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Top 10 Easter-themed Make: Online posts
Posted: April 3rd, 2010, 9:00pm MDT
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Round-up of coasterbots from around the internet
Posted: April 3rd, 2010, 7:00pm MDT
We're nearing the end of the design phase of the Make: Robot Build, have you started to draw up plans for your bot? If not, here are some examples of designs we've found around the web, for your amusement, edification, and design inspiration. Have a different idea about what to make? Join in the robot build discussion over on the MAKE Forum and let us know about it!
LadyBugBot
Isotope, of Let's Make Robots, built this amazing fridge-climbing LadyBugBot. Using a CD as a base, and sporting a papier-mâché cover, it uses two motors with wheels to drive around, except there's a catch: instead of moving across the floor, it uses a set of magnets to stick to his fridge, and drives up and down instead of forwards and backwards. He also designed a combination bump/depth sensor, to sense if the robot is in danger of running into something or off the edge of the fridge.
LadyBugBot by Isotope
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Chassis: CD
Power System: 3x AAA battery, solar cell
Actuators / Drive Train: 2x continuous rotation servo, small wheels, magnets
Controllers: picaxe 08M
Sensors: tilt switch, 2x handmade bump/cavity sensor
Outer Shell/Casing: paper mâché ladybug body
Notable Feature: Climbs on walls! -
DIYPad: iFixIt's iPad teardown debrief
Posted: April 3rd, 2010, 5:01pm MDT
Kyle Wiens writes:
After flying to Richmond, Virginia and waiting in line all night to buy an iPad, we rushed our precious cargo to an impromptu studio. And took it apart. To our surprise, we found a number of differences between our unit and the FCC review unit that we examined yesterday.
The iPad's design is a melding of the iPhone's circuitry and the MacBook Pro Unibody's svelte machined aluminum casing.
Our findings:
The iPad's battery has 5.5x the capacity of the battery in the iPhone! The iPad actually has two batteries wired in parallel, for a total of 24.8 Watt-hours.
On average, the iPad sips just 2.5 Watts. That's 1/5 the power of a compact fluorescent bulb!
The rear case is machined from a single billet of aluminum, increasing weight but greatly improving the rigidity of the device.
The empty void in the upper right corner is where the cellular communications board would go in the 3G iPad.
The A4 is a Package-on-Package (PoP), with at least three layers of circuitry layered on top of each other. A4 is packaged just like the iPhone processors, microprocessor in one package and two memory modules in the other package. They're all sandwiched together in a very nice and thin PoP.
The iPad RAM is INSIDE the A4 processor package. Confirming this took quite a bit of sleuthing: we had to partner with Chipworks to X-ray the processor. The X-ray revealed two layers of RAM. In addition to the ARM processor, the A4 package contains two stacked Samsung dies.
We will be releasing a detailed analysis of the A4 in conjunction with Chipworks in a few days.
The rumored slot for a camera is actually taken up by the ambient light sensor.
The glass panel is quite thick: about 1.18 mm, compared to the iPhone's 1.02 mm thick glass. This is necessitated by the panel's large size.
The touch circuit design is more similar to the old 2G and early 3G iPhones than the current 3GS. Chipworks informed us that "there is so much room in the iPad that Apple didn't need to use small chips, just the right ones and cheap ones."
Image links:
Layout photo
Opening the iPad
Two halves
Removing the supposedly non-removable battery
Main board (with A4)
Ambient light sensor instead of camera
More:- DIYPad: More discoveries from the iPad teardown
- DIYPad: iFixIt iPad real-time teardown
- DIYPad: The iPad: A maker's roundup
- DIYPad: FCC iPad teardown
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Building a tangible interface using a multitouch display
Posted: April 3rd, 2010, 3:30pm MDT
Aaron Waychoff of DINO Studios came up with a simple way to create an iPad Physical Object Interface. Taking advantage of the device's multitouch display, he created a set of devices with unique footprints that can be set on the display. Because the feet are made of a material (damp sponges stuck in the fingers from latex gloves) that can be picked up by the display, he was able to write a software algorithm to detect the presence and identity of each object that was placed on the screen.
Once he had it working, his collaborator Emily built some plant creatures out of them. Cool stuff!
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In the Maker Shed: Maker's Notebook
Posted: April 3rd, 2010, 12:30pm MDT
Look, it's not an iPad! It's the Maker's Notebook!! No need to stand in line to purchase one, nor to engage in debate with tech pundits about its closed ecosystem. David Letterman is highly unlikely to come to your house and lick it. (No guarantee implied.)
From the creators of MAKE magazine comes the Maker's Notebook. Put your own ideas, diagrams, calculations, and notes down in these 150 pages of engineering graph paper. We've also included 20 bonus pages of reference material, from useful stuff like electronics symbols, resistor codes, weights and measures, basic conversions, and more, to really useful stuff like the amount of caffeine in different caffeinated beverages and how to say "Hello, World!" in various computer languages. The covers of this hardcover book are printed in cyan "Maker" blue with a white grid debossed front and back.
Features:
- Notebook are 1/8" engineering graph paper.
- Pages are numbered.
- Every page has a blank heading to list project name, date, sign or note, and a place to link project/related pages ("From Page___, to Page___).
- There's also a two-page ruled Table of Contents.
- # Featuring a pocket in the back, with 2 sheets of stickers.
- # Dimensions: 6 1/4" x 9 1/4" x 1/2"
Grab one today in the Maker Shed!
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O'Reilly covers iPad launch
Posted: April 3rd, 2010, 12:00pm MDT
Over at O' Reilly Media, they're covering the iPad launch with a dedicated section that includes developer articles and video. Dale Dougherty explains why the iPad needs its HyperCard. Mac Slocum clarifies that trapping content on the iPad won't work, even if it's pretty.
On Monday, there will be a webcast on the iPad's first 48 hours with Adam Engst, Damien Stolarz, Mac Slocum, and yours truly. If you feel like you're not getting enough iPad coverage from the current media onslaught, check back throughout the week as new content is posted.
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Annual Parade o' Peeps
Posted: April 3rd, 2010, 12:00pm MDT
This year, it seems like everyone is getting in on the Peeps love (and Peeps abuse). There are now overwhelming numbers of Peeps-themed art shows, stop-motion movies, and all manner of grotesque Peeps experimentation. Do a search on YouTube and you could spend your entire day watching Peeps-themed programming. Er... but don't do that. Get out there and enjoy the beautiful day. Happy Easter. Happy Spring.
2009's Peeps round-up intro:
Spring has sprung, the grass is green again, the trees are in bloom, the animals are stirring. And to me, that all means one important thing: Peeps are in season! I've had a rather unnatural attraction to Peeps every since I was a child. There's something about this strange, over-the-top-sweet, pillowy confection that makes it simultaneous attractive and repulsive. It's WAY too much of a good thing: too much sweet, too much cute, two much color (this year's colors are vivid to a degree that's downright hallucinatory). And then there's the strange "mouth feel" of gooey, pillow-soft innards and a crunchy crystalline sugar coating. Not to mention the rather disturbing idea of eating a rack of baby chicks, fused to each other at the hip, sold to you at Eastern time by a company called Just Born of Bethlehem, PA. It all adds up to a uniquely American pop-surrealist experience that I revel in each year. And from all of the crazy, educational, and absurd websites and videos I've seen online over the years, so don't a lot of people. Happy Spring, everybody!
Peeps brûlée! Like toasted marshmallows, but awesomer
Give the candy critters a crisp, glassy caramel shell. Go ahead, show them a little love. [Thanks, Matt!]
Experimental Burning Peepshow - Flammability Test #1
Jeri Ellsworth experiments with cutting a Peep with a 60w laser.
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DIYPad: More discoveries from the iPad teardown
Posted: April 3rd, 2010, 10:54am MDT
- It's quite the environmentally-friendly device:
* Arsenic-free display glass
* BFR-free
* Mercury-free LCD display
* PVC-free
* Recyclable aluminum and glass enclosure- The display assembly comes off fairly easily, no need for a heat gun!
- The main board is secured to the back panel by T3 Torx screws. "We have never seen Apple use screws with a bit this small before."
- The logic board was made by AT&S. We haven't seen "Apple's PCB manufacturers brand their boards before."
- The markings on the A4 processor: N26CGM0T 1007 APL0398 33950084 YNL184A2 1004 K4X2G643GE.The K4X2 is a Samsung DRAM part number! This means the A4 processor is probably being manufactured by Samsung.
- The WiFi/Bluetooth card is integrated into the dock connector cable.
- Dual speakers provide mono sound. Two small sealed channels direct sound toward three audio ports carved into the bottom edge of the iPad. The audio-out jack provides stereo sound, of course.
- "Confirming our suspicions from yesterday, the battery integrates two separate 3.75V lithium polymer cells wired in parallel for such ample battery life."
- The display seems to be glued around its perimeter but can still be removed from the plastic framework.
More:
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DIYPad: iFixIt iPad real-time teardown
Posted: April 3rd, 2010, 10:01am MDT
IFixIt has gotten their hands on an iPad and are tearing it down as we speak. In-process pics on the their site.
Some highlights discovered so far:
* This machine is absolutely gorgeous inside. There's clear symmetry that is there for aesthetics alone.
* The rear case is CNC machined from a solid block of aluminum, using the same process as the MacBook Pro.
* Apple has used more epoxy to secure chips to the board than we've seen before. This indicates that it is designed to be even more rugged than their laptops.
* The battery isn't soldiered onto the motherboard. That means replacing the battery *is* feasible for users who do not want to give up their precious for a week. (And then get back someone else's iPad!)
* This unit is different from the FCC photos. Toshiba DOES NOT have the flash memory in the production units! Instead, Samsung has secured a major win.They'll be putting up more pics and analysis as they go. They have eight computer and manufacturing engineers analyzing the device! And speaking of their obsessive, geek detective work, here's a recent Reuters piece on them: Special Report: iPad striptease: It's what's inside that counts.
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DIYPad: The iPad: A maker's roundup
Posted: April 3rd, 2010, 9:30am MDT
Oh, my -- we're certainly in the midst of a scrum, aren't we? A shark's frenzy of pundits who received the new gadget are trumpeted its virtues across the Web. Xeni's review called the iPad a touch of genius. Levy declared the device giant leap for personal computers. Letterman licked it, and Woz is buying two.
Stephen Fry says don't knock it until you try it. Mossberg weighed in with a sober but positive review, while Pogue, acknowledging the seemingly burgeoning ranks of frantic Apple haters, wrote two reviews, one for "techies," and one for everyone else. There were negative voices as well, mutters about removable batteries and USB ports, and how the iPad was just a big Touch or a crippled netbook.Then Cory Doctorow launched a broadside:
Most of the really exciting stuff hasn't come from big corporations with enormous budgets, it's come from experimentalist amateurs. These people were able to make stuff and put it in the public's eye and even sell it without having to submit to the whims of a single company that had declared itself gatekeeper for your phone and other personal technology.
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Jimmie P Rodgers' soldering workshop tool advice
Posted: April 3rd, 2010, 9:00am MDT
Jimmie P Rodgers, veteran of many soldering workshops at Maker Faires around the world, has written up a great summary of what makes the perfect workshop setup for teaching soldering to beginners.
Whether you want to teach a dozen people or hundreds, getting the right equipment and keeping it clean and in good shape can save beginners a lot of frustration.
I've been running soldering workshops for a few years now, and along with Mitch Altman, we've taught thousands of people to solder. I've used everything from $1,000 re-work stations to $1 irons bought off of eBay. I get asked quite often what people should buy for themselves, or what they should be buying for their hackerspace for running workshops. Honestly, once you get above a certain quality level of iron, it doesn't matter for through-hole soldering. You can get good soldering joints from irons that cost less than $10 quite easily. I do however have a few suggestions.
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Why I am not getting an iPad.... because Apple gave my pre-order to someone else
Posted: April 3rd, 2010, 6:00am MDT
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Why I am not getting an iPad.... because Apple gave my pre-order to someone else. These were/are for the iPad laser etching contest, looks like Apple is having supply issues and gave the iPads to retail stores instead of the pre-ordered folks, makes sense - I am not an angry mob outside a giant glass building. *OR* they looked up my name and saw what I was going to do to it, either way, no iPads.
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AVRSimon Game Kit – Parallax continues towards more Open Source Hardware products
Posted: April 3rd, 2010, 5:00am MDT
This HUGE news, Parallax has an open source hardware kit out (their first) – the “AVRSimon Game Kit”. It was made by Joe Grand - based on the MAKE kit and “All contents of this kit are distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 license ([creativecommons.org])”. It’s AVR too, this is interesting if you're a chip geek.Soldering is required for this kit. AVRSimon is a do-it-yourself game kit based on the 1978 Milton Bradley flying saucer-shaped game of Simon in which players repeat sequences of light and sound. Designed by Grand Idea Studio, AVRSimon is a great way to learn about electronics and soldering, and incorporates basic microcontroller functions such as reading switch inputs, turning LEDs on and off, and generating sounds. It is fully reprogrammable, so you can modify the game or load new code onto the board to have it do something completely different.
AVRSimon comes in kit form with a high-quality PCB, pre-programmed microcontroller, and the best components we could buy to ensure that your finished project reflects the effort you impart with your own craftsmanship. The only other tools you will need to build the kit are a soldering iron, solder, wire snips, and a CR2032 3V Lithium Coin Cell battery (available at any supermarket or convenience store).
Parallax has a long history of publishing source and schematics, but this is the first “kit” that is “Open source hardware”.
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MAKE volume 10 - page 81. Chip Gracey puts a new spin on microcontrollers.