London artist Stuart Semple has built a machine that makes a lighter-than-air foam using glycerin, food dye, and helium, and extrudes cakes of it through a die to create floating foam happy faces, which he releases into the air 2,000 at a time. Check the vid below.
Where do I start with this thing? It has some many elements of awesome!
It's a model of an old-fashion Penny-farthing bicycle that has been brought in to the modern world with the incorporation of 3 cutting-edge technologies:
It was built, layer-by-layer, using laser sintering rapid prototyping. It's a demonstration project by Italian firm CRP Technology to demonstrate their capabilities.
It's made out of WindForm XT, a carbon-fiber reinforced polyimide material that's usually used to craft high-performance motorsport racing parts.
It incorporates a planetary gearing system. Penny-Farthings have large front wheels so that they can travel further on one pedal stroke; by using this gearing, the front wheel can be a more-comfortable 20% smaller. Planetary gears are used in some 3-speed bicycles, but their beauty is hidden within the rear hub.
I love the options that rapid prototyping allows the designer - these handlebars are simple, elegant, and formed as a single piece:
The material used was flexible enough to make the seat, suspension spring, and the body all one piece, too:
Alas, it's just a model - just 16 inches long. Here's hoping that someone builds a rideable version.
In this project, we'll make battery packs essentially for free. If you need a lot, make a lot. If you need more voltage, add on more cells with couplers. If participants and students in your workshop or class all make their own, they can do it together, maybe even doing a manufacturing project to create many for future use.
For some time now, I have struggled with the expense and scarcity of battery holders. Costing anywhere from a dollar to three, they can raise the price point of a project, though they do look nice and work well. Since they are an item that most stores don't carry, you will have to order battery packs for projects that you intend to do. If you're planning a workshop or class with 25 people and want to use plastic battery holders, order ahead and pay up.
Plastic battery packs are also pretty easy to ruin if the ends of the wires are short-circuited accidentally or intentionally. A short circuit will heat up the batteries, which will then melt the plastic around one or both of the springs, causing the pack to fail. By making a battery pack, your participants and students can free themselves of the various barriers that purchased battery packs present for first run and experimental projects. For more formal projects, you or they may want to dig into the budget and buy some packs for a more polished look.
My first designs were done with cardboard from the recycling bin. I also made these with side by side arrangement. The way I am doing them these days is all in a line, which is probably not as sturdy or compact, but is definitely quicker. If you develop a better way of making these battery packs, please share pictures in the MAKE Flickr pool, and show us some links to them in action on projects.
Skills in this project:
Manufacturing
Trouble shooting and the design process
Identifying a conductor and insulator
Testing for electrical continuity
Testing for voltage
Designing for voltage
Materials you will need:
Duct tape
Tin foil
Batteries, AA or AAA are good to start with
Rubber band
Stranded wire
Tools:
Scissors
Utility knife
Wire cutters/strippers
Voltage/Ohm meter
Time Frame: Less than an hour, after you get the hang of it, you can make one in twenty minutes or so.
Mastery Objective: Students and participants will know how to make a 3 volt or more battery pack using readily available materials so that they can use them in electricity projects.
Process: Gather your supplies. Make the tubes For each battery pack, cut 3 four inch strips of duct tape. One will be the coupler, two will be for end caps. On each strip, cut a 1 inch square out of one end. fold the strip in half, leaving exposed a 1 inch section at the end. Be careful that the other adhesive is not exposed (it could stick to the battery later) Roll the strip onto a battery to make a tube. The exposed adhesive tab in the previous step should be the last section on. Do this to make three of these tubes. Make a coupler and end caps Crunch up or fold up some tin foil and put it in one of the tubes. This will help ensure that there is good electrical contact between the batteries. Put a battery into each side of the coupler. One should be positive end in, the other should be negative end in. Slide a tube over each end of the exposed batteries. Fold up a 1" x 2"section of tin foil so that it makes a flat band of foil. Make two of these. Fold over the end a couple of times so that it is a bit thicker. Put this thicker end over the end of one of the batteries in turn. Place a 3/8" to 1/2" wide section of tape over the end of the battery and end cap. Hold the end caps in place with a piece of tape. You will want to remove the tape when the battery dies or needs to be recharged, so maybe fold over the end to make a pull tab.
Extensions: Test for continuity Put your meter on either the continuity setting or the ohms/resistance setting. When you touch the probes to an object that is a conductor like two ends of a stripped wire, you will have continuity: the meter will beep in the continuity setting or it will show numbers in the ohms/resistance setting. Electricity can travel between these two points. If you do not get continuity, such as on a piece of plastic or glass, or if one end of the wire is not stripped, electricity cannot travel easily between these two points. This is an insulator. Increase your pack's voltage If your project needs 4.5 volts, 6 volts or more, you can add to the standard pack by slipping another battery onto the pack with another coupler. AA and AAA batteries are 1.5 volts each, so when you connect your batteries in series like this project, each battery you add boosts your voltage by 1.5 volts. Add wires Cut two stranded wires, about 2" to 4" long. Strip the ends about 3/8". On the end that will connect to the battery pack, spread the strands of the wire. On the end that will connect to your circuit, twist the wires together. If you have access to a soldering iron, tin the wires to keep them together. Test your pack and fix if needed Put your meter in DC voltage mode and touch the probes to each of the wires. The voltage for two batteries should read 3 volts. A (-) symbol in front of the number just means you have the probes on the battery backwards. If you get 0 volts, you may need to press the pack together to get a better connection. In this case, you can hold the pack tighter together with a rubber band or carefully tape the caps so that they fit tightly. Another problem that could give you 0 volts is that the batteries could be in the wrong direction. The negative of one battery has to touch the positive of the next battery. Use your battery pack You can use your new battery pack by twisting the wires on the pack to the wires on your circuit project. You can also solder a 9 volt battery top onto your pack wires so you can use the standardized clip of the 9 volt system. You can also twist your wires onto a connector cut from a power supply.
Teach your family to solder! Take a few pictures tagged as "MAKEcation" and put them in the MAKE Flickr pool by September 9th to enter to win a $100 Maker Shed gift certifiate!
This week's dog days of summer deal is our Mystery MAKE T-Shirt. You pick the size, and we pick the shirt. Let us surprise you! Hey, what do you want for just $3? Yep, $3, that's 80% OFF. Also, if you purchase more than $30 in the Maker Shed, along with your Mystery MAKE T-shirt, we will throw in a FREE Maker's Notebook! Read all the details here.
Grab your very own "Mystery Make T-Shirt", we have different shirts left over from promotions, obsolete colors & styles, heck, stuff we just found in a box in the warehouse! The catch is we get to pick 'em. Logo & color will vary, but you choose the size and style: man, woman or child, all for $3. What a deal! ...But wait there's more, if you buy a Mystery shirt with any other items and the order total is more than $30, we'll throw in a free Maker's Notebook ($20 Value) as well. Just type "Mystify Me" in your order comments (NOT in the coupon code field -we don't want the boss to know) and we'll take care of the rest.
Please Note: Don't worry, Maggie received plenty of treats for being such a trooper during this latest photo shoot! Oh, and your shirt will not be covered in fur!
The dog days of summer are upon us, and you know what that means? Time to hit the beach? Well, maybe. But, it also means that it's time for some special deals in the Maker Shed. Each week we will feature a kit at a special "dog days" discount. The deal will last about a week, so take advantage of the savings while you can.
Rachel @ CRAFT found this LEGO automated yarn ball winder, which resides at Twisted yarn shop in Portland, OR. Now that's the kind of MAKE/CRAFT synergy I like to see!
The ball winder was born out of boredom and concern. A good friend of Emily's is an out-of-work engineer, and he was in the shop, visiting us one day. We were winding a ball of yarn for a customer the old-fashioned way, and he was appalled - why were we expending so much energy to wind a ball of yarn!? So, he took an old winder home with him, and a month or so later, came into the shop with Mr. Roboto, version 1.0. We have since had an upgrade, and we absolutely love it!
He sent some technical info about the ball winder:
The Lego apparatus serves to electrically crank a Royal brand manual winder. Two 9V Lego motors, fed by an AC/DC power supply, drive the crank. On/Off and winding speed are controlled through a power button and potentiometer housed in an electronics project box. The entire assembly is mounted to an acrylic cutting board via zip-ties.
Our customers, as you can imagine, absolutely love it.
Using just a basic pot, small spring, and pushbutton switch, Danwagoner created a compact combo push-pot -
An idea I had for making one of my projects more user friendly and cut down on interfaces (buttons, etc). Completely made out of stuff I had laying around. Turn to scroll through, push down to select, and only one knob to deal with.
Nice idea - looks like a good way to simplify cramped layouts.
Tiny robots the size of a flea could one day be mass-produced, churned out in swarms and programmed for a variety of applications, such as surveillance, micromanufacturing, medicine, cleaning, and more. In an effort to reach this goal, a recent study has demonstrated the initial tests for fabricating microrobots on a large scale.
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