Geiger, has a Sorenson videophone for communicating using sign language, and it's designed to sit on top of your TV. The problem is that it doesn't work work well with flat screens, so he made a laser-cut stand to support it. He provides the Illustrator file to make your own, which is easily modifiable for your model with just a few measurements.

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Maker Faire:NC is on!

Posted: February 24th, 2010, 11:30am MST

We're excited to announce that Maker Faire:NC, North Carolina's first Mini Maker Faire, is a go! From their press release:

Maker Faire:NC, North Carolina's first Mini Maker Faire, will be held from 9AM - 9PM on Sunday, April 25 at 1821 Hillandale Rd, Durham NC 27705 in Loehmann's Plaza.

ShopBot has generously allowed the organizers of Maker Faire:NC,, to share their venue following their annual Jamboree (Fri, April 23-Sat, April 24, 2010).

Maker Faire:NC is a fully sanctioned event but is being planned and coordinated by Raleigh/Durham locals. Our goal is to bring together Makers, Crafters, Inventors, Evil Geniuses, Scientists, Artists, and anyone else interested in learning from NC, SC, VA, DC, and beyond.

Just like the bigger Left-Coast version, Maker Faire:NC celebrates things people create themselves -- from James Bond-worthy electronic gizmos to Martha Stewart-quality "slow made" foods and homemade clothes. Inspiration is ubiquitous at the festival and there are surprises around every corner for people of all ages.

"We want [people] to leave feeling inspired -- that they too can create things, express themselves, and engage the world around them. Our goal is to resuscitate the spirit of American creativity and innovation." - Sherry Huss, (San Mateo 2009)

They've put out a Call for Makers and a Call for Volunteers, so be sure to get signed up to be part of the action! To stay informed, check out the event website and follow their twitter feed.

Maker Faire:NC
Sunday, April 25, 2010, 9pm - 9pm
Loehmann's Plaza
1821 Hillandale Rd, Durham NC 27705
Cost: Free!

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Early BEAM video footage

Posted: February 24th, 2010, 11:00am MST

Solarbotics has posted some video from its vault, portions of the 1995 BEAM Games, with BEAM inventor Mark Tilden talking about his VBug 1.5 (built from little more than a couple of Sony Walkmans and an Oven Timer Unit). I bought a BEAM VHS tape back then (I think of this event), which included this footage. It was horrible quality and I had to listen to it over and over again to piece together what he was saying. This is a little better, but still hard to hear and likely for hardcore BEAMers only.

I definitely still remember the impact it had on me and how much rethinking it made do about what constitutes a robot, artificial "intelligence," etc. If a "dumb bot," with basically some analog oscillators and relays for "brains," can successfully navigate a space by simple bump sensor/switches, or simply by bouncing off of things, is it any less successful/intelligent than a robot that has digital processors, code, sophisticated sensors, and builds maps of its world and negotiates those? The BEAM answer is, of course: No.

Mark Tilden explaining Walkman (VBug1.5) at the 1995 BEAM Robot Games

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Intern's Corner: Naked piezo pickup for Cigar Box Guitar

Posted: February 24th, 2010, 10:35am MST

Intern's Corner
Every other week, MAKE's awesome interns tell about the projects they're building in the Make: Labs, the trouble they've gotten into, and what they'll make next.

By Meara O'Reilly, projects intern

I've been working on winding coils and testing out a cool new electromagnetic guitar pickup for the upcoming issue of MAKE, so I thought I'd share a modification I did a while ago on the old piezoelectric pickup that was featured on the quick and easy Cigar Box Guitar in MAKE Volume 04.

Here's the piezo buzzer used for a pickup in MAKE's original Cigar Box Guitar, still encased in black plastic.

Piezoelectric transducer discs often come in protective plastic casings, but they're actually much more sensitive without them! I've spent many an hour with needlenose pliers cracking them open like steamed lobsters to get at the ceramic and metal underneath, and I've found the difference in amplification to be definitely worth it.

The original design had the plastic-encased piezo element (a piezo buzzer) inside the cigar box, and it worked fine, but I've learned that it works even better without the plastic case.

One of our old CBGs even had the piezo buzzer mounted directly under the strings, sort of propping them up into alignment with the fretboard, in order to show off the pickup. This was failing for two reasons: first, the point of contact was too broad, causing a buzzing sound as the strings hit the long, flat surface of the plastic, and second, because the piezo disc was oriented at the bottom of the plastic casing, it was protected from some of the most important vibrating bodies on the guitar -- the strings!

I decided to build something where a narrower contact point (or bridge) could directly conduct the vibration from the strings to the disc.

Meara'sPick-up.jpg
Here's my modified piezo pickup, naked, in direct contact with the bridge, and sounding great.

I cut a small block of balsa wood (about the width of the fretboard and long enough for the disc to rest comfortably upon) to prop up the whole setup. I placed placed the piezo on top of this balsa base, then cut a small piece of a wooden barbeque skewer we had lying around and placed that on top of the piezo as a bridge.

The strings, once wound on, will normally hold the bridge in place (in fact, many types of acoustic guitars have some sort of free-standing bridge like this), but for extra security, I cut both of the rounded ends off a popsicle stick and glued them flush with the balsa block to provide a sort of "baby gate" for the skewer, to keep it from rolling too much.

Voilà! The smaller contact point, applied directly to the piezo disc and held in place by the strings, conveys the string sound wonderfully.

What pickup modifications have you discovered?

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Cigar Box Guitar Build notes

Posted: February 24th, 2010, 10:15am MST

Dan Morril made a cigar box guitar by following the instructions in MAKE Volume 21. It looks great! I like the way he put one of the tuners on the top of the headstock instead of the side. I might give that a try on one of my future builds.

Dan also posted detailed and humorous build notes, which are well worth reading if you plan to build a cigar box guitar.

I'm extremely satisfied with how it came out. That cigar box was all I could have hoped for, and it sounds pretty freakin' awesome. I expected kind of a course, ragged, thin sound, at least compared to a real guitar. I strummed this sucker and I was completely shocked -- it actually sounds like a guitar!! A real honest to gods guitar!

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Nuclear reactor test footage

Posted: February 24th, 2010, 10:00am MST

Video courtesy YouTube user wlsoundman.

Like me, you've probably seen lots of photographs of Cherenkov radiation (Wikipedia), which is the striking blue glow that surrounds nuclear fuel rods submerged in water. It's caused by charged particles travelling through the water at a speed faster than the speed of light in water (which is about 75% percent of the speed of light in a vacuum).

But this video of Penn State's Breazeale nuclear reactor "pulsing" is the first time I've ever seen any moving pictures of the phenomenon, which are somehow way more impressive. And since this is a phenomenon few of us will ever have an opportunity to witness first-hand, the 15 seconds it takes to watch the video definitely count as time well spent in my book. Note how the blue glow persists for some time after the reactor itself has been shut off.

[Thanks, William Beaty!]

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A scarf to aid your search for terrestrial intelligence

Posted: February 24th, 2010, 9:51am MST

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A scarf to aid your search for terrestrial intelligence @ Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories

The Arecibo Message, one of the most famous messages transmitted as part of SETI, loosely translated, says: "Hi! We're intelligent! We're made of meat! Here's where we live!" Binary designs like the Arecibo message are popular with knitters and cross-stitchers since they can be pixelated easily. We found a pair of fingerless gloves, based on a muffler pattern. We think this type of binary pattern would be good for the message as well. It has also been made into a cross-stitched bookmark. We implemented the embroidered pixels as columns of satin stitching in a single color. The original binary message didn't have any of the color coding that people have added to help explain it, and it seems more elegant to keep it this way. We machine embroidered the pattern on both ends of a piece of linen about 14" x 76". The linen is then sewn together on the back and at the ends, and turned right side out. The edges are stitched down to help it lie flat.

Pattern(s) included, make your own :) Read more | Permalink | Comments | Read more articles in Crafts | Digg this!

How-To: Fixed Gear Bike Mudguard

Posted: February 24th, 2010, 9:00am MST

If you're not using your bike's rear drilled brake bridge, you could try BillieGene's Instructable for a recycled rear mudguard. It mounts to the brake bridge to keep your fixie from flinging mud up your back, which is a must for early springtime biking.

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Android controlled door opening Linux WiFi router

Posted: February 24th, 2010, 5:00am MST

Sunlight Labs, known for opening America's government, had a problem when they recently moved facilities. Creating new keys for team members was becoming costly, so they figured out an alternative method of providing secure access using a WRT54GL, easily sourced components, and a trusty copy of Make: Electronics. [Thanks, Nicko!]

With the firmware installed, I was able to SSH into the router and perform some simple manipulations of the system's GPIOs -- General Purpose Input/Outputs. These connect to things like the system's LEDs and switches, and can be controlled in software. I selected a GPIO that didn't seem to be used by OpenWRT -- it illuminates the "DMZ" LED on the front panel -- and wrote a very simple script to control it. I could now flip a tiny light on and off from a network connection.

In the Maker Shed:

Make: Electronics
Our Price: $34.99
Want to learn the fundamentals of electronics in a fun and experiential way? Start working on some excellent projects as soon as you crack open this unique, hands-on book. Build the circuits first, then learn the theory behind them! With Make: Electronics, you'll learn all of the basic components and important principles through a series of "learn by discovery" experiments. And you don't need to know a thing about electricity to get started.

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Hack your badge at QuahogCon 2010

Posted: February 24th, 2010, 4:00am MST

In a proud tradition of hackable badges at hacker conferences, the fancy folks behind QuahogCon 2010 have designed a really cool looking conference badge. They've blurred out some of the key information to help prevent people like you and me (yes, I will be attending!) from getting a head start with writing code for the badge. What I can see is pretty intriguing. There is a PCB antenna, an FTDI chip, and a handful of LEDs. Looking at the I/O pins and the fact that this chip is wireless, I've narrowed down the processor to a few options. Can you guess what the are?

I'm not going to reveal my hypothesis, but I am going to reveal another less secret bit of news about the conference. If you register, use the code MAKE20 to get a 20% discount.

The conference is April 23-25 in Providence, Rhode Island. Be sure to try out johnnycakes while you are here!

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Arduino helicopter game

Posted: February 24th, 2010, 3:00am MST

The Arduino Helicopter Game uses less than 8kb of memory, yet it still features things like day/night mode and score keeping. There are still a few random artifacts that show up while playing the game, and they are looking for some help trouble shooting the code. So what do you think readers? Can anyone help figure out what is causing these weird artifacts? If so, please let us know in the comments.

In the Maker Shed:

4305704184_65a99d4a42_b 2-1.jpg
The Maker Shed has everything you need to get started with Arduino

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Read an RPG Book in Public Week

Posted: February 24th, 2010, 2:00am MST

Read an RPG Book in Public Week is an event that happens three times a year, during the weeks surrounding March 4th, July 27th, and October 1st (starting on the Sunday on or before, and ending on the Saturday on or after). During these weeks, roleplaying enthusiasts are encouraged to take their favorite RPG rulebooks out with them and read them in public -- on the bus, in the coffee shop, at lunch, at the park, or anywhere (as long as it isn't disruptive to work, school, church, or any other functions).

The point is to make the roleplaying hobby more visible, to get it "out of the basement" and into public areas where more people can see it. This will make others more aware of the hobby - some may ask you what your book is about, giving you the opportunity to explain the hobby to them. A few of those may be interested enough to try it themselves. Former gamers may see what you're reading and think about the great times they used to have with roleplaying, and possibly even try it again.

[via Boing Boing]

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Printing body parts: Making a bit of me @ The Economist

Posted: February 23rd, 2010, 9:00pm MST

201008Std001
Printing body parts: Making a bit of me @ The Economist...

THE great hope of transplant surgeons is that they will, one day, be able to order replacement body parts on demand. At the moment, a patient may wait months, sometimes years, for an organ from a suitable donor. During that time his condition may worsen. He may even die. The ability to make organs as they are needed would not only relieve suffering but also save lives. And that possibility may be closer with the arrival of the first commercial 3D bio-printer for manufacturing human tissue and organs.

The new machine, which costs around $200,000, has been developed by Organovo, a company in San Diego that specialises in regenerative medicine, and Invetech, an engineering and automation firm in Melbourne, Australia. One of Organovo’s founders, Gabor Forgacs of the University of Missouri, developed the prototype on which the new 3D bio-printer is based. The first production models will soon be delivered to research groups which, like Dr Forgacs’s, are studying ways to produce tissue and organs for repair and replacement. At present much of this work is done by hand or by adapting existing instruments and devices.

Ok Bre! Please release OrganBot OSH CC attribution, share-alike, commercial use allowed. I'd like to print an extra spleen... just in case. Read more | Permalink | Comments | Read more articles in Biology | Digg this!

Open Structures: Help create an open-source building system

Posted: February 23rd, 2010, 6:00pm MST

Open Structures is a set of standards allowing product designers and architects to create hackable items -- for instance, a sink or a bicycle -- which could be recombined into new inventions. The system's starting point is a 4x4cm grid that all components must accommodate.

[The] project explores the possibility of a modular construction model where everyone designs for everyone on the basis of one shared geometrical grid. It initiates a kind of collaborative Meccano to which everybody can contribute parts, components and structures.

The ultimate goal is to initiate a universal, collaborative puzzle that allows the broadest range of people - from craftsmen to multinationals - to design, build and exchange the broadest range of modular components, resulting in a more flexible and scalable built environment.

What's especially interesting is that OS doesn't paint itself into a corner by specializing in one area -- participants have adapted the standard to facilitate product design, architecture, and interior design. Intriguingly, one of the core components of the system is the proposition that an item created should be easily disassembled and reassembled.

OS is a collaborative effort (open to everyone), originally conceived by Thomas Lommee at the The Institute without Boundaries and now being further developed and tested by Intrastructures, a design studio. [via openMaterials]

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VW Bug exploded view poster

Posted: February 23rd, 2010, 5:00pm MST

Mark posted this on Boing Boing and it made my heart all a-flutter. It reminded me of both my first car, St. Francis the Wonder Car, a yellow, '63 VW bug, and the John Muir book, How to Keep Your Volkswagen Alive, that kept it going. The car was called St. Francis 'cause a lot of fervent praying was involved in keeping it alive and the Wonder Car 'cause it stayed alive for YEARS beyond its prime. It was the first car whose mechanics I knew intimately. It was the last car whose mechanics I knew intimately. I really loved working on it and I loved Muir's book for making it so seemingly easy to do. And the illustrations of this man, the late Peter Aschwanden, had a lot to do with creating that air of accessibility and agency. I like Mark's comment on the BB post:

His cover illustration for The Septic System Owner's Manual almost makes me wish I had a septic tank.

Me too. And I just might just have to buy this Bug poster.

Peter Aschwanden

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Videos from recent Open MAKE event

Posted: February 23rd, 2010, 4:00pm MST

Here is some video footage of kids making Bristlebots and Blinkybugs at the recent Open MAKE day at the Exploratorium.

Learning Studio: videos from Open MAKE!

Mark your calendars: The next Open MAKE program at the Exploratorium will be on February 27, 2010.

More:

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You win this round, engineers!

Posted: February 23rd, 2010, 3:00pm MST

Why You Want to Be An Engineer.gif

As a man with a degree in philosophy, another degree in chemistry, and three engineers in my immediate family, I have to admit this strip from Zach Weiner of Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal pretty much hit me right between the eyes. [Thanks, Matt Mets!]

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Musical toaster makes you play for your baked goods

Posted: February 23rd, 2010, 2:30pm MST

Spotted in the MAKE Flickr pool:

Flickr user zachaholic built this VU toaster, using a sound volume meter to directly control the heat of the toaster. To release the toast, you simply bang on the cymbal next to it.

I could see a cute extension to this, where you have to choose the pair the right kind of music with each toast- soft music for delicate breads, and heavy metal for crispy bagels. In addition to just being a funny idea, it would also let experiment with varying the temperature applied to the toast over time, to see if that has any effect on the outcome. You could even extend the idea to a reflow oven for doing surface mount soldering in style!

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DIY PVC submarine

Posted: February 23rd, 2010, 1:00pm MST

Jason Rollette's remotely-operated submarine packs four 500gph and two 1,250gph bilge pumps, with the bigger ones used for propulsion. Check out his incredibly detailed tutorial for instructions on how to build your own. [via Hack a Day]

More:

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MacGyver of the Day: Mad Scientists Lenore Edman and Windell Oskay @ Lifehacker

Posted: February 23rd, 2010, 12:07pm MST

Pt 2621
B00m - I have another post on Lifehacker with a favorite maker(s) I'm profiling each day - today... MacGyver of the Day: Mad Scientists Lenore Edman and Windell Oskay!

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Holographic head projection music video

Posted: February 23rd, 2010, 12:06pm MST

Anybody have any guesses how this was done? Neurosonics Live on Vimeo by Will clark, JFB, and Beardyman. Just a little warning, there's a little bit of swearing at the very end of the video. [Thanks, Jamie!]

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How-To: Make riveted chain mail

Posted: February 23rd, 2010, 10:00am MST

There are scads of tutorials flushing through the tubes that will show you how to twirl old wire coat hangers into rings, cut them up, and link them together with pliers to make the ubiquitous "butted" chain mail, in which the individual rings are either unjoined, soldered, or glued together. But this recent Instructable from armourkris, for the truly dedicated, shows you how to make a much more serious--and to my amateur eye, authentic--mail, in which each ring is flattened, punched, linked, and then riveted closed.

More:

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Cylon teddy bear

Posted: February 23rd, 2010, 9:00am MST

Somebody lucky got this Cylon teddy bear for Valentine's Day! Learn how to make your own with dragonvpm's Instructable.

In the Maker Shed:

Larson Scanner Kit

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Thermal lance is every bit as awesome as it sounds

Posted: February 23rd, 2010, 7:00am MST

This is a video, from YouTuber OliKills, showing two guys using a thermal lance (Wikipedia), also called a "thermic lance" or "burning bar," to cut through a lump of concrete. It really gets going about 20 seconds in, and by the end of the video a white-hot stream of molten concrete "lava" is clearly visible running across the pavement.

If you're a fan of Mythbusters, or you've seen...

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Time lapse video of 'tin pest' metallic phase change

Posted: February 23rd, 2010, 7:00am MST

What's going on in this cool time-lapse video from Italian YouTuber wwwperiodictableru isn't a chemical reaction in a formal sense. It's not oxidation or some other type of traditional corrosion. Turns out metallic or "white" tin spontaneously changes its so-called beta crystal structure at temperatures below 13 C to the crumbly alpha structure of "grey" tin. It's the same stuff before and after--just different allotropes of the same element. The transformation, known as "tin pest" (Wikipedia), catalyzes itself--once it starts it just gets faster and faster.

There is a popular, if scientifically dubious, story that blames part of the failure of Napoleon's infamous Russian campaign on the fact that the buttons on his soldiers' coats were made of white tin, which was fine in Europe, but decayed into useless gray tin in the brutal cold of the Russian winter, and thereby prevented them from properly buttoning their coats. Implausible for lots of reasons, it turns out, but still a good yarn.

[Thanks, William Beaty!]

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Google Earth for Android devices

Posted: February 23rd, 2010, 5:00am MST

Google has finally released Google Earth for Android 2.1 devices. This includes the Nexus One out of the box and the Motorola Droid with an upcoming update. In what seems to be a faithful mobile rendition of their popular desktop app, Google has once again brought the world into the palm of your hand. Noteworthy features in this release include a new road layer and voice search. [via androidandme]

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Thirty-pencil icosahedral lapmshade

Posted: February 23rd, 2010, 2:00am MST

Michiel Cornelissen is offering a kit which consists of a dozen 3D-printed, five-sided connectors. Add thirty hexagonal pencils and build an icosahedron! Cornelissen describes the kit as building a lampshade but that seems kinda iffy to me -- it's not like it would shade anything. But if you ask me, you never need an excuse to play with icosahedrons. [via the Ponoko blog]

More:

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Skinographie - font made from skin?

Posted: February 22nd, 2010, 9:00pm MST

Pt 2607
A new font? - Skinographie typeface made of skin using clothespins via NOTCOT.

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Recycled skateboard art

Posted: February 22nd, 2010, 6:00pm MST

Skateboarder slash artist Haroshi creates art made from recycled skateboards. While his Mario art rocks, my favorites are the skateboard decks made out of recycled decks. That's like, recursive or something.

Skate decks eventually see its life shortened by snapping, cracking and/or wearing out. Purchasing new decks is a never ending cycle and this was evident by the tower of old decks that were reaching to the ceiling of my room. We can't throw away these decks because they hold sentimental meanings to us. I looked at these unusable decks every day and thought there must be something I can make with these.

I decided to make some accessories with the old decks and this was the birth of Harvest. The works of Harvest are through the perspectives of a skater and as an artist. As a skater, I want to take responsibility of reusing skateboards when they were no longer useable. Also, as an artist I want to explore the possibilities of what can be done with skateboards.

We see the care and effort that a skater can have for his/her deck and we also acknowledge the origins of a skateboard. We believe that if the small things we do can connect to sustainability then we're doing something right. We'd be satisfied in our effort when people look at products and start thinking of ways to recycle.

You can see a lot more examples of Hiroshi's art in this article -- though it's in Japanese. [via Kotaku]

More:

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In the Market: Custom Creations, CNC lamps, and fire art

Posted: February 22nd, 2010, 5:01pm MST

One of the cool things about Makers Market is that each seller gets a blog where they can talk about their products, their process, or whatever else is on their minds. Here, Marketeer Dave Umlas, aka Custom Creations, talks about a furnace controller he found in a scrapyard and used to create a flame-effects control panel for his fire art. Below this blog excerpt, you'll find examples of some of the lovely CNC-cut lamps and stained glass windows that Dave is selling in his store. -- Gareth

Controller Bits!

A couple of years ago I spotted an old industrial furnace controller sitting in the corner of a scrapyard. After a bit of haggling with the manager, I was allowed to take the front panel apart. A couple of hours later, I had a big box of switches, labels, meters and buttons. These immediately went into my fire art controllers.

I still have a bunch of these parts lying around, so now you can make your own instrument controllers with them too.

I'll be posting more of them as I find em.

Above is a photo of the control panel I built to drive the flame effects for Maker Faire Austin. There is compressed air and propane running through it. It has four seperate channels that can control a fan and a spark plug.

This piece takes half of the panel above to control it. There are two kirby vacuum heads providing forced air, two spark plugs and two gas lines entering the sculpture. There are also two compressed air lines that feed metal salts into the chamber to color the flames.

In the Market:

Wood and Glass Window $225
Stained glass and four layers of hand finished wood make up this hanging window. 23″ × 23″ × 3″ deep. This item is meant to hang inside a window in your home. Both sides have the same two layer look to them, so it will be beautiful from both inside or outside your home.

Wooden Hanging Lantern $30
Flatpack hanging lantern, made from CNC cut birch plywood and rice paper. These lanterns assemble in seconds without tools. Available with the rice paper glued in or in an envelope to allow you to finish the wood however you would like. Cord kit Included.

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Cthulhu in his prime

Posted: February 22nd, 2010, 3:00pm MST

Sculptor Gabe Perna sculpted and painted this 18" tall statue of a decidedly ripped Cthulhu during his early body-building years, before the steroid scandal. Turns out ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn actually means "Hey, Cthulhu, which way to the beach?" Sad, really, how he let himself go in the end.

The model is one of several available as a kit through Perna's website. Be sure to check out his other work while you're there.

[via Propnomicon]

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Rachel in Space: Welcome home, Endeavour!

Posted: February 22nd, 2010, 2:30pm MST

Image courtesy NASA

Despite initially "iffy" weather reports, Endevaour was given the all-clear to land at Kennedy Space Center late last night, completing an almost two-week mission to the International Space Station where the crew installed a new node and the Cupola. The impressive seven-window addition has already offered up stunning pictures of earth.

Image courtesy NASA

ISS crew member, Soichi Noguchi has been populating his Twitter stream with frequent images, each one better than the next. Be sure to check out his picture of astronaut Stevie "Ray" Robinson inside the cupola, guitar in hand and a gorgeous Earth view in the background, as well as Soichi's image of the shuttle Endeavour as it re-entered Earth's atmosphere last night.

I was inspired by last night's landing to tackle a project I've had brewing for a while: embroidering a shuttle's deorbit map.

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Aspiral Clocks shows time, hypnotizes patient people

Posted: February 22nd, 2010, 2:00pm MST

Here's a neat way to tell time. Rather than using hands or digits, the Aspiral Clock consists of a slowly-rotating spiral track with a ball inside, and the time is indicated by the position of the ball. Neat!

This would also make a pretty kicking pet feeder- load up each 'ring' of the spiral with an appropriate amount of food, and watch it slowly fall out into their feeding dish.

[thanks, Stuart!]

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Math Monday: Sierpinski tetrahedron

Posted: February 22nd, 2010, 1:00pm MST

Sierpinski tetrahedron By George Hart for the Museum of Mathematics

A classic 3D fractal is the Sierpinski tetrahedron, which is a tetrahedron of tetrahedra of tetrahedra, etc. This fifth-order model is about 8.5 inches along its edges. It is made from nylon by selective laser sintering. If you have access to additive fabrication machines, you can make your own copy of it using the STL file available here.

The Sierpinski tetrahedron is so elegant that it has inspired many people to construct it in many materials. Alexander Graham Bell made giant kites with wood frames in this form. I love this geekly romantic photo of him kissing his wife in one.

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How-To: Wilderness chair

Posted: February 22nd, 2010, 12:00pm MST

Here's a neat Instructable for making a wood-and-rope-only camping chair, looks comfy! I can almost smell the campfire.

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MacGyver of the Day: HAM Radio Hacker Diana Eng - Makers @ Lifehacker

Posted: February 22nd, 2010, 11:56am MST

I am writing up a maker-a-day over at Lifehacker, check it out! Today's maker: HAM radio enthusiast Diana Eng...

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Back in the Maker Shed: Editor's Choice electronics bundle

Posted: February 22nd, 2010, 10:30am MST

The Editor's Choice bundle is a collection of four of our favorite kits from the Maker Shed, along with our Maker's Notebook. You can start by building the TV-B-Gone to help make your work area less distracting. Next, build the MintyBoost and charge up your MP3 player so you can play some of your favorite tunes. Speaking of tunes, next you should try the Drawdio and make some music while drawing in your Maker's Notebook. (time to grab your crayons and pencils) Last but not least, make the MiniPOV and tell the world what you have made! Then again, feel free to build them in any order you like!

The Editor's Choice electronics bundle includes:

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Clutterflies

Posted: February 22nd, 2010, 10:00am MST

Photos by Tom Little.

Michelle Stitzlein makes these beautiful giant butterfly sculptures entirely from junk, "including piano keys, broken china, license plates, rusty tin cans, electrical wire, bottlecaps, and other miscellaneous items." [via Dude Craft]

From the pages of MAKE:

Bruce Stewart covered Michelle Stitzlein's butterfly sculptures in MAKE 19.

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Guitar marxophone

Posted: February 22nd, 2010, 9:09am MST

Ranjit Bhatnagar's at it again:

I love the sound of the obsolete Marxophone, but they're expensive on ebay. I made this guitar-marxophone with hex nuts glued to street-sweeper bristles stapled to a chunk of wood. The marxotar straps to the guitar's tailpiece and strap button with zipties, and can be attached and removed without any damage to the guitar.

More:

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Maker Business: Magnolia Atomworks, part 3

Posted: February 22nd, 2010, 8:00am MST

With a contract manufacturer hired and their new company formed, John and Erin of Magnolia Atomworks race to fulfill their first orders. -- Gareth

Magnolia Atomworks, part 3: To Market, To Market By John Edgar Park and Erin Kelly-Park

You may think this has all been fun and awesomeness so far, and we'd have to agree. But wait! There's also some fantastically boring stuff to do when you start a kit business.

For one, we had to figure out packaging. After trying some different configurations at home, I went online and ordered a few hundred boxes and padding to be sent to our cutter. ThinkGeek requested a barcode for their internal tracking, so I used an online UPC barcode generator to make a label with a barcode on it. Originally, we were only going to have instructions online, but at the last minute, we changed our minds, so I designed a one-page instruction sheet and had that put into the box, too. These things all cost time and money, although I was happy to be able to use my Maya skills to do the diagrams for the instruction sheet. On the plus side: if you order over $100 at Uline (the shipping supply company) you get a free Hall & Oates CD! No, really. (We let the guy doing the laser cutting keep it.)

With holiday deadlines looming, the kits were cut, packed, and shipped off to our resellers just in time. With all that sorted out, the fun could begin again. We now had one thing left to hurry up and do: spread the word. Marketing the Mystery Box consisted almost entirely of blogging and twittering. It can be a big challenge to get the word out on a product. That's why advertising costs so much. By staying close to my maker roots, and targeting resellers instead of trying to sell direct to consumers, we were able to maximize our sales.

Once they were available for sale, on ThinkGeek and the Maker Shed, a friend of mine mentioned on Facebook that she wanted to get a Mystery Box, but would probably need help assembling it. So, I shot a video of myself assembling one. I posted it a few places online and I think it helped with some sales. Both resellers included the video on their respective product pages. It took a couple hours to shoot and edit (including at least an hour of trying to find interesting, royalty-free background music), but it cost us nothing to make. All of this seemed good in theory, but would the Mystery Box kits actually sell? Only time would tell...

Tune in next time for the thrilling conclusion: Part 4: The aftermath, lessons learned, and the future

More:

In the Maker Shed:

MKMA1
Mystery Box Kit - The Mystery Box is a clever puzzle box made by our very own John Park, host of Make: television.

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Crayon rockets!

Posted: February 22nd, 2010, 7:00am MST

Our very own Rachel Hobseon @ CRAFT spotted these. She writes:

This project combines two of my favorite things: crayons and rockets. It may have taken John Coker 12 years to complete this project (hey, who among us hasn't had a case of lingering works-in-progress?) but the result was more than worth it. He's even included a step-by-step of how he made the rockets. The detail in matching the Crayola design is pretty impressive. I just want to know if he could find a way to add in that awesome Crayola smell.

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Robotic percussion grooves via Wiimote

Posted: February 22nd, 2010, 6:00am MST

Musical group Jazari consists of one human, a variety of percussive instruments, and a whole lotta solenoids. Patrick Flanagan directs his mechanical bandmates by way of two Wii remotes sending data via bluetooth over to Max/MSP software. Actual note data is sent out to Arduinos which handle all that solenoid switching seen above. Patrick provides a more detailed explanation of the setup for us gearheads. [via Create Digital Music]

In the Maker Shed:

MotorShield for Arduino Kit

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HTC Sense UI on Nexus One

Posted: February 22nd, 2010, 5:00am MST

If you're curious about the latest ROM floating around for the Nexus One, it's from Modaco and it features Flash 10.1 and the HTC Sense UI. If you're still reading this and haven't started downloading the ROM, here's a preview video to pass the time while you wait for an official release. [via bgr]

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Android controlled LEGO Mindstorms robots

Posted: February 22nd, 2010, 3:00am MST

I've come across numerous Android controlled vehicles in the past, but never a LEGO Mindstorms robot, let alone two. The folks at ENEA in Linköping, Sweden, built a pair as a trade show demo. One of the main challenges was getting Bluetooth support to work. They ended up using an Ubuntu laptop to tunnel between devices. Of interest is the fact that the Android phone controls more than one device. [Thanks, Phil!]

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CRAFT weekly recap

Posted: February 21st, 2010, 8:38pm MST

This week on CRAFT!

10 Ways to Photograph Food

Spring Classes at 3rd Ward in Brooklyn

and this gem from the CRAFT Flickr pool.

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The Bloom Box: An Energy Breakthrough? @ 60 Minutes

Posted: February 21st, 2010, 8:38pm MST

The Bloom Box: An Energy Breakthrough? @ 60 Minutes...

In the world of energy, the Holy Grail is a power source that's inexpensive and clean, with no emissions. Well over 100 start-ups in Silicon Valley are working on it, and one of them, Bloom Energy, is about to make public its invention: a little power plant-in-a-box they want to put literally in your backyard. You'll generate your own electricity with the box and it'll be wireless. The idea is to one day replace the big power plants and transmission line grid, the way the laptop moved in on the desktop and cell phones supplanted landlines. It has a lot of smart people believing and buzzing, even though the company has been unusually secretive - until now.

I'm always hopeful of "new power" developments, specifically fuel cells - what do you think makers? They raised $400m so far... well, that's what they implied. There are 20 customers so far: FedEx, Wal-mart, Staples, Google (the first - powering a data center for 18 months), eBay (5 boxes, saved them $100k in power costs)... all in CA, they get 20% off the costs ($800k per unit) and tax breaks. I'll say this, I want a Bloom Box at Maker Faire :)

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Microfluidics with common thread

Posted: February 21st, 2010, 8:00pm MST

"Microfluidics" (Wikipedia) is kind of a blanket term that covers manipulation of liquids on a very small scale. An inkjet printer head is an everyday example of a microfluidic system, but many of the more exciting applications are in biochemistry and/or medical diagnostics, where mass-produced "lab-on-a-chip" systems incorporating complex networks of tiny fluid channels could one day bring complex analytical procedures, that once were practical only in the laboratory, out into the field. Many of the same technologies that are used in the production of semiconductors can be applied to the manufacture of microfluidic systems.

As in semiconductors, however, the costs of prototyping labs-on-chips can be quite high. Many of you may recall the buzz surrounding UC-Irvine professor Michelle Khine's recent discovery that inkjet-printable shrinky-dink plastic could be used to rapidly prototype microfluidic systems.

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Automated anti-piracy water cannon

Posted: February 21st, 2010, 6:00pm MST

Don't let the elevator music distract you, this system can squirt water at 4 bars, or about 60 psi, as compared to a typical fire hose which packs a working pressure of 100 psi or more.

[The] system consists of a number of rotating water jet guns installed on the shipside which provide a continuous high pressure water curtain all around the ship side. The system once installed can be remotely operated from a safe location without any possibility of harm or injury to crew. The system does not require any additional installation which are costly, time consuming and might require various class or administration approvals. Furthermore it provides a visible deterrent to the pirates who will possibly divert to easier targets.

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3D-printed shoes

Posted: February 21st, 2010, 1:15pm MST

Fashion design students Naim Josefi and Souzan Youssouf created the shoes using a technique called selective laser sintering, and displayed them at the Stockholm Fashion Show. [via core77]

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Biology rap

Posted: February 21st, 2010, 9:00am MST

This excellent video features Stanford's Derrick Davis and Tom McFadden rapping about glycolysis and pyruvates. [via Tierneylab]

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President checking out a ShopBot

Posted: February 21st, 2010, 4:30am MST

Pt 2594
Pt 2595
The President is checking out a ShopBot, in our lifetime we'll have a FabLab in the Whitehouse... not a matter of if, just when :)

Unfortunately this photo set from New York magazine's Daily Intel is called "A History of Obama Feigning Interest in Mundane Things" - most/all of the photos are of the president looking at manufacturing, equipment, factories, laboratories, and workshops - the author of the article describes this mundane. To me, it seems like the author is poking fun at how boring this must all be, but I think having the leader of the free world tour factories, laboratories, and workshops is worth celebrating. I don't think the President is "faking interesting" as the author writes. These are great Americans, great companies, making great things, you can see in the photos how proud they are of what they are doing - we're all trying to support more manufacturing, get kids interested in science and engineering - it's not mundane - it's the most exciting thing our country has going for us, we need more of this :) So, here's my plan - I'm going to try and contact Dan Amira (the author of the article) - and see if he'll come out to Maker Faire NYC or to Maker Faire, CA - there's probably going to be over 100,000 people at our Faires all together. Makers from all walks of life, showing what they made, you won't find anything mundane Dan. You might see some of the same people from that slideshow, some of the same equipment (like the ShopBot) but Maker Faire is everything *but* mundane, hopefully we can get the President to stop in too. Dan, if you see this - I have some Maker Faire tickets for you, email me!

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Amusing warning sign for CNC tools

Posted: February 20th, 2010, 8:00pm MST

So I don't want to go too far down the "funny warning signs" rabbit hole (you could get a whole blog out of that, I think), but a commenter on last Tuesday's "Big Scary Laser" post linked to this design, of hers, to be mounted on robot power tools. I get a huge kick out of the giant menacing robot with the buzz-saw hand. [Thanks, Jennifer Elaan!]

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Lego crawler town

Posted: February 20th, 2010, 7:05pm MST

I don't think I've ever seen as unique a Lego creation as this "eco punk" mobile town, created by Dave DeGobbi. (Click for a bigger pic!)

Crawler town roams the barren wastes of a post steam-punk world after cataclysmic climate change do to excessive coal use. Several such cities exist but Crawler town is the most popular due to the Aero 500 hydrogen fuel cell Air races that are held. Many people travel the wastes to Crawler town for vacation and to enjoy rare luxuries like Pizza, fresh vegetables and Beer. Travelling the wastes in search of minerals and aquifers ( vital for survival) the mobility of the city keeps it away from the vicious sand storms of the wastes.

Also check out Dave's Goliath airship creation. [via the ever-awesome Brothers Brick]

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Flying panty ornithopter

Posted: February 20th, 2010, 5:00pm MST

Fra Fondi, of Hobby Media, writes:

To celebrate the anime "Sora no Otoshimono," which depicted hundreds of girl's panties flying like birds, the Japanese company Questioners has produced a series of rubber-band powered Panty Ornithopters. On march 6th these flying pants will be liberated in the skyes of Akihabara during the model rocketry event "Sorafes" (translated "Sky Festival").

Among the organizers of the event there is an amateur group of aspiring web-livecasters called NKH and Nicotech, an open Internet community of Sunday engineers

I am utterly speechless (and anybody who knows me will understand the rarity of such an occurrence).

Flying Panty Ornithopters!

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Beatseqr - Arduino based interface for music

Posted: February 20th, 2010, 3:30pm MST

Steve Cooley designed a pretty deluxe hardware interface for controlling music software, better known as the Beatseqr. Since it's based on an Arduino Mega, the device can of course be reprogrammed to make use of onboard faders and LED buttons in a variety of ways. Beatseqr sends data out in the form hi-res OSC messages, which can be converted in software down to MIDI. Source code for the project is available on github and prebuilt versions of the hardware are now for sale on Maker's Market.

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Writers reminisce about Dungeons & Dragons

Posted: February 20th, 2010, 2:30pm MST

From Boing Boing:

Matt sez, "With that rocks-for-brains reporter in Boston trying to link campus shooter Amy Bishop's crimes to Dungeons & Dragons, I thought I'd take an opportunity to look at the good D&D has done for several writers I know. This is that article. By the way, I've been a D&D player for almost thirty years now, and have been a happier, more productive person for it."

And Cory adds:

I haven't played since my early 20s (late teens?) but D&D was an enormously positive influence on my life and imagination.

And I would add: Me too! D&D helped me as a writer, storyteller, project organizer, and was also one of my entrees into making. When I started with D&D, my friends and I were too poor for miniatures, so we made our own from clay, and our dungeons and scenery were constructed out of paper, cardboard, and foam. I got my first Dremel tool to help me make gaming components. And it was my first heavy, multi-application use for my first computers (writing scenarios, player handouts, drawing maps, keeping character databases, and hanging out on D&D BBSes).

Not to mention, as someone who has dyslexia, it helped me with my number/math skills and in seeing the utility of applying math to something that was hugely fun and creative.

Writers reminisce about Dungeons & Dragons

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Ian Ross's workbench and shed

Posted: February 20th, 2010, 12:00pm MST

Australian reader Ian Ross sent in pictures of his awesome workbench, which packs some interesting gear like nixie-tube test equipment.

It is the disorganised chaos of over 30 years of collecting discarded electronic devices. Some of the test instruments use lovely Nixie tubes and I also have a flat screen telly so I can escape to my sanctuary at night. The main workbench light is a surplus dental exam light which is excellent for working with small devices.

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In the Maker Shed: MintyBoost Parts bundle

Posted: February 20th, 2010, 11:21am MST

The MintyBoost Parts bundle from the Maker Shed includes everything you need to make the RuntyBoost version of the MintyBoost! We include the MintyBoost kit 2.0, our Make Project tin, and even the AA batteries. Yes, the batteries are included too! All you need to do is some simple soldering, and a few minor mods of the project tin, and you will have a great portable charger.

Features

(1) MintyBoost USB Charger Kit v2.0
(1) Make Project Tin - Measures 3-3/4" long, 2-3/8" wide, 3/4" deep
(2) AA Batteries. Yep, they're included!

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Tonight 10pm ET - "Ask an Engineer" - Make: Electronics night!

Posted: February 20th, 2010, 10:58am MST

Pt 2592-1
If you have the Make: Electronics book, or just thinking of getting a copy - tonight I will be assisting Ladyada (Limor Fried) with Adafruit's weekly "Ask an engineer" LIVE video chat... Here are the details...

Tonight, Saturday 2/20/2010 - 10pm ET - "Ask an Engineer" - our weekly LIVE video chat! What is "Ask an engineer"? From the electronics enthusiast to the professional community - "Ask an Engineer" has a little bit of everything for everyone. If you're a beginner, or an seasoned engineer - stop in and see what we're up to! We have demos of projects and products we're working on, we answer you engineering and electronics questions and we have a trivia question + give away each week. This week we'll go through some of chapters of "Make: Electronics by Charles Platt" The book is geared towards ultimate-beginners and teaches electronics starting from basic core of analog to some digital to microcontrollers. You'll learn tools, prototyping soldering techniques, transistors, 555's, etc. while completing useful projects. A nice and tidy intro! This book is a good accompaniment to learning microcontrollers/Arduino in that it fills the necessary electronics theory and background.

Chat starts at 10pm ET (Saturday night 10pm ET 2/20/2010) on the dot (here and here)...

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Scratch Board Guitar

Posted: February 20th, 2010, 5:00am MST

Wandering through the MAKE Flickr pool the other day, I saw what appeared to be custom-made game controlling guitars. Taking a closer look, I saw that they were actually using Scratch Sensor Board controllers. The Scratch Board is a neat device with four inputs for custom built sensors. On the board itself are a potentiometer, light sensor, sound sensor and a push button. Your program can look for user generated input on each of these, which can change your program or game based on the sensor input.

Chris, whose photostream the picture was in told me a bit about the project:

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Sat-art-day reads... Kiriko Moth

Posted: February 20th, 2010, 4:30am MST

Octo Sub
Jeremy
4040671536 8935444500 B-1
I'm enjoying SF based Kiriko Moth's work. You might remember seeing her work from the bee post :) I think Crabfu should hang out with Kiriko and maybe that robot octopus.

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Hand-carved skateboards

Posted: February 19th, 2010, 6:00pm MST

Doug McKee of Bellingham, WA carves skateboards that look like birds, insects, and sea creatures.

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The music of techno-junk

Posted: February 19th, 2010, 5:00pm MST

In this video, "Jankworks," makes a joyful noise by flicking, banging, twanging, tapping, and triggering various pieces of old tech (drives, phone bells, typewriters, cassette players, etc). Jankworks writes:

I loved the pictures of Mark Tilden's workshop and it reminded me on the many times, while working on some project, that the clutter and tangle of tools and parts threatens to overtake everything. The link I've sent you goes to an, ahem, experimental 'music' video I made, using the junk and media components assembled on my shelf, to introduce sound. Yeah, it doesn't make much sense to me either, but it was fun (and challenging) to create. Thought you might enjoy.

Analog Retread

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Weekend opportunity for double spacecraft flyover sightings

Posted: February 19th, 2010, 4:00pm MST

Space Shuttle Atlantis and the ISS fly across the night sky shortly after undocking back on November 25, 2009. Photo by Ethan Tweedie of Pottsboro, Texas via SpaceWeather.com.

Catching flyovers of the International Space Station is one of my favorite hobbies. There is something about being able to watch that gleaming vehicle glide across the sky like a super-bright star, knowing there are people living and working up there at this very moment. Even better is catching a flyover just before or just after the Shuttle has docked or undocked from the ISS. The vehicles appear to almost chase each other across the sky -- it's quite a sight. You'll have the chance to catch this special view this weekend. From SpaceWeather.com:

Space shuttle Endeavour's two-week mission to the ISS is almost finished. The two spaceships are scheduled to undock tonight, Feb. 19th, at 7:54 p.m. EST. This is good news for sky watchers, because there's nothing prettier than two bright spaceships traveling side-by-side through the night sky:

The Hayden Planetarium web site has great information on what parts of the country will have the best viewing opportunities and how to spot the vehicles in the sky. I highly recommend checking it out. You can also check out various phone apps that track sighting opportunities based on your location. I check our listings often, and love running out into the street for the brief encounters with the ISS in the sky. Though I think my neighbors are starting to wonder about me ....

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How-To: Make the key glowstick chemical yourself

Posted: February 19th, 2010, 3:00pm MST

I have lots of hare-brained projects involving chemiluminescence that are currently back-burnered because the chemical that causes the bright chemiluminescence of commercial glowsticks, i.e. trichlorophenyl oxalate (TCPO, shown below), is relatively hard for hobbyists to acquire. I've even gone to the trouble of setting up a business account with a major chemical supplier, establishing business credit references, and getting my residential address approved to receive chemical shipments from them. Just so I could log onto their website and order 100g of TCPO. Which I did many months ago. It's been back-ordered with their supplier since then. Who knows when or if I'll ever actually get it.

This video from YouTuber NurdRage comes with a lot of caveats: the synthesis of TCPO from trichlorophenol and oxalyl chloride is relatively straightforward as syntheses go, and the starting materials are much easier to acquire than TCPO itself, but they're still not at all grocery-store type compounds. And it's not a thing to attempt without the expertise, equipment, and facilities to do it safely. Plus the creepy "Jigsaw" voice effect that the narrator uses to disguise his identity doesn't exactly inspire confidence. There's nothing illegal about this procedure, as far as I know, but I think he wants to remain anonymous so nobody can sue him if they try to play along at home and end up burning it down.

Nonetheless, I was grateful to find this video in the tubes, and will probably attempt it myself at some point. Famous last words, anyone?

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Announcing Hackerspaces in Space, the space blimp contest

Posted: February 19th, 2010, 2:00pm MST

Here's an exciting challenge from Workshop 88, called Hackerspaces in Space. It's an inter-hackerspace challenge to send a weather balloon into space, capture some amazing data, and retrieve it. This could be a great team project for an established space, or even a good way to motivate a group of people to get together and form a space!

I can't help but notice that it also seems a timely and appropriate response to Martin Gittins, who recently noted that "The horizon of our vision for technology is no longer interplanetary travel but multi-touch user interface designs." While there are certainly great reasons to improve the usability and reach of technology, we shouldn't forget that there is a huge universe out there to explore, and that you don't need to be NASA to get a glimpse of it.

Of course, weather balloon won't technically make it into outer space (more like the stratosphere), but are certainly an accessible way to get pretty far up with backyard technology. From their press release:

NAPERVILLE, Illinois - February 16, 2009 - Workshop 88, Chicago's only suburban hackerspace, has announced a new competition. Hackerspaces from around the world will participate to send weather balloons, with payloads, into near space hoping to capture pictures of the Earth's horizon. Inspired by many recent amateur weather balloon endeavors across the country, Hackerspaces in Space aims to turn this phenomenon into a full- fledged competition.
Launches will begin in June and run till the end of August. At the end of competition teams will post their results and pictures on the web where they will be judged on a variety of criteria like: retrieval time, weight of payload, and total cost of the project.

Motivated by the excitement of the challenge, or in some cases a personal vendetta, nine hacker spaces have already signed up for the challenge. So don't delay, check out the competition website for the official rules and to register. See you... in space!

Image courtesy HeatSync labs

More:

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Review: Neil Gershenfeld's FAB

Posted: February 19th, 2010, 1:00pm MST

When Neil Gershenfeld, director of MIT's Center for Bits and Atoms, offered a class titled "How to Make (almost) Anything," he was surprised to find himself inundated by students. In particular, Gershenfeld was taken aback by the fact that these students weren't taking the class for some sort of abstract research, or to fulfill an academic requirement, but rather, to build things they'd always dreamed of. They brought with them ideas for all sorts of outlandish projects to make in the center's Fab Lab. One student wanted to build an alarm clock that needed to be wrestled to make it turn off. Another wanted to make a way for a parrot to browse the Web. A third wanted a way to store her screams of frustration.

That passion, which Gershenfeld ultimately found mirrored all around the world, forms the core of Fab. People want to design and make the things they need, an eons-old urge in humanity that has to one degree or another been suppressed by factories which can make widgets more efficiently and consistently than craftspeople can. Unfortunately, these efficient operations really can't do a good job of addressing their customer's individual wants and needs -- to a degree, customers are expected to make do with a limited number of configurations. As the yen to make resurfaces, personal fabrication machines have allowed would-be designers to build things that previously, only those factories could.

After a brief but important historical retrospective, Gershenfeld plunges into the core of the book: a collection of many different projects which highlight a person or organization's ability to affect the world around them using personal fabrication tools.

Gershenfeld tells the story of Ken Paul, who used Lego Mindstorms to prototype a better way for the USPS to handle mail. Mel King created a fab lab to engage inner-city Boston kids. Kyei Amponsah, a Ghanaian village chief who wanted to use a fab lab to create tools for his impoverished village, like Tesla turbines to generate electricity and and vortex tubes to cool the air. Interspersed with these stories, the author describes the technologies used for personal fabrication -- waterjets, laser cutters, CNC routers, 3D printers, and so on. He illustrates each technique with "Hello World" examples, highlighting the devices' strengths and limitations.

Fab was written five years ago, pre-CupCake CNC and almost even pre-Darwin. This begs the question, how relevant is the book given that it was written so long ago? Very relevant -- the topic is still super current. In fact, as I write this, the most recent versions of MAKE and Wired both feature the subject as their respective cover stories.

The reason the tech aspect doesn't matter as much is that the fabbing movement isn't really a technological initiative as much as it's a societal shift. At its essence, Fab describes a blacklash of sorts against the mindset that we must look to big companies to provide us solutions, rather than coming up with them ourselves. That concept will always be bigger than the latest gadgetry.

FAB, by Neil Gershenfeld
Publisher: Basic Books
ISBN: 0465027458

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How-To: Steel can hydrophone

Posted: February 19th, 2010, 12:00pm MST

Leafcutter John shares the steps he took to build a phantom-powered underwater mic from a steel can (looks pretty classy!) -

I decided to house the pre-amp in the same enclosure as piezo elements (to avoid noise entering the circuit). The challenge here is to find a decent enclosure. As the piezo’s and the pre-amp will be underwater they need to be inside something water-tight.
[…]
After a few experiments, I found you can quite easily solder steel food cans together using a regular soldering iron and electrical solder. It works for water pipes so It should be water-tight in this case. NOTE: aluminum cans will not work at all well!!! Get out your magnet and find some steel ones!

The resulting audio samples sound quite good, justifying the gobs hotglue sealer and onboard preamp. Get started building your own over at Leafcutter's site. [via Hack a Day]

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Soldering is easy with this cartoon!

Posted: February 19th, 2010, 11:00am MST

Inspired by Mitch Altman to learn how to solder, Andie Nordgren wanted to pass on the knowledge of her newfound skill, so she captured the lesson in a cartoon. Fun stuff! [via jprodgers]

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In the Maker Shed:

Learn to solder kit

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MIT hushing up swarmbot display tech?

Posted: February 19th, 2010, 10:00am MST

On Wednesday morning, Evan Ackerman over at BotJunkie posted about MIT's Flyfire system. The idea behind the system is simple and very exciting: Swarms of tiny LED-carrying robot helicopters arrange themselves in the air to make 2D or 3D displays in which each bot serves as a single pixel. Evan linked to the project's homepage on MIT's SENSEable City Lab server and embedded a video posted by the group to YouTube showing the individual prototype swarmbots, which already exist, and some computer renderings of what the working displays would look like. Exciting, eh?

Within an hour of Evan's post going live, MIT took down the FlyFire page and the YouTube video. Or at least password-protected them. I can imagine why they might not want the traffic surge bogging down their own servers, but why yank the YouTube video? Why wouldn't they want people paying attention to this project?

Update: Looks like both the project page and their YouTube video are publicly accessibly again. Dunno what was going on, but clearly it was non-shady. Thanks, guys!

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How-To: Lego soap from urethane mold

Posted: February 19th, 2010, 9:00am MST

Ever wanted to make Lego soap? Rachel @ CRAFT writes:

We are a big Lego-fanatic family, and it's fun to find ways to work Lego into all aspects of our lives (not just playtime). This tutorial from Roots and Wings shows how to create a mold from Lego blocks that you can then use to create these fun Lego soaps. These would make great favors for a Lego birthday party and would be a great way to get kids to get excited about washing their hands... though they might just end up playing with them...

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In the Maker Shed: MintyBoost USB Charger Kit v2.0

Posted: February 19th, 2010, 8:30am MST

We just received a fresh supply of MintyBoost USB Charger kits v2.0 that are all ready to be soldered up taken on a road trip. What's a MintyBoost? It's a small and simple USB charger for your iPod or other MP3 player, camera, cellphone, or almost any other gadget you can plug into a USB port to charge. Please note, mint tin is not included.

Building the MintyBoost is really easy, and the kit is a great first time soldering project. You can read more about making the RuntyBoost (pictured above) here. It's the same MintyBoost electronics inside a larger candy tin. This allows you to store your charging cable too!

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Circuit Bending Orchestra for the Fairytale Fashion Show

Posted: February 19th, 2010, 8:00am MST

I am getting ready for my first NYC runway show, the Fairytale Fashion Show, on Feb. 24th at Eyebeam. I am writing about some of the preparations, on CRAFT and Make: Online. This show will be of the technology fashion collection developed at FairytaleFashion.org, where technology is used to turn make-believe into reality.

Last week, we looked at the Twinkle Pad circuit board that was developed for my sound reactive clothing. During the runway show, there will be a live circuit bending orchestra creating custom tunes for the sound reactive clothing. The orchestra consists of Peter Kirn, Lara Grant, Sarah Grant, and Matt Ganicheau. They will be making tunes from a hacked sewing machine and felted origami.

Sarah will be playing a felted origami "fortune teller" device. As she opens and closes the different segments, she will change the resistance across the felt. This will alter the playback speed of the sample. Lara will be playing the sewing machine pictured above. Two switches are created by wiring the needle and sewing through conductive fabric, each of the two switches triggering different sounds. These switches are connected to an Arduino Diecimila talking to Max/MSP on a computer, via the serial object. The knobs and buttons on the machine control the music loop played, the speed, and the frequency. Matt will process these sounds using a Monome, an open source controller, and the software Max/MSP to build textures and rhythms into the music. Peter will be spinning electronic beats to keep the models stepping, syncing to computers and sewing machines, and incorporating sounds synthesized from scratch and sampled from lo-fi electronics, into an electronic, synthetic fairy tale soundtrack. Using custom software he wrote from his phone, he'll be commanding the ensemble wirelessly from his hand.

About the Musicians
Sarah and Lara Grant are a sisterly team with interests in physical computing, electronic textiles, and signal processing working under the name Felted Signal Processing. Peter Kirn is a composer/musician and media artist/visualist, an electronic producer, and the editor of leading tech blogs createdigitalmusic.com and createdigitalmotion.com. Matt Ganicheau is a composer, designer and educator with a passion for exploring the boundaries of interactive audio.

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Successor to domino toppling needs better name

Posted: February 19th, 2010, 7:00am MST

Watch the video. This is one of those things you kind of have to see happen to understand.

A so-called "stick bomb," "frame bomb," or (worst of all) "xyloexplosive device" (Wikipedia) is an arrangement of flat flexible beams, like popsicle sticks or tongue depressors, that are woven together under tension such that they can be "set off" at one point and sort of explosively disassemble starting at that point, with the reaction propagating away along the structure. Like domino toppling, but flashier.

The problem is all of the common names for this trick would probably get you strip-searched if you used them at the airport.

TSA AGENT: "What are you doing with all these popsicle sticks?"

STICKBOMBER: "I'm going to a stick-bomb convention. I mean, I use them to build frame bombs. Haven't you ever heard of a xyloexplosive device?"

TSA AGENT: "Kindly put your hands in the air and step over here with me, sir. Don't make any sudden moves."

I'm not sure I have any better suggestions. But perhaps we can all brainstorm. "Poptomata?" "Spring-frames?" Anyone?

[via Boing Boing]

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Weekend Project: The Raygun

Posted: February 19th, 2010, 6:01am MST

Enclosure: [download]

A steampunk style lighter in the form of a retro raygun. Thanks go to Molly Friedrich for the original article in MAKE Volume 17.

To download The "Discreet Companion" Ladies' Raygun video click here and subscribe in iTunes. Check out the complete "Discreet Companion" Ladies' Raygun article in MAKE Volume 17 and you can see that in our Digital Edition. Here is the pattern for the Raygun body.

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Weekend Project: The Raygun (PDF)

Posted: February 19th, 2010, 6:00am MST

Enclosure: [download]

A steampunk style lighter in the form of a retro raygun. Thanks go to Molly Friedrich for the original article in MAKE Volume 17. View the PDF of this project. And then subscribe to MAKE magazine for other great projects you can do over the weekend.

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$2 iPod shoebox art enlarger

Posted: February 19th, 2010, 5:00am MST

Using a shoebox, some convex lenses of varying focal length, and a bit of poster board maker manish15 has assembled an inexpensive DIY art enlarger on the cheap. Similar to an epidioscope, the device projects an image onto a drawing surface.

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DIY yurt made out of trash

Posted: February 19th, 2010, 2:00am MST

Niki Raapana designed a DIY shelter called a Gertee.

Gertees are round houses made of sticks and poles tied together with zipties and covered with cloth or other materials. Each one is as unique as the owner who builds it.

All ger/yurts can be tailor made to fit any kind of budget. Many builders world-wide offer varieties of the yurt at prices ranging from 2 to 25K. My variations, based on the original Mongolian Ger design, expand the concept to include more people who don't have the 2K.

American made, high end yurts are so well constructed and modern they are getting HUD approval. In English towns residents are overturning municipal codes prohibiting odd looking tent homes. Yurts are a growing option for camping in National Parks and Wilderness areas. They also have an emerging fan base in the sustainable development-green community.

These may be perfect for creative people who want to try something new or they may be an optional shelter for homeless disaster victims in areas full of scrap lumber and salvageable materials. People from all backgrounds and income brackets can build these very comfortable little round home for themselves, and even the lowest end ones are very cute and sturdy.

Read the instructable to learn how to make your own. [via Beyond the Beyond]

More:

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Hackerspaces: Hive 76 video

Posted: February 18th, 2010, 10:00pm MST

A VIMBY video about hackerspaces, featuring Philadelphia's Hive 76 and Mr. Johnny Hackerspace himself, Mitch Altman.

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The Best of Toy Fair - PopSci

Posted: February 18th, 2010, 9:00pm MST

PopSci has a good vide round of the 2010 ToyFair... I like the laser-harp-type thing...

Say the word "toy" to a techie, and his mind will think one thing: robots. But all infrared-loving, artificially-intelligent smart-toy-ogling tech-savvy aside, new toys can instill as much "ooh! shiny!" as even the hottest cellphone. And we're not just talking about robots: This week, the International Toy Fair hit NYC, and PopSci.com found 20 funky new toys with a few tricks up their sleeves.

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Glove mouse is perfect wintertime computer peripheral

Posted: February 18th, 2010, 7:00pm MST

From the MAKE Forums:

Forum user thetanktheory built this Glove Mouse to help improve his FPS game skills:

Built from an old laser mouse and some random parts i had lying around. This is a first version and I have quite a few improvements in mind (already working on the next one) but, it functions a lot like I hoped it would. It makes those quick, twitch-reactions in FPS' much easier. Currently I need to move the buttons over a bit and center the laser a bit more. I plan to add a few more mappable buttons, figure out how to implement a scroll-wheel, lower the laser assembly's profile, and cover all the functional parts.

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Inside the "Magic-1," homebrew CPU

Posted: February 18th, 2010, 5:00pm MST

Phillip covered this awesome homebrewed CPU before, but there's now more info on the builder's site and a series of videos showing it in action. Visitors to the 2007 Maker Faire Bay Area may remember seeing the Magic-1 and meeting its builder, Google engineer Bill Buzbee. The project is incredibly well documented on the site. You can even telnet into the Magic-1, running 16-bit Minix at a scorching 4.09Mhz, to play the original Adventure game, or run classic apps like Eliza and Conway's Life. Retro-geeky good times!

Homebrew CPU

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Alex Rider Contest Winner: Listening Cup gadget build -- it works!

Posted: February 18th, 2010, 4:05pm MST

By Kris Magri, engineering intern

Thanks again to everyone who entered the Alex Rider Dream Gadget Contest! As promised, our team at Make: Labs has built the winning gadget: the super-stealth Listening Cup designed by Grand Prize winner Nic. Check it out!

Amid a raft of great entries that were extremely creative, the Listening Cup was deemed the overall winner because it's stealthy and high-tech, but still buildable. It came with detailed hand-drawn plans, even showing what type of electronic parts would be needed. The original idea was a drinking cup with a false bottom and electronics hidden beneath -- a microphone, an amplifier, and a speaker -- so that a person could put the cup to their ear and eavesdrop on conversations from a distance, or listen through walls.

Results
Using electronics available to anyone, we found that the Listening Cup can easily pick up faint nearby sounds and make them louder, though it couldn't listen though walls unless they were paper-thin. Of course, we figure Alex Rider's employer MI6 could afford some awesome miniaturized circuits, like those in expensive hearing aids, that would boost the Listening Cup's performance tremendously.

Overall, the Listening Cup was a pleasure to design and build. It really put us in the shoes of Smithers, the gadget maker for Alex Rider (though we are envious of his lab).

Building the Listening Cup
After judging all the entries on three criteria (creativity of idea, cool factor, and technical realism), tabulating the results, and choosing Listening Cup as the ultimate winner, our troubles were just beginning. Now, how to build one?

We've published quite a few amplifier circuits in MAKE magazine, and built several more that weren't published, so we had a pretty good stash of circuits to try. We went through the magazines and identified 3 potential circuits that might work. On the first day, engineering intern Eric Chu and I reached for the quick-build to test what it would be like to have a amplifier with its microphone inside a cup. We stole the amplifier module from an existing project sitting on our shelf: the "Covert Wireless Listening" device disguised as a book, from MAKE Volume 16, the "Spy Tech" issue. We cut a hole in an ordinary red plastic Dixie cup and shoved the mic in. This became our tester unit for the next few days...

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Backwards tower PC case

Posted: February 18th, 2010, 3:14pm MST

backwards PC.jpg

Although this is an old page, it's still a clever idea, and a relatively rare example of a purely practical case mod. Mike Harrison was tired of having to crawl around behind his computer to mess with all the connections, so he turned the case around by mounting all the lights, switches, and drives in what was the back of the case, and using it with that side forward.

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Ask MAKE: Why are some LEDs tinted?

Posted: February 18th, 2010, 2:30pm MST

Ask MAKE is a weekly column where we answer reader questions, like yours. Write them in to mattm@makezine.comor drop us a line on Twitter. We can't wait to tackle your conundrums!

Jacob asks:

I'm new to electronics, and am interested in LEDs. One thing I can't figure out is why some of them are colored, while others are clear. What's the deal with that?

Hey, good question! I'd never actually thought about it before, and now that you mention it, it does seem a bit confusing. My initial guess was that the coloring might be used as a filter to block out other colors, but that doesn't make sense- in general, LEDs put out a very narrow spectrum of light, so they shouldn't need filters (and it would probably be difficult to build a filter with that narrow of a cutoff range). One exception would be more complicated LEDs such as white ones, which normally start with blue light and then use a phosphor to convert it to white light. It seemed possible that at least for those, the color could be part of the phosphor- except that white LEDs are almost always clear! Besides, the phosphor part turns out to be located right on top of the dye.

So, the best I can tell is that the tinting is added to make it easier to tell them apart when they are off. The clear ones are a pain to sort out, because you have to plug them in to figure out what color they might be. Kind of funny, but I guess that's how it goes!

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Maker Business: Magnolia Atomworks, part 2

Posted: February 18th, 2010, 1:30pm MST

As we join fair John and Erin for leg 2 of their exciting journey, you will recall that they are in search of an online retailer to sell their delightful and most-puzzling Mystery Boxes. -- Gareth

Magnolia Atomworks, part 2: Kit design and productionBy John Edgar Park and Erin Kelly-Park

While I was busy making lists of possible cool company names and checking to see if the URLs were available, I also began to consider who the Mystery Box customer would be: Geeky? Puzzled? Mysterious? Based on our twenty minutes of "market research," we decided to contact Maker Shed and ThinkGeek, two great stores with what we perceived was the right demographic: customers who were likely to see blog posts, videos, and other buzz that we generated, on sites like Lifehacker, Boing Boing, Wired, and MAKE.

Obviously, we had a bit of an in with Maker Shed, but for ThinkGeek, I literally picked a likely contact name from their website and cold emailed them. We were thrilled when both stores placed orders for the 2009 holiday season! This was great news, but there was no way we could handle cutting hundreds of boxes in time. Outsourcing can be a bit scary. You're trusting someone else to manufacture your product and get it there on time. We were fortunate to find a perfect fit: a contract-cutter who was knowledgeable, super-helpful, and fast.

Making prototypes is one thing, full-scale manufacturing is quite another. We quickly realized that the original design would need to be revised. First of all, those Wikipedia images I used for the original box probably weren't cleared for commercial use. Secondly, due to a wood-sourcing difficulty, I needed to re-draft my design for a different dimension of lumber. Finally, the original design wasn't too easy to put together, requiring some hand-tuning of various parts that hold the box together. The kit version needed to go together right out of the box.

To solve the design problem, we hired a graphic designer friend of mine, Will Weyer, to do custom graphics. Not only were his designs gorgeous, but they etched much faster than the originals. Machine time is money. I re-drafted the slot heights for the new lumber thickness, and came up with a new design for press-fit notches that would allow the boxes to snap together easily.

Since the kit contains small parts that the children of litigious people might decide to choke on, we decided to start a limited liability corporation, or LLC. This keeps your personal and business assets separate from each other. It can also simplify taxes (or make them heinously complex; since we haven't had to do taxes yet, we're still waiting to find which it is!). I was planning to file for the LLC myself, but ran out of time (read: lost interest in researching and filling out forms), so I hired My Corporation to do it.

And so this meant that we had to finally settle on a name. "Magnolia Atomworks" was now official.

Tune in for the thrilling next chapter: Part 3: To market, to market

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Introduce a girl to engineering today

Posted: February 18th, 2010, 1:00pm MST

The 18th of February has been designated as Introduce a Girl to Engineering Day, an offshoot of National Engineers Week.

A few days ago we asked Dr. AnnMarie Thomas, a professor of engineering at the University of St. Thomas, to share her thoughts on the occasion. If you haven't read her guest editorial, please do check it out. However, the gist was that it's our responsibility to let girls -- and everyone else! -- know that engineering and other technical vocations are options.

The IAGTED page lists activities going on nationwide. But there are things we can do as individuals to encourage girls to pursue technical careers. As AnnMarie wrote in her editorial,

I challenge all of you makers out there to introduce a girl to engineering- pick up a soldering iron, go on a factory tour, visit a windmill, or share the beauty of Bernoulli's equation. And feel free to include her little brother, father or mother!

So, readers, what are you going to do? Leave a comment.

[Image: Argonne National Laboratory]

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MAKE @ Greener Gadgets next week in NYC

Posted: February 18th, 2010, 12:38pm MST

Next week a few of us from MAKE will attend the Greener Gadgets conference in New York City.

For three years, the Greener Gadgets Conference has explored sustainable design alternatives for the electronics we use in our homes and workplace every day.

The 2010 event, held February 25 in New York City, will feature two design keynoters, Yves Behar, founder of the San Francisco design studio, fuseproject, and Robert Fabricant, vice president of creative for frog design inc.

Behar’s design studio was responsible for the design of the world’s first $100 “XO” laptop for One Laptop Per Child, a project aimed at bringing education and technology to the world’s poorest children. Fabricant leads frog’s Design for Impact initiatives, which has harnessed the power of mobile technology to combat the world’s worst HIV and AIDS epidemic in KwaZulu Natal, South Africa.

Other speakers include visionaries from Green Life Smart Life, Autodesk, LaboGroup, MIT Media Lab, U.S. Green Building Council, Home Automatic Inc., Dwell magazine, Treehugger and more.

The conference closes out with the incredibly popular Greener Gadgets Design Competition, highlighting a new class of sustainable product concepts, from those that create their own energy to those that minimize the need for any electricity at all. Online registration is available until February 19. Readers can use the registration code "BLOG10" for a $50 discount.

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Tune your guitar using LEDs

Posted: February 18th, 2010, 11:00am MST

Using the open hardware Stimmmopped, you can tune your stringed instrument using you eye rather than your ear. It works by illuminating a string with two lights, which are flashing at the frequency that the string should be vibrating at. If the tuning is off, the string will vibrate slightly faster or slower, so the illuminated part of the string will appear to be moving (due to the stroboscopic effect). Once the string is in perfect alignment, the lights will appear fixed in position. It's certainly not a new idea, however this version looks like it was designed quite well. Cool project!

I'm also guessing that you could have some fun with it as a musical note generator, if you use some photocells to pick up the frequency of the flashing lights... [via embedds]

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Best warning sign ever

Posted: February 18th, 2010, 10:14am MST

Accidental blindness has never been so funny! You can download a high-res version from the always-entertaining Mike's Electric Stuff. [via Boing, which is to say Boing]

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EKG-controlled Game of Life hoodie

Posted: February 18th, 2010, 9:00am MST

Joe Saavedra writes:

The concept is a wearable version of Conway’s Game of Life, that is controlled by the current state of your life. Essentially, a wearable extension of your heart, externalized in the form of Conway’s Life. A custom circuit includes an infrared EKG monitor that resets the Game each time a heartbeat is detected. Heartbeat data is analyzed by a hackduino which resets an ATMega48 chip, part of Adafruit’s kit controlling Life, which is embedded in the chest of a hoodie. Conductive thread is used to connect the 16 LED matrix to the circuit board which is kept in a pocket towards the bottom of the hoodie.

More:

In the Maker Shed:

Game of Life Board

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'Flight of the Bumblebee' on robotic vibraphone

Posted: February 18th, 2010, 7:00am MST

Tim O'Keefe, Michael McIntyre, and Brock Roland of San Francisco State University's School of Engineering created MARV, here. That's "MIDI Actuated Robotic Vibraphone," of course. Which is a nested acronym, really. Crank it all the way out and it's "Musical Instrument Digital Interface Actuated Robotic Vibraphone," or MIDIARV, which is not nearly so catchy. Each key has two solenoids--a striker and a damper. Cool stuff. I wonder if you couldn't make one solenoid do both striking and damping? [via Hack a Day]

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Benjolin synth project - intuitive, unpredictable, fun at parties

Posted: February 18th, 2010, 6:00am MST

The latest item of interest presented by Casper Electronics could easily take centerstage at the next hardware hacking social. Casper's Benjolin Light Synth provides an intense show of color as accompaniment for its broad and unpredictable sonic palette -

This piece is built around the 2 Benjolin circuits, which is a complex, analog sound generator designed by engineer/artist/super star Rob Hordijk. I've made a bunch of modifications and added a 3 channel light globe. The globe has three high intensity LED lights in it, RED, GREEN and BLUE. I'm able to grab different signals from the circuit (not JUST the audio signal) and send them to the lights, so each color is fading and strobing in a different pattern. The result is complex color mixing madness.

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Custom billet aluminum iPhone cases

Posted: February 18th, 2010, 5:00am MST

These stylish and attractive small batch iPhone cases from EXOvault are machined from solid pieces of billet aluminum. They add a retro-futuristic charm to something already heavy on the futuristic.[Thanks, Revolverkiller!]

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Relief: 3D interactive maps

Posted: February 18th, 2010, 2:00am MST

Called a "scalable actuated shape display", this project by Daniel Leithinger, Adam Kumpf, and Hiroshi Ishii of MIT's Tangible Media Group seems especially suited for displaying terrain.

Relief is an actuated tabletop display, which is able to render and animate three-dimensional shapes with a malleable surface. It allows users to experience and form digital models like geographical terrain in an intuitive manner. The tabletop surface is actuated by an array of 120 motorized pins, which are controlled with a platform built upon open-source hardware and software tools. Each pin can be addressed individually and senses user input like pulling and pushing.

[via the Eyebeam ReBlog]

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More on signwriting

Posted: February 18th, 2010, 12:30am MST

In response to my "Lost Knowledge" column on sign painting (aka signwriting), one of our readers, peterman921, himself a signwriter from Southern, Oregon, sent us links to some YouTube videos of the craft. The one above is by Alicia Jennings, aka monkeysign123 on YouTube, a big rig 'striper and signwriter from the Great Northwest. This video of her painting on glass, viewed from the opposite side, so perfectly captures my childhood experience of seeing a signwriter at work while getting my hair cut, as recounted in my piece.

Monkeysign123's YouTube Channel

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Lost Knowledge: Sign painting

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Sriracha embroidery

Posted: February 17th, 2010, 10:00pm MST

This really belongs on CRAFT, in fact, in was on CRAFT, posted by the inimitable Brookelynn Morris, but also being addicted to this stuff (and knowing many geeks who also have the habit), I couldn't resist posting it here. A friend of mine, a real ethnic food connoisseur, turned me on to Sriracha hot sauce decades ago. He spoke about it in such rhapsodic tones, I just had to try some. Endless bottles of it have since rotated through my cupboard ever since. They must put crack in it or something, because soon, you're putting it on everything, for an instant party in your mouth, a very spicey party in your mouth.

Brookelynn writes:

One of my flickr contacts, christ(ine), posted this perfectly rendered sriracha embroidery. This is the only hot sauce in my house, and its sweetspicy is addictive. In fact, it has an almost cult-like following. I'm not surprised one bit that she felt compelled to stitch this up, but I am shocked at how well she created the complicated characters. and details. Art imitates life, and in this case, craft imitates food.

Sriracha Embroidery

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This week in Maker Events

Posted: February 17th, 2010, 6:00pm MST

Enclosure: [download]

Looking to take a break from tinkering on your latest project this weekend? Here are some fine maker events to check out, from The Maker Events Calendar. Wish your event was on the list? Add it to the calendar!

Coming up this week:

BarBot 2010
San Francisco, CA
Wednesday, Feb 17, 2010 - Thursday, Feb 18, 9pm - 2am

Make: Denver February Meeting
Denver, CO
Thursday, Feb 18, 2009, 7pm+

Rockland Robotics Club Meeting
Nanuet, NY
Friday, Feb 19, 2010, 7pm - 9pm

Handmade Music Night, Toronto
Toronto, ON
Friday, Feb 19, 2010 10pm - 12am

Arduino + Gumband SMS @HackPittsburgh
Pittsburgh, PA
Friday, Feb 20, 2010, 7pm - 8pm

Public Arduino Night @ theTransistor
Provo, UT
Saturday, Feb 20, 2010, 5pm - 8pm

Learn to play the Didgeridoo @Pumping Station: One
Chicago, IL
Saturday, Feb 20, 2010, 2pm - 4pm

Intro to Electronic Soldering @The Hacktory
Philadelphia, PA
Saturday, Feb 20, 2010, 1pm - 4pm

NEMES 14th Annual Model Engineering Show
Waltham, MA
Saturday, February 20, 2010, 10am - 4pm

Using Transistors @Metrix Create Space
Seattle, WA
Sunday, Feb 21, 2010, 2pm - 4:30pm

Pure Data Workshop 2: Interfacing with the world
Portland, OR
Sunday, Feb 21, 2010, 1pm - 5pm

Musicians and DIY Electronics Swap Meet #7
Berkeley, CA
Sunday, Feb 21, 2010, 11am - 3pm

HacDC Lightning Talks
Washington, DC
Tuesday, Feb 23, 2010, 7:30pm - 9:30pm

Hackers in the Pub @Workshop 88
Naperville, IL
Tuesday, Feb 23, 2010, 8pm+

Start planning for:

Handmade Music @ the Hack Factory
Minneapolis, MN
Thursday, Feb 25th, 2010, 7pm - 10pm

Friday Night at The Crucible
Oakland, CA
Friday, Feb 26, 2010, 6:30pm - 9:30pm

Learn to control the Arduino @Kwartzlab
Kitchener, ON
Saturday, Feb 27, 2010, 1pm - 5pm

LVL1 Solder Your Own Freeduino Workshop @ UofL
Louisville, KY
Saturday, Feb 27, 2010, 1pm - 4pm

Maker Faire Newcastle
Newcastle, UK
Saturday, Mar 13, 2010 - Sunday, Mar 14, 2010

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Lost Knowledge: Sign painting

Posted: February 17th, 2010, 4:30pm MST

The Lost Knowledge column explores the possible technology of the future in the forgotten ideas of the past (and those just slightly off to the side). Every other Wednesday, we look at retro-tech, "lost" technology, and the make-do, improvised "street tech" of village artisans and tradespeople from around the globe. "Lost Knowledge" was also the theme of MAKE Volume 17

When I was a tween, one Saturday afternoon, my dad and I went to the barbershop to get our hair cut. Outside the shop, an elderly man was standing there painting a new sign on the replaced plate glass window (which vandals had recently smashed). Walking by, I was mesmerized by the painter, deep in a kind of Zen-like concentration as he worked, his large, beat-up and paint-smeared wooden toolbox overflowing with brushes and small cans of paint, his palette, his maul stick, all of it was so novel and wondrous to me.

Inside the barbershop, as my dad got his hair cut, and then as I got mine, sitting in the cast iron barber's chair (which also always fascinated me) right by the window, I was transfixed, watching the painter work. I couldn't get over the idea that those nearly perfect letterforms, with their thick drop shadows, and the starbursts and other ornaments he was so effortlessly creating -- all flowed so confidently from his hand, held steady by the maul stick pressed to the glass. It looked like flourishes of magic. I'd already been interested in art and graphic design by then, but this experience made me become even more interested in pursuing commercial art as a career (which I ended up doing). It's amazing how, in one's life, a small, seemingly mundane encounter like this can have such a disproportional impact. I still think about that elderly signwriter (what sign painters are called), outside the small town barbershop in Chesterfield, Virginia, every time I see a handpainted sign.

But these signs and building-side advertisements (sometimes called "brickads") are very much a fading artform. But like a lot of dead or dying media, the form has found an avid and growing following online. There are a number of Flickr pools devoted to old and new handpainted signage, and online archives of "ghostsigns," signs from decades (or centuries) past that are all but fading away. The art of the "walldog," a slang term for signwriters, will not be forgotten. And like a lot of retro commercial arts, such as letterpress printing, there are some who claim that handpainted signs are even making a comeback.

Here are a few resources to check out:

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What Was I Thinking? Part 3: Barbie skull costume after Dali

Posted: February 17th, 2010, 2:30pm MST

We have covered Maine artist Andrew Salomone's work here at Make: Online many times before. Highlights include a portrait of Bill Cosby in Jell-O shots, a Ouija board shaped like a computer keyboard, a gingerbread house abandoned halfway through construction due to the economic downturn, an unfinished scrabble game which at a distance becomes a portrait of Abraham Lincoln, and a ski mask with the wearer's face printed on the outside. We like Andrew, and we like Andrew's work.

But my fragile, inflated ego needs a break from these weekly pummelings. So today somebody else is in the spanking machine. And that somebody, dear Andrew, is you. Thanks for being a sport and for posting your failed Halloween costume in the first place. Andrew, himself, has this to say about the project:

I've been thinking about making a skull out of barbies after this famous image of Salvador Dali for a while now. I finally decided that the easiest thing to do would be to stitch the barbies onto a ski mask and wear it as a Halloween costume. But after seeing the final result, it seems like there may never be an appropriate time to wear this.

The Dali image he refers to is a tableau vivant featuring the bodies of naked women arranged to form a skull. It's pictured on the shirt he's wearing in the photo above, but because it's arguably NSFW, we're only going to link to a hi-res image. The work is a 1951 photograph by Philippe Halsman (Wikipedia), who famously collaborated with Dali on several portraits, and is based on a sketch by Dali himself. It is titled In Voluptas Mors, which my hack Latin renders as something like "In pleasure, there is death." The image is well-known, and was strongly alluded to in promotional art for The Silence of the Lambs and The Descent.

Thanks again, Andrew. Anybody else brave enough to step up? Send your What Was I Thinking? suggestions straight to me at sean@makezine.com.

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Building a CP/M 68k computer from scratch

Posted: February 17th, 2010, 2:00pm MST

João Silva's latest project is to build his own computer from scratch, and it looks like he is off to a great start. Based around the Motorola 68000 processor, he is attempting to build a system that can run the CP/M-68k operating system. Besides just figuring out how to wire the chips up correctly, he is also working on getting a compiler set up so that he can write C programs for his system. It's an ambitious project which harkens back to the good old days of building computers in one's garage using discrete components. I look forward to seeing his progress!

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EMSL's Drink Making Unit

Posted: February 17th, 2010, 1:00pm MST

One problem with the cocktail robot genre is -- at least until recently -- everyone's trying to make money off these devices so no one is willing to go open source. Well, trust our friends the Evil Mad Scientists (Lenore and Windell) to do it right. Their beautiful Drink Making Unit pumps liquids from three different carafes, somewhat limiting their drink options but still serving as a great starting point.

How *do* you build a drink-mixing robot? We spent a remarkably long period of time looking for true food-safe valves and pumps to use for this project. The "standard" way to do this is to use solenoid-controlled valves, or sometimes compressed-air powered valves, but the solenoid valves are notoriously unreliable and we aren't planning to keep compressed air (or CO2) around. The other obviously safe way to transport liquid in a known food-safe environment is to use a peristaltic pump. These are great, but we felt a little silly either making our own from scratch or paying about $100 each for commercial units that barely move milliliters per minute. We also looked at various diaphragm pumps, aquarium pumps, and so on, but mostly came up with products that were either expensive or of questionable construction for use with food, or gave completely uncontrolled throughput volume.

Finally, after making some progress on a design consisting in part of ketchup bottles and servo motors, we came across an unexpected solution while browsing eBay for other pump types: breast pumps.

Check out EMSL's description of the Drink Making Unit or see the DMU in action at BarBot 2010.

More:

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Circuit Skills: Circuit Board Etching, sponsored by Jameco

Posted: February 17th, 2010, 12:00pm MST

Enclosure: [download]

I very much enjoy making my own circuit boards. It's a satisfying process that ties together my love of electronics with materials I used back in my art school days. It's also the most accurate way to build a circuit short of sending away to a PCB manufacturer, and it's much more fun.

Subscribe to the MAKE Podcast in iTunes, download the m4v video directly, or watch it on YouTube.

I actually got my start in electronics etching others' designs I'd found online -- long before I understood how they worked! Churning out fully-functional devices early on proved to be a great way to keep me motivated and making. The above video documents the ins and outs of my process, and can hopefully serve as a starting point for your own.

Materials I use for printing, etching, and drilling my own boards:

Transparency stock for laser printers (inkjet setups are likely as effective)
Nitrile gloves (thicker reusable gloves are good too)
Dust mask & eye protection
Good ventilation (if you can smell it - you're breathing it!)
Inexpensive photo frame (or specialized exposure frame)
Red safe-light (optional - brief exposure to dim light is ok)
Chemicals - positive type developer, ferric chloride, nail polish remover (or acetone)
Pyrex dishes w/ lids (plastic storage containers work as well)
Desk or clip lamp + ~30W CFL bulb
Drill bits, .8mm, 1mm, 1.5mm (+ others, dependent on source design)
Small drillpress (or suitable dremel attachment)
Misc. tools - xacto knife, metal ruler, permanent marker, vacuum, etc.

Additional tips I've found helpful:

Warm developer and etchant do speed up the process, but keep an eye on your board's progress!
Orient your design before printing (text should appear reversed in most cases)
Keep etchant away from any metal you don't want etched - including stainless steel sinks!
Drilling holes systematically (i.e. left to right, top to bottom) can help prevent oversights
Keep the board clear while drilling to improve visibility/accuracy
Dedicate a workspace & prepare materials ahead of time (plastic drop-cloths are handy!)

As part of their sponsorship of these Circuit Skills videos, Jameco is offering two product bundles to help jumpstart those new to the realm of homemade PCBs -

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Software MIDI bridge uses serial port to transmit MIDI

Posted: February 17th, 2010, 11:30am MST

Got a cool idea for a physical computing project (or actual music instrument) that uses MIDI, but don't have a computer with an actual MIDI port? Use a Windows-based computer? Then Stephen Hobley (of laser harp fame) has you covered with his serial port MIDI relay project. After getting tired of relying on expensive, unwieldy adapter boards, he wrote a slick piece of software that monitors a regular serial port, and passes messages between it and the operating system's MIDI interface. Excellent idea!

Under Linux, I *think* you can configure the snd-serial module to achieve the same effect, however I don't have any experience with OS X. Have you done this with your favorite operating system/program? Got tips, or a better way to accomplish the same thing?

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In the Maker Shed: Ice Tube Clock kit

Posted: February 17th, 2010, 10:30am MST

IMG_8635 2.JPG
Somewhere at the junction of modern open-source hardware and early 80's Russia lives a beautiful DIY kit from the Maker Shed called the Ice Tube Clock. The centerpiece of this old-meets-new clock is a Russian-made, 9-digit, vacuum florescent display (VFD). Included in the kit is everything you need to build a complete VFD clock.

Features:

Cool glowing blue tube with 8 digits, PM dot and alarm on/off indicator
Adjustable brightness
Alarm with volume adjust
Precision watch crystal keeps time with under 20ppm (0.002%) error (Clear acrylic enclosure protects the clock from you, and you from the clock
Battery backup will let the clock keep the time for up to 2 weeks without power
Selectable 12h or 24h display
Displays day and date on button press
10 minute snooze
Integrated boost converter so it can run off of standard DC wall adapters, works in any country regardless of mains power
Great for desk or night table use, the clock measures 4.9" x 2.9" x 1.3" (12.5cm x 7.4cm x 3.3cm)
Completely open source hardware and software, ready to be hacked and modded!

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Party time hax0rs at the N900 showcase

Posted: February 17th, 2010, 9:00am MST

Nokia put on a project showcase for the finalists in their (mainly) European N900-hacking contest. The projects are pretty interesting and range from remotely viewable kite aerial photography to GPS-aided haptic navigation. Oh, and it looks like it was a good party, too.

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Letters From the Fab Academy, Part 3

Posted: February 17th, 2010, 8:30am MST

In this series, "Letters from the Fab Academy," Shawn Wallace, member of AS220, the Providence, RI community arts space, shares his experiences with the Fab Academy, a distributed learning collaborative, built on the infrastructure of the Fab Lab network. -- Gareth

Mold making and casting By Shawn Wallace

Noah Bedford from the Providence Fab Lab made this flexible spider coupling for use in one of the machines built in the lab.

This week's topic, mold making and casting, came as a welcome change from the previous two-week session (embedded programming), which was creating a bit of anxiety here at the Fab Academy. The materials and processes for molding and casting are easy to learn and yield satisfying results; programming microcontrollers can be satisfying in its own way, but is a more intractable topic to learn in two weeks. The assignment this time around was to model an object, machine a positive mold, then cast a flexible urethane mold that could be used to make multiple objects in a variety of materials.

Here are a few samples of the work created in the class:

Food-friendly silicone molds can be made to cast edibles, like these candies, modeled by Susanna Tesconi in Barcelona.

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HeatSource Invention from L-MIT

Posted: February 17th, 2010, 8:30am MST

Another Make: television-produced video highlights an invention called HeatSource. Using paraffin wax stored in plastic chambers to store heat, HeatSource was created by students for the MIT IDEAS competition.

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Hello, gorgeous! "Spectacular" views from ISS Cupola

Posted: February 17th, 2010, 6:30am MST

Image courtesy of NASA

Last night's third and final spacewalk for the STS-130 crew resulted in the opening of the Cupola's seven shutters, revealing what Station commander, Jeff Williams, called "spectacular" views of the earth below. The seven-window Cupola offers 360 degree views of Earth as well as the outside of the station, giving crew members the most wide-eyed look from a spacecraft ever known. Die-hard space geeks watched live footage of spacewalkers, Bob Behnken and Nicholas Patrick, floating around on the outside of the station while the Cupola shutters were slowly opened, but had to wait for views from inside the Cupola to be beamed back to Earth (none of the live-feed ISS cameras can reach inside the Cupola). The wait was well worth it.

The new bay window view of the Earth will likely be a hot topic at today's NASA Tweetup at Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas. I'll be along for the ride, tweeting and sending pictures, as participants get a special behind-the-scenes tour of some of JSC's hot spots and have opportunity to chat with several astronauts.

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Another year... another Toy Fair

Posted: February 17th, 2010, 3:30am MST

Pt 2559
Another year... another Toy Fair... Someone asked me if this is upsetting. Some thoughts...

i didn't go to toy fair this year, but this is interesting to hear (and not surprising). As far as it bothering me, earlier in life, it would have, but now, not so much. Now, there are products at toy fair this year that are "based on" projects I've worked on/ or supported).
That being said, when issues like makers not getting proper credit comes up, i don't mind helping a maker who simply wants proper credit (last year's Bristlebot fiasco, for example, Scholastic and Klutz eventually did the right thing) - we didn't need a lawyer, just a great community to rally. if companies break the law, other things might need to happen -- and we'll likely see or hear some examples as the DIY community gets larger and their ideas flow to and from more commercial ventures. For me personally, I really don't want to compete on lawyering, I'll move on to the next idea, hopefully :) a lot of maker projects are "based" on other ideas too, so origin can get complicated. Creative Commons, patents, trademarks, copyrights, are systems we all currently have access to -- and although there are problems, it's pretty exciting to be making things at the moment.

Many of us have seen our own projects "ripped off." Now i consider it validation our work is both good and interesting. i can't speak for everyone, this is just me of course -- I also reserve the right to change my mind :) i think we're all doing amazing things and the makers out there are leaders of a huge movement. Hobbyists, customers, makers, fans, and community will reward all of us. Sure, there might be sales that "leak" away to toy makers who don't work with makers or give proper credit, but that's always going to be true, taxation on being popular :) What we all need to do is provide the best value and customers service, that's what cannot be commodified or cloned. And lastly, we can all try harder helping folks to choose makers and support makers via Maker Faire, Maker Shed, Maker's Market, and companies like EMSL, adafruit, Sparkfun, etc. -- PT

Thoughts, makers?

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CubeStormer

Posted: February 17th, 2010, 3:00am MST

We have covered other robotic Rubik's Cube solvers before, but the CubeStormer is a little different. It's fast, really fast! Apparently it's able to solve any 3x3x3 Rubik's cube in less than 12 seconds. Then again, maybe it isn't that fast compared to Erik Akkersdijk!

The Worlds Fastest Lego Mindstorms RCX Speedcubing Robot. Built entirely from lego elements now scanning and solving any 3x3x3 Rubik's cube combination in under 12 seconds.

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Grant Hutchinson's workshop slash server room

Posted: February 17th, 2010, 2:00am MST

I'm a big fan of workshops, the messier the better, and this one definitely fits the bill. I especially love the old school Macs that Grant has turned into servers. The super old ones are an 8500 and 9600 working as web servers, while a relatively modern G4/450 dualie serves as a file server. But these old school devices can't compare to Grant's pride and joy, his Apple Newton server. See this photo's Flickr page for lots of notes about the various items in the shop.

What's the oldest working electronics equipment you have in your workshop, readers?

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Liquid-cooled engines for R/C models

Posted: February 16th, 2010, 10:30pm MST

Our buddy Fra Fondi, of Hobby Media/Xtreme RC Cars, was at the Nuremberg Toy Fair last week. He sent us email with some of the things he was most excited about, including this Grossi 2-stroke, 3.5cc R/C car engine that's water-cooled! Looks amazing. Grossi's 1/8 Rally Buggy Racer, using this new engine, will be available in July 2010,

You can see pics of engine here.
And all of Hobby Media's fair coverage here. [Site's in Italian.]

Over on RC-Monster, they have some close-up images of it which shows the beautiful of the engineering.

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BarBot 2010

Posted: February 16th, 2010, 9:00pm MST

2483355617 75C3A21764
BarBot 2010... See you there!

In a world where robots and humans struggle together in the fight against boredom. . . Only one event ends up with the robots dancing “The Human” while the meat puppets (you) end up singing the praises of RoboBartenders. This February, come hang out with some alternate life-forms at BarBot 2010 - the third annual festival of Cocktail Robotics! BarBot is a celebration of cocktail culture and man-machine interface. Get a drink from an actual robot. Chat up a snarky electronic bartender. Listen to some graceful tunes being played by robotic music makers. And, after downing your sixth martini, you can finally admit that it’s the geeks who shall inherit the earth. These robots don’t clean the carpets. What they will do is much, much better. They make you a drink! Let your roommate do the vacuuming. These bots have got better programming on their mind.
Wed/Thur Feb 17-18, 2010 - 9pm-2am
21+ with photo ID $10 advance / $15 at door
DNA Lounge - 375 Eleventh St. Buy tickets now!

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Awarefashion, a cell phone detector on a shirt

Posted: February 16th, 2010, 9:00pm MST

Richard Etter designed this cell phone detecting AwareFashion shirt to assist the staff at an opera house. Containing a module that detects activity on a GSM band, it can be used to alert the staff to patrons who have not turned their phone off (and may be in danger of interrupting the proceedings with a cell call).

It appears to be just a concept, however I can see the potential for it being a more polite way to deal with the issue than just blocking all cell reception. This way, the staff is will be able to confront each person individually, which could allow them to make exceptions for people with valid reasons to have a (muted) phone on. Think it could work? [thanks, Val!]

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Blink LEDs at 2x speed with overclocked, liquid-cooled Arduino

Posted: February 16th, 2010, 7:00pm MST

Like making blinky light projects, but not able to pump enough performance out of those measly 8 bit instructions on your Arduino? Yeah, us too! Thankfully, the folks over at liquidware antipasto have us covered with this liquid-cooled, overclocked Arduino.

All joking aside, it can be a fun experiment to try overclocking a microcontroller (skip the liquid cooling part, though). If you are actually running into the limits of performance that you can squeeze out of the Arduino platform, you might want to consider a faster system, such as the Maple.

In the Maker Shed: 4305704184_65a99d4a42_b 2.jpg The Maker Shed has everything you need to get started with Arduino

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Printing in clay

Posted: February 16th, 2010, 6:00pm MST

Unfold Fab announced the first successful printing of a ceramic vessel by a 3D printer. Interestingly, one of the biggest challenges seems to be eliminating the bubbles in the clay. However, what I want to know is, how to fire the resulting pieces?

We took some time to play around and get used to the dynamics of the clay print process. It was also time to step up (or down?) the resolution from 1.9 to 0.8 mm using screw-on luer lock tips. We are also now using powder clay that can be mixed in exact quantities instead of moisturizing chunks of clay. Also figuring out ways of reliably filling the syringes without trapped air. I'm using a similar 60cc syringe where the front is cut off and use this to suck in the clay from the mixing bowl. Then the clay is transferred to the print syringe, this works really well actually.

After some calibrating I decided to print a test design that would be hard to make using conventional techniques: a double walled vessel with fins connecting in- and outside. I was expecting mostly failure but it finished without to much trouble! Due to the restrictions of Skeinforge expecting 3d models, the walls are double filament (1.5mm total). As you can see on the Pleasant3d view there is an outer and inner shell and instead of a line connecting both there are o-loops. Testing a different design now that enables us to test a single filament double wall vessel. But in the end we will need a way to generate tool paths from single walled surfaces instead of solids.

[via Open Materials]

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Mouse trap car

Posted: February 16th, 2010, 5:00pm MST

Greg Borenstein posted drawings and photos of the mouse trap-driven car he's been working on to the MAKE Flickr Pool.

Mouse trap car

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Staples, a blank wall, and lots of patience

Posted: February 16th, 2010, 4:30pm MST

This is the work of French artist Baptiste Debombourg. Some of his other works, including one more staples piece, can be seen here. [via Dude Craft]

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Waste oil foundry furnace -- complete!

Posted: February 16th, 2010, 4:00pm MST

Jake von Slatt gives us a video tour of his finished propane and waste oil foundry furnace. I love the lamp post and lights. SO von Slatty!

Final test of Jake von Slatt's Waste Oil Foundry Furnace

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Cellphone spectrum analyzer

Posted: February 16th, 2010, 2:30pm MST

With some careful planning and PCB trimming, Miguel managed to fit all the components needed for a 2.4 GHz ISM band spectrum analyzer into an old cellphone enclosure - resulting in an awesomely stealthy spy-worthy device.

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TC Maker's Minne-Faire a success

Posted: February 16th, 2010, 1:00pm MST

Despite only a few weeks in the planning, TC Maker's faire featured 16 exhibitors and attracted more than 500 visitors -- not bad for the hacker collective that didn't even have a space 2 months ago.

There was a display of movie prop replicas, a display of circuit-bent gadgets, a wind turbine with blades ground from a length of 8" PVC, rockets, and a stop-motion movie filming.

MAKE contributor and author Bill Gurstelle demonstrated some of his experiments with static electricity and experimental musician Tim Kaiser put on a show.

However, the hit of the show was the life-sized Operation game made by TC Maker members Jim Wygralak and Nick Lee, which consistently engaged both grown-ups and kids.

To see more pix of the event, check out the TC Maker Flickr pool.

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MacGyver Multitool

Posted: February 16th, 2010, 12:23pm MST

Anyone know if the MacGyver Multitool is real? Read more | Permalink | Comments | Read more articles in Gadgets | Digg this!

Housebroken at Flux Factory this Friday

Posted: February 16th, 2010, 12:10pm MST

Our pals at Flux Factory are having an opening this Friday!

Join us on Friday, February 19th for Housebroken, Flux’s inaugural show! In celebration of our newest home, we’ve invited dozens upon dozens of artists to create works throughout the building. Housebroken is easily our biggest project ever, with over 100 installations, performances, and homey additions to our factory…. Eclectic performances and unparalleled reverie begin at 8 pm, continuing on into the night.

Housebroken
Friday, February 19 8pm
39-31 29th Street, LIC, NY 11101
Suggested donation $15 (tax-deductible)
Open bar courtesy of Campari, 21+
Please rsvp to rsvp@fluxfactory.org
Exhibition runs through March 21st

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Spokeless bicycle

Posted: February 16th, 2010, 11:00am MST

Nine enterprising seniors in Yale's Mechanical Engineering program built this rad spokeless bicycle for their mechanical design class. Thinking about the off-axis forces that those bearings will have to endure makes my head hurt (and that has to be one strong frame!), however the effect is totally worth it. [via neatorama]

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In the Maker Shed: 4-Bit Microcomputer Kit

Posted: February 16th, 2010, 10:30am MST

The 4-Bit Microcomputer Kit from Gakken features a 20-key keypad, a 7-segment LED, and 7 individual LEDs. It comes pre-programmed with 7 different applications, and you can even program your own via the keypad. It's a fun retro kit, just begging to be hacked! Don't forget to check out Gakken magazine 4-bit computer rollout party in Tokyo.

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Plastic that tracks your balance in real time?

Posted: February 16th, 2010, 10:00am MST

This "Live Checking Card" concept design from Yoon Jin-Young, Lee Jun-Kyo, Lee Young-Ho, and Kim Jin-Yi has been getting a lot of bandwidth around the tubes, lately. Ignoring the details of technical implementation, the notion itself is straightforward: Your check card shows you exactly how much money you have available to spend and tracks that amount, essentially in real time. This idea won the prestigious red dot design concept award for 2009.

It has also provided me with a nice MAKE-related excuse to go on a couple of badly-needed but (I hope) uncharacteristic rants. If you're interested in the idea and would rather not patronize my soapbox, go ahead and click here to read all about it over at Yanko Design.

Otherwise...

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Waterless sterilizer "washes" hands with room temperature plasma

Posted: February 16th, 2010, 7:00am MST

Before you protest, as I initially did, that some things are so simple and fundamental that they don't really need high-tech "improvements," realize that this device is being developed for and targeted at medical professionals, who, per this New York Times article covering the developing technology, "often have to wash their hands dozens of times a day -- and may need a minute or more to do the process right, by scrubbing with soap and water."

Room temperature plasma is reportedly very effective at sterilizing surfaces, and is already in use to clean inanimate surfaces and instruments. The plasma is produced by ionizing ordinary air, so no separate gas supply is needed. Apparently the central design challenge is making sure the box --which is basically just a high-voltage power supply--is safe to stick your hand into, and remains that way over the lifetime of the device. The plasma itself supposedly causes no discomfort and is safe for the skin, although you'd think, if they really believe that, somebody would've provided a photo showing a bare hand in contact with it, rather than one so conspicuously gloved.

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Is homemade bioplastic viable fodder for 3D printers?

Posted: February 16th, 2010, 2:00am MST

We recently posted a video showing how to make "bioplastic" -- an easily manageable substance made with vinegar, glycerine, starch, and water. Even better, it's biodegradable.

This recipe has created a modest amount of buzz. MAKE reader Matt Daughtrey has been playing around with the stuff and Joris of the Shapeways Blog recently posted a how-to.

The big question is, can this be a DIY source of plastic for 3D printers? With ABS plastic sold at the MakerBot store for fifty bucks a reel, the prospect of creating your own has got to tempt home fabbers. According to Joris, the bioplastic made with this technique doesn't look too promising:

I didn't attempt put it in a 3D printer. I used extrusion nozzles, old dish washing bottles and tubes to simulate 3D printing. At this point I would not be comfortable in putting it through a 3D printer because of the variability in consistency and viscosity. I do think that someone much more precise and diligent than I could come up with a material that might work. Currently however the material is apt to gunk up any tubing. Even if you're super careful it also gunks up. With a dish washing bottle as a stand in for an extruder nozzle I repeatedly tried to lay down layers. Variability in density made this difficult at times. At other times when I had opted for a much more fluid mixture using more gylcerine and water it was able to produce fine lines and fill in a base layer. The long drying times of 24 hours though make a layer by layer approach impractical to say the least. Even when this was attempted the warping of the drying process messed up any "filling in" or lines that were built.

What do you think, readers? Any chemistry nerds out there who could suggest a recipe allowing DIYers to create their own MakerBot ammo?

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How-To: Build a fake Google Street View car

Posted: February 15th, 2010, 8:56pm MST

Enclosure: [download]

My favorite pranksters in the Fatlab (Free Art & Technology) visited Berlin for the Transmediale festival, during which they replicated a Google Street View car and toured around town filming skits like asking for directions and lurking in front of the Chinese embassy. Check out the site for a video of it in action and PDF instructions for building your own Street View car.

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Removing eccentric weights from pager motors

Posted: February 15th, 2010, 5:31pm MST

Over at the Robot Room, Dave Cook has a brief piece on removing the eccentric weight from pager/cellphone/force-feedback joysticks motors. It really is basically a firm pull with a pair of locking pliers, but you need to do it correctly so as not to bend the drive shaft or mar the motor casing.

Tiny Motor -- Removing the weight from tiny vibrating motor

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Triceracopter

Posted: February 15th, 2010, 2:47pm MST

This work, subtitled "Hope for the Obsolescence of War," was completed in 1977 by the late American sculptor Patricia A. Renick. There's more pictures over on Gizmodo. [via Geekologie]

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Curtain made from film slides

Posted: February 15th, 2010, 10:00am MST

Becky spotted this "kodachrome curtain" from Flickr user yarnzombie in the CRAFT Flickr pool this week. Besides the coolness of the idea itself, this is a great example of the power of a good photograph to sell your project. Gorgeous shot! [via CRAFT]

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Bug 2.0 - OMAP3, BeagleBoard compatible and Android development support

Posted: February 15th, 2010, 7:29am MST

Bug-2.0-Small
Bug 2.0!... OMAP3, BeagleBoard compatible and Android development support - solid 2.0 release!

Today’s a big day for the BUG team. We are reporting to you from the 2010 Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain with some really exciting news and some really incredible demos (be sure to check back for updates as they come in). If you have not yet heard the big news, we announced this morning a new addition to the BUG family of products – BUG 2.0. The second generation BUG will be a big leap forward for our little rapid prototyping device. We will be releasing plenty of details in the coming months on all of the planned enhancements, but right now all we can tell you is that the new BUG will have support for Android development and will be based on the Texas Instruments OMAP3 platform, allowing for full BeagleBoard compatibility. We are always looking to bring the open hardware movement to larger and larger communities of developers, and BUG 2.0 will meet that goal in a very big way. If you would like more info, be sure to check out the full press release HERE.

We will have many more updates coming out of Barcelona from Monday to Thursday. Be sure to check back often for the latest from Peter, the BUG team, and some of the incredible businesses we are working with on the ground here at the conference.

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Atomic emission spectrum scarf

Posted: February 15th, 2010, 7:00am MST

Our very own inimitable Becky Stern makes and sells these beautiful custom scarves featuring the atomic emission spectrum of your favorite element. Shown above is the "silicon" version (as modeled by AdaFruit's likewise inimitable Limor Fried) but you can choose whichever element/spectrum you like. And here's a handy-dandy Java applet from The University of Oregon that makes it easy to browse for your selection. Minimalists may prefer hydrogen or helium, but for my money it's hard to pass up the rainbow-y goodness of, say, iron or tantalum. Want!

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Handmade synth senses wireless activity

Posted: February 15th, 2010, 6:00am MST

Yoshi Akai's Wireless Catcher analog synth derives control input from nearby wireless signals picked up by an onboard antennae. As if that weren't interesting enough, the copper control panel sports some elegant decorative flourishes typical of his impressive body of work.

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Happy birthday Galileo Galilei! Father of Modern Science

Posted: February 15th, 2010, 3:00am MST

Happy birthday Galileo Galilei...

Galileo Galilei (15 February 1564 - 8 January 1642) was an Italian physicist, mathematician, astronomer, and philosopher who played a major role in the Scientific Revolution. His achievements include improvements to the telescope and consequent astronomical observations, and support for Copernicanism. Galileo has been called the "father of modern observational astronomy," the "father of modern physics," the "father of science," and "the Father of Modern Science." Stephen Hawking says, "Galileo, perhaps more than any other single person, was responsible for the birth of modern science."

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CRAFT weekly recap

Posted: February 14th, 2010, 8:12pm MST

This week on CRAFT we saw:

Crochet 3D Glasses and more...

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Unusual mechanism: The rolleron

Posted: February 14th, 2010, 8:07pm MST

Yes, this is a missile. Sorry about that. But it turns out the AIM-9 Sidewinder is the only well-documented example I can find, on the web, of a machine that employs these interesting little widgets called "rollerons." See the little metal pinwheels at the trailing corners of the fins? The rolleron is basically an air-driven gyroscope, as Tom Harris explains over on HowStuffWorks:

[A] spinning wheel resists lateral forces acting on it. In this case, the gyroscopic motion counteracts the missile's tendency to roll -- to rotate about its central axis. The simple, cheap rollerons steady the missile as it zips through the air, which keeps the seeker assembly from spinning at top speed. This makes it a lot easier to track the target...

Cool, neh? And there could certainly be nonlethal applications for all you hobby rocketeers out there. [Thanks, Lewis!]

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Make: Together (more collaborative couples)

Posted: February 14th, 2010, 6:01pm MST

We asked several of our favorite maker couples to tell us a little bit about the ups and down of their collaborative process. This touches on two of our current site themes, today being Valentine's Day, and this quarter having a Maker Business theme. All three of these couples have turned their passion for making things, and their ability to work well together, into successful small maker businesses. Jillian Northrup and Jeffrey McGrew run Because We Can, a CNC-driven design and fabrication shop in Oakland, CA. Amy Parness and Ariel Churi run Sparkle Labs, creating "hi-tech, high-touch" products and environments, such as the awesome DIY Design Electronics Kit. Dave and Cheryl Hrynkiw run http://www.solarbotics.com/, the premier supplier of BEAM and other types of robotic kits and parts. Thanks to all three couple for taking the time out to talk to us. Happy Valentine's Day -- Gareth

MAKE: What sorts of projects do you collaborate on? How long have you been doing it?

Jillian Northrup (and Jeffrey McGrew): Well, right now, we run our design-build business, Because We Can, together. But we've been working together since we met, which was in 2000. When we first started dating, we decided to put together an arts and events newsletter and secret society, of sorts, we called it "Loteria Cabal." We wrote a monthly newsletter together, doing about four events a month (one of the events was our wedding!). It was really fun! We did that for about three years, then stopped, focused on the Art Car we made together for about a year, then decided to start the business that we run today. We've been in business since 2006.

Amy Parness (and Ariel Churi): We make toys and art projects together. We also make dinner. We like to make cupcakes and ice cream. We've been doing it for about 7 years.

Dave (and Cheryl) Hryrinkiw: Cheryl supports my weird ambition to be a self-proclaimed "Chief Geek" at my own little technology company. We've been at it for...wow... 17 years?!? Why is she still married to me?

The Solarbotics staff. Cheryl and Dave are on the upper right. Read more | Permalink | Comments | Read more articles in Makers | Digg this!

Lego Segway needs only NXT 2.0 parts

Posted: February 14th, 2010, 6:00pm MST

This isn't the first Lego Segway (defined as a balancing bot on two wheels) -- that honor would probably go to Steve Hassenplug's Legway. However, the Legway used two EOPDs (Electro-Optical Proximity Detector) from HiTechnic Sensors to balance. What's cool about this project is that it needs only those parts found in a standard NXT 2.0 set. Most notably, it uses a light sensor in place of the expected (and non-standard) gyro sensor.

By using the NXT Color Sensor as a simple proximity sensor to the ground to detect the approximate tilt angle of the robot, the robot can actually balance itself!

For more fun, if you have a second NXT brick, you can make the Segway rider on this robot lean forwards and backwards via Bluetooth remote control, which will cause the robot to start rolling forward or backwards while staying balanced, just like a real Segway!

Most self-balancing robots (including the actual Segway PT) use one or more gyroscopic sensors to detect the actual tilt angle of the robot from true vertical. This robot uses only the NXT Color Sensor (in light sensor mode) by aiming the sensor at the ground and measuring reflected light, which will change slightly depending on how close the sensor is to the ground.

[via The NXT Step]

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Using snow to see heat transfer

Posted: February 14th, 2010, 3:00pm MST

In these photos, you can see the heat transfer happening through a number of roofs in my neighborhood. In a wintery time like we have now, the snow acts as an indicator of your insulation. If you have a full roof of snow, then you're well insulated. If you have spots of bare roof surrounded by snow, then inside the house is an area where it's uninsulated, or poorly insulated. If your roof doesn't hold the snow at all, then it's time to look at your attic insulation. Sunny, South facing roofs will naturally clear faster on clear days, due to the input of solar energy. Any part of your building envelope that transfers heat is spending your money and wasting energy resources.

On some of these roofs, you can see areas of white lines. These are the rafters. The roofing structure is thicker there, and heat isn't transferring as well in those spots. A nearby antique cape, shows that the rafters are 3 or 4 feet apart. That is a big difference from the way it would be framed in modern times with the rafters at 16 inches on center.

One neighborhood house sports a chimney from a woodstove. It seems that the rafter bay where the chimney pierces the roof is totally uninsulated, judging from the lack of snow on that one section of the roof.

On my house, you can see thin spots about two feet from the gutter. That is the place where the studs from the wall meet the rafters. This unusual framing technique seems to have been done to save on materials when building the house. The wall is well insulated, as is the attic. Its just the junction point that is radiating heat.

Before this winter, there were three bare spots on a section of roof over the mudroom in my house. I noticed these spots, and really noticed the cold air flowing from the recessed lights in that room. For a few winters, I put up insulating window plastic over the fixtures to keep the warm in and the cold out. These lights have since been removed and the cavities insulated, there is still a bit of melting in those locations, but nothing like it was.

What can you see by looking at the exterior of the houses around you? Can you see the energy flowing from warm to cold? Does this help you see improvements you can make to your house?

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Happy Chinese New Year!

Posted: February 14th, 2010, 2:30pm MST

2010 is the Year of the Tiger - symbol of vivacious bravery! Go ahead, venture into unknown territory or kick your current skill level up a notch by trying something new. This year can be a great time to proudly show the world what we've cranked out this past year of the Ox!

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Vintage miniature stories

Posted: February 14th, 2010, 2:00pm MST

Recently, I came across photographer Michael Paul Smith, who has an online showcase of his miniature scene photographs.

I asked him to tell of his process, influences and techniques.
I first start off with some very rough sketches on the particular building I'm thinking of making. Really, they are mere scribbles, but they capture the key points of the structure. I have to ask myself questions like: when was this building built and in what style of architecture. Has this building been added to over the years and if so, in what way. If you walk down the center of town, and really study the buildings, you can see their history. For what I'm doing, my structures have to be generic enough so they don't look too unusual, yet they have to have some character to them to make them interesting. I also study photographs from the past. There are books out entitled Then and Now, which show photographs of buildings taken in the 1890's and also in the present at the exact same spot. These are very telling because you can see how drastically or subtly things have changed. I want my models to have the feeling that they have traveled in time.

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NYCR hackathon video

Posted: February 14th, 2010, 12:00pm MST

I just love watching the inspired tinkerings of sleep-deprived Club-Mate-swilling hackers. Readers, have you participated in an all-night hackstravaganza? Was it a good experience? What did you work on?

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Pa++ern: Tweet-to-embroidery production

Posted: February 14th, 2010, 9:00am MST

pa++ern.jpg

This art installation, originally designed by Daito Manabe and Motoi Ishibashi, allows Twitter-users to tweet instructions to web site that replies with an example output. Upon approval it sends the design to a bank of industrial sewing machines which then embroider the resulting pattern onto a t-shirt. The web site still works, but not sure if you can still buy the shirt you create. [via Open Materials]

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Make: Together (couples that collaborate)

Posted: February 14th, 2010, 7:30am MST

My friends Sean and Claire are always making and doing together. They do urban exploring, they psycho-geographically map the high-weirdness and local color of their beloved Baltimore, and they're always working on some kooky project together. Where other couples might be going out for a romantic dinner at some over-priced eatery, Sean and Claire will more likely to be found playing footsie while building their rendition of a Cabinet of Wonders from the Future or working on their Baltimore Babylon (my name for it, not theirs) model train board. In celebration of Valentine's Day, I asked them to write something up about the ins and outs of being a couple that collaborates and to tell us more about their unique take on model training. -- Gareth

Make: Together By Claire and Sean Carton

Barbie and Ken. Bill and Hillary. Bob and Rita (Marley). Laurie (Anderson) and Lou (Reed). Burt and Lonnie.

If there's stuff to make, and the willingness to make it, there's a long history of couples making it happen together. And call us icky romantics, but we think there's something special about two people coming together to make something bigger and better than either individual might accomplish on their own. Not to mention: It's fun!

"Beads? Bunny ears? After several months of working on their train layout together, they just don't care, anymore."

As a couple, we've always loved collaborating. It's probably one of the things that drew us together in the first place, starting with bashing out information architectures and creative strategies at a digital agency in Baltimore, MD, ten years ago. The process of collaborating, of brainstorming, of negotiating through the tough parts, of sweating the details, and finally, celebrating the birth of something that we'd created together, has always been a center point of our relationship.

So, how do you make it work, making things together? It isn't always easy. But we've done a passable job at figuring out how to creatively collaborate without killing each other, or ending up in divorce court. So we thought we'd take this opportunity to share with you some of what we've learned about making together. Is is Valentine's Day, after all.

Rather than serving up a bunch of bland, half-baked advice, we thought we'd take you inside one of our recent projects: our postmodern (and somewhat post-apocalyptic) train set, and the inevitable fallout. Hopefully, along the way, you'll gain some insight into how we make this work, and maybe take away some inspiration for how you can undertake collaborative projects together (if you aren't already).

Closeup of "Tyler's," Claire's re-creation of a 1968 riot-era bricked-over package store/bar Read more | Permalink | Comments | Read more articles in Makers | Digg this!

Next Fab Studio in Philly

Posted: February 14th, 2010, 4:00am MST

Pt 2551
Next Fab Studio in Philly...

NextFab Studio is a membership-based, high-tech workshop and prototyping center- it’s Philadelphia’s “gym for innovators”. Located in the University City Science Center, on Philadelphia’s Avenue of Technology, our brand new 3600 square foot facility provides comfortable, clean, and safe workspaces with hand tools, 3D printers, computer controlled machine tools, software, and electronics workbenches. Expert instructors and a community of collaborators are on hand to help you problem-solve and achieve your vision. NextFab Studio has everything necessary for you to invent, repair, create, and innovate!

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Make: Projects - Label-etching a glass bottle

Posted: February 13th, 2010, 7:03pm MST

My Make: Projects - Bottle cutting post has proven to be one of the most popular of the series. So here's a short follow-up revealing a simple trick I discovered for etching designs on glass bottles using the bottle's label as a built-in resist.

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Pen-shaking centerfuge

Posted: February 13th, 2010, 6:00pm MST

Matthias Wandel made this rather tongue-in-cheek invention to help him shake pens.

Using my gear template generator program, I was able to establish that a three-tooth lantern against a mating cycloid shaped gear should just barely work smoothly. I wanted a high gear ratio for my pen centrifuge, so this was a good place to a gear with such a small number of teeth.

I wasn't completely sure how well it would work, so I made a test gear. Not wanting to waste too much plywood, I only made a segment of a larger gear. The little gear has three "pins", which are actually small 3/8" (10 mm) ball bearings. There's no rubbing on this gear!

Thanks, Gabriel!

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Soft circuit hoodie warms, illuminates lucky dog

Posted: February 13th, 2010, 2:30pm MST

To help keep her dog Tucker warm and visible at night, Hack Pittsburgh member Val made him this awesome light-up dog hoodie. After fashioning a hoodie for him using her leet sewing skills, complete with a silk-screened skull for decoration, she added a light-detection circuit that turns on a set of LEDs when it gets dark out, ensuing that he will remain visible at all times. She had originally planned to use a Lilypad to control the LEDs, but after some experimentation determined that it would be too big to fit on the small dog. Excellent work! She has a short write-up on her website, and a walk-through of the process on her Flickr set.

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Beam Camp: A haven for makers

Posted: February 13th, 2010, 12:00pm MST

Brian Cohen is co-director of Beam Camp, a residential summer camp that meets for four weeks each summer in New Hampshire. Beam Campers hone their maker skills with hands-on, minds-on activities throughout the day. The campers' time is organized through a collection of domains, and each summer there's a large-scale Beam Project that involves everyone in actively thinking and building around the themes of the project.

Read on for an interview with Brian about Beam Camp and its place in the maker community.

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MakerBot heated build platform

Posted: February 13th, 2010, 12:00pm MST

Jordan Miller of Philadelphia hackerspace Hive 76, with collaborators, has created a heated build platform for the MakerBot Cupcake CNC. A heated build platform slows down the rate at which a fabject cools, helping it cool more evenly.

We love MakerBot, but we needed a better way to print larger objects (like parts for a Mendel). So I started experimenting in the lab at UPenn for how to get a heated platform up and working on 3D-PO.

The first design involved multiple layers of silicone fused together around a nichrome core. We told MakerBot about it, and they wanted more! Then Eberhard Rensch in Germany heard about it (go Internets!), and he went to town on a simplified software design. Awesome!

Read about it on the MakerBot wiki or buy one from their store.

Also see Andrew Plumb's Flickr set of his own experiments with a heated build platform.

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How to make a paper-based animation

Posted: February 13th, 2010, 4:30am MST

Filter-Animation-Image-By-Grid-Layer

How to make a paper-based animation... not-bob writes -

Have you seen the cards where there appears to be a moving picture just by using a piece of plastic with lines on it and an image underneath? This instructable shows you how to make your own with just a computer, printer, paper and transparencies. I'm assuming that you have the Gimp image editor installed. Hopefully you can translate this as needed for other programs.

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One-Button Objects - call for works

Posted: February 13th, 2010, 3:30am MST

CDM sends word of a call for works utilizing the simplest of all interfaces -

CALL FOR WORKS – KOKOROMI’S ONE-BUTTON GAME OBJECTS

DEADLINE: MARCH 1 (receipt)

What can you do with one button? In an age of ever-more-complex touch interfaces, we’d like to imagine what a single, tangible, hardware button can mean for a design.

To celebrate the arrival of their Gamma game event in San Francisco, art game collective Kokoromi is teaming up with Create Digital Music and Create Digital Motion to launch a call for ONE-BUTTON OBJECTS. This call seeks to inspire unique hardware/software hacks that integrate playful, one-button interaction within a standalone machine or device. The curators are seeking circuit-bent gadgets, retro-fitted consoles, mechanical constructions, custom electronics, and other one-off creations. During the week of the Game Developers Conference, the Game Objects will be featured in an exhibit at the Gray Area Foundation, a new collaboration and exhibition venue near the Moscone Center, in the Tenderloin. A selection of these Objects will be shown at the opening night Gamma party, alongside the software-based Gamma4 one-button games, on March 10th at the Mezzanine in SoMa.

The submission guidelines are rather broad including "games, toys, interactive artwork, musical instruments – any self-made device that provides game-inspired user interaction". More details over at Create Digital Motion.

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Next Barbie is an engineer

Posted: February 12th, 2010, 9:00pm MST

Assets Images 4 2010 02 500X 2010Computerengineer
Computer Engineer Barbie via Gizmodo...

This is actually wonderful. Barbie's had 124 careers since 1959, ranging from Stewardess to Paratrooper. Today she gets her 125th: computer engineer. You can tell she's smart 'cause she's got glasses, and reads nothing but binary.

Barbie's latest career move is also significant for being the first decided entirely by online vote. Though maybe it's not so surprising that the internet community was especially inclined to see a Bluetooth-rocking geektastic Barbie.

"All the girls who imagine their futures through Barbie will learn that engineers - like girls - are free to explore inﬁnite possibilities, limited only by their imagination," says Nora Lin, President, Society of Women Engineers. "As a computer engineer, Barbie will show girls that women can turn their ideas into realities that have a direct and positive impact on people's everyday lives in this exciting and rewarding career."

Thoughts? What Barbie would you like to see for kids to celebrate?

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Hacking a Honda Tail Light

Posted: February 12th, 2010, 8:30pm MST

The folks at HeatSync Labs, a new hackerspace in Chandler, AZ‎, look to be off to an excellent start. They've only been around for a few months, and already the first projects are starting to trickle out. One of their members, Nate Plamondon, needed a brighter tail light for his motorcycle, so he took matters into his own hands and hacked his honda's tail light. After a few rounds of designs, he ended up with a design that uses a 555 timer and a couple dozen LEDs, and will be able to light up his bike for all cars to see. Looks great, and keep 'em coming!

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SurfaceScapes 2.0 demo

Posted: February 12th, 2010, 6:00pm MST

Wolfgang Baur, former editor of the immortal D&D magazine DRAGON and current publisher of a new, independent D&D magazine Kobold Quarterly had a chance to play around with the second edition of MS Surface-based SurfaceScapes D&D game. There are a lot of cool developments, like being able to load your character sheet onto a smartphone and have it continually updated as you take wounds. Here are Wolfgang's impressions:

Movement and line of sight work great. In fact, a clever DM can distract the players, then move an orc from one patch of cover to another, where he again becomes invisible -- right until the moment a PC gets line of sight on it.
It's still a demo. They've got a TON of work to do to integrate more powers, but the newest build for PAX East covers up to 5th level PCs, plus area attacks. Lots of basics still aren't implemented, like say a charge or anything outside the 1st PHB half-Heroic tier.
The sound effects. Subtle, but powerful. Each attack comes with a sound. Dropping a dragon figure on the surface generates a roar and cloud of smoke. I could get used to this. What does a beholder sound like, I wonder?
The Infinite Map. Being able to scroll the map under the figures is nice; it makes the table infinitely large. Not news for Fantasy Grounds players, but obviously useful. When the map scrolls, colored lines connect your figures to their new positions to make them easy to shift.
Figures and Screens Together. The combination of real and virtual PCs and NPCs worked much better than I expected. There's been some hard work done on the interface design which takes me to .....
At Your Fingertips. Overall, the interface is intuitive and easy to learn. You can pull up your PC's powers on the table. Frankly there's no reason this couldn't be integrated with the DDI if that's the direction the team wanted to go.
4E-Only. I asked about Pathfinder or generic game support. It ain't happening; this is specifically meant to handle 4th Edition Dungeons & Dragons. A generic system would probably be less valuable to gamers than one that handles specific rules.

See Wolfgang's post for a lot more details of his experience.

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Twinkle Pad for Fairytale Fashion

Posted: February 12th, 2010, 5:00pm MST

I am getting ready for my first NYC runway show, the Fairytale Fashion Show, on Feb. 24th at Eyebeam. Over the next couple of weeks, I will be writing about some of the preparations, on CRAFT and here at Make: Online. This show will be of the technology fashion collection developed at FairytaleFashion.org, where technology is used to turn make-believe into reality.

While working with little girls on the Fairytale Fashion project, I found that all girls wanted the magic of sparkles. One girl describe this as a dress that "sparkles like Edward" (reference to Twilight).

Inspired by the LilyPad, and the wishes of little girls, Dave Clausen and I created the Twinkle Pad, a board made specifically for sewable LEDs, to create the Fairytale Fashion designs. Twinkle Pad has a ATmega48 microcontroller and resistor banks on one side and a battery on the other. To create a good connection between the board and sewn circuit, we use plated through holes. I like to sew with a size 7 needle and the conductive thread from Lame Lifesaver, so we made the holes a bit bigger. There are four connections to ground around the board so that we can create a variety of patterns.

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Maker Business: Magnolia Atomworks

Posted: February 12th, 2010, 4:00pm MST

Last year, John Edgar Park and Erin Kelly-Park started a maker business called Magnolia Atomworks to create interesting products and kits, such as the Mystery Box (and something allegedly to do with robots and iPads). Here, in the first in a series, part of our Maker Business coverage, John explains how the Mystery Box product came about. -- Gareth

Part 1: How we ended up starting a maker business By John Edgar Park

It's all John Baitchtal's fault. John B's a contributing writer here at Make: Online and Wired's GeekDad. One day, John tweeted a link to a TED talk by J.J. Abrams about a mystery box he's had since he was a kid (the kind you used to be able to buy in the back of comic books). J.J. said that the possibility of what he imagined the box contained was probably far greater than the reality, so he'd never opened it. He uses this metaphor in his films and TV shows.

I loved this idea, and wanted John B to experience it firsthand. I designed and built a one-off box for him, using a loaner Epilog Zing laser cutter I was reviewing for MAKE magazine. I filled it with artifacts he'll never see, and sent it off. John blogged about it on GeekDad, it gained traction, and ended up on Lifehacker and Boing Boing. Pretty soon, I was getting email from people around the world asking if they could buy a Mystery Box of their own.

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Envelope made from Google map of return address

Posted: February 12th, 2010, 3:00pm MST

Our very own spacefaring Rachel Hobson spotted this cool trick from designer Beste Miray Dogan. [via CRAFT]

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Relay drum machine would be perfect backup for stepper motor band

Posted: February 12th, 2010, 2:00pm MST

Bill Sherman of Botsmaker just put the finishing touches on his latest project, called Percussus, The Robot Drum Machine. It's pretty satisfying to re-purpose old equipment to make music, and the results sound like an old telephone switch set to music. When will we see it go on tour with a stepper motor band?

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Mark Tilden's workshop with a view

Posted: February 12th, 2010, 1:00pm MST

Most home workshops have you looking at garage walls or cement bricks. Mark Tilden, father of BEAM robotics, built himself a sweet setup high above the streets of Hong Kong.

Having spent most of my lab life staring at basement walls or security bars, recently sorted myself a home lab 600 feet high overlooking Kowloon Park and the Hong Kong skyline. It's got half-inch thick smoked glass surfaces (solder and superglue doesn't stick) and an awesome AV setup. Glass feels cool against your arms on hot days. Advantage.

Click on the images to see them full sized.

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Detectair is pollution-sensing fashion

Posted: February 12th, 2010, 12:00pm MST

Detectair is a project by Genevieve Mateyko and Pamela Troyer that uses an air quality sensor to detect and communicate pollution levels to the wearer through embedded lights in the garment. Then the wearer can pull the collar up over her face to protect against pollutants. A nice idea, for sure, depending on what the collar's made from. [via Fashioning Technology]

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Lenticular Lego portrait

Posted: February 12th, 2010, 11:10am MST

A lenticular image (Wikipedia) is really a set of two or more images printed on, or refracted through, a sawtooth surface so that one image appears to change to another as an observer passes by. Flickr user Reasonably Clever Chris created a Lego version of the effect with a mosaic composed mostly of element number 50746, known among blockheads as "The Cheese Slope." Check the vid to watch the transition, which happens about 35 seconds in. [via The Brothers Brick]

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Enabling USB Host mode on the Motorola Droid

Posted: February 12th, 2010, 11:00am MST

Ever wish you could plug any USB peripheral into your cell phone? Well, now you can, at least if you have an Android-based Droid phone. Chris Paget has the details on enabling USB host mode on the Motorola Droid. You'll have to build a special dongle and roll your own adapter cable, and support is a bit buggy, however the results look promising- Chris was able to get a full size keyboard working with ease. Of course, being able to connect a peripheral and actually having the drivers to use it are two different things, but thanks to the open nature of the Android OS, it shouldn't be too long before someone gets a kernel running that supports some cool devices. [via robotskirts]

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Maker Birthdays: Charles Darwin

Posted: February 12th, 2010, 10:06am MST

You may have heard of this guy. Born on this date in 1809 in Shrewsbury, Shropshire, Charles Robert Darwin (Wikipedia) would go on, in 1859, to publish On The Origin of Species, a book which is surely among the most influential ever written. In it, Darwin first proposes the idea that all of life descends from common ancestors, and that its diversity can be explained by a process of evolution driven by natural selection. He died in 1882, aged 73, and was afforded the exceedingly rare honor, especially for a scientist, of interment in Westminster Abbey.

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Coffee Kiss ceramics

Posted: February 12th, 2010, 9:06am MST

Ceramics artist Tsang Cheung Shing created this double-take-inducing piece entitled "Ying Yeung," referencing both a beverage of mixed coffee and tea and the idea of love and marriage. [Thanks, Joe!]

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Weekend Project: LED Light Brick

Posted: February 12th, 2010, 6:01am MST

A single chip drives 20 LEDs to create amazing colors in this fun and easy project. Thanks go to Alden Hart for the original article in MAKE, Volume 18.

To download The LED Light Brick video click here and subscribe in iTunes. Check out the complete LED Light Brick article in MAKE, Volume 18 and you can see that in our Digital Edition.

In the Maker Shed:

In the Maker Shed: The LED Lightbrick kit

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Weekend Project: LED Light Brick (PDF)

Posted: February 12th, 2010, 6:00am MST

Enclosure: [download]

A single chip drives 20 LED's and creates amazing colors. Thanks go to Alden Hart for the original article in MAKE, Volume 18.

View the PDF of this project. And then subscribe to MAKE magazine for other great projects you can do over the weekend.

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Customizable recycled plastic and paper iPhone case

Posted: February 12th, 2010, 5:00am MST

Wandering around MacWorld today I came across this customizable recycled plastic and paper iPhone case from a company called Trexta. What makes this case particularly interesting is its intent for you to customize it as well as the manufacturing process involved in producing it. It's made using recycled plastic and paper using a process similar to double-shot injection molded plastic. One unique characteristic of their production process is the lack of an adhesive used to bond the different surfaces together. This looks like it could be a fun project to do with kids and much more convenient to carry around that a mug.

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Noisebridge hackers launch balloon to 70K feet

Posted: February 12th, 2010, 2:00am MST

San Francisco hackerspace Noisebridge launched a balloon to the upper atmosphere, capturing numerous excellent photos as well as one super spinny video.

Declaring a week's advance notice of a balloon launch to the edge of space when we hadn't even bought most of the equipment, let alone built it, was probably an act of pique, if not madness. Remarkable how well it worked out, though.

The plan was simple: a ham radio broadcasting an APRS position beacon, a GPS that was known to work at high altitudes, a camera hacked for time-lapse photography, and an Android cellphone that we'd program to scream out its own GPS co-ordinates via SMS whenever it caught a glimpse of a cellphone network.

They thought they'd lost the balloon at one point, and just when they were sitting down at Denny's to commiserate, the balloon's onboard G1 sent a SMS and they were able to recover the payload. Whew!

Interested in learning more? Read team member Mikolaj Habran's fascinating description of the project, visit the project home page or check out the Flickr set. [via Laughing Squid]

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Recycled bicycle parts by julienjaborska

Posted: February 11th, 2010, 9:00pm MST

Il Fullxfull.116044670
These are lovely. Recycled bicycle parts by julienjaborska.

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Spacewalkers take tinkering to new heights

Posted: February 11th, 2010, 7:30pm MST

Astronaut Bob Behnken participates in a spacewalk during STS-123. Image courtesy of NASA.

Imagine having your workshop traveling at 17,500 miles per hour more than 200 miles over the Earth as you work through grueling, painstakingly-planned out steps of a project with specialized gadgets like a massive Pistol Grip Tool. STS-130 mission specialists, Bob Behnken and Nicholas Patrick will be doing just that tonight, as they begin the first of three complicated space walks for this mission. And while they've each trained for months, poring over checklists and practicing in NASA's Neutral Buoyancy Lab, it's in their personal experience as tinkerers and builders on Earth where their skills are firmly rooted.

"As a kid, I was always taking things apart," said Behnken, the lead spacewalker on this mission. "I was the boy who would come to your house and take your bicycle apart and then have to get invited back the next day to put it back together again."

Behnken grew up outside of St. Louis, where his father was a construction worker and where he frequented his local Radio Shack as a boy to pick up Heathkits and equipment for making projects around his house.

"I just had that interest in doing things that was from figuring out how to do it and then going out and doing it."

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MAKE Volume 21: Traditional cigar box guitar builds

Posted: February 11th, 2010, 7:00pm MST

Back in MAKE Volume 04 (2005), we ran a project for making an electric cigar box guitar. In the newest issue of MAKE, Volume 21, our editor in chief Mark Frauenfelder offers a DIY on making a classic cigar box guitar, and we've had a few people commenting on the article page and sharing gorgeous images of the guitars they've built. We love when that happens, so I wanted to share a few of them here. What I like most about this project is that everyone has their own distinct take on it. Seen above is Jason Hitesman's CBG. You can see more shots on his photo stream. Below are front and back shots of Jake Sunding's cigar box mandolin (build notes on his blog), inspired by Mark's article:

One more for now. Here is Dan Morrill's CBG build. Love the surrounding workshop in this shot:

Have you built one? Share your pics with us in the comments and/or add them to the MAKE Flickr pool! And if you don't already have Volume 21, you can pick it up at fine newsstands near you, order it from the Maker Shed, or subscribe.

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Come and check out our new Makers Market!

Posted: February 11th, 2010, 6:00pm MST

If you've been following our exploits closely in the last year or so, you've likely caught wind of us working feverishly on something called Makers Market. After lots of heavy lifting and obsessive constructing, arranging, merchandising, and labeling, we're ready to throw open the gates and show off our little marketplace. We think of it as sort of an online Farmers Market for cool geekery (and other "maker-made" goodies), or a "curated marketplace of wonderful science, tech, and artistic creations created and sold directly by some of our favorite makers from around the world," as the official statement reads.

Here are some additional details:

A collaboration between MAKE and Boing Boing, Makers Market brings together our favorite entrepreneurial makers and artists selling products and services directly to DIY enthusiasts... Most of the sellers you'll discover in Makers Market are makers whom we've come to know through our work producing MAKE, Boing Boing, Make: Online, CRAFT, Maker Faire, and Make: television. Each seller is selected by the staff at MAKE or the Boing Boing crew. The products are "Maker-Made," either made by, rebuilt by, or substantially produced by the maker selling them. Each maker has their own storefront showcasing their work and sell their products, hosts their own blog, posts pictures and videos, and communicates with their customers and the DIY community at large. MAKE provides the web service, the tools, and the community. Sellers are responsible for doing their own product fulfillment and bringing their unique character, energy, and DIY spirit to the marketplace.

So, come on over and check it out! We're really exciting about this. It's still very much in early beta, so we appreciate your continued patience as we get everything in order.

If you're an indie maker and have a product or service you think you'd like to sell, visit the "Seller's FAQ." Nominating yourself is easy and just takes a few minutes. We'll review your information and generally get back to you in a day or two.

So, come on, let's go shopping!

Here are a few of my favorite items in the market:

Atari Punk Console Kit, Rotobotmouse , BYO Tinysaur Deluxe: T-Rex

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Bringing old cassettes back from the dead

Posted: February 11th, 2010, 5:00pm MST

Reader Craig Smith sent me an email about this recent little fix he discovered for time-worn cassettes:

I was in my basement shop when I found a box of cassette tapes that were the soundtrack to my youth. Since the seldom-used tape deck was removed from the upstairs entertainment center, I set it up in my workshop system. But something was wrong. So many of the tapes sounded flat and warbled. Turns out that many of the felt pads that keep the tape tight against the playback head had fallen off and were missing.

The solution: I rummaged around until I found some thick stick-on felt pads that often come with ready to assemble furniture. After some trial and error, I cut a rectangle about 3mm by 4mm. Peeling off the adhesive backing paper, I put it in place with a pair of tweezers. Since my tweezers are somehow magnetized, I did it with the clear plastic leader pulled away at the end of the tape. The sound is as good as I remember. Time will tell if the adhesive surface will hold, or if a dab of glue is required. VIVA LA 1980s!

More:

How-To: Hack a Magic 8-Ball

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Lightning Talks at HacDC, Tuesday Feb 23

Posted: February 11th, 2010, 4:00pm MST

HacDC's (Washington DC's premier hackerspace) next Lightning Talks evening will feature an eclectic lineup of a dozen five-minute talks on anything and everything that's pressing on the minds of today's thinkers and tinkerers, from rapid boat construction to innovative DIY manufacturing. The talks run about 90 minutes total.

There are currently several speaker slots still available, and they need your brilliant ideas, whatever they may be. For more information, contact obscurite@hacdc.org ASAP to secure a spot. Here for more.

HacDC Lightning Talks
7:30 - 9:30PM, Tuesday Feb 23, 2010
HacDC @ St. Stephen's Church
1525 Newton St NW
Washington, DC 20010

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Post-apocalyptic Wizard of Oz minis

Posted: February 11th, 2010, 3:28pm MST

Nomad painted these awesome Road-Warrior-meets-Toto mashup minis. The figures themselves are available from Studio Miniatures. As an encore, might I suggest The Wizard of Oz gang as characters in the HBO prison drama Oz? Or vice versa? [via Neatorama]

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Ask MAKE: Cleaning an old motor?

Posted: February 11th, 2010, 3:00pm MST

Ask MAKE is a weekly column where we answer reader questions, like yours. Write them in to mattm@makezine.comor drop us a line on Twitter. We can't wait to tackle your conundrums!

Andy writes:

Recently I acquired a vintage Leslie speaker cabinet. The speaker cabinet uses ac motors to turn baffles and horns to create a Doppler effect. Upon opening up the speaker, I found that the motors were working, but very dirty and coated with gunk. What is the best way to clean a motor with an excess of build up?

Congratulations on your acquisition! Since the motors seem to be working fine, my guess is that it might be best to clean them cosmetically, but not to try and take them apart and rebuild them. Even though they are electrical devices, you should be able to clean them like anything else, using some form of solvent and a brush. Just make sure to let them dry out completely before you power them up!

I would start a mild detergent (soap and water). If that doesn't do the job (which it probably won't), try mineral spirits or a specialized electric motor cleaner. The biggest things I can think to look out for when using a solvent to clean the motor are that it doesn't damage the varnish on the motor windings or get into any greased bearings. The varnish is used as a coating on the motor windings, to keep them from touching each other and shorting out, so removing it would not be a great thing to do. If the motor does have greased bearings, you might want to lubricate them as well.

I've taken apart a few motors, but admittedly don't have a lot of experience in this field. Does anyone have a favorite technique or solvent that they use to restore vintage machines like this?

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Creative cassettes & mechanical mods of Tapetronic

Posted: February 11th, 2010, 1:30pm MST

Mike Una points out the action-packed tape deck manipulations of French musician/bender Alexis Malbert, better known as Tapetronic. Very cool to see the focus of hacking turn a bit more toward the cassette itself, rather than just the playback mechanism. More over at GetLoFi.

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Guest editorial: Dr. AnnMarie Thomas

Posted: February 11th, 2010, 1:00pm MST

Enclosure: [download]

Introduce a Girl to Engineering Day (February 18th) carries a special importance. Somehow, we're failing our girls when it comes to engineering. A recent study showed that while women earned 58% of all bachelor's degrees, only 21% of engineering bachelor's were awarded to women. Furthermore, women make up only 26% of the science and math workforce. What can we do? We asked Dr. AnnMarie Thomas, a professor of engineering at the University of St. Thomas, to give her thoughts. -- John

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How-To: Kids' dining footrest

Posted: February 11th, 2010, 12:00pm MST

Instructables user wramey writes:

This cheap and easy addition to our dining room chairs prevents kids legs from dangling uncomfortably. It won't get all their wiggles out, but it will help them sit more comfortably... and now that our kids can sit more comfortably facing the table, they get less food in their laps and on the floor and we all enjoy meals more.

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Playing Rock Band with a real guitar

Posted: February 11th, 2010, 11:00am MST

Alan wrote in to tell us about Open Chord, an open hardware conversion kit that lets you play Rock Band and similar games using a real guitar. We've seen no shortage of DIY rock band guitar mods, however his uses the actual strings on the guitar, rather than adding extra buttons for each note. I'm not a guitarist, however it seems like this could be a fun way to practice fingerings. You could hook it up to an advanced version of Frets on Fire, and you have yourself a Mavis-Beacon style guitar tutor, or even convert it to output MIDI, and use it to play your favorite synth.

More:

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Robots versus pirates!

Posted: February 11th, 2010, 10:09am MST

A Russian firm is selling a system of ship-mountable auto-targeting water-pumping robots with the dual purpose of fighting fires and repelling pirates. BotJunkie's Evan Ackerman explains:

The robotic water cannons (six on each side of the ship) are controlled by a central computer, using TV cameras to target pirates approaching the ship. The robots shoot streams of water at 40 liters per second out to a range of 70 meters, and can wash away potential boarders and even sink small boats. This is a defensive technique that is already used against pirates, but having robots do the shooting helps keep the people who would otherwise be wielding the fire hoses safe.

My biggest concern with this system would be that the pirates could use their Electro-Bolt plasmids to temporarily short out the automated turrets, then hack them to turn against their masters. I mean, just looking at them, it's pretty clear these things are based on Rapture-style hydro-tube technology.

[via BotJunkie]

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(H)ear piercing

Posted: February 11th, 2010, 9:07am MST

These are concept shots of a hearing aid based out of a gauged ear piercing plug. From Core77:

The Deafinite Style is a concept from Munich-based Designaffairs STUDIO that turns a hearing aid into a piece of jewelry, provided you're up for a bit of lobe stretching to get started. The main advantage they propose (aside from an instant hipster-grunge-punk look) is the opportunity to embed the TriMic System -- a highly effective directional microphone system made from 3 individual microphones -- into the plug, helping people who suffer from severe hearing loss.

What do you think? Is this a practical solution for aging lobe-stretchers? One more image after the jump.

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Minne-Faire: A Twin Cities mini Maker Faire this Saturday

Posted: February 11th, 2010, 8:00am MST

Twin Cities Maker is going to have a Mini Maker Faire at the Hack Factory on February 13th, 2010! Come one, come all! We're planning to have the fun start at 2 PM with local makers exhibiting and playing in the newly acquired space. We will also have an Art Show and Party later that night for people to come and experience the space and have some refreshments.

The lineup of makers includes a demonstration by Bill Gurstelle, the music of Tim Kaiser, air cannons, replica movie props, an arduino demonstration, a display by the local Tripoli rocketry club, art cars, a life-sized Operation Game as well as flamethrowers and pulse jets by local engineering firm CazTek.

Interested in attending? The Hack Factory's address is 3119 E 26th St Minneapolis, MN 55406.

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Trilo-femoral-mechnicus

Posted: February 11th, 2010, 6:58am MST

There's plenty of bad found-object and "junk" sculpture in the world. I know because I made most of it myself. But Jud Turner, whose skeletal "Bio-Cycle" made some waves when we posted about it last year, does it right. He's recently posted a bunch of new work to his website, e.g. the awesome mecha-trilobite shown above.

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Lego steampunk "Voyage to the Moon" model

Posted: February 11th, 2010, 2:00am MST

The 1902 French movie Le Voyage dans la lune provided one of most indelible science fiction images ever: the grimacing Man on the Moon with giant bullet-like space capsule in his eye. Guy Himber's excellent Lego steampunk adaptation evokes the same feel with panache. I love the barrel as the exhaust port! The sculpture won the award for 'Best Art' at the 2009 BrickCon Lego convention.

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Making bread while the snow falls

Posted: February 10th, 2010, 10:30pm MST

It's been a very "exciting" few days here in Northern, Virginia. The DC area has been ground zero for the winter storm of the century, with back to back blizzards making this the snowiest winter on record for the Mid-Atlantic area.

The landscape around my house is... well snowpocalyptic, with giant drifts of snow overcoming fences, a totally collapsed roofed trellis in my neighbor's backyard, and a relentless wind whipping powder to white-out conditions. I have to admit, it's a little scary. I had to muscle my way through drifts against both of my front and back storm doors Wednesday morning, just to get them open. I haven't been near a grocery story since the first drubbing, but friends who have say it looks like something from a post-apocalyptic zombie film, with largely empty shelves and people running around grabbing anything edible they can gather into their arms.

If this keeps up, I might end up as one of the hungry horde anxious for food. I'm running low on supplies. I ran out of bread a few days ago (which took french toast, tuna sandwiches, and peanut butter and jelly off my menu). Last night, I'm sitting here thinking: Wait, I might be able to bake bread. I doubt I have all the ingredients, but I can check.

The available supplies were sad. I found one bag of flour that was impressively rancid, but then miraculously found another, in an airtight bag, that smelled okay (even though it was at least a year old). Then I found some yeast packets stuck to some sticky goo on the door of the fridge. Three years old. And some crystallized hunks of honey in a sad-looking plastic bear with his nose punched in. I dug out my old copy of the Tassajara Bread Book. Back in the day, in my communal youth, I knew the bread recipes in this book nearly by heart and did some mean baking for a hundred hungry hippies. I figured the bread would likely be a dense brick-like disaster, but it wouldn't hurt to try. I combined the flour, the yeast and warm water, the honey (after I'd dissolved it), and some oil. A bunch of kneading, rising, punching down, and more rising later, and I had high hopes for the two respectable loaves I was popping into the oven. As they baked, and I blogged, and the wind whistled around and under my sun-porch home office, the smell of the bread was indescribable. Maybe it was driven by the unusual sense of need, stuck here in my cottage on ice, or the fact that I hadn't baked bread in close to a decade (outside of a bread machine), but these loaves smelled amazing. If there's truth in wine, there's home-comfort in bread.

And as you can see from the above... crummy phonecam image, the results didn't look half bad, and tasted even better. I speak in the past tense because way too much of one loaf is already gone (I froze the other). Now I'm antsy to make something else with the limited provisions I have left. Tonight, looking through Tassajara, I realized I have everything I need to make cinnamon rolls. That'll be tomorrow night's cabin-fevered entertainment. So, grab a shovel, hop onto your snowmobile (snowboard for you, Goli) and come on over for sweet rolls! Please. It's getting really lonely here and the wind is creaking the snow-loaded roof of my house in a new and mildly unsettling way.

More:

Did he say "cheesemakers?"
My Dad's Bread (on CRAFT)

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FutureCast: open-source hardware and MAKE-ing the future

Posted: February 10th, 2010, 9:00pm MST

Pt 2537
I will be doing a call/chat live from Adafruit Industries "FutureCast: open-source hardware and MAKE-ing the future" Weds 2/11/2010 - Join Jerry Mchalski and me in a one hour conversation as we discuss topics such as open-source hardware, new hacker-spaces opening up, and the Fabber and Maker movements as they continue to develop in the coming years. The conversation will take place Thursday, February 11th from 11:00am to 12:00pm PST. Toll Free number: 1-800-868-1837 - International number: 1-404-920-6440 - Participant code: 548723# . We will turn on the Livestream feed as well (located here) during the call, we may do a quick tour of the Adafruit factory, we'll see if it works out :)

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This week in Maker Events

Posted: February 10th, 2010, 8:00pm MST

Enclosure: [download]

Looking to take a break from tinkering on your latest project this weekend? Here are some fine maker events to check out, from The Maker Events Calendar. Wish your event was on the list? Add it to the calendar!

Coming up this week:

Open hacking hours @Baltimore Node
Baltimore, MD
Thursday, Feb 11, 2010, 7pm - 9pm

Jam session @i3Detroit
Royal Oak, MI
Friday, Feb 12, 2010, 7pm - 12am

48 Hour Hackathon @NYC Resistor
Brooklyn, NY
Friday, Feb 12, 2010 6pm - Sunday, Feb 14, 6pm

Hacker Olympics Kickoff @HackPGH
Pittsburgh, PA
Friday, Feb 12, 2010, 7pm - 10pm

Techno-Swap-Fest
Linthicum, MD
Saturday, Feb 13, 2010, 9am - 2pm

Audio Fun with Coils @NYC Resistor
Brooklyn, NY
Saturday, Feb 13, 2010, 4pm - 6pm

Arduino Class - Session I @Alpha One Labs
Brooklyn, NY
Saturday, Feb 13, 2010, 1pm - 4pm

Minne-Faire @Hack Factory
Minneapolis, MN
Saturday, Feb 13, 2pm - 11pm

Free Culture 20X0
Washington, DC
Saturday, Feb 13, 2010 - Sunday, Feb 14, 2010, 8am - 5:30pm

Public Arduino Night @ theTransistor
Provo, UT
Saturday, Feb 13, 2010, 5pm - 8pm

Start planning for:

Handmade Music Night @interacess
Toronto, Canada
Friday, Feb 19th, 2010, 10pm+

Learn to play the Didgeridoo @Pumping Station: One
Chicago, IL
Saturday, Feb 20th, 2010, 2pm - 4pm

Intro to Electronic Soldering @The Hacktory
Philadelphia, PA
Saturday, Feb 20th, 2010, 1pm - 4pm

NEMES 14th Annual Model Engineering Show
Waltham, MA
Saturday, February 20, 2010, 10am - 4pm

Using Transistors @Metrix Create Space
Seattle, WA
Sunday, Feb 21, 2010, 2pm - 4:30pm

Pure Data Workshop 2: Interfacing with the world
Portland, OR
Sunday, Feb 21, 2010, 1pm - 5pm

Friday Night at The Crucible
Oakland, CA
Friday, Feb 26, 2010, 6:30pm - 9:30pm

Maker Faire Newcastle
Newcastle, UK
Saturday, Mar 13, 2010 - Sunday, Mar 14, 2010

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Flashback: Caught in the Act

Posted: February 10th, 2010, 7:00pm MST

This week's Flashback, from the pages of MAKE Volume 15, shows how authors Jim Moir and Ken Lange devised a camera setup to auto-trigger photos of the critters who came to visit their backyards in the dead of night. Judging from the multitude of pictures they've gathered over the years, there is no shortage of wildlife variety in their neighborhood. Check it out to build your own and see what's lurking behind your house. You can also still pick up a back issue of Volume 15, the Music issue, over in the Maker Shed.

Caught in the Act
By Jim Moir and Ken Lange

Ever wonder what's getting into your garage at night, eating your cat food in the backyard, or coming by your tent when you're camping? Now you can find out. With a digital camera, flash, and triggering mechanism, you'll be able to see exactly which critters are prowling at 3 a.m.

Although there are some challenges to overcome, we've discovered that there are plenty of solutions to develop a remote wildlife photography system that meets your needs and budget. Film cameras were used in the past, but clearly digital cameras bring this hobby to a new level by eliminating the expense, time, and effort that comes with film.

MATERIALS
Digital camera We prefer the Kodak DC-290 and discuss its benefits in this article.
Infrared (IR) detector or motion sensor
Camera flash
Power supply

What Does It Take to Do This?
Our challenge was to choose a camera system that can stay awake for long periods (most shut down after a few minutes to conserve battery power) and to rig a method for sensing the animal and triggering the shutter remotely. We also needed a flash capable of illuminating an area large enough to capture pictures of what tripped the camera. Finally, we needed power reserves big enough to run the camera, the external flash, and the animal-sensing trigger mechanism for several days.

What Camera to Use?
We evaluated the 2 typical camera types -- point-and-shoot and SLR -- to capture our wildlife images. Both have advantages and disadvantages. Point-and-shoot cameras are inexpensive but need a lot of modifications to work. SLRs have more features but can be pricey.

We chose a third path and used the Kodak DC-290. This modestly priced camera was an excellent choice, with a respectable 3.3-megapixel picture and many programmable features not available in most point-and-shoot cameras. This enabled us to make the system work without extensive hacking, and at the same time kept the total system to a reasonable cost. While this camera is no longer in production, it is regularly available on eBay for $50 to $150 (depending on condition, accessories, and demand).

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Learning Objects for Electronics, a free electronics tutorials website

Posted: February 10th, 2010, 5:00pm MST

MAKE subscriber Matt writs in to share this comprehensive electronics tutorial site, Learning Objects for Electronics:

This is a site developed by my good friend Pat Hoppe and his colleagues at Gateway Technical College in Racine, WI. He made these flash animations to help his students practice the basics of electronics; Everything from units, resistor color code, logic gates, filters, op amps, transistors, and even how to use your Ti-86. As a HS electronics teacher, I am very grateful to Pat for the hours he spent mentoring me, and I use this site quite regularly with my students. He's a great man, and this is a great site for our Make: comrades. Enjoy!

There are 277 different modules in total, covering all of the things mentioned above and more. It was developed for educators to use in their curriculum, but it looks like it could be a good resource to learn something new, or even get an extra bit of review in before that upcoming test.

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Toolbox: Snowpocalypse edition

Posted: February 10th, 2010, 4:00pm MST

In the Make: Online Toolbox, we focus mainly on tools that fly under the radar of more conventional tool coverage: in-depth tool-making projects, strange or specialty tools unique to a trade or craft that can be useful elsewhere, tools and techniques you may not know about, but once you do, and incorporate them into your workflow, you'll wonder how you ever lived without them. And, in the spirit of the times, we pay close attention to tools that you can get on the cheap, make yourself, or refurbish.

Our fearless editor Gareth has fallen victim to the giant blizzard currently hitting the east coast. The last we heard from him, he was trapped under tons of snow, he'd lost Internet access, he was out of cereal, and manflesh was starting to sound pretty good. So, assuming that Gar may be too busy fighting for survival to write his regular Toolbox post, we're putting you, the reader, on the job.

What is your favorite tool right now? My new baby is a SOG Specialty Knives B61-N. It's tough as nails and packs a Colonel Kurtz-esque black oxide finish that makes Leatherman tools tremble.

How about you, readers? Post your favorite tools in comments.

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What Was I Thinking? Part 2: Hangerhedra

Posted: February 10th, 2010, 3:00pm MST

I think Moonie put it best when she said, "Mrowr?"

In case you've ever wondered if it's possible to strap old plastic clothes hangers together with zip ties to make an icosahedron, I bring glad tidings: It is. I've done the experiment. We have the technology. I expect to be hearing from the Royal Swedish Academy any day now...

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Turning two pots into one efficient pot

Posted: February 10th, 2010, 2:30pm MST

Here's an interesting idea by Kenyan maker Dominic Wanjihia. By taking the rim from a Sufuria cooking pot, flipping it upside down, and attaching it to a slightly smaller pot, he was able to more efficiently capture heat from a fire. The result should be that less fuel is required to cook a meal, which is both an economic and environmental win.

This might actually solve a problem that I've had at home. One of my cooking pots has small plastic handles on it's sides instead of a single long one. So much heat escapes from my gas range around the side of the pot that it heats up the handles, making it difficult to pick up. Of course I could just use a pot with a different handle, however Dominic's device makes me wonder if that heat would be better captured if the pot had an oversize bottom to completely cover the burner. Think it would work? Does anyone sell them? If not, I might have to break out the welder and do some experiments... [via afrigadget]

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Are atoms the new bits?

Posted: February 10th, 2010, 1:00pm MST

It all started when Chris Anderson wrote an article for WIRED titled "In The Next Industrial Revolution, Atoms Are The New Bits in which he took the position that, in effect, "making" constituted a new paradigm that would reshape the way manufacturing works. Along came feisty blogger Joel Johnson of Gizmodo who penned a withering rebuttal titled Atoms Are Not Bits; WIRED is not a Business Magazine.

We at MAKE are a little prejudiced toward the Andersonian model, maybe because it makes us look like heroes. Vanity aside, there's certainly a lot of compelling evidence that we're on to something. Look at commercial ventures, like Makerbot and Adafruit, born of an open-source maker ethos that does not at all resemble the way regular businesses operate -- even small businesses. Still, we're all about a spirited debate. To this end, we've invited Joel to come and make his case. For the home team: MAKE magazine's founder and publisher, Dale Dougherty! Click through to follow the scrum.

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Power-generating wearable tech couture

Posted: February 10th, 2010, 12:00pm MST

Dandelion is a wearable kinetic sculpture that generates electricity through small, flower-like windmills. [via Fashioning Technology]

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Fire breathing snowman is standing contradiction

Posted: February 10th, 2010, 11:00am MST

We're not sure how, but this family has managed to combine two opposite forces to create this giant chimera of a fire-breathing snowman. All we know is that the world may never be safe again! [via neatorama]

More:

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VOIP ideal for hiding secret messages?

Posted: February 10th, 2010, 9:39am MST

The 50-cent word here is "steganography," which per Wikipedia is "the art and science of writing hidden messages in such a way that no one, apart from the sender and intended recipient, suspects the existence of the message." You may have heard, for instance, that you can encode a hidden message in, say, an image file, in such a way that no one who wasn't looking for it would know that it's there.

Well, this morning Danger Room linked to a post at IEEE Spectrum to the effect that Voice Over Internet Protocol (VOIP) is particularly susceptible to steganographic hijinks. Wired's David Pierce put it this way:

There's only the smallest possible time for interception to happen since all data is stored locally rather than redirected through a central server. Plus, since so much data is being sent back and forth, large messages can be sent without causing any alarm. Unlike an image or video, which can be downloaded and analyzed at anytime, there's no way to get at and store files sent with VoIP.

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Inside Blip, the Digital Game

Posted: February 10th, 2010, 9:01am MST

EMSL writes:

After our Tabletop Pong project, someone suggested that we should check out the Tomy Blip, a handheld game dating to 1977. And so we did. We snagged one on eBay, and here it is: "Blip, the digital game." Blip is unlike any other handheld that I've played, and (as you'll see) it's quite a piece of engineering. In what follows, we give it a test drive, and then take it apart and see what makes it tick.

Check out their careful examination of what makes Blip tick.

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Braille Labeler from the MIT IDEAS Competition

Posted: February 10th, 2010, 8:30am MST

A group of MIT students set out to invent a Braille labeler for the MIT IDEAS Competition. Along the way they seemed to grasp a few cornerstones of invention: learning from failures, knowing your customer base and pursuing your ideas.

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Letters From the Fab Academy, Part 2

Posted: February 10th, 2010, 8:00am MST

In this series, "Letters from the Fab Academy," Shawn Wallace, member of AS220, the Providence, RI community arts space, shares his experiences with the Fab Academy, a distributed learning collaborative built on the infrastructure of the Fab Lab network. - Gareth

Making and programming circuit boardsBy Shawn Wallace

Our assignment this time around was to design a circuit board, mill it, and program it in Assembly language. Each student had to become acquainted with the following work flow:

Designing the board
Machining
Stuffing components
Programming

Makeda Stephenson in the Providence Fab Lab

In a Fab Lab, circuit boards are either milled from copper-clad PCB stock or cut on a vinyl cutter from copper tape with conductive adhesive. We try to avoid the etching process in order to limit the used chemistry we have to deal with. Whether etching or cutting, the first step is to choose one of the options for creating a tool path to send to the machine:

Draw the circuit as a black and white PNG image and bring it into cad.py for tracing.
Draw the circuit using Eagle, a free PCB drafting tool, and export Gerber files, a standard format for PCBs. Gerber files can be converted into PNGs using gerbv or the online tool from circuitpeople.com. Bring the PNGs into cad.py for tracing.
Draw the circuit in Eagle and use Eagle's CAM processor to generate mill and drill files that can be sent directly to the machine. This process was described by Marc Boon in a workshop at the Amsterdam Fab Lab in 2008.

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Cool deployable structure in wood and tape

Posted: February 10th, 2010, 7:00am MST

Architecture student Ryan McCaffrey made this amazing expanding model from a bunch of pine parallelepipeds with white duct tape hinges. It's called "Jitterbug." [via Dude Craft]

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Arduino 18 cures Mega woes, expands hardware support

Posted: February 10th, 2010, 6:00am MST

Analog pins 8-15 on the Arduino Mega been giving you trouble? (perhaps you'd assumed they were fried - I did!) Turns out, due to a problem in Arduino 17, the Mega's second set of analog inputs were temporarily out of service. Thankfully, the issue has been taken care of in the newest release Arduino IDE.

Other notable additions to the software include the tone() frequency generating function and a simpler way to add support for 3rd party hardware (Sanguino, etc) from your sketches folder. Check out the release notes for more.

In the Maker Shed:

Arduino Mega

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DIY light tent using plain paper and binder clips

Posted: February 10th, 2010, 5:00am MST

Do you have to take some tabletop product shots in a hurry, but don't have access to studio seamless or a light table? Try this hack. Using plain paper and some binder clips you, too, can assemble your very own light tent. [Thanks, Nathan!]

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In the Maker Shed: Mystery Box kit

Posted: February 10th, 2010, 3:00am MST

The Mystery Box kit is a clever puzzle box made by our very own John Park, host of Make: television. Here is how it works: first you assemble the laser-cut wooden box, placing a treasure inside. Next, you present the Mystery Box and its hidden contents to a friend, loved one, or enemy. Ask them to not open it, instead encourage them to cherish the Mystery Box and its contents. Maybe they will listen to your suggestion, enjoying the mystery within for generations to come. Then again, maybe they will wait until you leave and eventually figure out how to open this clever wooden box? Who knows? One thing we do know, whoever receives the Mystery Box as a gift will certainly love it!

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Stream audio to your NXT Intelligent Brick

Posted: February 10th, 2010, 2:00am MST

YouTube user gloomyandy demonstrates how to stream 8-bit audio through a NXT brick's crappy speakers via Bluetooth and USB. The trick is to use leJOS, Java-based replacement firmware for the brick. [via The NXT Step]

More:

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Autonomous micro helicopters

Posted: February 9th, 2010, 11:09pm MST

While doing research for the next issue of MAKE, I discovered this small company, Centeye, right here in my own Northern, VA backyard. They're developing vision chips for autonomous robotic aircraft. They have several videos on their site, showing various types of tests. Unfortunately, the videos are in WMV format only, and not on YouTube.

The video screen cap above is of a micro helicopter holding its position using only visual information from a ring of six of Centeye's ArzPro sensors, mounted in the yaw plane. No gyro is used. Other videos show obstacle avoidance behaviors and the robot fliers taking control if the operator tries to fly them into something. Cool stuff. We'll have to try and get the engineer behind this to present at a Dorkbot.

Centeye

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A Way to See the Wind

Posted: February 9th, 2010, 9:00pm MST

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Interesting Light: A Way to See the Wind....

This experimental site-specific installation illustrates alternative, sustainable ways of harnessing energy that will explore the power of the wind in the city, visualizing it as an ephemeral cloud of light. The installation is custom built, using 500 mini wind turbines to generate power, which illuminates hundreds of mounted leds, creating firefly-like fields of light, with wind visually interpreted as electronic patterns across the installation. Wind around the southbank generates the power, creating a unique and thought-provoking light art piece that will delight all ages.

More about the project "Wind to Light" at Jason Bruges studio site... More:

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Our Autobot in Odessa

Posted: February 9th, 2010, 8:40pm MST

This Transformeresque giant metal guardian, made largely of junked car parts, was reportedly built by a company called Transinvestservice (TIS) outside the city of Odessa in the Ukraine. There's more pics over at English Russia. [via Neatorama]

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Arduino prototyping lap desk

Posted: February 9th, 2010, 6:00pm MST

What a great idea, Riley Porter's lasercut organizer for an Arduino, a solderless breadboard, and small compartments for components.

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Projects: Failure and mounting a "scratch monkey"

Posted: February 9th, 2010, 5:30pm MST

When the concept of doing a Projects: Failure something came up years ago, originally as the idea for a Make: Books (in case you hadn't realized, "Projects: Failure" is a silly twist on our "Make: Projects" book series brand), we were talking about how it could be story-driven, people sharing spectacular failures and what they learned from them. I blurted out: "Oh, like mounting a scratch monkey!" Everyone looked at me like I'd forgotten to take my meds (again). But I've never stopped associating this idea with the scratch monkey. I've brought it up several times since we've launched this series online, and each time, people tilt their heads sideways like a dog hearing a high-pitched noise. So, here's the scratch monkey story.

The term "scratch monkey," or the adage "always mount a scratch monkey," comes from a tragic, allegedly actual, incident that took place 1979/1980, at the University of Toronto. It became a cautionary tale that floated through early netspace, especially USENET newsgroups, and a number of different versions emerged. It became part of the hacker lexicon, part of the venerable Jargon File, and then part of the resulting Hacker's Dictionary. Here's an excerpt of the entry from The New Hacker's Dictionary (3rd Edition):

As in "Before testing or reconfiguring, always mount a scratch monkey," a proverb used to advise caution when dealing with irreplaceable data or devices. Used to refer to any scratch volume hooked to a computer during any risky operation as a replacement for some precious resource or data that might otherwise get trashed.

This term preserves the memory of Mabel, the Swimming Wonder Monkey, star of a biological research program at the University of Toronto. Mabel was not (so the legend goes) your ordinary monkey; the university had spent years teaching her how to swim, breathing through a regulator, in order to study the effects of different gas mixtures on her physiology. Mabel suffered an untimely demise one day when a DEC field circus engineer troubleshooting a crash on the program's VAX inadvertently interfered with some custom hardware that was wired to Mabel.

There's definitely a key lesson in there about projects that fail and what one can learn from them: never commit resources to a project you can't afford to lose if something goes wrong and to test your project first in ways that won't destroy it (or key components) if something goes awry. How many times have you (have I) committed that last crucial part or piece of material, or whatever, to a build and then had it get ruined? So, when in doubt, if you can: always mount a scratch monkey!

BTW: The version told in the Jargon File/New Hacker's Dictionary claims it came directly from the sysadmin involved in the incident. But the AFU and Urban Legends site questions this. Here's part of their entry:

Current University of Toronto sysadmins have expressed skepticism. For one thing, in almost all versions of the story, including the ostensibly documented one in the Jargon File, the computer is a VAX; at the time a VAX would have been a very unusual platform for this kind of data acquisition (they used PDP-11s). The Toronto zoology department has never been licensed to work with primates; the only section of the university that could have done experiments of this nature was the School of Medicine. Investigation continues

.

Let's hope it isn't true, no monkeys were harmed in the making of this cautionary tale, and you can still benefit from the moral of the story either way.

Here's the rest of the Jargon File entry.

Here's the Wikipedia page with some links to some of the variations on the story.

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Battle Symets are GO!

Posted: February 9th, 2010, 4:00pm MST

The fine folks at Solarbotics have put up another Instructable on how to build a cool BEAMbot, this time, a cranked-up Symet that spins like a maniac and can go to the mat against other bots. It's robot sumo meets the BEAM Jurassic park.

Solar-powered Battle Symet

More:

Solar-powered miniball

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Screw-in coffin patent issues

Posted: February 9th, 2010, 2:59pm MST

This is a choice selection of images from the application for U.S. patent 7,631,404, which has since issued to Donald Scruggs of Chino, CA. The title is "Easy inter burial container." [via Neatorama]

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Beginner woodworking project for illusionists?

Posted: February 9th, 2010, 2:00pm MST

Erik Minnema made this really nice woodworking piece, called side by side. It's pretty easy to build, all you need are a few pieces of wood and an inter-dimensional table saw.

Can't get your hands on one of those? In that case you will have to resort to trickery. If it's not photoshopped, how do you think it would be built? [via neatorama]

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Brickarms molds

Posted: February 9th, 2010, 1:00pm MST

These are the molds custom Lego armorer Will Chapman of BrickArms uses to make his gats. BrickArms was recently mentioned in Chris Anderson's genre-defining Atoms Are The New Bits article in WIRED, cited as an example of an amateur turning his or her hobby into a profession. I wrote Will to find out more about his molds:

2.5" x 2.5" 6061 T6 aluminum
Cut using 1/16" roughing ball nose cutter, and finished with 1/32" ball nose cutter.
Cut using a Taig 2018 CR mill, with NEMA 23 steppers, driven by Gecko 201s via Mach 3 on XP.
Parts are injected with ABS resin - some of it is ground up Lego bricks.

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LED people remake

Posted: February 9th, 2010, 11:00am MST

Lim Chen Pin Kenneth made this cute remake of the blinking LED people I built a couple of years ago. There's not much info on how his works (I'm guessing those ICs are microcontrollers?), but they are pretty. It solves a slight problem that I had with mine...

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<3 your maker: MAKE's Valentine's Day gift guide

Posted: February 9th, 2010, 9:00am MST

Enclosure: [download]

We're all suckers for romance, even if most of us believe Valentine's Day is a holiday dreamed up by industry fatcats. Here are MAKE's staff picks for ways to celebrate with that special someone, maker style. Read on, it's a big list!

Build a bike

A personalized bike built for your sweetie can be really romantic, since all that hard work and custom choices relate specifically to the one you love. MAKE Advisory Board member Saul Griffith built a bike for his lady, Staff Editor Arwen O'Reilly Griffith. She writes:

When my husband and I were dating, we had a running argument about flowers. I love them, whether it's a rare orchid or a weed from the sidewalk, and it mystified me that he could never remember to surprise me with even a dandelion. But one Valentine's Day, he presented this bicycle to me with a grin from ear to ear. His addiction is bicycles, so I knew this was a true gesture of love. He bought the different components on Craigslist and from various bike stores to make a bike that fit me to a T, stenciled my name on the frame, and hand-build the wheels. The spokes were twisted, just like two beautiful flowers.

What are you doing to celebrate Valentine's Day with your maker love? Share with us in the comments!

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Don't walk! Controlling a pedestrian sign with an Arduino

Posted: February 9th, 2010, 8:30am MST

In this tutorial about controlling a pedestrian sign with an Arduino you can learn a few important things. #1 How to control relays with an Arduino, which is really useful for a ton of different projects. #2 How to use an IR remote to control your Arduino, another cool technique. #3 Never trust a crosswalk sign with an Arduino hanging out of it!

My latest project is controlling a pedestrian sign with an Arduino, so it will automatically step through the states of walk, flashing don't walk, and solid don't walk. In addition, I added infrared remote control support so I can use a remote control to turn the sign on and off, set it to a particular state, or start the cycle.

In the Maker Shed:

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The Maker Shed has everything you need to get started with Arduino

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UC Berkeley has "Nobel Laureate Only" parking spaces

Posted: February 9th, 2010, 7:00am MST

jonathan_fiamor_nobel_laureate_parking_at_UC_berkeley.jpg

Image courtesy Jonathan Fiamor Photography.

When I was at UT Austin, a school which is famously car-unfriendly, it was rumored that one of the elder patriarchs of the College of Natural Sciences--a man who had multiple doctoral degrees and had been given countless awards for his work both as a scientific researcher and an educational administrator--had once quipped that the honor that was most valuable to him, on a daily basis, was the "O" parking permit that let him leave his car literally in the shadow of UT's iconic tower.

Well, in terms of available parking, UC Berkeley makes UT Austin look like an airport remote lot in Iowa on a Wednesday in the dead of winter. And according to this official page there are presently seven living Nobel laureates on the faculty there, so I'm guessing there must be at least seven of the prestigious NL parking spaces. Supposedly, regular mortals have to shell out $50 for presumptuous malparkage among the elite.

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LEGO PCB Agitator

Posted: February 9th, 2010, 5:00am MST

Etching your own PCBs can be a time consuming chore to say the least. Anything that automates the process or cuts down on the time it takes is usually appreciated. Maker Rui Cabral of Oporto, Portugal pieced together this handy PCB agitator out of LEGO to help him speed things up a bit. The project initially took him only 20 minutes from start to finish.

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Wooden-geared pingpong ball-flinging sculpture

Posted: February 9th, 2010, 2:00am MST

Free standing mechanical kinetic sculpture featuring wooden gears and matt black wooden framework... The striker arm is powered by a tension spring, as is the trigger for the feeder arm. The balls bounce off a curved rebound board which returns them to the centre of the catcher on most occasions.

[via Hacked Gadgets]

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Volkemon in Space: Additional launch pics

Posted: February 8th, 2010, 9:30pm MST

Our favorite armchair astronaut, Rachel, is sleeping off all the adrenalin and exhaustion of covering the STS-130 shuttle launch for MAKE. (Great job, Rach!) So, we crowd-sourced a few more pictures from Make: Online member Volkemon, who was also on-hand for the big blast. Here are a couple of his pics (that's him and his mom in the top one, the causeway and the moon before launch, and the launch). There are a few more pics, and others from previous launches, in his Flickr sets. Thanks, Volkemon!

Volkemon's photostream

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"Batteries Out of Thin Air"

Posted: February 8th, 2010, 9:00pm MST

Electricflyer
Gray Matter: Batteries Out of Thin Air @ Popular Science...

A battery that runs on air? Why, that’s almost as good as a car that runs on water! Those cars are fantasy, but batteries that run on air are actually quite common, especially among older people. Tiny zinc-air batteries are widely used in hearing aids, where they have replaced toxic mercury-based batteries in providing a small but steady stream of power. They supply more energy for their size than any other battery, because they draw some of their power straight from the air.

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From typewriter to teleprinter

Posted: February 8th, 2010, 7:00pm MST

Spotted in the MAKE Flickr pool:

Flickr user numist had a typerwriter that he wasn't using anymore, so he converted it into a teleprinter. What's that? It turns out that teleprinters are basically a printer and a keyboard put together in a single device, but not directly connected. Instead, both are connected to a remote computer using a serial connection. When you type on the keyboard, it gets interpreted by the computer, which then prints a response on the printer. They probably don't make much sense anymore, but before electronic displays were readily available, these were one of the main ways of programming mainframe computers.

To make his version, numist took an old electronic typewriter, and added some electronics between the keyboard and printer board. He used an Arduino microcontroller to read in each key press and relay it back over a serial port to his PC. When it receives characters back from the PC, the microcontroller emulates the keyboard to feed them into the original typewriter circuitry, causing the typewriter to print. Now, I'm not entirely sure what one could do with such a modernized typewriter, but I'll bet there are lots of potential projects there. Got any ideas?

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Turning a motor into a sensor with the Peppermill

Posted: February 8th, 2010, 6:30pm MST

Peppermill

Tom Igoe got his hands on a Peppermill circuit board, and took it out for a spin:

Nicolas Villar sent me a sample of the PepperMill, a new sensor board he and Steve Hodges designed at Microsoft Research in Cambridge, UK. It's a nifty little board. You attach a DC motor and the board can an output voltage when the motor is turned, and analog signals telling you the direction and speed of the motor. It turns a DC motor into a rotary encoder, of sorts.

Wiring is very simple. The motor connects to the two spring connectors at the top of the board. Direction and Speed pins connect to two analog inputs on your microcontroller. Ground connects to your microcontroller's ground. The motor generates voltage when you spin it.

Check out Tom's article for circuit diagrams, source code, and information on obtaining a Peppermill board to experiment with. Using PepperMill to turn a motor into a sensor

(Tom is a member of the Arduino team and the author of Making Things Talk).

Making Things Talk
Our Price: $29.99
Programming microcontrollers used to require an expensive development environment costing thousands of dollars and requiring professional electrical engineering expertise. Open-source physical computing platforms with simple i/o boards and development environments have led to new options for hobbyists, hackers, and makers. This book contains a series of projects that teach you what you need to know to get your creations talking to each other, connecting to the web, and forming networks of smart devices.

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Maker Business: Venturing out...

Posted: February 8th, 2010, 5:00pm MST

Kicking off our Maker Business series is this piece by Jeffrey McGrew, who along with his wife Jillian Northrup, and their trusty CNC machine named Frank, are a two-person (and a bot) design and fabrication juggernaut. From their design-build studio in Oakland, CA, they do custom interior design, furniture, and such artist wonders as the "Art Golf" course they've set up at Maker Faire. Here, Jeffrey shares some words of advice to those who may be thinking of going "Maker Pro." -- Gareth

Venturing out...By Jeffrey McGrew of Because We Can

We get a lot of friends and folks asking us about how we got started. And we know a lot of folks through the Maker Faire that would love to turn "pro." So, I thought I'd jot down the six big things that I see as being key elements to getting started in such a business. I hope they help, and I'd love to hear more from other folks! [Chime in via comments. -Ed.]

1. Get as debt-free as possible, and try your best to stay that way.
We would have never been able to buy the robot (or CNC machine) and make the jump to working for ourselves had we not had our financial lives in order first. Having six months in savings to fall back on, no debt, other than a half-paid off car loan, and not taking on huge debts to get started, made it possible for us to make a lot of mistakes and learn things instead of going out with a quick bang. I've met a fair number of people who want to start their own business, but simply can't, due to this single issue alone. No amount of great business ideas, hard work, or luck can overcome the burden of an unstable foundation on which to the start. Also, honestly, once you get your business going, you'll find that your priorities, and what you think is important, will change greatly. If you're really happy (which running our own business certainly make us), then you'll need less stuff anyways. So, save your pennies, don't worry about getting the latest and greatest, and pay off all those loans and credit cards before you take that leap.

2. Plans are worthless, planning is essential.
That quote from Winston Churchill sums up nicely a lot of what you'll need to do when you start a business. You don't need a perfect plan, with every step already outlined, in giant Gantt charts. But you do need a plan. And you need to be smart enough to change that plan as circumstances change. Running a business is more like sailing a ship than launching a rocket. What I mean is that you need a plan, and to be prepared, but honestly, at some point you'll just point yourself at the horizon and go. And then everything will change, you'll need to change direction, plans, and ideas. You'll re-aim for that spot you wanted to get to constantly as the world around you changes in response to what you're doing. And heck, sometimes you'll find when you're halfway there, you actually want to go somewhere else. So don't fret too much and over-plan everything (and therefore never get started), or freak out when things don't go according to your plans. But at the same time, don't aim for that horizon without one!

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Exploring the business of making

Posted: February 8th, 2010, 4:00pm MST

For the next few months, in concert with our "Your Desktop Factory" themed issue of MAKE (Volume 21), we're going to be exploring the world of "maker business," turning your passion for making things into a means of making money. We'll look at everything from casual commerce, selling small numbers of goods online, at places like Etsy and the upcoming Makers Market, to the running of a more serious and sustainable small business. We'll be talking to, and have guest articles by, maker businessfolk across this spectrum, from those just starting out, to those who are making a comfortable living as self-employed makers. We'll also be touching on everything from the most philosophical questions of why to the more pragmatic nuts and bolts of how.

Do you run a small "maker business?" If so, we'd love to hear from you. If creating such a business is something you've thought about, what questions/concerns do you have? What would you like to see us cover in this series? Let us know in the comments, or email me (gareth at makezine). We'd love for this series to be a useful service to you, especially if going into such a business is a fantasy, but you have nagging questions or reservations that hold you back, or just need a little encouragement from those who've made this sort of career change work for them.

From MAKE magazine:
make volume 21 little cover.jpg
MAKE Volume 21 is the Desktop Manufacturing issue, with how-to articles on making three-dimensional parts using inexpensive computer-controlled manufacturing equipment. Both additive (RepRap, CandyFab) and subtractive (Lumenlab Micro CNC) systems are covered. Also in this issue: instructions for making a cigar box guitar, building your own CNC for under $800, running a mini electric bike with a cordless drill, making a magic photo cube, and tons more. If you're a subscriber, you may have your issue in hand already, and can access the Digital Edition. Otherwise, you can pick up MAKE 21 in the Maker Shed or look for it on newsstands near you!

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Glenn Seaborg's old mailing address

Posted: February 8th, 2010, 3:00pm MST

The occasion of Dmitri Mendeleev's birthday seemed like a good opportunity to recognize another great hero of the periodic table and to relate one of my favorite anecdotes about him: Glenn T. Seaborg (Wikipedia), who, among his various stellar achievements, won the 1951 Nobel Prize for "discoveries in the chemistry of the transuranium elements." By the time of his death in 1999, Seaborg had participated in the discovery and isolation of ten superheavy elements. Shortly after the official 1997 recognition of the name seaborgium for element 106, Jeffrey Winters, writing in the January 1998 issue of Discover Magazine, made the following observation:

Not only is Seaborg the first living scientist to have an element named after him, he's also the only person who could receive mail addressed only in elements: Seaborgium, Lawrencium (for the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory where he still works), Berkelium, Californium, Americium. But don't forget the zip code.

Naming an element after a living scientist generated significant controversy among the international chemistry community of the time. At a talk in 1995, Seaborg himself famously quipped: "There has been some reluctance on the part of the Commission for Nomenclature of Inorganic Chemistry of the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry to accept the name because I'm still alive and they can prove it, they say."

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Parabola, a wooden ball launcher

Posted: February 8th, 2010, 2:30pm MST

I think I could watch this ball-launching sculpture for a long time. Called parabola, it was created by youtube user MechanicalSculptor. I wonder how long it took to design a system that can launch balls with such precision? [via Hacked Gadgets]

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Math Monday: Skewer hyperboloid

Posted: February 8th, 2010, 1:00pm MST

Skewer hyperboloid By George Hart for the Museum of Mathematics

Thirty two shish kabob skewers and 176 small rubber bands are all it takes to make a beautiful hyperbolid of revolution. This is an example of what is called a "ruled surface," meaning even though it is curved, it is made of straight lines.

Below is the same object seen from the top. Make one of your own following the instructions here, but be careful not to skewer yourself!

More:

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Maker Birthdays: Jules Verne

Posted: February 8th, 2010, 1:00pm MST

French author Jules Verne was born on this day in 1828. His father wanted him to be a lawyer and circumstances forced him to work as a stock broker, but eventually he shook off these humdrum vocations and became the world's first professional science fiction author.

Verne quickly gained a reputation for combining ultramodern technology (of the time) with clever guesswork and an affinity for adventure writing. His most celebrated works are found in a 54-piece canon of science fiction and adventure novels called Les Voyages Extraordinaires.

While most of these stories were rousing adventure yarns, what is most remarkable about them was Verne's ability visualize futuristic devices. He wrote about submarines when the technology was merely a curiosity. In his lost work Paris in the 20th Century he predicted that air conditioning, the Internet, television and electricity would become everyday conveniences. In From the Earth to the Moon he imagined a space program that would launch three astronauts from Florida, who were recovered after an ocean splash-down. In The Steam House he created one of the first visions of mecha,

He did it by imagining the possible, and defining it in terms his contemporaries could understand, a mission many of us undertake when we visualize a new project. And so, Jules Verne, happy birthday!

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Hello World hackerspace map

Posted: February 8th, 2010, 12:00pm MST

Bre Pettis made this "first draft" hackerspace map. Suggestions for additions, anyone?

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Melting table

Posted: February 8th, 2010, 11:00am MST

I'm digging this melting table by woodcarver Rob Smith. Beautiful! [via Dude Craft]

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Maker birthday: Dmitri Mendeleev

Posted: February 8th, 2010, 10:00am MST

Born on this date in 1834 in the small village of Aremzyani, in what was then considered Siberia, Dmitri Ivanovich Mendeleev (Wikipedia) would go on, in 1869, to publish the first periodic table of the chemical elements. Mendeleev used the periodicity he'd observed in the properties of then-known elements to accurately predict many of the properties of germanium, gallium, and scandium, which had not yet been discovered. Mendeleev died in St. Petersburg in 1907, at the age of 72. Element number 101 is named mendelevium in his honor.

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In the Maker Shed: Open Heart kit V2.0

Posted: February 8th, 2010, 9:30am MST

MKJR1-2 2.jpg

The Open Heart kit V2.0 is a matrix of individually addressable LEDs that allow you to create customizable animations when connected to your favorite micro controller. Attach it temporarily to fabrics with headers that you simply push through, or sew it into a project with conductive fabric for a more permanent setup.

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Lego Solar Dynamics Observatory kit

Posted: February 8th, 2010, 9:00am MST

One of the great things about being here at Kennedy Space Center for the launch of STS-130 is getting to meet some of the other space enthusiasts who are also here for the launch. The Space Tweep Society has proven to be a great resource for connecting with fellow space geeks (specifically those active on Twitter), and it was through this group that I met John Knight. John is a SmartGrid Program Manager for Whirlpool Corporation who describes himself as a maker, geek dad, space enthusiast, and Lego fanatic.

"I've been building since 1976," he said. "I have a lot of Lego and an entire room dedicated to them. My favorite building theme is Classic-Space."

Last year, John created a 7-foot space ship and moon base for an exhibit at an art gallery in St. Joseph, Michigan. His latest Lego project is smaller in scale, but has reached a much larger audience. He used Lego's Digital Designer, a tool that lets people create virtual sets, to create a set based on the Solar Dynamic Observatory that will be launched this week from Kennedy Space Center. SDO will study the solar atmosphere to help us better understand the sun's influence on Earth and near-earth space. John's set is a scale replica of SDO, and after working with the SDO team and representatives from Lego, the set was accepted for a much larger order than standard virtual kits (that can be ordered three at a time if parts are in stock) and is now available for purchase through the Lego web site*.

John described the experience as the perfect overlap between space geek and Lego enthusiast in the geek Venn diagram, and already has ideas brewing for his next project. His last non-Lego project was a working steampunk globe utilizing RFID tags and reader (Touchatag) to remote control Google Earth on a steampunked tablet computer.

* To Purchase this limited edition Lego set, follow these steps from John:
Step 1) Download the latest version of Lego Digital Designer.
Step 2) You should see a link to purchase the set. You will have to create an account with Lego.
Step 3) Please be aware that your SDO set may have different graphics than some seen on the web. Those were special "limited" edition sets.
Step 4) If you have ANY problems ordering please call Lego Customer Support at 1-800-838-9647 (US) or see Lego.com for other numbers.

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Bending with Casper Electronics

Posted: February 8th, 2010, 8:30am MST

Pete Edwards does a bit of toy-megaphone turbo bending in this music video montage shot at the Casper Electronics lab. Dang - this makes me think I should start soldering to music myself!

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Brilliant red dye made from insects

Posted: February 8th, 2010, 7:00am MST

Photo courtesy Flickr user Scoutj.

This article just drew my attention to the interesting story behind carmine, which is a pigment precipitated from carminic acid (shown below) extracted from the bodies of Dactylopius coccus, the so-called "cochineal" insect, of which the acid comprises up to 24% of dry body weight. The cochineal is a parasite of cacti of the genus opuntia, from which it has been harvested in South America since pre-Columbian times. It is carmine that produced the "red" of the famous British "red coats," and today carmine is still produced in great quantity for use in fabric, cosmetics, and as a natural food coloring. (Vegans beware!) [via Neatorama]

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Rachel in Space: A Dream Realized

Posted: February 8th, 2010, 6:30am MST

Photo Courtesy CollectSPACE.com

When I interviewed STS-130 Mission Specialist, Bob Behnken last week in Houston at Johnson Space Center, I asked his advice for what to expect at my first shuttle launch. He gave me three tips: First, he said, "Bring bug spray." Fortunately, we didn't have to worry about that with this morning's cold, windy weather. Second, he told me to hope for clear skies. Night launches are all spectacular, but when skies are clear, you can keep eyes on the shuttle for up to eight minutes. When skies are cloudy, that visual can be as little as eight seconds. Finally, he repeated something I've heard from shuttle viewing veterans: put the camera down and just watch.

With mostly clear skies and a flawless countdown, my more-than-20-year-old dream was realized as the shuttle Endeavour lifted off before dawn this morning. The bright white light from the massive rocket boosters turned night to day within seconds. My brain could hardly process what my eyes were seeing, and when the sound finally hit my ears (there are a few strangely quiet seconds before the sound reaches you) my entire body felt the force of this amazing vehicle. It was bigger, better, and more exhilarating than I ever could have imagined.

I cried like a baby.

The tears started when Endeavour was given the final "go" for launch. They were slow as my heart rate began to pick up speed, and by the time the shuttle cleared the tower, I was breathless. Once Endeavour pierced the thin clouds and the entire sky was glowing bright white, the sobbing came on hard. As I listened to the loud outdoor speakers blast the communication between Mission Control and Commander Zamka, and watched Endeavour sail through the sky as a bright star for a good seven minutes, I sat on the ground and cried uncontrollably. I cried for the spectacular images my mind was still attempting to process. I cried for the awe and wonder of such an incredible display of human ability and teamwork. I cried for the realization of such a long-held dream that I wasn't sure would ever happen. And I cried to think that this icon of my childhood, the vehicle of exploration that lit my imagination on fire so many years ago, only has four more launches ahead of her.

As I finally settled back in to the press room and finally overcame my weeping, I found myself overcome with a smile that would not end. I smiled for the amazing opportunity I'd just had. I smiled in gratitude for all the folks who helped make this dream a reality. And I smiled at the thought of this great crew unstrapping from their seats and floating as they start their time on orbit. I can't wait to watch them as they work through this important and complicated mission. And more importantly, I can't wait to share it all with you.

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Papercraft Surrogate iPad

Posted: February 8th, 2010, 5:00am MST

Can't wait to cozy up to the new Apple iPad? Why not try your hand at constructing this handsome papercraft surrogate? Here's links to the front and back. It may not have access to your iTunes or eBooks like the real thing, but it does share its good looks and lack of multitasking, GPS, and camera. [via MacRumors]

More:

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Assemble your own solar panel

Posted: February 8th, 2010, 3:55am MST

Since there's almost any size and shape of solar panel available for purchase from a myriad of vendors across the Internet why would anybody want to go through the hassle of tabbing together their own cells to build a solar panel? Because you can, obviously. This DIY video will run through the basics of chaining together polycrystalline cells and leaves the details like enclosure and such to the user.

More:

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Bowling lane coffee table

Posted: February 8th, 2010, 2:00am MST

William Stranger specializes in building furniture out of repurposed wood. I especially liked the massive coffee table whose top is a four-inch-thick slab of bowling lane. It's part of a exhibit(?) called Second Growth:

A second growth forest is one that has re-grown after it has been heavily logged or clear-cut. The installation of reclaimed materials, organic furniture and hand carved objects suggests the life cycle of a tree. It encourages a closer look at the relationship between consumption and conservation and promotes the idea of a culture in balance with the natural world. A tree is borrowed from its cycle without breaking it. The wood is worked with attention, treated with non-toxic finishes, and after its long second life it will return to nourish the earth. Scrap wood is saved and becomes the raw material for innovative design.

[via dornob]

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Warship camouflaged as tropical island

Posted: February 7th, 2010, 8:38pm MST

A commenter on my recent dazzle camouflage post alerted us to the fascinating story of the HNLMS Abraham Crijnssen which, in 1942, escaped destruction by the Japanese fleet because the crew moored her among other small islands and covered her in a thick layer of tree branches, thereby disguising her as a small island. [Thanks, rekinom!]

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Awesome workshop panorama

Posted: February 7th, 2010, 6:00pm MST

Check out UK maker John Honniball's sweet workshop panorama.

This is an almost-360-degree panorama of my computer and electronics lab and workshop room. The four big CRT monitors that you can see were obtained from FreeCycle, as was the iMac. Far left is a Stag PPZ EPROM programmer. At the right-hand end are the HP stack (1980B, 1630G, 3456A) and a Tek 575 curve tracer. Far right is an HP LaserJet 4+ with duplexer. On the electronics bench, you may be able to see an Arduino and some LEDs.

See the panorama full-sized on John's Flickr page.

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CRAFT weekly recap

Posted: February 7th, 2010, 3:29pm MST

This week on CRAFT we saw:

Nerdy geeky love and more, read on!

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NYCR 48-hour hackathon

Posted: February 7th, 2010, 12:00pm MST

Brooklyn-based hacker collective NYC Resistor is holding its first 48-hour hackathon this Friday starting at 6pm and ending Sunday, February 14th at the same time.

You can work by yourself or with a team, and if you don't have a team/project we'll assign you to one.
The format is open, you're welcome to come and go as you please. We'll keep the Club Mate flowing and follow a loose schedule of demos and workshops to help spark your imagination.

Interested in participating? Find out more information or register on Eventbrite.

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Flatpack cardboard high chair

Posted: February 7th, 2010, 9:00am MST

I just can't get enough flatpack.

The Belkiz Feedaway is a cardboard portable feeding chair that can be used for temporary situations or where space is at a premium. It is cardboard, easy to assemble for toddlers up to 20 months of age up to 20kg who are away from home. Ideal for temporary and commercial use, the Belkiz Feedaway is safe, strong, folds up easily and quickly and stores away in a tiny space. Ideal for mobile and modern lifestyles.

What do you think, readers? A silly concept that would never work, or is there a cool idea here? [via Inhabitat]

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Computer chip earrings

Posted: February 7th, 2010, 8:22am MST

Il 430Xn.102098423
These are lovely.

Pt 2527
I also like these fishing lure earrings from CRAFT volume 03...

And of course, iPhone home button earrings...

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Study structures with straws

Posted: February 7th, 2010, 5:00am MST

Enclosure: [download]

The forces that affect buildings and other structures can be modeled inexpensively and quickly by using the humble drinking straw. Usually, the projects built with drinking straws are rapid build. Storage can be an issue if you plan on having students work the design over multiple classes, or saving the structure for reference. This really becomes a problem if you are doing the same project with a full load of 5 classes. By doing the project in a single class period, you can easily reuse the straws, having students discard any cut ones and replenish them with new for the next group.

For fasteners, there are a few options. Tape can work, but is hard to remove if you are reusing straws. This can be good if you are aiming for a more durable product. Sewing pins can be used over an over again. Having students count out the pins they need and keeping them in plastic cups is works for multiple classes. As a new batch of kids collects their supplies, they just check to see that the last group left the right number of pins in the cup. This can occur at the same time they get the straws they will need. Some towers are built with paper clips as the fastener. If you do this, you may give the option of using wire cutters and pliers to modify the pins.

In introducing the ideas of the project, you will want to discuss the forces of tension, compression, torsion and shear. As students build, they should be able to recognize the forces that affect buildings and other structures and devise ways to compensate for them.

Often in straw towers, you will want to incorporate the differences between live load and dead load. Sometimes called dynamic load and static load, you can model them by having the tower hold a weight, representing the live or dynamic load. You can also have students become more aware of factor of safety and failure analysis of their structure.

The building of these towers can lead to a competitive situation. You can have students all build with the same materials, and set the grades on how high the towers stand while holding the live load. One way of doing the calculation is to set the highest and lowest possible grade, 100 and 75 for example. Then you measure the towers, identifying the tallest structure. If the tallest tower is 50 inches, then each inch is worth 1/2 point. The group with the tallest load bearing tower gets the 100. A tower that holds the live load at 40 inches would get a 95. The group that has the ball on the floor gets the 75. The other groups in between get grades based on the height of the ball, or other load.

You can also use a project like this to examine the forces affecting a building during an earthquake.

Have you built a straw tower as a student, or have you used the project as a teacher? How well does a project like this work in homeschooling? What techniques work well, and what resources are really helpful?

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You launch some, you scrub some

Posted: February 7th, 2010, 2:55am MST

Spaceflight is complicated, with many constraints and requirements that must be met before all systems can claim "go" for launch. Unfortunately for STS-130, this evening's "dynamic" weather proved to be too risky for this morning's launch. Endeavour's first launch attempt was scrubbed at 4:30 AM EST. The good news? We get to try it again in just under 24 hours and get to experience all the launch countdown fun twice. Not bad! Check back with my tweets tomorrow for the status of Endeavour's second launch attempt.

Pictured above: Endeavour's crew as they walk out to the famous Astrovan that will deliver them to the launch pad.

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Beautiful cube sculpture from copper pipe fittings

Posted: February 6th, 2010, 8:12pm MST

This 2007 piece by Vancouver artist Steven Shearer (Wikipedia) is called "Geometric Healing Cell for Youth - Model III." It reminds me of some of my favorite work by Tom Friedman. I love art that challenges our expectations of everyday materials. [via Neatorama]

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Safety (beer) glass

Posted: February 6th, 2010, 6:00pm MST

With 87,000 bar fights a year in the UK, with a combined health care cost of over 2.5 million pounds per year, the British Design Council saw a need for better bar glassware. Design agency DesignBridge stepped up with these concepts. What do you think, readers? How would you redesign the classic pint glass to to make it safer, while keeping it glass? [via Core77]

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What to do with lots of Altoids tins?

Posted: February 6th, 2010, 2:00pm MST

From the MAKE Forums:

Forum user LeversFulcrumsLoads has amassed a large quantity of leftover Altoids tins, and is trying to think of something to do with them. Now, we've covered many projects that make use of a single tin, but I can't think of any that called for a whole pile of them. Got some ideas? Chime in on the forum discussion!

It was like stumbling onto something out of National Treasure.
Is there an elegant way of punching holes in the sides without having sharp jaggies surrounding a USB socket?

With literally hundreds of tins, I was thinking on the best use of these (pocket survival kits, minty boosts, recycle, really big LED Throwie's, etc...) but have been overwhelmed by the staggering amount of sugars and fillers ingested in order to stack this cache up. Insights are welcomed. Wow, talk about supporting the U.S. market.

More:

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Rachel in Space: Wake up (or stay up) for shuttle launch tonight

Posted: February 6th, 2010, 12:00pm MST

I'm here at Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, in preparation for the launch of STS-130 and the Space Shuttle Endeavour. After a brief spell of heavy rain last evening, the skies cleared, making a perfect backdrop for this morning's retraction of the Rotating Service Structure to reveal Endeavour in all her glory.

Endeavour is scheduled to launch at 4:39am EST Sunday morning, and it will be worth waking up - or staying up - to see. This is the last scheduled night launch of a shuttle. With only five remaining launches, not only are the opportunities to view one dwindling, but experiencing the impressive views of a night launch will be likely gone forever by this time tomorrow. People who live along the eastern coastline have a good chance of viewing the launch from their backyards. If you're further west in the US, why not just stay up a little later with friends and celebrate this milestone in the space program? You'll still have plenty of time to go back to bed and wake up in time for football (if that suits your fancy).

I'll be tweeting from Kennedy Space Center all night long as the launch approaches, and I've been constantly updating pictures over on Flickr. Stay tuned for continued mission coverage over the next week and a half, including an interview with the STS-130 crew member who is a maker at heart.

Pictured at top: This morning's RSS Retraction, revealing Endeavour. Below: A night launch of the shuttle Discovery. Image courtesy NASA.

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Extech giveaway winners

Posted: February 6th, 2010, 12:00pm MST

Thanks to Extech for giving away all this swag! And it keeps getting better. Not only was the RC100 upgraded to a RC200, but there are TEN of them now, and TEN pen-style multimeters! Hot dog! Still only one EX540, however.

(winners after the jump)

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Matt Cottam's talk on Heirloom Electronics at interaction10

Posted: February 6th, 2010, 9:30am MST

Matt Cottam at interaction10

Matt Cottam, founder of Tellart, presented Wooden Logic: In Search of Heirloom Electronics at interaction10 yesterday. Here are my running notes on his discussions of sketching with tangible objects, physical interfaces to the iPhone, and heirloom technology.

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LEGO smartphone gaming rigs

Posted: February 6th, 2010, 8:00am MST

These are fun enclosures for your iPod or other smartphone. I made a simple one for my G1, and now need to find some driving/biking games to try it out on. It was fun and frustrating to stir the bin in search of just the right part. So often, when kids build with them, they make wildly complex designs that are at times of low structural integrity. Is there any formal LEGO design curriculum out there?

This is a great way to test out your rapid prototyping skills. Once you get a decent iteration, then the hunt is on for a more permanent solution.

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ChumbyChimp and Po

Posted: February 6th, 2010, 2:00am MST

Back when I got my Chumby Guts kit a few months ago, I imagined that it would be pretty funny to set up it up Teletubby style with the screen in the belly of a plushie. At the time, I didn't have a suitable doll to sacrifice at the alter of maker fun, but like Kent Barnes, I did have the box it came in. I like the alarm clock features, and enjoy being chirped awake. Eventually, though, the box kind of wore out, and my Chumby Guts lay loose on the night table.

Sunsue heard my call for a sacrificial Teletubby and found me a Po doll. When I saw it, I realized that this one would not work, since it is smaller than the ones my daughter used to have. It does have an interesting voice box, so that will come in handy some other day. A bit later, I fell upon a Build A Bear monkey at the Duxbury Mall. In his first invasive surgery, I found the heart, bar code and a monkey voice box with a dead battery. After swapping out the dead battery, I hid the voice box in my daughter's school bag, where it occasionally went off (ooh ooh aaah aah) as she bumped the bag. It now sits atop her social studies teacher's desk as a warning signal for those about to get a detention.

The monkey looked like he was on a starvation diet for a couple of weeks, as his stuffing sat in a bag in the cave as waited for the right moment to do the next operation. Eventually I got tired of loose ChumGutz on the night table and got together with my neighbor, Robin. She's pretty crafty and I figured would have some good techniques for the project. We went over and got to it. A few snips in the belly and monkey boy had gastric bypass of a kind. We hot melt glued the screen in place. Then I removed the speakers from the plastic holder and fit the circuit board inside the body behind the screen. I thought that I would have the switch loose, but left it attached over the power input and usb connectors. We re-stuffed him and he became ChumbyChimp. He is pretty happy to hang out with Po, and even gets to spend a little time with Creepy Baby.

This is the third iteration for my Chumby Guts, and I suppose that it will be a somewhat transitional situation. It would be useful to sew an old PDA stylus into his hand. That way it will always be easy to make accurate selections on the screen. I would like to put in some iMac ball speakers left over from the 50 iMacs project into the body instead of the nice little box speakers it came with. It would also be neat to add a switch to the hand with either a tactile switch or some conductive thread. I would definitely like to explore battery power, if only to add a bit of portability between locations in the house. The kitchen counter is a decent location, and with the right widgets ChumbyChimp really adds to the room.

More

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Star Trek Next Generation Pinball Modifications - Trouble with Tribbles

Posted: February 5th, 2010, 9:30pm MST

Jeri's Star Trek Next Generation Pinball Modifications - Trouble with Tribbles. Nice!

Modifications to a Williams Star Trek Next Generation pinball. Added lasers to the cannons, custom-etched flipper bats and added animatronic tribble for replays.

The end of the video has some great tribble action. Read more | Permalink | Comments | Read more articles in Gaming | Digg this!

Projects: Failure and the cover of MAKE, Volume 06

Posted: February 5th, 2010, 7:30pm MST

When I think of horrifically frustrating project experiences that end in an outcome far exceeding expectations, two instances spring to mind. I tell these stories frequently (stop me if you've heard this one before) because I think they represent the power of perseverance in the face of projected failure.

The first tale I've told countless times, probably even here on MAKE, about a friend of mine, a fabric artist, who, back in the 80s, entered a weaving contest in a fabric arts magazine. She'd never done any weaving. She got some how-to books, borrowed a loom, and decided to weave the fabric to make a seersucker shirt. It quickly turned into a nightmare. The seersucker threads kept breaking as she wove them. It became a huge exercise in frustration, but she kept at it. She thought her difficulty was due to the fact that she was a newbie. Finally, after much struggle and heartache, she finished the weave, made the shirt, and submitted it to the contest. The magazine called a month or so later and said they were stunned by the piece, especially because you "can't" hand-weave seersucker! She'd won the contest, and a ginormous, gorgeous Swedish loom that consumed most of a small room in her house. This is a perfect example of how you can do things when you're ignorant of (or ignore) the common belief that you can't. Sometimes ignorance is a huge advantage.

The second story concerns my BEAM robot pieces in MAKE, Volume 06. I agreed to write an introduction to BEAM and two simple BEAM robot projects for the issue. I've done plenty of BEAM projects over the years (since the mid-90s) and had made several Symets (think: solar-powered top), but I'd never made a Solarroller, except for a kit version. Still, I figured I'd choose those as my projects. How hard could a roller be? It used the same solar-engine circuit as the Symet, and frequently used a cassette motor and part of the body of the cassette player for the structure, and a couple of wheels. No biggie. So, of course, I made sure to wait until the absolute last minute to start working on the piece.

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Cool Java-based circuit simulator

Posted: February 5th, 2010, 7:00pm MST

Having trouble visualizing how current flows in a circuit? A great way to get a feel for how a circuit works is to use a circuit simulator, however most are either expensive or require a fair bit of electronics knowledge to use. If you are just wondering how a common circuit works, then you might want to check out this Java-based Circuit Simulator. It's got a large library of parts and pre-built circuits that you can simulate and modify to get the feel for how they work. Though it may not be a full substitute for more traditional full-featured simulators such as LTSpice or Qucs, it is free, runs in your browser, and is actually pretty fun to play around with. [via Stephen Hobley]

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Quantum-logic clock is the new hotness in accuracy

Posted: February 5th, 2010, 6:00pm MST

The quantum-logic clock, which detects the energy state of a single aluminum ion, keeps time to within a second every 3.7 billion years. The new timekeeper could one day improve GPS or detect the slowing of time predicted by Einstein's theory of general relativity.

[via Wired Science]

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"Why I believe in maker culture"

Posted: February 5th, 2010, 4:30pm MST

My friend, Willow Bay, has a brief piece on The Steampunk Workshop called "Why I believe in maker culture." Snip:

All the things I do in life (which, admittedly, is a lot) are about Doing. I'm up to my eyeballs in Stuff to Do and up to my elbows in What I'm Doing because I love it, and because I so adamantly believe that Maker Culture is a healthy response to an unhealthy pop culture. Here's a glimpse at why I feel this way.
When you're a hammer, everything looks like a nail. Which is to say, you use the tools you have to solve the problems at hand. Tools and technology do, of course, range everywhere from a wrench to language to roads to electricity. And when your tool is the mindset of a maker, any system at hand looks like something to be tinkered with and improved upon.

Willow is also the director of a relatively new makerspace in Seattle called Jigsaw Renaissance. I love the first paragraph of their About Us page:

So, here's the idea: Ideas. Unfiltered, unencumbered, and unapologetically enthusiastic ideas. Ideas that lead to grease-smeared hands, lavender sorbet, things that go bang, clouds of steam, those goggle-marks you see on crazy chemistry geeks, and some guy (or girl) in the background juggling and swinging from a trapeze.

What is your feeling about the concept of "maker culture?" Is there such a thing in your mind? It it a fad or something more significant and enduring? Has becoming a maker and participating in things like Maker Faires, hackerspaces, Dorkbots, or other DIY festivals and activities, changed the way you look at the world?

Why I believe in Maker Culture

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Arduino package for Eagle

Posted: February 5th, 2010, 3:37pm MST

Ardeagle1
Ardeagle2
Arduino package for Eagle, I know ya'll are going to like this... now you can make shields and custom projects with ease (site and on github).

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25 chips that made history

Posted: February 5th, 2010, 3:30pm MST

IEEE Spectrum's 25 Microchips That Shook the World presents a list of most groundbreaking IC's, including familiar classics like the 555 timer, 741 operational amplifier, and a link roundup to relevant info resources - good stuff. [via jeriellsworth]

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Dazzle camouflage

Posted: February 5th, 2010, 3:21pm MST

Interesting article over on TwistedSifter about the use of so-called "dazzle" or "razzle-dazzle" camouflage beginning during WWI. (The Wikipedia article is pretty good, too.) It's a kind of practical op-art: The idea was not so much to make the ship invisible against the background, but to confuse enemy weapons operators as to its distance and heading. The Rhode Island School of Design has a wonderful online collection of various paper plans for dazzle camouflage schemes donated by Maurice L. Freedman, who was district camoufleur for the 4th district of the U.S. Shipping Board, Emergency Fleet Corporation, and would go on to invent the board game "Battleship." [via Dude Craft]

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Egg Ocarina

Posted: February 5th, 2010, 2:00pm MST

There has been no shortage of food-based instruments around here, however I particularly like this one that Youtube user heita3 made from an egg shell. It's a good reminder that pretty much any old thing can be made into a fun project! [Thanks, Nancy!]

More:

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Lego hexapod bot

Posted: February 5th, 2010, 1:00pm MST

YouTube user GusJanss made an awesome Mindstorms walker that uses only 3 NXT servos to move six legs. Nice hack!

The Hexapod Walker is a six legged LEGO NXT robot walker. It uses a gait that causes very little slippage at the feet so can walk well with rubber tipped feet all the way around. The left and right motors control their respective sides corner legs. The motor in theback controls the middle set of legs so that either left or right corner legs can be lifted. When left middle goes down, left corner legs go up and right middle goes up.

First program just walks in a simple pattern. The second program was for a walking robot race and uses the small LED lights as navigation aids. Light sensor, mounted in the back but looks forward, sees the light and with every step adjusts step size to aim for light.

[via the NXT Step]

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Behind the Scenes at MAKE and CRAFT

Posted: February 5th, 2010, 12:00pm MST

Enclosure: [download]

In January, many of the remote MAKE/CRAFT team members (myself included) convened at the Maker Media headquarters at O'Reilly Media in Sebastopol, California. Take a look behind the scenes of your favorite DIY publications as Goli Mohammadi gives us a tour!

View on YouTube, Vimeo, or Blip.tv, subscribe to the MAKE Podcast in iTunes, or download the m4v video.

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Maker Shed "Cabin Fever" sale ends tonight at Midnight

Posted: February 5th, 2010, 11:30am MST

cabin fever.jpg
Last call for grabbing some great deals in our Cabin Fever sale in the Maker Shed. The sale ends tonight at Midnight (Pacific). We have a fresh re-supply of kits, and a juicy sale on lots of different items ranging from necklaces to chemistry sets; finger puppets to Erector sets. You can even pick up a shiny new Arduino at a great sale price!

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Brewing Open Mate, an open source mate soda

Posted: February 5th, 2010, 11:00am MST

Over at Hack Pittsburgh, we are running an experiment to try and brew an open-source version of the highly caffeinated Club Mate soda drink. The first version uses Chai Mate tea mix, cane sugar, and caffeine powder, but already we have suggestions to improve the next batch.

It's actually pretty easy to make soda, even if you don't have fancy equipment like a soda keg and CO2 tank. If you are interested in trying it out, Becky has you covered with the DIY soda episode of the CRAFT Video. Already have a favorite recipe? Share it with us in the comments!

More:

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Paper model of expanding 6-bar Bricard linkage

Posted: February 5th, 2010, 10:00am MST

YouTuber 36AM3B has lots of cool deployable-structure models in his channel, including an expanding frame (visible to the rear in this video) made from 5 of the 6-bar linkages shown here. I got interested in Bricard linkages because of this recent model from Thingiverse user raju, which purports also to be a 6-bar Bricard linkage but looks, to me, an awful like what I've always called a kaleidocycle or flexahedron. And I don't really know enough about any of them to understand the fine distinctions. Can somebody help me out?

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Ranjit Bhatnagar's Instrument-a-day

Posted: February 5th, 2010, 9:00am MST

In the thing-a-day tradition for the month of February, Ranjit Bhatnagar is making one musical instrument each day, and documenting them on his blog. Some are electronic, and some are mechanical. It's going to be a good month! Pictured above is the monomarx (top) and remote interference (bottom).

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Teeny tiny evil fairy sculptures

Posted: February 5th, 2010, 7:00am MST

British sculptor Tessa Farmer makes these amazing little vignettes featuring 1-cm-tall skeletal fairies made from "bits of organic material, such as roots, leaves, and dead insects" pitted against actual insects and other, larger taxidermied critters. Both creepy and awesome. Crawsome? [via Dude Craft]

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Weekend Project: The Arc Light

Posted: February 5th, 2010, 6:01am MST

Enclosure: [download]

Build an amazing 19th century arc light out of simple materials. Thanks go to William Gurstelle for the original article in MAKE, Volume 20.

To download The Arc Light video click here and subscribe in iTunes. Check out the complete Arc Light article in MAKE, Volume 20 and you can see that in our Digital Edition.

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Weekend Project: The Arc Light (PDF)

Posted: February 5th, 2010, 6:00am MST

Enclosure: [download]

Build an amazing 19th century arc light out of simple materials.
Thanks go to William Gurstelle for the original article in MAKE, Volume 20.

View the PDF of this project. And then subscribe to MAKE magazine for other great projects
you can do over the weekend.

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How vinyl records are made

Posted: February 5th, 2010, 5:00am MST

For the last couple of years there has been a resurgence in popularity of vinyl records. Largely due to digital downloads rending the portability of compact discs obsolete, people are starting to gravitate to vinyl as the physical format of choice. In this short documentary from Nick Cavalier we get a behind-the-scenes look at the production of vinyl records at Gotta Groove Records, a new vinyl pressing plant in Cleveland, Ohio.

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"You can lazzzer biodegradable plastic!"

Posted: February 5th, 2010, 2:00am MST

Make biodegradable "bioplastic" out of common household ingredients, then laser-cut it with ease. [the Shapeways blog]

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Chiptune Marching Band and Maker Faire Newscastle

Posted: February 4th, 2010, 11:30pm MST

I just got back from an awesome Dorkbot DC meeting, with two very inspiring artists' presentations, one by Andy Holtin, and one by Atau Tanaka. While the presentations themselves were fascinating, beyond that, one thing that struck me was the two presenters' associations with Maker Faire and how the Faires are a great incubator of ideas and projects that go on to have lives beyond these single events.

We met Andy originally through Maker Faire Austin, when he was teaching at UT and put together a student art show for us. Atau teaches at Newscastle University, and is the Digital Media Chair of the Culture Lab there. When he and the Culture Lab heard that Maker Faire was coming to town, they knew they wanted to do something special. They put together a workshop and collaborative music performance piece called the Chiptune Marching Band. It was a great success at the Faire and they've now gone on to do it at six different festivals and events (and plan to continue). It's a perfect example of taking a simple, clever electronics circuit (it uses two LM386 chips, one to oscillate, one to amplify) and some crafting supplies, cobbling them all together in the context of an educational and social event, and then immediately turning the objects-made into a fun performance piece, a maker's marching band. All sorts of win!

Above is a video of the Chiptune Marching Band (which we've covered here before) -- the Chiptune Marching Band even has a website.

I look forward to seeing what innovative, wondrous, and wacky things sprout from the heads and hands at this year's Newscastle Faire... and all of the US Faires.

Maker Faire, Newcastle

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American Museum of Natural History dinosaur app

Posted: February 4th, 2010, 9:00pm MST

Pt 2517

American Museum of Natural History dinosaur app for iPhones is out, it's free and I'm going to use it on my upcoming trip to the museum in NYC...

The American Museum of Natural History announced today that DINOSAURS: American Museum of Natural History Collections, the first science and education photo mosaic application for iPhone and iPod Touch, is currently available for download on iTunes ([bit.ly]). Free and easy to use, DINOSAURS lets paleontologists of all ages explore the world's largest collection of dinosaur fossils with a tap of the screen.
Combining scientific research with over 800 stunning images from the Museum's vast archives, this pioneering interactive mosaic provides dinosaur enthusiasts an entirely new way to discover the Museum's premier paleontology collection--and to become experts in the process. Packed with information about six of the Museum's most popular dinosaur fossils, including the famed Tyrannosaurus rex and the Barosaurus, DINOSAURS digs deep to bring amateur paleontologists the science behind selected fossils, stories about their discoveries, and profiles of the fossil-hunters who uncovered them. The images are enhanced with social networking functionality, enabling users to share favorite images with friends, post comments, and view comments left by others.

A veritable pocket field guide, DINOSAURS: American Museum of Natural History Collections can also be used while exploring the Museum's famous halls to learn more about the fascinating fossils on display. DINOSAURS will be updated with new "stories" with in-depth information about additional dinosaur species, including such favorites as the Triceratops.

Post up your maker, science and hacky related apps you use in the comments for your mobile device(s).

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New material: composite metal foam

Posted: February 4th, 2010, 7:00pm MST

Mechanical and aerospace engineer Dr. Afsaneh Rabiei set out to create a material "as light as aluminum and as strong as stainless steel," and she has succeeded, in the form of composite metal foam. In this Science Nation video, she discusses its applications as a building material, a way to make car bumpers stronger, and a superior substitute to solid metal in knee and hip surgeries. A professor at North Carolina State University, Dr. Rabiei encourages her students to be "persistent and pioneering." In her spare time, one of her passions is introducing grade school children to the wonders of engineering.

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This week in Maker Events

Posted: February 4th, 2010, 4:00pm MST

Enclosure: [download]

Looking to take a break from tinkering on your latest project this weekend? Here are some fine maker events to check out, from The Maker Events Calendar. Wish your event was on the list? Add it to the calendar!

Coming up this week:

DorkbotDC
Washington, DC
Thursday, Feb 4, 2010, 7pm - 9pm

Documentation Lighting @HackPGH
Pittsburgh, PA
Friday, Feb 5, 2010, 7pm - 9pm

Los Angeles Microcontroller club
Topanga, CA
Saturday, Feb 6, 2010, 11am +

Hack-A-Thon @Workshop 88
Mokena, IL
Saturday, Feb 6, 2010 - Sunday, Feb 7, 2010, 2pm - 12pm

Freeside Builds Robots!
Atlanta, GA
Saturday, Feb 6, 2010, 11am - 6pm

Arduino Night @ theTransistor
Provo, UT
Saturday, February 6, 2010, 5pm - 8pm

Hacking the Chumby® Device @NYC Resistor
Brooklyn, NY
Sunday, Feb 7, 2010, 2pm - 4pm

Introduction to Electronics @Metrix Create Space
Seattle, WA
Sunday, Feb 7, 2010, 2pm - 4:30pm

Dorkbot: Seattle @FabLab
Seattle, WA
Sunday, Feb 7, 2010, 7pm - 10pm

Make:SF @reMake Lounge
San Francisco, CA
Tuesday, Feb 9, 2010, 6:30pm - 8pm

Project Lab with Expert Included
Berkeley, CA
Tuesday, Feb 9, 2010, 3pm - 6pm

Drop-in Arduino and Electronics classes
Berkeley, CA
Tuesday, Feb 9, 2010, 7pm - 9pm

GO-Tech (Ann Arbor) February Meeting
Ann Arbor, MI
Tuesday, Feb 9, 2010, 7pm - 9pm

Make:PGH Meeting 1!
Pittsburgh, PA
Tuesday, Feb 9, 2010, 7pm - 9pm

Start planning for:

Techno-Swap-Fest
Linthicum, MD
Saturday, Feb 13, 2010, 9am - 2pm

Audio Fun with Coils @NYC Resistor
Brooklyn, NY
Saturday, Feb 13, 2010, 4pm - 6pm

Minne-Faire @Hack Factory
Minneapolis, MN
Saturday, Feb 13, 2pm - 11pm

Free Culture 20X0
Washington, DC
Saturday, Feb 13, 2010 - Sunday, Feb 14, 2010, 8am - 5:30pm

NEMES 14th Annual Model Engineering Show
Waltham, MA
Saturday, February 20, 2010, 10am - 4pm

Using Transistors @Metrix Create Space
Seattle, WA
Sunday, Feb 21, 2010, 2pm - 4:30pm

Friday Night at The Crucible
Oakland, CA
Friday, Feb 26, 2010, 6:30pm - 9:30pm

Maker Faire Newcastle
Newcastle, UK
Saturday, Mar 13, 2010 - Sunday, Mar 14, 2010

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Tinker.it's TinkerKit unveiled at interaction10 in Savannah, Georgia

Posted: February 4th, 2010, 3:30pm MST

Massimo Banzi and Tom Igoe

interaction10 got underway today in Savannah, Georgia, and among the first workshops of the day was Arduino project co-founder Massimo Banzi's Tangible Interface Prototyping (Massimo, left, is pictured above with fellow Arduino team member Tom Igoe). Massimo's workshop featured the soon-to-be-released TinkerKit, a collection of pluggable sensor modules designed to work with the Arduino electronic prototyping platform.

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Not that kind of resistance

Posted: February 4th, 2010, 3:21pm MST

My then-girlfriend-and-now-justfriend Melody made this little diorama for her study partner when she was getting her undergraduate EE degree at UT-Austin back in 2003. There's one more pic on my old personal webpage. It was I who advised her on the spelling; in retrospect, I'm pretty sure it should be "le" instead of "la."

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New Make: Online commenting policy and community guidelines

Posted: February 4th, 2010, 2:00pm MST

Over the years, here on Make: Online, we've had a rather open, anybody can play commenting policy. As long as you didn't use profanity, post patently offensive remarks, or spam, your comments were likely to stand. We also allowed for anonymous commenting.

While this approach allows for the greatest number of voices, we've come to feel that it doesn't necessarily foster the best sense of community. People, especially those new to DIY, to electronics, to the maker's movement in general; people who are exploring a project idea but unsure of the design or its mechanics, frequently don't feel "safe" in speaking up here. We've heard this from makers personally and in surveys we've done. We want to try fostering an online environment where our readers feel that they can more freely share their ideas, ask questions, and basically, think and learn out loud.

We also believe that allowing anonymous commenting, while providing a convenience, and the ability to post without one's name being associated, can also encourage rude behavior and personal attacks. And while we don't think the atmosphere on MAKE is at all caustic (compared to other popular tech sites), we've decided to change our policy a bit in an effort to hopefully create a greater sense of community among makers, a place where people of varying ages, interests, and skill levels, feel comfortable and free to ask questions, seek advice, socialize, and learn.

So, for starters, we're turning off anonymous commenting and implementing a "be nice" commenting policy. Before you post, right above the Submit button, it will now read:

Make: Online has a "be nice" commenting policy. Don't say anything here you wouldn't say to a person's face. We will use our discretion in removing comments we find offensive, spammy, self-promotional, or mean-spirited. See more on our Maker Community Guidelines page.

The Maker Community Guidelines spell out in more detail what we're hoping our readers will take to heart in helping us build a more amiable environment here.

This is not the only thing we're going to be doing to expand our community-building efforts. We're also going to be "datamining" comment threads more, to find new ideas for topic-areas to explore, to elevate comments into stand-alone posts for deeper exploration, and we're even going to be deputizing commenters and turning them into guest authors from time to time. Encouraging more maker participation is also a big priority in our upcoming site redesign, so this is only the first step in that direction. There are also plans in the works for the site that we're super excited about and think will inspire you to become even more involved in what we're doing here. If you've been to a Maker Faire, or felt the energy of a Faire through our site and video coverage -- that's what we'd like to instill here -- a similar feeling of excitement, engagement, skills-sharing, and friendliness. We'd love to hear your ideas of how you think we can best accomplish this.

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Automated city design via Conway's Game of Life

Posted: February 4th, 2010, 1:13pm MST

Voxopolis is a 3D city-generating engine based on Conway's Game of Life and programmed in Processing by Jeannette Kuo, Dino Rossi and Dominik Zausinger. Also see the Flickr set. [via Beyond the Beyond]

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Pac-Man shelves

Posted: February 4th, 2010, 11:30am MST

I dunno why you'd set it up to be NOM-ing your flatscreen TV, but I do like the look of this, er, "Puck-Man" shelving unit from Italian firm Ginepro Design. Would be an easy remake, too, especially if you've got access to a CNC mill. [via Slippery Brick]

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Hip keyrack uses magnets to clasp keys

Posted: February 4th, 2010, 11:00am MST

I'm digging this wooden key rack concept by designer Thomas Bedós Bonaterra. Rather than using a mundane fastener such as a hook or Lego brick, his version relies on a hidden magnet to fasten your keys to the key rack. I wonder if it will support the unwieldy set of keys that I carry around? [via notcot]

More:

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Schematics just look cooler in ASCII ...

Posted: February 4th, 2010, 9:30am MST

  +10-15V          ___0,047R
  X------o------o-|___|-o--o---------o----o-------o
         |      |       |  |         |    |       |
        ---     |       | .-.        |    |       |
  470uF ###     |       | | | 2k2    |    |       |
         | +    |       | | |        |    |       |
  X------o      '--.    | '-'       .-.   |       |
         |         |6   |7 |8    1k | |   |       |
        GND      .------------.     | |   |       |
                 |            |     '-'   |       |
                 |            |1     |  |/  BC    |
                 |            |------o--|   547   |
                 |            |      |  |>        |
                 |            |     .-.   |       |
                 |            | 220R| |   o----||-+  IRF9Z34
                 |            |     | |   |    ||->
                 |  MC34063   |     '-'   |    ||-+
                 |            |      |    |       |  BYV29     -12V6
                 |            |      '----'       o--|

Tired of exporting images from EAGLE/gEDA/etc just to share a circuit on forums or email?  AACircuit (translation) offers some pretty solid functionality for creating ASCII text based schematics in Windows.  Just be sure to share your results in a monospace font.  



Sweet - think I'll go tweet me some RC filters.


       
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Seeing radio waves with a light bulb

Posted: February 4th, 2010, 8:00am MST

Enclosure: [download]

Using a low power amateur radio transmitter and a simple light bulb receiver circuit, we see how radio waves and electromagnetic induction transmit energy and signals wirelessly through the air. We also see how dipole and Yagi antennas radiate their energy in different patterns. Read on to build your own dipole receiving antenna!

Subscribe to the MAKE podcast in iTunes, or download the m4v video.

More:

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Hello Kitty chainsaw

Posted: February 4th, 2010, 7:00am MST

This may be the end of civilization as we know it. [via Neatorama]

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Permalink for 'MAKE_Magazine/2010/02/04/Leave_a_comment__get_Extech_loot_'

HR Giger wedding cake

Posted: February 3rd, 2010, 10:00pm MST

Now that's true love, true, chest-bursty love.

H.R. Giger Cake

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Make the web "quieter" with shutup.css + get Richard Feynman quotes instead of YouTube comments...

Posted: February 3rd, 2010, 9:00pm MST

Engadget disabled comments on their site because of the trolls, many other sites spend half their time battling people who chose to make others miserable - it's what the web has become in many corners of netland. MAKE will always have a vibrant community and great comments, that's a promise I know we can keep. We're going to post our refined comment policy up in the next 24 hours or so (stay tuned for a great post from Gareth on this). From the start of MAKE, 5+ years ago now, we've actively encouraged great discussions and try to jump in to resolve issues in the MAKE comments -- so far it's worked out pretty well -- MAKE is a safe place to post in the comments, it's a safe place to post your projects.

But other places are not and never will be.

This is where "shutup.css" comes in. I just installed it and I love it. It just removes the comments on many sites so you can enjoy the content and not the poop-fest.

I'm not going to pick on any specific site out there, but I think it's fair for me to say that I think the comments on some electronics-y related sites are pushing people away from sharing their projects lately. There are tons of great projects that make it to many of these sites, the editors do a great job with the sites and content, but there's just too many people who are determined to make the comments an awful place. shutup.css is now installed, I visit these site more now, even in the few short hours I've been using it - they get the page views and I don't need to accidentally glance at something awful. Eventually I think every site will work towards setting productive tones, it takes time and resources -- not everyone has a community manager for their site(s) - until it gets better on some of the sites I frequent, I think I'll use this comment blocker. shutup.css didn't come with every site I visit in the list so I needed to edit it. The sites it includes are digg, slashdot, youtube, etc... For youtube, I was using the Feynman quote-comment-replacer, that worked well - but I like this "clean" web without comments even better.

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Flashback: The Florence Siphon Arabica Brewing & Extraction Apparatus

Posted: February 3rd, 2010, 7:00pm MST

I thought I was really into coffee until I met John Edgar Park, host of Make: television, contributing writer to Make: Online, and author of several MAKE magazine articles. John takes his coffee seriously. Seriously. Case in point was when he devised and wrote a how-to for his Florence Siphon Brewing and Extraction Apparatus for MAKE Volume 17, our Lost Knowledge issue. This apparatus is sure to raise eyebrows (and spirits) next time you invite someone to your workshop for a cup of blessed joe. Check out the whole project in this week's Flashback, and pick up a back issue of MAKE 17 over in the Maker Shed.

Make your own mad-scientist coffee machine.
By J. Edgar Park II

Aboard the dirigible Aeroship Phaedrus, two men are seated at a table in the onboard Laboratory:

"Doctor Liepold, would you kindly prescribe something to lift my depressed spirits?"
"Why of course, Captain Heffernan. What is it that ails you?"
"My mind feels sluggish and there is still much work to be done before daylight. I am drawing up charts for the expedition."
"Ah, yes, I have just the thing. Sit a moment while I extract the invigorants from these wondrous beans."
"Very good, thank you. What is that strange device, Herr Doktor?"
"I call it the Florence Siphon. It is an arabica brewing and extraction apparatus. Allow me to demonstrate. First, I fill this boiling flask with a quantity of pure spring water. It is a vessel of my own devising that can withstand great heat and pressure. I heat the flask, which causes the water to vaporize, passing through this tube here, through a filter, and into the beaker to my left. Here, the water commingles with precisely roasted and ground fruit of Coffea arabica. I give the slurry a rapid stirring to fully saturate the grounds, then wait.
"As my boiling flask cools, a vacuum is created, causing the very atmosphere of the Earth to push the liquid through the filter, leaving the grounds and all unsavory particulate matter behind. Thus the liquid, now filled with essences, oils, solubles, flavors, and vital invigorants, is returned to the flask. Allow me to unstopper it and pour you a dose."
"Doctor! You have outdone yourself! I feel revitalized by this most miraculous potion."

The vacuum siphon coffee brewing method dates back to the 1840s. It produces some of the cleanest, smoothest-tasting coffee of any method. Commercial vacuum pots are available, but I wanted to heighten the drama of vacuum brewing by taking it into the realm of the mad scientist's lab. Thus the Florence Siphon was born!

After studying original patent drawings and existing devices, I identified these key features:
• Water is heated in a boiling flask that has a tube leading to a second vessel containing ground coffee.
• The tube must have a filter, to allow the water to flow through but not the grounds.
• The filter must be submerged during brewing, so as to maintain a seal with the boiling flask.
• The second vessel must be accessible for stirring the slurry.
• The boiling flask must be large enough to create a sufficient vacuum as it cools to "pull" the coffee back through.

One drawback to early vacuum brewers was the constant danger of exploding glass. Today, we have plenty of high-quality borosilicate glassware that's up to the task — it just happens to be found in the lab, not the kitchen.

Filtration was another challenge. I tinkered with a few options (including an unfortunate foray into shower heads) before arriving at an inverted thistle tube. This is a type of bulbed funnel that's easy to cover with filter cloth. (Thanks to Dr. Jim Callan from Avogadro's Lab Supply for this suggestion.)

I assembled my funnel, stopper, tubing, filter, and a beaker for the grounds. I filled my flask with preheated water (small burners can take a while to boil 500ml), poured 38g of medium-ground coffee into the beaker, donned my goggles, and lit the burner.

The water began to bubble quickly, and soon went straight up the glass tube and over to the grounds. After about a minute, the flask was nearly empty and I extinguished the flame. At this point, there was an abundance of expanded water vapor (steam) inside the flask, which prevented the water from returning.

I stirred up the slurry with a stick and then waited with great excitement. Would the siphon be able to draw the coffee back up? At just about the 2-minute mark, I saw the gorgeous brown liquid begin its ascent. This is due to the vacuum created by the cooling and contraction of water vapor in the boiling flask. It was tentative at first, but as the boiling flask continued to cool, the coffee started to move quickly up the tube, over and then back down to the flask below. Within another 20 seconds, the journey was complete: 420ml of coffee made it back, leaving 80ml of water behind with the grounds.

I removed the stopper and poured myself a cup. It was perfect! Smooth, bright, clear, and clean. Vacuum coffee is a step above a French press, and leagues above drip. Plus, when you brew with the Florence Siphon you get to don your lab coat and cackle maniacally. What more could you want from a cup of coffee?

Here's how to build your own Florence Siphon.

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MORE water rocket awesomeness

Posted: February 3rd, 2010, 5:30pm MST

We've covered George Katz and his water rocket projects here in the past. In this recent video, he shows testing of a lightweight in-line parachute deployment rig, as well as some additional footage of the group's most recent launch day.

In-line Deployment Mechanism

More:
Awesome DIY water rockets with drop-away boosters

In the Maker Shed:

MAKE: Volume 05
Our Price: $14.99
Homemade electric vehicles, high-powered water rockets, electricity-generating windmill, jet engine in a jam jar, and a backyard zip line!

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Toolbox: Business cards

Posted: February 3rd, 2010, 5:30pm MST

In the Make: Online Toolbox, we focus mainly on tools that fly under the radar of more conventional tool coverage: in-depth tool-making projects, strange or specialty tools unique to a trade or craft that can be useful elsewhere, tools and techniques you may not know about, but once you do, and incorporate them into your workflow, you'll wonder how you ever lived without them. And, in the spirit of the times, we pay close attention to tools that you can get on the cheap, make yourself, or refurbish.

In the next few months, we're going to be taking a more in-depth look at "Maker Business," the how-tos of turning your DIY hobby into an actual business. One of the first "brand identity" pieces that anybody going into business needs is a calling card. I know so much of our business interface is electronic these days, but everybody still needs a card for convenient exchange when pressing the flesh. I personally love business cards. I've saved nearly every one I've ever been given. I have a massive collection, going back decades. It's fun to go back through them and be reminded of the interactions that produced them, see the changing designs and typestyles, what people put on them (CompuServe and Prodigy accounts, USENET newsgroups!), etc.

Of course, the cards that get more attention, that stand out, are the ones that are truly unique and clever. In fact, I have a little display in my office with a number of the special cards covered below (Adafruit, EMS Labs, Tom Ward's dot matrix card -- and one of his flashlight cards from my demo of the same at Maker Faire Austin). As a maker, as someone who's working in a domain that's associated with innovative thinking, clever design, creative and new use of materials, embedded technologies, etc., a really stand-out card is almost expected. Today, there are so many options for cool cards you can make, materials you can use, cards of varying sizes and shapes; there's really no reason to not have a card that creates a special first impression (and hopefully a card that the receiver will want to keep, display, show off to others, etc.) Here are some interesting card ideas, mainly ones we've featured here on MAKE before.

Do you have an innovative, unusual business card? Put it in the MAKE Flickr pool and tell us about it in the comments.

Here's a card I bumped into yesterday, laser-etched onto large popsicle sticks. Lots of great possibilities here.

Business Cards - Laser Engraved Big Pop Sticks

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What Was I Thinking? Part 1: Light fishture

Posted: February 3rd, 2010, 3:08pm MST

It's "Failures!" month here at Make: Online. Throughout February, we're going to be celebrating the flip side of making, doing, and risking: Sometimes things don't work out as we plan.

On the other hand, sometimes things work out exactly as we plan, but when the passion of inspiration is gone and we look back in the cold, sober light of morning we come to a painful realization: I just made a giant piece of crap.

Thus it is that I hereby inaugurate a limited weekly series of posts called "What Was I Thinking?" in which I will be publicly cringing to recall celebrating some of my own more humbling morning-after moments. And possibly those of others. If I can get them to agree to submit to outright public mockery.

Which is why you're looking at a picture of a goldfish in a light fixture.

Or "light fishture," which is such a bad pun that I was already apologizing for it when I first posted this project on my old personal homepage back in 2005. Let me set the scene for you...

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Control your iPhone using an Arduino

Posted: February 3rd, 2010, 2:00pm MST

Spotted in the MAKE Flickr pool:

When we last covered recotana's Open Sound Controller (OSC) library for Arduino (ardOSC), he had an Arduino talking to an iPhone using the OSC protocol. The project worked quite well, however you had to manually connect the two together by specifying their IP address. Now, by adding an implementation of Bonjour, the Arduino can link up to the iPhone automagically, allowing one to easily get on with their mixing.

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RepRap Mendel mini documentary

Posted: February 3rd, 2010, 1:00pm MST

This video, by Josef Davies-Coates, shows RepRap supreme chancellor Adrian Bowyer talking in depth about the latest version of the RepRap 3D printer ("Mendel") which has been out for some months now.

More:

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How-To: Adjustable kids' bike jump

Posted: February 3rd, 2010, 12:00pm MST

Insructables user murphtron writes:

My son started riding a 16" bike at 4 years old without training wheels. (He was first on a push bike without training wheels or pedals at about 3 1/2.) One day he decided to build a jump in the back yard. So he found a piece of 2 x 12 ramp (with random lumber laying around) and piled up some logs. He discovered it was a bit tricky to ride in the grass and hit his narrow ramp. So I said, 'hey, let's go in the street (dead end) and try this.' First one brick was used to provide vertical lift, and then a second brick. He loved it.

With two bricks, the ramp becomes a bit wobbly. Plus, a 2 x 12 is a bit narrow, and a few times he rode off the ramp's side. So I decided to build a jump with the following qualities:

Wider ramp

Adjustable height, so it will last for a few years as he grows

Portable, so I could drag it to the dead end or local schoolyard playground.

Safer (while still providing ample opportunity for skinned elbows and broken bones)

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Rex the Dog: beautiful papercraft video

Posted: February 3rd, 2010, 11:00am MST

I'm digging this stop-motion music video made by British group Rex The Dog. They make it look so easy to do! Anyone want to guess how long this took to make? [via Neatorama]

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"Photo grandpa" builds mother of all homebrew laser triggers

Posted: February 3rd, 2010, 10:00am MST

A reader who saw Marc's recent post about an Arduino-controlled laser photo trigger wrote in to tell us about the amazing work of Belgian photographer and Flickr user fotoopa (which, we hear, as "foto opa," means something like "photo grandpa" in Dutch). That's him in the picture above, with the awesome homebrew laser-triggered camera rig that he uses to capture amazing pictures of insects in flight and splashing drops of colored water. I'm generally skeptical of film purists, but fotoopa makes the compelling claim that no digital camera has the shutter speed necessary to do this kind of imagery. He claims the Compur #1 shutter used in his 2008 setup has a speed of less than 5 milliseconds. Technical details about his 2009 setup are available here. [Thanks, Wilco Schillemans!]

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Crochet Saturn V rocket

Posted: February 3rd, 2010, 9:00am MST

Rachel @ CRAFT writes:

It's been well established that I'm a huge space geek, and as I prepare to head to Florida for the shuttle launch this weekend, I've got rockets on my mind more than ever. Of course, I flipped out when June shared this amazing crochet Saturn V rocket by Flickr user, Ms Premise-Conclusion. I'm in love.

Keep an eye out for Rachel's coverage of the shuttle launch next week here on Make: Online!

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Aquaport from MIT's IDEAS Competition

Posted: February 3rd, 2010, 8:30am MST

This group of students came together as a part of MIT's IDEAS competition. They decided to solve a problem that arose out of one team member's childhood experience in Nigeria carrying water. They brainstormed several ideas and wound up with design that looks simple and effective.

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How-To: Quick 'n' dirty analog pressure sensor

Posted: February 3rd, 2010, 7:28am MST

There are lots of ways to make homebrew pressure sensors, but this method from Instructables user hiskeyd is the easiest I've seen: Jam two stripped wires into a piece of static dissipative foam and bend the ends over to keep them from pulling out. Then coat the whole thing in Plasti-Dip. And you're done.

More:

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Lathing zen - making a vaccum hose adapter

Posted: February 3rd, 2010, 6:00am MST

I don't quite know why, but viewing detailed production process vids like this one, can induce a decidedly blissful, even zen-like state in my brain - and I've heard others report similar effects. Gfixler's above video, documents some quality time he spent with a Sherline 4400 CNC mini lathe - mistakes, mishaps, and all -

I needed a way to hook my shop vac hose to the square tube aluminum extrusion I recently made into a manifold for the Loc-Line tubing I'm using as a vacuum system for my mini mill. Here's how I did it.

Some might say it's a lot time to spend producing something as mundane as a hose adapter - but the satisfaction of using your own brand of hardware makes it very much worthwhile.

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Firefox fires up on Android

Posted: February 3rd, 2010, 5:00am MST

It's not quite ready for an alpha release, but it's nice to know that development of Firefox on Android has progressed to the stage where they've actually got a screenshot. [via AndroidCentral]

You'll note that this is the full Firefox interface, and not the Fennec/Firefox Mobile UI; we're testing with the full interface because it's significantly more complex than the mobile UI and stresses Gecko much more. So, if the full UI works, then Fennec should work fine as well. Given the interest in Android on netbook and tablet devices, an updated version of the full Firefox UI might find a home on some of these. Android has been pretty great to work with so far; it's a bit unusual platform for us due to its Java core, but with the NDK we're able to bridge things together without many problems.

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Arduino powered laser trigger for your camera

Posted: February 3rd, 2010, 3:00am MST

You can make a camera trigger without a micro controller, but this system allows you to easily add sensors or variable timers, making it extremely flexible. [Thanks Haje]

There are loads of reasons for why you could want to trigger your camera remotely - to avoid camera shake, for example, or to be able to take a photograph of yourself without having to rely on a timer. If you want to build more ambitious projects, however, you may have to consider getting more exotic.

In the Maker Shed:

Arduino Family
Make: Arduino

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Letterblocks: Alphabet blocks with a twist

Posted: February 3rd, 2010, 2:00am MST

Design collective The Design Office has created kids' blocks that feature fragments of letters, allowing children to form their own characters using multiple blocks.

Children of a young age play with small wooden blocks to learn the alphabet. Letters lead to words that lead into sentences and so on. Our oversized kraft boxes reintroduce the alphabet not as 26 distinct letters, but as the result of combining geometric parts. The 4-inch cubes may be viewed and stacked from any direction, creating unexpected shapes and letterforms. The boxes are made from recycled cardboard, delivered flat.

[via Inhabitots]

More:

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More tiny trailers

Posted: February 2nd, 2010, 10:00pm MST

In response to my posting about the teardrop trailer, several people pointed us to the T&TTT Forums (for "Teardrops & Tiny Travel Trailers"). Thanks for the link!

Teardrops & Tiny Travel Trailers

More:
"Cutest trailer in the known universe"

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The Buckminster Fuller Institute study center

Posted: February 2nd, 2010, 9:00pm MST

Studycenter1
In the NYC area? Like Bucky?come Celebrate with BFI, Feb. 3rd!...

Throughout the past six months BFI volunteers have worked to redesign our office space in Brooklyn, NY and install a BFI Study Center, open to the public. The center includes rare and out of print books, articles, magazines, photographs, posters, videos, and various artifacts by and about Buckminster Fuller’s life, work, and ideas.

The center also contains the installation of the Dymaxion Timeline, a curated collection of images from the Estate of R. Buckminster Fuller, and the Department of Special Collections and University Archives, Stanford University Libraries, M1090 R. Buckminster Fuller Collection. Organized by Bonnie DeVarco, Shoji Sadao and Beth Stryker, graphic design by Project Projects. The Timeline was presented previously at the Center for Architecture NY (2008) and the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago (2009) in the context of the Dymaxion Study Center (curated by Beth Stryker, organized by the AIA New York Chapter and the Center for Architecture Foundation in association with the Buckminster Fuller Institute).

The Study Center will be open to the public during set hours and by appointment following the official opening party:

February 3rd, 6-8 p.m.
The Buckminster Fuller Institute
181 N 11th Street, #402
Brooklyn, NY 11211

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DIY watch winder

Posted: February 2nd, 2010, 7:30pm MST

Mechanical watch enthusiast Jake Bordens wrote in to share his latest project, the Arduino Watch Winder. Wanting to keep his watches on display, he needed a solution that could automatically wind them so their time would be accurate. The (expensive) commercial device that he had worked well when he only had one watch, however it couldn't support winding two watches at different rates. Instead of purchasing a more complicated model, he decided to take matters into his own hands, and used an Arduino, Ardumoto motor driver shield, and RTC module to run the winding motors independently. It's a bit of an obscure problem, but a nice hack, and it could come in handy if you have a task that needs to be repeated each day at a specific time. Full source code and explanation is available at his site.

In the Maker Shed:

Arduino Family

Make: Arduino

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Nokia-based Rubik's Cube solver

Posted: February 2nd, 2010, 6:00pm MST

Mindstorms Rubik's Cube solvers are a dime a dozen, but David Gilday's bot offers two cool twists (sorry) -- first, it solves a 4x4 cube rather than the classic, ordinary 3x3 cube. Second, and cooler, rather than relying on the NXT Intelligent Brick to do the heavy lifting, it uses a Nokia N95 mobile phone that sits in a cradle above the cube, scanning it with its camera and solving the puzzle.

More:

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"Art rocketry"

Posted: February 2nd, 2010, 5:00pm MST

All card-carrying members of the NAR may want to look away now. The West Oakland Rocketry Club, based out of West Oakland CA, breaks pretty much every rule in the NAR Handbook. This is not rocketry for kids, or those who are particularly safety-concerned. Dubbing what they do "art rocketry," the group (a lot of the same folks associated with the Raygun Gothic Rocketship and the Steampunk Treehouse projects) has built rockets out of everything from frozen turkeys to snow men; Slinkies to Chinese food containers. (How cool is that "nuclear football" style launch control briefcase?)

(see more pics after the jump)

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Obscura Day, March 20, 2010

Posted: February 2nd, 2010, 4:30pm MST

In the early 90s, I ran an art/science/tech "salon" here in DC, called Cafe Gaga. One of the more fun things we did was dérive, or the act of purposeful drifting through a city to discover forgotten, interesting, strange places. There as so many weird, wonderful, unique locales in every city that we overlook in our day-to-day.

Obscura Atlas is organizing a global day to celebrate "wondrous, curious, and esoteric places" in cities around the world. See if your city is included, and if not, how you can set up your own Obscura Day event.

Obscura Day, March 20, 2010

More:
O'Reilly donates £1000 to Bletchley Park
Coding your own urban renewal

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Making walls invisible with augmented reality

Posted: February 2nd, 2010, 3:00pm MST

Carnegie Mellon's Dr. Yaser Sheikh has developed a prototype augmented reality (AR) system that combines images from two or more cameras to allow drivers, for instance, to see around blind corners by making intervening structures "invisible." In the simplest case, the image from a camera on the blind side of an obstacle is mapped, with appropriate foreshortening and in real time, onto the visible surface of the obstacle in the display from a camera at the user's position.

The concept reminded me of a brainstorm I had during my last commercial airline flight. Crammed into a middle seat on a crowded 747, feeling claustrophobic and a bit airsick, straining to get a look out one of the distant porthole windows, I longed for a pair of AR glasses that would make the plane invisible so I could look freely around the sky. The video feeds from panoramic cameras mounted above and below the fuselage could be combined and processed through a head-tracking system so that passengers could have an unimpeded external view in any direction they cared to look--the ground, the clouds, the night-time stars up above. Such a system would have no clear commercial purpose other than passenger comfort, but think how much more enjoyable those long-haul flights could be if you were soaring through the wild blue yonder instead of staring at the back of the seat in front of you.

[via Boing Boing]

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Hacking a Digital Bathroom Scale

Posted: February 2nd, 2010, 2:00pm MST

Micah Dowty is at it again, only this time he is hacking a digital bathroom scale rather than a sewing machine. Rather than taking the 'easy' route of just using the original electronics, and decoding what it output to the LCD display, he took the time to reverse engineer the analog components of the scale so that they could be interfaced directly. Nice project, and a fun read if you are interested in the process of reverse engineering things.

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Oxygen-tubing-legged robot walker

Posted: February 2nd, 2010, 12:00pm MST

Another walking robot today! This one walks on 24 pneumatically-powered legs made from oxygen tubing, by Monica Anderson. [via BoingBoing]

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Easy multithreading on Arduino with Concurrency

Posted: February 2nd, 2010, 11:00am MST

Enjoy programming microcontrollers, but frustrated about how difficult it can be to get them to do more than one thing at a time? Well, then you might be interested in Concurrency, an open source programming language and environment specifically designed with multithreading in mind. That means you can write programs that do multiple things at the same time, without interfering with each other. Of course, you could achieve the same things using a stock Arduino with some crafty coding or timer interrupts, however using a purpose-built language such as this could be a great way to get your feet wet in threaded computing. Check out their website for source code and Creative Commons-licensed tutorials!

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Gorgeous little needle-felted skull

Posted: February 2nd, 2010, 10:00am MST

From Japanese crafter うろね, who is also Flickr user urone317. [via CRAFT]

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Young Makers at the Exploratorium

Posted: February 2nd, 2010, 9:30am MST

Last Saturday, we had the first Open MAKE day at the Exploratorium as part of the Young Makers program. The day's program focused on hands-on activities for building circuits.

The program also featured BlinkyBugs and Bristlebots and welcomed their makers, Ken Murphy of Blinkybug.com, and Windell Oskay and Lenore Edman of Evil Mad Scientists Laboratories.

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Spray-on liquid glass is about to revolutionize almost everything?

Posted: February 2nd, 2010, 9:19am MST

Pt 2516
Spray-on liquid glass is about to revolutionize almost everything...

Spray-on liquid glass is transparent, non-toxic, and can protect virtually any surface against almost any damage from hazards such as water, UV radiation, dirt, heat, and bacterial infections. The coating is also flexible and breathable, which makes it suitable for use on an enormous array of products.
The liquid glass spray (technically termed “SiO2 ultra-thin layering”) consists of almost pure silicon dioxide (silica, the normal compound in glass) extracted from quartz sand. Water or ethanol is added, depending on the type of surface to be coated. There are no additives, and the nano-scale glass coating bonds to the surface because of the quantum forces involved. According to the manufacturers, liquid glass has a long-lasting antibacterial effect because microbes landing on the surface cannot divide or replicate easily.

Liquid glass was invented in Turkey and the patent is held by Nanopool, a family-owned German company. Research on the product was carried out at the Saarbrücken Institute for New Materials. Nanopool is already in negotiations in the UK with a number of companies and with the National Health Service, with a view to its widespread adoption.

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Crawling crochet earth

Posted: February 2nd, 2010, 9:00am MST

I should start considering more fiber enclosures for electronics, look how awesome this soft crawly earth robot is! However, creators Osamu Iwasaki and Hanakomet still call it RobotKnit, despite the fact that it is clearly crochet. After watching the video on repeat for the last fifteen minutes, I think I can forgive them. [via Fashioning Technology]

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In the Maker Shed: Conductive booster pack

Posted: February 2nd, 2010, 8:15am MST

MSCBP-2 2.jpg
The Conductive booster pack is the perfect companion for our Fashioning Technology book by Syuzi Pakhchyan. The kit contains a collection of conductive materials that are often only available in much larger quantities, making it a more affordable way to sample various materials.

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Mercury "beating heart" works with gallium, too

Posted: February 2nd, 2010, 6:47am MST

So it turns out, happily, that the mercury beating heart demo I wrote about a couple days ago can also be done with molten gallium, which is vastly less toxic than mercury and requires only slightly higher temperatures. The chemists at the University of Nottingham who produce The Periodic Table of Videos made this very informative footage demonstrating the process, which is slightly different from the mercury beating heart demo in that there is no iron nail present. The gallium blob "beats" anyway, but much slower than the mercury with the nail. I bet using a nail would make the gallium version beat just as fast. [Thanks Filip!]

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All radio united under autotune

Posted: February 2nd, 2010, 6:00am MST

Tim O'Reilly points out this hypnotic demonstration by Lucky Dragons - "PEACE ON EARTH" brings all radio stations together via frequency modulation -

two radios with home-made autotune on every signal received. every station is in tune with every other station. even static is in tune. peace on earth.

If current trends are any indication, mainstream radio will soon sound similar to this without modification (zing!)

Related:
Lucky Dragons' homemade sound device

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OS X on Nokia N900

Posted: February 2nd, 2010, 5:00am MST

If you thought running Android on a N900 was a nifty hack, you should check out this video of OS X 10.3 running in emulation on the N900. It's dog-slow, but it does boot and goes to show that you'll want a better interface when you start using smaller screens.

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Dallas makers organizing a hackerspace

Posted: February 2nd, 2010, 2:00am MST

Members of the Dallas Personal Robotics Group are looking to organize a communal workshop.

The DPRG had access to a warehouse in Garland for seven years, from 2002 through 2009 thanks to Mike Dodson, who allowed us to use one of his warehouse buildings and patiently put up with all our geeky shenanigans for almost a decade. In 2009, Mike retired and the building we were in changed hands, so we lost our long time home. After looking at several options for finding a new and permanent space for robot building, we settled on the idea of creating a hackerspace (aka a shared, community workshop). This idea has been used by groups in the US and other parts of the world with great success so it seemed likely we should be able to do it to.

They've set up a Google group -- if you're in the neighborhood and interested in helping out, that's your destination.

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Waldemeyer outfits Imogen Heap's Twitter dress at the Grammys

Posted: February 1st, 2010, 9:00pm MST

Imogen+Red+Carpet
P1293203S
Waldemeyer writes...

Imogen Heap wears Twitter dress at the Grammys... Say hello to our new creation: after video dresses and laser dresses here is one that connects Imogen to her fans directly via Twitter. When Imogen walked the red carpet to collect her Grammy, fans could send messages and photographs directly to her dress. The messages scrolled across the collar while the images were displayed on her Fendi handbag. How does it work? The Fendi bag contains an iPod Touch that receives the messages (thanks to Memo Akten for programming this). It displays the pictures and passes the text on to a flexible LED display in the collar.

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February Make: Newsletter ships tomorrow!

Posted: February 1st, 2010, 8:30pm MST

A snip from the January newsletter

We're about to send out the February Make: Newsletter (tomorrow morning). This monthly email letter has all new material you won't find on the site or in the magazine. We try to give you the inside scoop on some of what's going on behind the scenes at Maker Media, original columns, tool reviews, even quick n' dirty projects! We also have sweet subscription and Shed offers, often exclusive to the newsletter.

If you want to sign up, here's the form. You can also peruse previous issues here.

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SPINmaster, a DIY staggered hard disk spin-up manager

Posted: February 1st, 2010, 7:00pm MST

Spotted in the MAKE Flickr pool:

Bryan Levin was apparently having problems with cheap computer power supplies that couldn't handle turning all of his drives on at the same time. Rather than just buy a beefier power supply, he decided to build this SPINmaster device to turn them on one at a time. He's got a few more photos of the project on his Flickr page. Looks great!

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Vote for your favorite tape sculpture

Posted: February 1st, 2010, 6:00pm MST

Scotch's Off The Roll tape sculpture contest ends this month, so vote early & often -- literally, you can vote for as many entries as you want, ten per day, one vote per sculpture max. The above sculpture, by Rachael J, is an example of the entries.

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Giant metal 12-sided die sculpture

Posted: February 1st, 2010, 5:00pm MST

The crazed DIY artisans and mischief makers at Philadelphia's Tango Echo have a new video showing one of their members, Paul Carson's, giant 12-sided die he welded together and then deployed in a vacant lot.

More:
12-sided die as big as your head!

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Dorkbot DC meeting, this Thursday, Feb 4 at HacDC

Posted: February 1st, 2010, 4:00pm MST

If you're in DC this Thursday, Feb 4th, please stop by HacDC and catch this month's Dorkbot DC gathering. We have two amazing presenters this month, Andy Holtin and Atau Tanka. Those involved with Maker Faire Austin may remember Andy's involvement there (and my recent piece about his work here on the site). Atau is a well-known, pioneering artist in the fields of high-tech interactive art and music. Hope to see you there!

About this month's presenters:

Glance from Andy Holtin on Vimeo.

ANDY HOLTIN : "How to Fit as Many Steps as Possible Into Ideas that Started Out Really Simple"

Working on his new project "Glance" allowed Andy to explore and employ a surprisingly wide variety of processes, both artistical and technical. He'll be sharing his obstacles and the solutions they generated.

Andy Holtin is a master builder, professor of art, and a sculptor working with computer and microcontroller-based sculpture. His work was recently featured on Make: Online. He received his MFA from Virginia Commonwealth University's Sculpture and Extended Media program. His work uses technology to create perfomative objects and interactive installations, incorporating a range of materials and processes. Holtin currently works as half of the collaborative duo CausalityLabs.

ATAU TANAKA: "Current research"

Atau will talk about his current research in Mobile and Locative Media Art, Interactive Performance, and Creative practice on Public Displays.

Atau Tanaka bridges the fields of media art, experimental music, and research. He worked at IRCAM, was Artistic Ambassador for Apple France, and was researcher at Sony Computer Science Laboratory Paris, and was an Artistic Co-Director of STEIM in Amsterdam. Atau creates sensor-based musical instruments for performance, and is known for his work with biosignal interfaces. He seeks to harness collective musical creativity in mobile environments, seeking out the continued place of the artist in democratized digital forms. His work has been presented at Ars Electronica, SFMOMA, Eyebeam, V2, ICC, and ZKM and has been mentor at NESTA.

Note: Atau's colleague from Sensorband, Zbigniew Karkovski, will be performing on February 27th for DC's premier new music presenter, Sonic Circuits.

As usual, we'll also have Interdork, an opportunity for announcements and ad hoc show and tell, and Afterdork, where the coversation continues over food and drink at a nearby eatery.

February 2010 Dorkbot DC meeting
Thursday, February 4th, 7:00PM (ET)
HacDC (St. Stephen's Church, in the church's sanctuary)
1525 Newton St NW
Washington DC 20010
Google map
ALWAYS FREE!
A co-presentation with HacDC

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Dancing automaton powered by falling sand

Posted: February 1st, 2010, 3:00pm MST

Although the "look" of this dancing-girl automaton by English toymaker Ron Fuller is not personally to my taste, I could not resist the fact that it is powered by a stream of falling sand, which is a trick I've never seen before. Thanks to YouTuber greninmotion for the video. [via The Automata / Automaton Blog]

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Gear ring is shiny, spins

Posted: February 1st, 2010, 2:30pm MST

Though they won't help you communicate secretly with your significant other, these gear rings by Kinekt do look like they would be great to play with. Anyone want to figure out how to make a clock out of them? [via technabob]

More:

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Hardware hackers, survey alert!

Posted: February 1st, 2010, 1:00pm MST

If you redesign or remake gadgets for your own use, Sunyoung Kim and Eric Paulos want to hear from you.

Do you have any obsolete electronics that you remade or redesigned for difference purpose of use than originally designed? We want to hear about your experience of DIY remaking or redesigning of an obsolete electronics. Please share it with us for us to further research on sustainable design by completing the survey located at the website below:

[www.wonderment.org]

We are researchers at Carnegie Mellon University studying creative reuse of domestic e-waste for sustainability. This study is intended to explore the experience of green activists of how they reuse, redesign, and remanufacture their obsolete electronics for purposes than originally designed.

Pleo photo by Jeff Keyzer

More:

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Math Monday: Morton Bradley sculpture

Posted: February 1st, 2010, 1:00pm MST

Morton Bradley sculpture By George Hart for the Museum of Mathematics

It's amazing what can be made from paper. These two mathematical sculptures by Morton C. Bradley are 16" and 20" in diameter, respectively, made from 2-ply Strathmore paper. The geometric forms are each based on twelve copies of a Kepler-Poinsot polyhedron, with twelve great dodecahedra on the left and twelve small stellated dodecahedra on the right. If you want to try putting together your own paper models, all you really need to know is that, in each case, the visible facets are isosceles triangles in which the ratio of one edge length to the other is 1.618. In the form below-left, each triangle has two equal short edges and one longer edge; at right, they have two equal longer edges and one short edge.

The originals, now at the Indiana University Art Museum, took months to painstakingly create and paint in the 1970s, but modern additive fabrication techniques can make plastic replicas of the forms in hours (see below). These three-inch models were made from nylon by selective laser sintering. If you have access to a 3D printing machine, you can make your own copies of these and other Bradley designs by downloading the STL files available here. At The Museum of Mathematics, we like the way these illustrate both the beauty of math and the notion that complex structures can be understood in terms of simpler parts.

More:
Math Monday: Tetraxis puzzle
Math Monday: Giant burr puzzles
Math Monday: Fractal polyhedra clusters
Math Monday: Giant SOMA puzzle
Math Monday: Tie your bagel in a knot!
Math Monday: Playing card constructions
Introducing "Math Monday"

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Hacking the Kindle DX to add Bluetooth

Posted: February 1st, 2010, 12:17pm MST

Griffin I'Net has a nice story with pictures about hacking a Kindle DX to add Bluetooth support! [via RuutAckses]

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Pyxis OS, an operating system for Arduino

Posted: February 1st, 2010, 11:00am MST

Thom wrote in to share his impressive open source operating system*, Pyxis OS. Based around the Arduino hardware platform, it adds some pretty impressive features, such as the ability to run programs from an SD card, read/write to a FAT filesystem, and easily display graphics and GUI elements on a color LCD. It looks like it could be lots of fun to play with, and if you want to peer under the hood, a great way to learn how to build complex systems on tiny microcontrollers.

*To be clear, the operating system itself is open source, however the C-language compiler for it is proprietary. An assembler is provided for free.

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How-To: Make a giant octopus

Posted: February 1st, 2010, 10:00am MST

YouTuber bluworm took on the task of making a great big octopus puppet for stop-motion animation in a film by his friend Daniel Lennéer. Along the way he produced this informative and entertaining video describing the casting, sculpting, and armature-work that went into it, as well as showing off some of the finished animation (starting around 5:00). Besides the cool propcasting info, I gotta give it up to bluworm for his video editing chops. This is definitely one of the most watchable how-to videos I've ever seen, and I've seen a bunch of them. [via Propnomicon]

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CRAFT weekly recap

Posted: February 1st, 2010, 9:12am MST

Last week on CRAFT we saw:

Gingered Carrot Muffins and more, read on!

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How-To: Make a three-pendulum rotary harmonograph

Posted: February 1st, 2010, 7:00am MST

harmonograph images.jpg

MacArthur fellow and MIT Media Lab alumnus Karl Sims brings us this great tutorial on how to build your own complex harmonograph (Wikipedia) for making cool...um..."geometric figures?" I'm looking for a 50-cent mathematician's word (which may or may not exist) for these periodic spirally figures. Can anybody help me out? [Thanks, David!]

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MAKE Volume 21: Desktop Manufacturing - plus a visit to MakerBot HQ!

Posted: February 1st, 2010, 6:30am MST

MAKE, Volume 21 digs into desktop factories, covering a variety of ways you can get started with personal manufacturing - including:

CNC kits
DIY CNC milling machines
Steps for building your own 3D scanner
An in-depth look at the MakerBot Cupcake CNC & it's development

We also paid a visit to MakerBot HQ in Brooklyn, NY and sat down with company co-founder Bre Pettis. Be sure to check out the interview + tour of the Botcave in the above vid!

Oh and of course, MAKE 21 is chock-full of step-by-step instructions for building a variety of sweet projects including -

Reaction Timer
Padded Swords
Magic Photo Cube
ESP Tester
Gourd Lanterns
Geared Candleholder
Snow Gun
+ a whole bunch more!

The above video is a bit of a change of pace from the usual previews we post for new volumes - let us know what you think of the new format in the comments below!

Don't forget - subscribers can always read the digital edition here.

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Android G1 serial to Arduino Instructable

Posted: February 1st, 2010, 5:00am MST

This instructable will show you how to connect your Arduino to your Android G1 mobile over serial. The project assumes you've rooted your G1 and are comfortable using a terminal. [via hackaday]

This tutorial is intended to get you up and running to the point of being able to turn an LED on and off over wi-fi without needing an Arduino wi-fi or BlueTooth shield. The purpose of using the phone is to give your project wireless capabilities, a camera, mic, screen, speaker, and all of the other capabilities in your $400 cell phone. Connecting the G1 to an Arduino helps the phone connect with the outside world with locomotion and other inputs.

Together, the G1 and Arduino allow you to use inexpensive electronics such as simple servos and sensors, to build powerful devices such as robots, remote telepresence, or fun toys for kids.

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Android controlled PLEN robot

Posted: February 1st, 2010, 3:00am MST

Time again for another Android controlled robot demo. This time it's the venerable PLEN. Watch as the the diminutive 9-inch bot is put through it's paces as the demonstrator deftly navigates the touchscreen controls. [via androidauthority]

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In the Maker Shed: Detection of lead paint test kit

Posted: February 1st, 2010, 2:30am MST

The Detection of lead paint test kit provides the equipment and reagents you need to perform reliable multi-step laboratory tests for detecting lead content in paints. The sulfide test, a sensitive preliminary screening test, quickly identifies paint samples that may contain lead (but may instead contain only traces of cobalt or other innocuous metals that yield a false positive with the sulfide test). Samples that test tentatively positive with sulfide reagent can subsequently be subjected to confirmatory tests with chromate and iodide reagents, each of which produces a characteristic precipitate in the presence of lead.

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16-year-old's cave radio wins the 2009 International Science Fair

Posted: February 1st, 2010, 2:00am MST

Alexander Kendrick's project consists of a low-frequency radio allowing a person to send text messages from almost 1,000 feet underground. Read his fascinating story on NPR.com. [via Slashdot]

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BuffaloFeeds » MAKE Magazine » February 2010

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MAKE Magazine (418 unread)

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