With gardening season upon us, it's time to revisit the "Easy Backyard Graywater System" by Tim Drew from MAKE Volume 13. Everyone has to do laundry, so why not use your laundry water to get a lush garden. Better for the environment and better for your pocketbook. Basically, the prerequisites are that you have to have a proper recycling system and use biodegradable detergent (and not be washing diapers). Tim was retrofitting his basement and moved the laundry machines to the back carport, which was conveniently at a slightly higher elevation than their adjacent garden.
From the article: "The basic design involves a 2"ABS standpipe that runs down from the washer and connects to a gently sloping horizontal pipe buried under a garden path. At the other end, the water splits and travels a bit farther in 2 directions, then flows out through perforated pots and bark chip mulch, and into the soil beneath some water-loving plants and trees."
Here's the left branch and irrigation terminal before Tim buried it:
The irrigation outlet with the cover off:
And Tim's lovely plants near the irrigation outlet:
Here's the full article in our Digital Edition so you can get started. Pick up Volume 13 in the Maker Shed for tons more projects, including the Boom Stick, Toy Music Sequencer, a Smart Structure, growing giant pumpkins, raising chickens, tons of magic tricks and props, a car camera mount, internal explosion engine, analog meter clock, and more.
Keep your eyes peeled for Volume 18, due out in mid-May, our DIY Energy issue!
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In case you were unaware, there's a sale going on in the Maker Shed, with 15% off all craft kits and CRAFT T-shirts for only $7. When ordering kits, use the code UCRAFTER to get the discount. The sale ends on March 31st, so get while the gettin's good!
Today on EMS Labs, Lenore has a piece on how to successfully photograph Light-Emitting Diodes:
Taking pictures of LEDs can be difficult. Digital camera sensors just don't respond the same way that human eyes do, so it is nearly impossible to take a picture that reflects what you are seeing. But manipulating a few settings like white balance and shutter speed can improve things immensely, as can simple physical things like using a tripod.
MAKE Editor-in-Chief Mark Frauenfelder made this stringed instrument last weekend and posted it on Dinosaurs and Robots:
My goal was to make an electric string instrument that uses drone tuning. I don't know anything about music theory, but drone tuning is a way to tune an instrument that makes it sound good no matter what you do with your fret fingers. Sitars, some dulcimers, and bagpipes use drone tuning. The clubhouse strummer uses GDG tuning (the Gs are one octave apart). I copied the fret layout from a strumstick, but I could have used this handy mountain dulcimer fret calculator to figure out the fret spacing.
I really like this pack of 75 flexible jumper wires from the Maker Shed. You can re-use them over and over again! I have been using these for a few weeks now, and they are by far my favorite way to prototype new ideas.
AS220 Labs' Make and Break workshops are a great way to get some hands-on hacking fun. Tonight (Wednesday, March 25, 2009), Tom Sgouros, Maker Faire Bay Area 2008 performer and editor of the occasional Make book, is presenting Make and Break: All About Motors:
The real fun in electronics is when you can use a circuit to make things go. Come learn some basics of electric motors, including DC motors, AC motors, servos, and steppers with Tom Sgouros (www.sgouros.com). Guest appearance by Judy the robot.
This session is free if you want to come and listen. You'll have to pay for materials if you want to complete the kit and take things home with you. Some sample motors will be available, which can also be purchased cheaply.
Hannah Perner-Wilson is working on some really interesting sensing experiments including this potentiometer that's controlled by sliding a large metal ball bearing around two conductive traces.
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Check out this excellent 1942 documentary film from RCA explaining the intricate manufacturing process involved in the production of vacuum tubes - even detailing differences between metal and glass encased units. And in case you missed it, be sure to check out Paillard's DIY version of the process. [via Matrixsynth]
This a custom implementation of capacitive sensing technlogy as per QMatrix Whitepaper. It uses an ATmega8 to scan the keys and outputs ASCII characters to the serial port.
Schematic, PCB, and source code are available, though the project page is currently Russian-only. Check out the Googlish interpretation for details.
Update: As the pointed out in the comments, Google's Russian is a little rusty. For further explanation, best to check out the tech whitepaper.
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Bracer Jack has a nice modeling tutorial on the Iron Man helmet, especially focused on techniques for modeling hard surfaces. He even offers the files containing his 3DS Max schematic drawings to get you started.
Many of us can recall repeatedly trying to load up NES cartridges that, for one reason or another, decided to display shifting screens of random bits instead of their intended game. No Carrier's open source glitchNES software makes exploring those accidental realms of digital art easy. Alter the code to your heart's content then load it up in your favorite emulator program. Though you may feel the reflexive urge to blow into a cartridge upon first viewing the results, these visuals would likely compliment your next chiptune performance quite nicely. [via Create Digital Motion]
OMG! If I'd found this gem glowing underneath the aluminum Christmas tree when I was a kid, I'd have sprained something in my geekly excitement. I think I'd sprain something now... my wallet. This kit sold for a rather steep-at-the-time $50 and goes for 100 times that now. But I'd still be tempted. I think that's just about the most inspired atomic age objet d'art I've ever seen. Joseph Cornell, David Lynch, the Fluxus artists, William Gibson, and the Coraline box makers, all working together, couldn't do anything more aesthetically/culturally/temporally resonant than that.
The set came with four types of uranium ore, a beta-alpha source (Pb-210), a pure beta source (Ru-106), a gamma source (Zn-65?), a spinthariscope, a cloud chamber with its own short-lived alpha source (Po-210), an electroscope, a geiger counter, a manual, a comic book (Dagwood Splits the Atom) and a government manual "Prospecting for Uranium."
Other Gilbert sets (e.g., the No. 11 Atomic Energy set) continued to carry the spinthariscope, the ore and the manual. In addition, the Geiger counter could be purchased separately.
MAKE columnist and advisory board member Saul Griffith, giving a brief TED talk introducing the concept of high-altitude kite-generated energy and his work at Makani Power.
One of the new features to make it into Flash 10 is the ability to generate software-based audio. There's essentially an event callback that will trigger during audio playback that lets you fill an input buffer full of wavelength samples. I'm looking forward to seeing what types of generative music folks will be able to create with this.
gotoAndLearn has a quick introduction to the topic that lets you tweak a waveform based on mouse position (shown above), and Andy Hulstkamp has a quick rundown on the basics of generating and modulating a specific tone. If you're a Flash hacker, go make some bleeps and blips and send us a link to your algorythmic creations in the comments.
The PIR Sensor in the Maker Shed can detect motion from up to 20 feet away by using a Fresnel lens and an infrared-sensitive element. It's inexpensive and really easy to use. It's ideal for alarm systems, motion-activated lighting, holiday props, and robotics. Check out the link for more details.
Features:
Simple 3-pin connection
Single bit output
Small size - easy to conceal ( 0.96 x 1.0 x 1.27 in.)
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