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Hello there, here are your daily updates from the MAKE blog - 2008/12/31. HOW TO - Tap a phone Papercrete and aluminum can wall Top 10 viewed posts on MAKE in 2008 Top contributors and top tags for the MAKE Flickr photo pool Top 10 articles read in the MAKE digital editions (Volumes 1 through 16) for 2008! Evolving Wii control experience Modern Hobo code Edible lawn transformation Top 10 electronics part searches for 2008 Top 10 things searched for on MAKE and the Maker Shed in 2008 Benheck's PC Mod Pick of the Day - Aperture Science PC! Make: television -- giant wind turbine blade Toilet plunger lamp Inside the pocket DLP Pico Projectors DIY ATmega168 evaluation board with LCD screen The "Webcam" vs. the "Particle Beam" Tensegrity table from found materials Portal transports you into 1980s retro rock ambience Christmas lights color organ Staycation... maybe it's time for MAKEcation DIY: Refrigerator that uses .1 kWH a day A tribute to the VCR - The VHS era is winding down BUT there are many things you can do with a VCR and the tapes! Python on Android More Recent Articles HOW TO - Tap a phone How to tap a phone - Mechanix Illustrated, March 1957 - fun for the whole family. THERE are many ways to tap a phone; most of them against the law. Our little gadget, however, is quite legal and can be used to great advantage at home or in the office. Basically, the unit consists of a pickup coil, an amplifier and a speaker. The pickup coil is placed under, or near, any transformer-type telephone without being in physical contact with it. As the electrical currents pass through the phone, part of the energy is induced into the pickup coil. This energy is fed into the amplifier where it is amplified to the point where it will operate the loudspeaker, enabling everyone within range to hear what is being said at the other end of the telephone line. This will come in handy when some relative is calling long-distance; your whole family can hear what he is saying. Or, in the office, the whole staff can hear a salesman's report. There are other uses for the pickup, limited only by your own imagination. Read more | Permalink | Comments | Digg this! • Email to a friend • Related • • Papercrete and aluminum can wall Here's a basic, introductory papercrete project: save some newspaper and soda cans from the garbage / recycling, add a bit of cement, and end up with a funky cool wall! I've also seen walls of this style with glass bottles instead of aluminum cans. I believe there's less of a recycling market for glass than aluminum, but you'd have to go a few inches thicker on the wall to match the bottle's height... Read more | Permalink | Comments | Read more articles in Green | Digg this! • Email to a friend • Related • • Top 10 viewed posts on MAKE in 2008 We have a lot of posts on MAKE (20,000+) and while we have our favorites we like to look at what ended up circulating around the web the most each year - it's always an eclectic mix of projects and passions. Besides our main blog page, magazine page, video/podcast and paginated pages we've put together the top viewed posts in 2008 on MAKE, check them out and relive the fun of 2008! PS3 Grill - When the final case design of the Playstation 3 was released, it was widely critsised as looking exactly like a George Foreman Grill ... we decided this would be a great project and challenge to actually build the Real PS3 Grill. Make your own vacuum tubes - Check out this absolutely mesmerizing (17 minute!) video of a French amateur radio operator who rolls his own vacuum tube triodes! I love the ease with which he performs these rather high-end skills (like glass forming), the gestural flourishes (like it's hand magic), and the Zelig-esque soundtrack. Entire NES stuffed into its cartridge kinda makes you cry - This amazing mod crams an entire Nintendo Entertainment System from the 80s into one of it's cartridges complete with power and reset buttons, controller ports and composite video and audio output jacks. This is equivalent to the gaming version of the "clown car" where there is so much stuffed into such a small physical area that it's pretty hard to understand how this could work. Man builds a living out of LEGO - A fun story about artist Nathan Sawaya who makes incredible LEGO sculptures. Weird bass guitars - Check out these great bass guitars! Which one is your favorite? Segway's new RMP! It uses the same parts that a Segway uses but just doubled, it can haul up to 400 lbs. The engineer was going to load the firmware on for demos later, but I took some video of video they had on a screen, it's creepy cool for sure. Open source hardware 2008 - The definitive guide to open source hardware projects in 2008 - Each year we do a guide to all open source hardware and this year there are over 60 projects/kits - it's incredible! Many are familiar with Arduino (now shipping over 60,000 units) but there are many other projects just as exciting and filled with amazing communities - we think we've captured nearly all of them in this list. Some of these projects and kits are available from MAKE others from the makers themselves or other hardware manufacturers - but since it's open source hardware you can make any of these yourself, everything is available. Zombie Pumpkins! - pumpkin carving patterns - This guy has been updating his library of pumpkin stencils over the years and his catalog is just brilliant. He's a great artist and the site covers everything from movies to classical monsters. Some stencils are more involved than others when it comes to carving but the results have always been amazing. The best part is that you can get lifetime access to the library with as little as a $2 donation. Well worth it. HOW TO - build a water mortar - This water mortar is made from PVC using a variation on the "drill press lathe" technique from the book "Eccentric Cubicle." The finished product launches over a quart of water per shot! DIY Lamborghini - The car, called the "Woodighini" was made by a 33 year old Canadian named "Woody". Read more | Permalink | Comments | Read more articles in Announcements | Digg this! • Email to a friend • Related • • Top contributors and top tags for the MAKE Flickr photo pool 2008 was a big year for the MAKE: Flickr photo pool there are over 4,527 members with over 29,190 items! As 2008 ends, here are the top 5 contributors to the pool (that's all that's possible to list it seems) along with the most popular tags, enjoy! Top photo makers! pt (1,026) kentkb (726) connors934 (497) shifzr (489) Laughing Squid (474) And... here's a cloud view of the most popular tags, this is a list of the 100 most used tags associated with the content in the MAKE pool. The bigger the link, the more popular the tag. You can check them out on Flickr too.... 2006 2007 2008 apple arduino art austin austinist austiniststock awesome bayarea bicycle bike boat build ca california car christmas cnet computers cool costume craft craftmagazine craftzine day2 diy diyhalloween diys dorkbotpdx electronics etsy faire fibra gadgets geek geotagged hack hacks halloween howto ipod kentkb kit led link mac magazine make makecrafthalloween makemag makemagazine makephilly makeplayday maker makerfair makerfair2007 makerfaire makerfaire07 makerfaire08 makerfaire2006 makerfaire2007 makerfaire2007day2 makerfaire2008 makerfaireaustin makerfaireaustin2007 makerfaireaustin2008 makerfairebayareamakerfairebayarea2007 makerfairemakeplayday makers makesubmit makezine mpdsf2008 music needstags needstitle oreilly oreillymedia pc pcb physicalcomputing pic project projects robogames robot robotics sanfrancisco sanmateo sculpture seattlepowertoolrace solar sptdrad upcoming:event=146064 upcoming:event=190362 usa usb wood zedomax Read more | Permalink | Comments | Read more articles in Announcements | Digg this! • Email to a friend • Related • • Top 10 articles read in the MAKE digital editions (Volumes 1 through 16) for 2008! If you're a MAKE subscriber you get FREE access to the MAKE digital edition. The MAKE Digital Edition is a vivid replica of the print edition of MAKE, it offers an experience very much like the print magazine plus many additional benefits, such as online searching, sharing with friends, embedded multimedia and printing. Please note that MAKE Digital Edition can be viewed from any web browser / OS (i.e. Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari etc.) and requires NO DOWNLOADING of software, no DRM - giving you instant access to your entire MAKE collection. So.... we're also able to figure out which articles across every single volume was read the most - and for 2008 here they are! Volume 11 - U-G-L-Y Your Bike To deter thieves, camouflage your bicycle as a piece of crap while keeping it a first-class ride. Page 74-75. Volume 05 - Backyard Zip Line Be the hit of the neighborhood with a high-flying, tree-to-tree transporter. Page 72-73. Volume 09 - Working with Carbon Fiber Form, lay up, and cure your own high-performance composites. Page 166-167. Volume 13 - Boom Stick Build a PVC air cannon that delivers maximum bang for the buck. Page 114-115. Volume 14 - Scanner Camera Mod a flatbed scanner to take photos that decontruct time and motion. Page 78-79. Volume 02 - Printed Circuit Boards Step-by-step instructions for making your own PCBs at home. Page 166-167. Volume 04 - Mint-Tin Amp Pocket amplifier punches up headphones. Page 130-131. Volume 14 - Living Room Baja Buggies With wireless cameras on board, these radio-controlled racers give you virtual reality telepresence. Page 96-97. Volume 05 - Wind Powered Generator With a motor and some piping, it's suprisingly easy to build this inexpensive, efficient windmill generator--and enjoy free energy forever. Page 90-91. Volume 12 - Styrofoam Plate Speaker Get surprisingly good sound from disposable picnicware. Page 130-131. Read more | Permalink | Comments | Read more articles in Announcements | Digg this! • Email to a friend • Related • • Evolving Wii control experience So you want to play motion based games on something other than the Wii product? Try out the Darwin, the latest evolution in gaming. Magnetometers that check the controller's movement against the earth's magnetic core. So cool. The result of all these sensors in the controller is that it gives a very accurate rendering of motion. They developed the technology for a golf swing data gatherer, but there was no real mass market until the Wii. 30 million Wii consoles later, and suddenly they don't have to hitch their wagon to fussy pro athletes. Gamespot has a good interview with Motus CEO Satayan Mahajan and Technology Review has a good piece as well. Thanks Tien! Have you tried the Darwin? The writeups say that it will work on other platforms, and on the pc as well. Are you happy with your wiimote, or do you need something more full featured? Share your ideas in the comments, and add some photos to the Make Flickr pool. Read more | Permalink | Comments | Read more articles in Gaming | Digg this! • Email to a friend • Related • • Modern Hobo code Modern Hobo code... The legendary "hobo code"was a set of covert markings used to warn other hobos about danger or to clue them into good situations. As times have changed, a new set of code symbols have emerged to alert other hobos to circumstances in modern America. Perhaps you have seen them on your own city streets. Used Frying Oil Available for Biodiesel No-fee ATM Overpriced Drinks Read more | Permalink | Comments | Read more articles in Culture jamming | Digg this! • Email to a friend • Related • • Edible lawn transformation Here's the transformation of a lawn into an edible landscape: Thanks to Rebekah and Stephen Hren, authors of The Carbon-Free Home, whose lawn is featured in the photos, and Bountiful Backyards for the slideshow. Read more | Permalink | Comments | Read more articles in Green | Digg this! • Email to a friend • Related • • Top 10 electronics part searches for 2008 Sam from Octopart sent along the top 10 electronics parts that were searched for in 2008! Hitachi - HD74LS04P Skyworks Solutions - SKY77340-13 Texas Instruments - SN74LS74AN Atmel - ATMEGA168-20PU PanaVise - 201 Sanyo - STK392-150 AVX - TAJA105K016R Hitachi - HD44780A00 NEC - 2501 Intel® 82371EB (PIIX4E) Read more | Permalink | Comments | Digg this! • Email to a friend • Related • • Top 10 things searched for on MAKE and the Maker Shed in 2008 In 2008, the top 10 search terms on MAKE using our google search box at the upper right were... LED Arduino Solar Halloween 555 Guitar RFID Steampunk Laser Bike Also in 2008 - the top 10 search terms in the Maker Shed store were.... Arduino starter kit Arduino Make magazine SIM card reader Pinewood derby designs Arduino duemilanove Electronics kit Tube amp kits SX-150 DIY electronics Read more | Permalink | Comments | Read more articles in Arduino | Digg this! • Email to a friend • Related • • Benheck's PC Mod Pick of the Day - Aperture Science PC! Today's yuletide pick for PC Mod of the Day is the Aperture Science PC, built by "Willsonman" as seen on the [H]ard|Forum. I like this mod because instead of building a case inspired by a videogame it builds one to emulate a prop found in the game. Let's take a look at how he put this nice piece together... Read more | Permalink | Comments | Read more articles in Computers | Digg this! • Email to a friend • Related • • Make: television -- giant wind turbine blade We had this 15′ long blade on the set of the Make: television show to serve as inspiration for a smaller-scale wind generator we built out of 8" PVC. It's a pretty incredible piece of work! Read more | Permalink | Comments | Read more articles in Make: television | Digg this! • Email to a friend • Related • • Toilet plunger lamp This isn't the first time we've seen a plunger lamp, but this one from instructables user cityup comes with instructions! More: Plunger lamp in the Core77 gift guide Read more | Permalink | Comments | Read more articles in DIY Projects | Digg this! • Email to a friend • Related • • Inside the pocket DLP Pico Projectors Inside the pocket DLP Pico Projectors via Giz... [Ultra-small Projectors Teardown] DLP Projector Opened [Part 1] [Ultra-small Projectors Teardown] Fly-eye Lens Commands Attention [Part 2] Read more | Permalink | Comments | Read more articles in Gadgets | Digg this! • Email to a friend • Related • • DIY ATmega168 evaluation board with LCD screen Dave Prochnow writes on PopSci: Every AVR programmer worth her weight in ATmegas knows about the AVR Butterfly--a ridiculously low cost ATmega169 demonstration and evaluation kit. Lamenting the lack of such a kit for the ATmega168 drove me to design my own demo/eval kit for the Arduino microcontroller family. This project became a compulsion that cost three complete redesigns, five destroyed ATmega168s, and hundreds of hours of point-to-point wiring. The result was Polyphemus--an ATmega168 demo kit that you can build from your own spare-parts box. Polyphemus Demonstration and Evaluation Kit Read more | Permalink | Comments | Read more articles in Arduino | Digg this! • Email to a friend • Related • • The "Webcam" vs. the "Particle Beam" The "Webcam" vs. the "Particle Beam" A web camera is placed into a particle beam to show visually the affects of space radiation on electronics. This video shows the particles striking the camera along with streaks due to high angle impacts. In addition particles striking the audio circuit can be heard and the damage to the camera CCD is illustrated at the end of the video.This video was produced as an Education and Public Outreach product for the CRaTER Instrument (http://crater.bu.edu) that will fly on the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Mission (http://lro.gsfc.nasa.gov/). Read more | Permalink | Comments | Read more articles in Science | Digg this! • Email to a friend • Related • • Tensegrity table from found materials Homegrown Evolution has a neat tensegrity coffee table made from found materials. More: HOW TO - Build a tensegrity coffee table Read more | Permalink | Comments | Read more articles in Green | Digg this! • Email to a friend • Related • • Portal transports you into 1980s retro rock ambience "Portal" is another interesting lighting installation by James Clar, that is currently on display at the Roger Tator Galerie in Lyon, France. The project "creates a doorway from a diffuser screen and has abstract lines of light that travel back and forth through the door, bouncing around the room." A sensor at the doorway of the space changes the color of the illuminated lines, visually announcing new visitors to the space. Visually, the project reminds me of what a music video set from Duran Duran might have looked like in the 80s. Check out the link for more pictures of the installation. Portal by James Clar Read more | Permalink | Comments | Read more articles in Arts | Digg this! • Email to a friend • Related • • Christmas lights color organ Game programmer Jack Kern took time out from coding pixels and turned his house into a holiday color organ using Processing - This is my first attempt at a computer controlled light show for our Christmas lights. Everything was DIY including the software which I wrote in Processing (processing.org). Simple wiring using parallel port output to switch some 120v relays. Only 8 channels, 1500w per channel max. Next year I'll be trying for many more, dimmable, LED's and DMX control of our RGY lasers! Definitely looking forward to next year's yuletide laser-blast fest! [Thanks to Creae Digital Motion for this one] Read more | Permalink | Comments | Read more articles in Holiday projects | Digg this! • Email to a friend • Related • • Staycation... maybe it's time for MAKEcation One of TIME's buzz words for 2008 was "staycation" staying at home for vacation because things are expensive, that sounds like a bad thing, but it's really not. You can use that time to make something, you'll probably enjoy it more too! As things wind down here at MAKE for the week I am looking forward to a "MAKEcation" - there are piles of projects I'm working on, I can't wait! So, that's the word for 2009 - MAKEcation, let's make it happen!... Maybe in 2009 we could all think of a way to make staying home for vacation more of a "project" that you make and share when it's all over... "here's what i did on my MAKEcation"... What do you think makers? What will you make on your "MAKEcation" - it's likely some of you have already completed projects already! "Making cations" by causing ions to have few electrons than protons does not count. Read more | Permalink | Comments | Read more articles in Arduino | Digg this! • Email to a friend • Related • • DIY: Refrigerator that uses .1 kWH a day This how-to describes making a refrigerator that uses 1/10th the amount of energy of a traditional refrigerator. The website has a link to a PDF with all the building details. This would be a really great addition to any home running solar power, since the fridge is a major energy hog. More about a DIY super-efficient refrigerator Read more | Permalink | Comments | Read more articles in Green | Digg this! • Email to a friend • Related • • A tribute to the VCR - The VHS era is winding down BUT there are many things you can do with a VCR and the tapes! VHS era is winding down - Los Angeles Times... The last big supplier of the tapes is ditching the format, ending the long fade-out of a product that ushered in the home theater. Pop culture is finally hitting the eject button on the VHS tape, the once-ubiquitous home-video format that will finish this month as a creaky ghost of Christmas past. After three decades of steady if unspectacular service, the spinning wheels of the home-entertainment stalwart are slowing to a halt at retail outlets. On a crisp Friday morning in October, the final truckload of VHS tapes rolled out of a Palm Harbor, Fla., warehouse run by Ryan J. Kugler, the last major supplier of the tapes. "It's dead, this is it, this is the last Christmas, without a doubt," said Kugler, 34, a Burbank businessman. "I was the last one buying VHS and the last one selling it, and I'm done. Anything left in warehouse we'll just give away or throw away." Goodbye VCR, while your format is over - I still see years of projects with you ahead. Each week I see a dozen VCRs tossed in the trash in NYC. Sometimes I rescue some of them, other times I just wish I had more time to do things with them. Here are some projects you can do with an old VCR as well as the old tapes. If you have others, post them up in the comments. We'll start out with the VCR cat feeder projects and then move on to other fun ones, a VCR has gears, motors and precision electronics - a treasure trove for a maker. VCR Cat Feeder on MAKE: television A MAKE: magazine favorite! Here's a quick peek at John Park demonstrating how to use a motor from an old VCR and use it to drive an automated cat feeder. VCR Cat Feeder Liberate a motor from an old VHS deck, attach it to a food chopper, and program the deck's recording timer to fill Fluffy's bowl on schedule. Voila! Your own programmable pet food dispenser. VCR display turned amplifier 5Volt turned an old VCR's vacuum fluorescent display into a headphone amp, here writes - "VFDs are common on VCRs. I have a few of them I took from some broken VCRs. Last night I was working on how I could use them as vacuum triodes. I don't have much experience with real vacuum tubes so I had to invent some, possibly wrong, arrangements, but I finally got something". Control your VCR with a text message Frisnit shows you how to control a VCR with SMS (cell phone) - "Imagine it, it's 3:15 on a weekday afternoon and you've just realised you've forgotten to set the video to tape 'Pet Rescue'. Usually you would be condemned to an afternoon of misery and disappointment, knowing you had no heartwarming cute animal stories to come home to. But not any more. Below I describe a simple interface between a T28 mobile phone (ME) and Matsui VX770 VCR to allow remote recording of programmes." Make PCR out of a VCR - The VCRVO North writes in I decided gut the VCR and use it as a computer case. This would replace the functionality of the DVD player and video recorder with one unit that looks more like a VCR than a computer (thus keeping the wife happy). My initial goal was to get Freevo running on it, so during the build I affectionately referred to it as my "VCRVO" project. Here are the steps I took.. Made - Solarroller, bot from from junk parts.. VCR... The prolific Maker family' - Thethompsonfive writes in with the solarroller bot built from MAKE 06... - "Here it is, my completed Solarroller from Make #6. I got the parts bag from Solarbotics and scavenged a VCR from someone I work with. I've built a bunch of robot kits in the past, but I have to say that starting out with a pile of junk and some components and getting a working robot out of it brings a much greater sense of accomplishment than any of them ever did. " HOW TO - Make a wind powered LED out of a VCR Charles was inspired by all of the nonsense about the format wars lately, and after breathing a sigh of relief that the HD-DVD Blue-Ray fiasco ended he was reminded of the VHS and Betamax war of yesteryear. It occurred to him that he still had an old VCR in his basement and was wondering what to do with it... It turns out that you can make some pretty cool gadgets from the innards of a VCR. So, he posted a tutorial about how to make a wind powered LED out of a VCR. DIY Video tape encoding station - Ryan made a video tape encoding station setup using some old gear he had laying around and a Neuros MP4 Recorder. He's recording the tapes at 320 x 240 at super fine quality and the files produced are beautiful. As a bonus they play perfectly without conversion on both Zunes and iPods. Sonic Fabric - Alyce Santoro, creator of sonic fabric, has demonstrated her amazing 50% cotton, 50% audio tape creations to an already aurally stimulated dorkbot audience. Alyce found she could take recycled 1/8th inch audio tape and place it directly into a weaving loom to create a flexible yet strong blend of tape and fiber that amazingly still holds its magnetic properties once woven. With this sonic fabric, she has created dresses, handbags, and other clothing which all retain their magnetic audio qualities. She was also able to actually play for us some of the fabric using a hacked up portable tape player. The audio sounds more like record scratching as the tape head is moved across it, but that's because of the random nature the tape enters the weave of the fabric. She's looking at possibly recording onto the fabric after it has been woven to produce recognizable audio... perhaps music or vocal recordings or just sections of fabric that produce certain tones. I think VCR tapes could potentially be used for an application like this. Read more | Permalink | Comments | Read more articles in Announcements | Digg this! • Email to a friend • Related • • Python on Android If you have the Google Phone and prefer hacking Python over Java, this is just what you've been waiting for: Here's an early Christmas present for all those Python fanatics (self included) out there! With a lot of help from my friends (thanks Manuel and Thomas!) I managed to install Python 2.4.5 on my G1. It's still rough around the edges, but I think it's a good start. Klaus Reimer has a nice overview of how to cross-compile Python. My instructions borrow a lot from his. You'll need to do a bit of patching and cross compilation, but Damon's instructions are thorough enough to get you through it. Python on Android Read more | Permalink | Comments | Read more articles in hacks | Digg this! • Email to a friend • Related • • More Recent Articles 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 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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