You go biking or skiing at the weekends. Great. When you're commuting to work, that empty roof rack is adding aerodynamic drag to your car. More drag means more power to overcome it, which means worse mpg. Take it off when you're not using it. Same goes for those 'aerodynamic' roof boxes - if you're not using it, get rid of it. Yes they look aerodynamic but the fact of the matter is they do induce drag. And to be honest, they look silly. Hey - I know it means getting up and doing something rather than just routinely getting in your car and driving off but we're talking about gas mileage here. mpg. Fuel economy. It's all to do with money. Be lazy? Or save money?
If you did any sort of physics classes when you were back in school, you might remember something called mechanical advantage. In its most basic form, mechanical advantage is the ratio of force-in to force-out in a mechanical system. Mechanical Advantage = Effort Torque/Load Torque. For example a 20kg weight 1 metre from a pivot can lift a 40kg weight 0.5m from the pivot on the other side. The effort torque and load torque calculations are to do with force in Newtons and distance from pivot point. Hence torque is measured in Newton-metres, or Nm. A Newton is the amount of force required to accelerate a mass of one kilogram by one metre per second². On Earth, where acceleration due to gravity is 9.8m/s², the force exerted upon a mass of 1kg is 9.8N (usually rounded up to 10N). Another popular notation is lbf.ft - pound-force-feet, commonly referred to as foot-pounds. 1 Newton-metre is equivalent to 0.737 foot-pounds.
Some of the sections have very good CAD models of the parts of systems. There is a lot more, some very thorough examinings of the transmission, suspension and just about every aspect of your vehicle. If you have any good car projects going or information to add, let us know in the comments.
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Whoa. Check out these gorgeous steam-engines and steam-powered vehicles built by machinist Bob Jorgensen. Bob died in 2006. This site is a tribute to his creativity and impressive machining skills.
In Volume 17, MAKE goes really old school with the Lost Knowledge issue, featuring projects and articles covering the steampunk scene -- makers creating their own alternative Victorian world through modified computers, phones, cars, costumes, and other fantastic creations. Projects include an elegant Wimshurst Influence Machine (an electrostatic generator built entirely from Home Depot parts), a Florence Siphon coffee brewer, and a teacup-powered Stirling engine. This special section also covers watchmaking, letterpress printing, the early multimedia art of William Blake, and other wondrous and lost (or fading) pre-20th-century technologies.
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John Baichtal, Geekdad contributor and Twin Cities maker, wrote a nice review of Make: Day over at the Wired Blog. Make: television is happy that so many families enjoyed this event, it turned out to be a great mix of fun for both adults AND kids! (link)
We share John's sentiments, about Make: Day and hope it continues...
"By all accounts the event's turnout was awesome -- it attracted about 5,500 attendees, or about a thousand more than a typical Saturday. Hopefully the hubbub will induce the movers and shakers to make this an annual event." Full article.
Photos are still pouring in! Take a look and be sure to tag your photos and add them to the Make: television pool.
We love this photo! A young girl pilots a robot built by the FIRST robotics club.
Touchatag (formerly TikiTag) is a very interesting looking consumer-level RFID (radio frequency identification) product. They can be used in many ways, from toilet paper inventory control to managing your Airwolf VHS tape lending library. I plan to get one soon to test out and do a proper review. (It probably won't displace my iConveyor as my favorite RFID device!) MAKE pal Kent Barnes send these photos of the device's innards for us all to enjoy. Note the SIM card; what's that doing there?
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Noise Addicts posted this effective recipe for near-automatic generation of album artwork (though it does allow for some creative typesetting) -
1. Go to Wikipedia and hit "random" and the first article you get is the name of your band.
2. Go to "Random Quotations". The last four or five words of the very last quote of the page will be the title of your new album.
3. Go to Flickr and click on "Explore the Last Seven Days". The third picture, no matter what it is, will be your album cover.
Give it a go - the results can be eerily convincing. Plus - it's a quick and easy fix when you get the creative urge at the office/library/etc. Man … I could swear my cousin had that Stutz Blackhawk album back in the day. Read more | Permalink | Comments | Digg this!
We're still looking for entries for the Maker Faire Bay Area, May 30 and 31, at the San Mateo County Expo Center. This year's focus is Re-Make America, inspired by President Obama's call for all of us to participate in remaking America. We're looking to showcase "the risk-takers, the doers, the makers of things."
Key Points: * Entry Close Date: March 31, 2009. Space is limited, please submit your entry by the due date!
* Dates: May 30-31, 2009 Hours: Saturday 10am - 8pm (6pm - 8pm evening program); Sunday 10am - 6pm. Note: This is NOT Memorial Day Weekend.
We're also specifically looking for makers with projects in the following categories:
- Sustainability - Alternative Energy - Clean Tech and Green Tech - Community and Group Based Projects - Lost Crafts - Artisanal Food Makers - Student Projects - And more....
When the folks over at Electro-Harmonix discovered Gwendolin Tägert had been crafting and selling huggable handmade versions of their legendary Big Muff π stompbox, they could have persued litigation on the grounds of trademark infringement. Instead, they did what everyone should when faced with a cuddly-soft pillow - they embraced it.
We're all too familiar with the endless lawsuits suffocating the world of music, and so we decided to do something different. Instead of threats, demands, and legal letters, we contacted Gwendolin, told her we loved her work, and offered a formal license in exchange for an option to purchase them at discount. So, rather than a new enemy we now have a new friend, and a beautiful Big Fluff Pi. Take that as a lesson, music-industrial complex!
Here's hoping Pro Co Sound feels similarly affectionate to the huggable Rat pedal - really though, how could they resist?
Take an old outdated hard drive and teach it new secret tricks by increasing it's capacity and speed. Thanks go to Brian Nadel for the original article in MAKE, Volume 17. View the PDF of this project. and then subsribe to MAKE Magazine for other great projects you can do over the weekend.
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Arduino co-founder Massimo Banzi will be conducting a workshop in NYC next month, focussing on interactivity in the physical realm of public commerce -
This workshop will focus on the ways in which retail environments have evolved from traditional elements of display to being real windows of opportunities for brands to extend themselves in the real world. Based on 10 years of experience in the interaction design and physical prototyping field Massimo Banzi, will walk participants through the principles of interaction inside retail environments, and enable them to build their own interactive elements, using the Arduino, an easy and world-renowned physical prototyping platform. Additionally, IconNicholson will be presenting their Social Retail concept and Zonebee will be talking about their work with Tinker.it! at the Flandrau Science Centre.
ThinkGeek is now selling "Wire Glue," a conductive adhesive made with micro-carbons. They're selling a .3 oz bottle for $4. I like what BotJunkie said about it:
It looks like a neat product, and I'm sure it works well, but if you're thinking of getting this rather than learning how to solder... You should just learn how to solder. It's cheap, it's fun, and you get to melt metal and make stuff. Give it a shot, and then after you burn yourself, you can go ahead and buy the glue without feeling guilty.
This was posted to the MAKE Forums and I thought I'd repost it here:
We need to create a revamped "Cooper Rand" which is a speech device for those who have had throat cancer or other larynx related illness. This device needs to be wireless. Is anyone interested in sharing wireless technology ideas?
Jay from thecapacity created this airsoft robot that you can control with a Wiimote. He's using Construx for the mounting hardware, a webcam for remote sighting, and an IOBridge to control the servos.
I'm pretty sure I'd never want this thing in my office, but something similar with a motor operated squirt gun might be more my style.
I really like this project by Joshua McGinnis. It uses an Arduino and ultra sonic sensor to keep track of the distance the user is from the computer. Then it calculates the size of the font and background color based on that distance. Oh, and it will twitter that distance too! Nice touch!
Arduino & sonar returns your distance away from the computer and it is displayed on the screen. the farther away you are from the computer the larger the text and the greener the screen. the closer you are, the smaller the text and the redder the screen. get within 5 inches and a buzzer alarms. distance is twittered.
On this week's Make: Talk, we'll be chatting with John Edgar Park, host of the Makers Workshop segment of Make: television. John will be talking to us about the show and about his articles in MAKE, especially the Florence Siphon Coffee Brewer from Volume 17. John is also a "character mechanic" for Disney and was responsible for the hamster physics in the movie Bolt. Character mechanic? Hamster physics? And I thought I had a cool job!
Mark is on the road this week, so Dale and I will be joined in the virtual studio by Keith Hammond, MAKE magazine's Copy Chief and our liaison with Make: television. Be sure to call in to talk with us and for prizes that we'll be giving away during the show!
What are the reasons we see light bulbs made up of lots of small LED's instead of one large LED?
As Collin showed us in his excellent video about the subject, LEDs pass electricity through "dies," or little chips cut from a larger wafer of semiconductor; there is just a small active area that's actually lighting up, which is then reflected out in the desired direction. Engineers try to make the most efficient LED possible, which is linked to the size of this semiconductor as well as the heat it puts out, among other things. There is such a thing as a multi-die package, which puts more than one piece of semiconductor inside the same plastic casing. My favorite electrical engineer, Matt Mets, found me this interesting article comparing the efficiencies of single-die and multi-die packages for LEDs. Essentially, the maximum usable size of the semiconductor is limited, and there's a limit to how many you can cram into one lens before the thing generates too much heat. On the practical side of your question, the market is just now seeing a boom in these "bulbs" containing many LEDs, like the one pictured above (image from Treehugger). The product designers for these things are buying off-the-shelf components and putting them together into a product, not engineering new LEDs... yet. We're able to see a massive reduction in energy consumption with these LED bulbs when compared to incandescents, so the demand for an even more efficient model (perhaps using multi-die LEDs) hasn't quite caught up to us yet. The takeaway: bigger isn't always brighter!
Young maker Justis writes in:
I've just started out in electronics and I want to make some cool stuff! but alas, being a kid and all, I don't have much time to bike to radioshack every time I need a resistor. How do you recommend I start gleaning things for projects?
Simple: you've got to build up a stash! Components aren't that expensive, especially resistors. I'd recommend asking family members for gift certificates to Sparkfun, the Maker Shed, and even Amazon, which all carry excellent components and kits, and they'll mail them right to you, no bike-riding required (work with your parents to ensure you're buying form a reputable site). If you come across older devices at the thrift store, like VCRs and the like, they often contain full-size (not surface-mount) components that you can remove while you practice your de-soldering skills. When I was a kid, I was really into baking, so for every gift-giving holiday, I'd ask for a different item that I couldn't afford myself, namely a stand mixer. If you make a wish list for those who might shop for you, include web addresses for particular products to ensure your non-savvy relatives get you the things you really want. To start with, I'd highly recommend the DIY Design Electronics Kit by Sparkle Labs. It comes with a great starter assortment of many different types of components in common varieties, so you won't have to ride over to RadioShack quite so often. Show us what you make!
If you have additional advice for Tim or Justis, leave it in the comments! And if you have a question for MAKE about a project you're working on, concept you're trying to understand, or anything else related to the complicated life of makers, drop me a line at becky@makezine.com (or record a video, tweet at us, etc.).
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