[MAKE Magazine - daily] - MAKE Magazine

Hello there, here are your daily updates from the MAKE blog - 2008/12/30. Make: television "fact sheet" Grow a treehouse The Von Slatt deconstructed workshop telephone Inflating toy balloons with gas from the city mains Snowman paper toy Reprap motherboard Benheck's PC Mod Pick of the Day - The Works of Jeffrey Stephenson My laser etched PowerBook Double bike sculpture IKEA kitchenware/lighting hack Motorized yarn winder HOW TO - Build a "net gun" Wireless MIDI guitar rocks you out of bed Soldering- where to start? Sinewy guitar effects via the Gristleizer Vintage Erector sets.... Wall-E in wood Manhole covers of Japan... DIY L-Bracket USB lipstick Controlling Sony camcorders with the Arduino More Recent Articles Make: television "fact sheet" Keith our copy chief sent around a Make: television fact sheet so I figured I'd post it up here too... SHOW DESCRIPTION Make: is the DIY series for a new generation! It celebrates "Makers" – the inventors, artists, geeks and just plain everyday folks who mix new and old technology to create new-fangled marvels. The series encourages everyone to invent, revent, recycle, upcycle, and act up. Based on the popular Make magazine, each half-hour episode inspires millions to think, create, and, well, make. Make: premieres nationwide on Public Television stations and online at makezine.tv in January 2009.  It's produced by Twin Cities Public Television (TPT) in St. Paul, Minn.  Full episodes will be available at makezine.tv as well as PDFs of all the DIY projects on the show. (Makers can submit their own videos for the Maker Channel segment of the show at makerchannel.org) AIRDATES Broadcast feed starts January 3, 2009, at 7 p.m. Eastern time. Television premiere is January 3 on some stations, but air dates differ (see list below). See your local public television station for air dates and times. Web premiere is January 3 at 7 a.m. Eastern time at makezine.tv PROGRAMS Season 1 consists of 10 half-hour episodes; all will be available at makezine.tv and also on iTunes. MAKE author John Park hosts the Maker Workshop (DIY) segment, and MAKE author Bill Gurstelle is the technical consultant for the show. Preview video is available at makezine.tv. SPONSORSHIP Major funding is provided by Geek Squad. PUBLICITY CONTACTS Mark Ballard, The Rosen Group, 212.255.8455 ext. 225 or mark@rosengrouppr.com Heidi Van Heel, Twin Cities Public Television, 651.229.1436 or hvanheel@tpt.org For more information visit tpt.org/make/press CARRIAGE: MARKETS AND STATIONS Stations confirmed as of Dec. 29, with premiere airdates where known: Market(s) / Station or Network / Premiere Date Day Time New York Thirteen/WNET airing on sister station WLIW New York WLIW 1/7/2009 Wed 11:30 PM New York + Philadelphia, (NJ statewide) New Jersey Network 1/3/2009 Sat 5:30 PM Los Angeles KCET Orange or KCET Desert Cities (digital) Los Angeles (San Bernardino) KVCR Los Angeles (Huntington Beach) KOCE-HD (digital) 1/6/2009 Tue 6:30 PM; KOCE-HD 1/7/09 Wed 7:30PM Chicago WTTW Philadelphia + Salisbury DE WHYY Wider Horizons (Digital) 1/10/2009 Sat 5:00 PM Dallas-Ft.Worth KERA 1/4/2009 Sun 10:00 AM San Francisco KQED 1/10/2009 Sat 8:00 AM; KQED WORLD (Digital 9.3 & Comcast Cable 190) Sat 2pm & 7:30pm San Francisco (San Jose) KTEH 2/4/2009 Wed 12AM-1AM San Francisco (San Mateo) KCSM Boston WGBH 2/HD Boston + Burlington-Plattsburgh (NH statewide) New Hampshire Public Television Atlanta + Savannah, Augusta, Macon, Columbus, Albany, Jacksonville, Chattanooga (GA statewide) Georgia Public Broadcasting Washington, DC WETA 1/10/2009 Sat 5:30 PM Houston HoustonPBS 1/8/2009 Thu 11:00 PM Phoenix KAET Tampa-St. Pete WEDU 1/9/2009 Fri 3:00 PM Tampa-St. Pete WUSF Seattle-Tacoma KCTS Minneapolis-St. Paul Twin Cities Public Television (tpt2) 1/10/2009 Sat 5:00 PM; Sat 1/17 8:30AM; Also two stunts: 1/6/09 7-8pm (#105 & 106); 2/1/09 3-5pm (#102, 104, 107, 110) Minneapolis-St. Paul (Bemidji, Brainerd) Lakeland Public Television 1/24/2009 Sat 2:30 PM Miami-Ft.Lauderdale WPBT 1/4/2009 Sun 11:30 AM Cleveland WVIZ Denver + Colorado Springs, Grand Junction, (CO statewide) Rocky Mountain PBS Orlando WMFE Orlando (Daytona Beach) WCEU Sacramento KVIE Baltimore + Washington, Salisbury, Pittsburgh (MD statewide) MPT Digital Charlotte +  Raleigh-Durham, Greenville, Greensboro, Wilmington, (NC statewide) UNC-TV Indianapolis WFYI Indianapolis (Bloomington) WTIU Nashville Nashville Public Television 1/31/2009 Sat 11:30PM (NPT2 in Feb) Grand Rapids (Kalamazoo) WGVU 1/4/2009 Sun 7PM-8PM Albuquerque New Mexico PBS Oklahoma City + Tulsa, (OK statewide) Oklahoma Educational Television 2/23/2009 Mon 10:00 PM Louisville + Charleston-Huntington, Lexington, Paducah, Bowling Green, (KY statewide) Kentucky ETV Network Austin KLRU-2 (cable) 1/4/2009 Sun 11:30 AM Tulsa RSU Public Television 1/9/2009 Fri 1:00 PM Flint-Saginaw + Alpena, (Manistee, Cadillac) CMU Public Broadcasting Syracuse WCNY 1/10/2009 Sat 6:30 AM Topeka Makers, if you plan to have a "Make: television screening event" or anything like that please let me know. Read more | Permalink | Comments | Read more articles in Announcements | Digg this! • Email to a friend • Related • • Grow a treehouse Not quite production-ready, this is probably the most sustainable DIY housing I can imagine: Here's an explanation with an architect behind the concept: Any ideas/instructions for slightly-smaller-scale growable structures? (Via Chelsea Green) Read more | Permalink | Comments | Read more articles in Green | Digg this! • Email to a friend • Related • • The Von Slatt deconstructed workshop telephone Jake made this funky-cool workshop phone by uncasing a classic Bell System wallphone and refinishing and remounting the parts. As he points out, if you do a phone like this, you'd likely want to cover the terminal block for safety purposes. Workshop Telephone Read more | Permalink | Comments | Read more articles in Retro | Digg this! • Email to a friend • Related • • Inflating toy balloons with gas from the city mains Inflating toy balloons with gas from the city mains - Modern Mechanix, June 1930. GAS from the city mains can be used to inflate toy balloons with the simple inflating device shown in the drawing above. Gas as it comes out of the ordinary jet has only a pressure of a couple of pounds behind it, which is quite insufficient for inflating purposes. Secure an air-tight tin can and fit it with petcocks as indicated in the drawing. Exhaust the can of air by filling it with water, closing the top petcock to prevent air from rushing in when the drain is opened. Now turn on the gas and the water in the can will slowly trickle out, forced by the gas pressure. When the can is full of gas, attach the balloon to the top petcock and then turn on the water supply from the mains. The water will increase the gas pressure to 40 pounds. The water, therefore, must be turned on slowly so that the balloon will not burst from excess pressure. To fix the shroud lines around the balloon, which are necessary to support the basket, take a board and fix two brads in it, spaced apart to a distance equal to one-sixth the circumference of the balloon when inflated. Blow the balloon up gently with your lips until it is rounded out to the desired size. A third brad is driven into the board above the other two, and this distance equals half the circumference of the balloon. The bottoms of the shroud lines are left long for attaching to the basket. A paper drinking cup is used for the basket. When the balloon is inflated and its neck tied with silk thread to prevent the gas escaping, fill the basket with half an inch of water and take out a teaspoonful at a time until the balloon rises. When cast loose it will stay low enough in the air so you can observe it for a long time. Before filling with gas, it is best to dip the balloon in talcum powder to prevent scratches from pricking the rubber and puncturing it. In inflating the balloon, the neck is attached to the petcock through the shroud lines, as illustrated in the drawing. Be sure that the shroud lines are hung evenly so that the lily cup basket is directly under the center of the balloon. This insures an even, steady ascent. Read more | Permalink | Comments | Read more articles in Retro | Digg this! • Email to a friend • Related • • Snowman paper toy Nice snowman paper toy to make... Read more | Permalink | Comments | Read more articles in Paper Crafts | Digg this! • Email to a friend • Related • • Reprap motherboard Using a chip that's sort of an Arduino times 4, the Reprap team has a new prototype motherboard. Via hackaday: When the RepRap team found themselves pushing the limits of the Arduino, they started looking for alternatives. They found it in the ATMega644P. It has four times the memory and four times the RAM compared to the ATMega168 used in the standard Arduino. It also has 32 I/O pins... this board has onboard connectors for all of the RepRap's motors... The goal is to eventually have a board that can run the RepRap without a host computer if necessary; it will manufacture designs directly from the flash card. More here on the RepRap blog. Read more | Permalink | Comments | Read more articles in Arduino | Digg this! • Email to a friend • Related • • Benheck's PC Mod Pick of the Day - The Works of Jeffrey Stephenson Today's mod pick of the day celebrates a single artist - Jeffrey Stephenson. His PC mods are generally made from wood and other retro materials and look quite awesome. Let's take a look at some of the ones I found the most intriguing, shall we? Read more | Permalink | Comments | Read more articles in Computers | Digg this! • Email to a friend • Related • • My laser etched PowerBook While I'm not so sure about getting myself a MAKE: tattoo, I was willing to put my beloved 12" PowerBook under the laser when Tod offered. We etched a MAKE: logo and a graphic of an espresso portafilter on there. Anyone else want to share their laser etched laptop tattoos? Or, better yet, does anyone have a MAKE: tattoo under their own skin? Read more | Permalink | Comments | Read more articles in Arts | Digg this! • Email to a friend • Related • • Double bike sculpture I'm really intrigued by this sculpture by James Angus called "Bicycles." It's as if the two bikes are being viewed in not-quite-working 3D vision. The construction just incredible. Via VVORK. Read more | Permalink | Comments | Read more articles in Arts | Digg this! • Email to a friend • Related • • IKEA kitchenware/lighting hack MAKE contributor Bill Bumgarner posted this gorgeous lighting hack that uses some IKEA stainless-steel cutlery caddies to solve a home lighting problem: When we lived in New York City, we had these awesome cable lights with hand blown glass pendants and, in the middle in the picture left, an awesome little beaded center piece lamp over our living room table. One goal of the remodel was to make sure that we had a place for the pendants to finally hang again after being in boxes for the past decade. The glass pendants are hung above the bar between kitchen and living room and the bead shade was hung over the kitchen table. But the shade was too small to hang by itself. Thus, we needed additional fixtures. At first, I soldered a couple of stiff copper wires to the bottom of some 12v MR16 compact fluorescent lamps. Plenty of light, but obviously not terribly pleasant to look at a couple of random bare bulbs hanging about. I have always been enamored by the cheese grater light fixtures in That 70s Show. As we were heading to IKEA for other reasons, we decided to poke about the kitchen accessories area to see if anything Light Fixture-esque struck our fancy... IKEA Lighting Hack Read more | Permalink | Comments | Read more articles in DIY Projects | Digg this! • Email to a friend • Related • • Motorized yarn winder Craft reader Adrienne tipped us off to this cool motorized yarn winder on Robot Party - if you don't have a small child around to turn the crank on the ball winder, you might want to automate it. Read more | Permalink | Comments | Read more articles in Crafts | Digg this! • Email to a friend • Related • • HOW TO - Build a "net gun" HOW TO - Build a "net gun" Crispyjones writes - I will show you how to build a net gun out of materials available at any big box home improvement store. This net gun is capable of firing a 90 square foot net 15 to 25 feet using 80-100 psi of compressed air. The net is reusable, assuming your prey doesn't destroy or run off with it. The launcher section is modular and can be removed in case you want to modify it or use a different design. You could thread on some 1" PVC pipe and have a Christmas Cannon. The net gun is similar to many pneumatic launchers, but instead of launching a single projectile, it launches four tractors that pull the net through the air. The tractors are based on the fact that the neck of a standard soda bottle fits very well over the outside of 1/2" PVC pipe. Read more | Permalink | Comments | Read more articles in DIY Projects | Digg this! • Email to a friend • Related • • Wireless MIDI guitar rocks you out of bed This wireless MIDI guitar by Hojun Song from Studio HHJJJ in Seoul, Korea is a pretty nice build that uses a PIC16F87A microcontroller, battery, 3-axis accelerometer, FSR sensor, and others connecting to Ableton Live to create some noise. Check out the video to see it in action. Wireless MIDI Guitar Photos of Build Read more | Permalink | Comments | Read more articles in Arts | Digg this! • Email to a friend • Related • • Soldering- where to start? Certainly there are lots of electronics and kits that have entered Makers' lives lately. Some people already know how to solder, but many people are just getting started. Amy posted a comment voicing her frustration at learning the seemingly guild like skill of soldering. Below are my notes to Amy, which seemed like it would be handy information to others as well. It can be done, this soldering thing. Here are a few things that I try to keep in mind. Workspace Setting up on a reusable board or thick cardboard (not the corrugated kind) is good, because cleanup will be easy, and you won't run the risk of messing up the table. Soldering iron A decent iron is nice, but a cheap one can do. Turn off the cheap irons when not in use, because the tip seems to dissolve if left on. You don't need to spend lots of money on a fine expensive tool if you are just figuring it out. You can learn how to do it on a cheap or borrowed iron, then when and if you can recognize the difference and value, then spend the money or talk somebody into gifting you a good one. Lots of people like the temperature controlled ones from Weller. Keep the tip clean. A wet sponge works, but I like steel wool better. Wipe the tip periodically. The sponge will cool the tip when you want it to be hot. A soldering iron stand is good, but at least keep the business end of the iron from burning a hole through the board and onto the table. Solder Thin, lead free solder is good. Try to stay away from the lead based stuff. See the earlier comment about metals and the badness they cause. Safety glasses Most people only get one set of eyes. Replacements are difficult to have installed. You are better off to take care of the pair or one you have, than to get them repaired later. Wear your safety glasses while doing dangerous stuff. Recognize the components: Pretty much all electronic components have markings on them. Mostly they are done in small white print, but resistors are indicated with color bands. Look at the parts list, and search the markings on any components you are not familiar with. If you put a single diode or LED in backwards, that could be the problem that makes your circuit not work. Check and double check. Search for the things you have, and look at pictures of them. Check the documentation that comes with any kit you have for notes about what the components look like and how to handle them. Looking at the pdf for the kit Amy mentioned, there are a few things that could slip you up. LEDs, transistors and capacitors are all polarized in this circuit. Make sure they are all in the right orientation. The transistor might be exotic, here is a page that has datasheets for it. l According to this page, you could use a 2N3904 to replace the BC547. The 3904 is a pretty common transistor, you should be able to harvest one out some junk device like a radio or toy. Resistors are not polarized, but the color bands are completely essential to get right. Resistors regulate the flow of the current in the circuit. Electricity will always follow the path of least resistance. If you have a high value resistor in a place that calls for a low value one, electricity will not flow where it should. You can read them by looking at the colors. There are lots of great resistor color code calculators. Here is one that looks good, but there are many more online. Multimeter Resistance is measured in Ohms, often symbolized by an upside horseshoe, greek symbol for omega. If you can get your hands on a meter, you can set it for Ohms, and check your color band calculations against the numbers the meter will show. A multimeter is also handy to be able to check continuity and voltage. See this page for some info on how to use a multimeter. Technique: You are heating up the parts, not the solder. When the parts are hot enough, the solder will flow onto them. Touch the iron to the junction between the board and the component, let it heat up, then touch the solder to either the board or the component. Dumping it onto the tip will melt the solder, but often results in a cold solder joint. Less is better in soldering You should have the very least amount of solder needed to hold the component to the board. If you have blobby solder joints, you will likely have trouble with bad connections called cold solder joints. Practice soldering Sometimes it is a good idea to practice on junk. You can try soldering a wire onto a coin, US pennies work pretty good for that, they are mostly zinc with a bit of copper. Lots of other countries have other alloys, often with lots of aluminum in them, so I don't know about that. Aluminum wicks the heat too fast, so it probably wouldn't work. You can also break apart an old radio or other device, cut some wires, get some parts and just solder some stuff together. After a bit you get the hang of it. If you use the search box on any of the Maker Media sites and put in the word soldering, there are loads of resources that should help you get started. You can watch the Make Weekend projects podcast on soldering, which is great. Make Volume 1 had a primer on soldering. Check out the post about a photo gallery of soldering basics. Check out this great project for building your own fume extratctor. There is lots of great information on soldering at Instructables. This is not some mystical skill that people get handed to them from the tinkering gods. You learn it by doing it. You do it because you want to make something. You keep doing it because you want to make more interesting things. Learning this is just a process of getting some skills, and improving them by using them. Eventually, you can get to the point of designing your own circuits, but you can do lots of great things by following the path established by others. There are a small handful of tools that you can use with soldering and electronics. This kit has pretty much everything you need to get started. Good luck, keep at it, and by all means, let us know about your progress. You may have other tips for people who are new to electronics, kits and soldering. Please contribute your techniques and ideas in the comments. If you have photos and video, add them to the Make Flickr pool. Read more | Permalink | Comments | Read more articles in DIY Projects | Digg this! • Email to a friend • Related • • Sinewy guitar effects via the Gristleizer David of Boing Boing points out this beast of an effect built by Chris Carter of the pioneering industrial group Throbbing Gristle. Originally built from a Practical Electronics article which can now be found in PDF form courstesy of Cloned Analog Gear - quite sweet … errr savory! - Chris Carter's original GRISTLEIZER Read more | Permalink | Comments | Read more articles in Electronics | Digg this! • Email to a friend • Related • • Vintage Erector sets.... oobject has a collection of vintage erector sets... Before there was Lego, there was the Erector Set. This was an altogether different type of toy that resembled genuine engineering construction with trusses and girders, rather than plastic, primary color pixelated, objects. Although Erector Sets are sold today, they are re-branded versions of a different toy. The original Gilbert sets were made from 1913 till 1967 and are an iconic toy for gadget aficionados that can be picked up relatively cheaply on Ebay. Here are 10 favorite vintage kits that are currently for sale (eBay). Read more | Permalink | Comments | Read more articles in Retro | Digg this! • Email to a friend • Related • • Wall-E in wood Here is a great sculpture of Wall-E. The post mentioned in the watermark has been modified to remove the picture of the Wall-E in wood. The sculpture was apparently manufactured by Morpheus, a cnc shop in the states, from a design by some others in the UK. Not much info on this. The Morpheus site has no portfolio and is entirely run on flash. How can you use CNC machines to make amazing physical representations of your dreams? Have you seen/made/commissioned something absolutely amazing lately? From /Film via Reddit. Join the conversation in the comments, and add your photos and video in the Make Flickr pool. Read more | Permalink | Comments | Read more articles in Arts | Digg this! • Email to a friend • Related • • Manhole covers of Japan... New mashup Web site reveals the hole story behind Japan's manhole covers / Ittemia（イッテミア）前線 While not the oddest fetish in Japan by a long way, there are some who travel the length of Japan enticed by the prospect of a compellingly designed manhole. But while even the most ardent manhole cover buffs come up against the problem of too many manholes, not enough time, they now have a powerful ally: a new community Web site called Ittemia Zensen, started in August this year and featuring pictures of manhole covers from various regions of Japan and details on their locations. Contributors can add photos of manhole covers directly from their mobile phones, along with global positioning system (GPS) data to mark its location on the map. While the site features pictures primarily of manhole covers from the Kanto region, those from other regions are also available, and many manhole covers feature locals sights and scenes, such as lanterns from the Kanto Festival in Akita; "gassho-zukuri" (thatched gable roof) farmhouses of Shirakawa in Gifu Prefecture, and scenes from the port city of Kobe. Read more | Permalink | Comments | Read more articles in Arts | Digg this! • Email to a friend • Related • • DIY L-Bracket This is a really cheap way to get an L-Bracket for your tripod. Why use one? An L-Bracket keeps your camera centered over the tripod for added stability among other things. It's a great addition to anyone who shoots in the studio. The cheapest one and honestly the only one, that I could find was the one by Kirk Photo. The thing looks great but its 130 dollars. I couldn't see spending that much on the L-bracket. I mean that's more money than I planned to spend on the head. More about making an L-Bracket Read more | Permalink | Comments | Read more articles in DIY Projects | Digg this! • Email to a friend • Related • • USB lipstick MAKE Flickr photo pool member Divine Harvester writes - Removed lipstick, cleaned out remaining plastic pieces. Mixed up some J-B Weld, squished it down in the body. Took the guts from a thumbdrive and shoved it down into the J-B Weld. Added a little more around the edges, leveled it, cleaned up any smudges or drips. After it all set up, about 24 hours because it was below freezing in our apartment (don't ask). then i painted the top with some nail polish to make it look like some lipstick (kinda). Read more | Permalink | Comments | Read more articles in DIY Projects | Digg this! • Email to a friend • Related • • Controlling Sony camcorders with the Arduino The Local Application Control Bus System (LANC) is the protocol used by Sony camcorders (and some other brands as well) that allows external accessories to control the camera remotely. On most cameras, you'll find a LANC port next to your camera's other IO jacks—it's usually a 2.5mm headphone-style jack, or a 5 pin mini-DIN. If you're an Arduino fan, you can easily create your own custom devices that can interact with your camcorder using the LANC protocol, allowing you to control zoom and record functions from your own programs. Goose wrote about his own project and example Arduino source: I found source code to do LANC control with the Arduino board. It was written quite well - it worked the first time out. I made a few changes though, specifically changing it from being controlled by a serial port to being controlled by a potentiometer. I plan to build my own zoom controller with it, using an Arduino Mini. The original code comes from Brady Marks. Make sure to check out the README and other documentation inside the source zip file. Along with the Arduino source, there's a bunch of LANC protocol documentation as well as some collected emails and mailing list discussion on the topic. Zoomduino - Arduino Zoom Controller SONY LANC Protocol Details Brady Marks' Arduino LANC Source Read more | Permalink | Comments | Read more articles in hacks | Digg this! • Email to a friend • Related • • More Recent Articles Reader built fume extractor from the MAKE blog Best of CRAFT Prius as emergency generator Not so lazy Sunday... Weekend Project - Pole's Eye View Make your own cheese Stop by the Maker Shed store and check out THE place for open source hardware, Arduino & Arduino accessories, electronic kits, science kits, smart stuff for kids, back issues of MAKE & CRAFT, box sets, books, robots, kits from Japan and more.

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