Over on GeekDad, Dana Bostic came up with this simple backyard cool-the-kids "hack" -- a hose sprayer set to "shower," zip-tied to a tall step ladder pouring down onto a trampoline -- so the kids can work up a sweat and cool off at the same time!
Continuing with their fine series of tutorial videos, Humberto from NerdKits shows a number of basic experiments you can do with a DC motor, how EMF, resistance, and inductance influence the design of a motor control circuit, and finally, how to use toggled digital output and pulse-width modulation in driving the motor via a microcontroller.
A former chemistry teacher of mine provided a great definition of "pyrophoric:"
[It] means that if you playfully squirt some at your lab mates, they will burst into flame.
In other (less amusing) words, a "pyrophoric" substance is one that ignites spontaneously on exposure to air. Pyrophoric iron, however, isn't as dangerous as that makes it sound, especially in small quantities.
Basically, the oxidation of iron is so vigorous that it can cause very finely divided iron metal to become incandescent. Amazing Rust has a great tutorial on how to prepare finely divided iron by thermolyzing iron oxalate, a yellow powder that can, in turn, be prepared by a simple reaction between two common chemicals.
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I've wanted to get into knifemaking since I was a teenager, but for years had been deterred by the belief that I first needed to buy a bunch of expensive equipment, like a 3-wheel belt grinder and an annealing oven. Then I found Wayne Goddard's $50 Knife Shop, which is a compilation of material originally prepared for Goddard's eponymous column in BLADE magazine. It kind of does for knifemaking what Dave Gingery's books did for foundrywork, going back to the historical fundamentals of the technology to get at what you really need to do good work. Goodies include homemade forges and anvils, homemade disc and belt grinders, scavenging steel for blades (including forging wire rope to make Damascus steel), finishing techniques, backyard heat treating, and a whole chapter on "tribal knifemaking," which is the modern art of making knives without using electricity. Fascinating stuff.
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Elena Corchero designed this solar vintage-looking hand fan that functions as a portable light at night. Are we seeing a new niche in luxury goods emerging here? In her newly launched online boutique she also sells electronic toy construction kits and reflective lace (for safely biking in your fancy socks). Via Fashioning Technology.
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MAKE contributor Steve Lodefink posted results from his Lumenlab Micro CNC's maiden voyage -
Lithophanes were a popular way to hide girlie pictures in the bottom a of gentleman's tea cup around the end of the 19th century. An image would be molded into the porcelain in the cup so that only when held up to a light would the picture be visible. [...] I "lithophaned" an image of a skull into a piece of corian. When viewed under normal front lighting, it sort of looks like a distorted C-3P0 face, but when held up to a light source, it is transformed into a skull.
Check out video of the 'skullithophanery' in process over @ Finkbuilt. Read more | Permalink | Comments | Read more articles in Arts | Digg this!
Nikolaus Gradwohl, an Austrian MAKE subscriber, created a QR code of his mother's name that she can weave into the rugs she makes. Our very own Becky Stern was showing off her knitted QR code scarf at the Mini Maker Square at the Google I/O conference last month. She hadn't had much luck with getting phonecams to successfully scan the code before, but a number of people at the conference were able to read it.
I recently discovered Pachube and have just fell in love with it. This is a video of my first Pachube project and what I've been able to do. I connected two light sensors to an Arduino. One sensor measure light levels in my room, the other measures light levels outside. The Arduino is connected to a computer running Processing, and it forwards the sensor data to Pachube.
The process is quite straightforward, making related projects much more approachable - iPhone and Android web apps are icing on the cake!
Uber-bender Pete Edwards of Casper Electronics shares his recipe for cooking up some tasty mods for Casio 'SA' series keyboards -
This is an engineered modification which works on most of the Casio SA series ( SA-1, SA-5, SA-7, SA-8 etc). There will be an Amplifier chip ( No AN8053 ) common across the SA series and a mask programmed CPU which will be made by OKI and have the part No M6387-xx where xx is the variant for the specific keyboard it is installed in, in the case of the SA-5 it is M6387-16. The different variant number accommodates different key / button layouts of the keyboard it is fitted into, the PCM sounds however remain the same. There are 5 interesting modifications that can be easily fitted:
Not since industrial noisemakers like Einsturzende Neubauten first miked a shopping cart... This is a decidedly more 21st version. The makers, Hogan Birney, Sean Kinberger, and David Plakon explain the design:
Touch and pressure are used to control the live manipulation of sound and image. The cart is equipped with a video projector, computer and battery making it portable and self contained. Using a microprocessor (Arduino) and custom software (max/msp/jitter) to sense the users touch and translate the pressure of the users touch, a real-time response is created both visually and sonically. The cart is used by MPG performers and the audience is also encouraged to play the cart as well.
Kevmag 2000 posted this YouTube vid of his transforming robot, apparently built for a robotics class. Pretty cool. I couldn't find out much else about it.
The ARMmite PRO from the Maker Shed is a low-cost single board computer. It's perfect for small volume applications that require customization. The ARMmite PRO Features 21 TTL compatible digital I/Os shared with 7 10-bit A/D pins. Unleash the power of a 32-bit processor, running at 60 MHz to solve your control problem. Save time with built in support for PWM, SPI, 1-Wire, I2C, Pulse timing, Synchronous and Asynchronous serial protocols. Fully assembled, no soldering required!
Say your bike saddle's fabric/leather is wearing thin, or you just don't like the color. Or say you live in Phoenix and your black bike seat gets so hot while it's outside baking in the sun all day so that when you go to ride it, you get second degree burns. You might want to change the cover, and Instructables user djeucalyptus has just the tutorial for you. And me.
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