We’re hosting an imromptu webcast for the NASA Make Challenge next Tuesday! Dale Dougherty hosts:
The NASA Make Challenge is an invitation for makers to participate in the exploration of space and give students an opportunity to build an experimental kit that can be flown on a future space flight. These experiments will be based on the CubeSat modules. To help makers think about building kits for space flight, we’ll bring together some experts who have developed and used the Cubesat program.
Makers in Space: Developing Experiments for the NASA Make Challenge
Wednesday April 19th, 11am PT/2pm ET
Watch at makezine.com/space or on UStream
Please join us in the UStream chat to interact live with the show.
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Here at headquarters, we’re cranking on producing the next issue of MAKE, Volume 27, themed Robots! What better way to celebrate than to host a fun, simple robot contest? We liked the open-endedness of our Volume 26 Karts and Wheels Contest (must have wheels and carry a person), and the cool, creative entries we got as a result (Bike Buh Que, anyone?). Robots can have so much character, so we decided to make the ruling criteria of this contest most entertaining. Let your robot’s character shine! Why did folks adore Wall-E? His personality, of course. And since robot personalities come through best in action, submitting a video of your new friend is mandatory.
The rules are simple:
1. Come up with an entertaining, original robot with tons of character.
2. Document your build step-by-step with clear instructions, photos, and a video of the robot in action, then share it on Make: Projects.
3. Send an email to robots@makeprojects.com with a link to your Make: Projects entry when you're done. Easy!
The editors of MAKE will then pick the best project, polish it up, and publish it in MAKE Volume 27. Entries will be judged on the quality of the documentation as well as the entertainment value of the robot. The deadline for entries is 11:59 PDT on May 13, 2011.
All entries will be judged by the editorial staff of MAKE based on the following judging criteria: (a) Entertainment Value: 50%; (b) Quality of Written Documentation: 25%; and (c) Quality of Documentation Photography/Video: 25%. The entry with the highest total score among all judging criteria will be the chosen as the Grand Prize Winner.
The winning entry will be published in MAKE Volume 27. The 3 runners-up will be featured on Makezine.com and mentioned in MAKE Volume 27.
Wondering what our definition of “robot” is? Our Makezine editor-in-chief Gareth Branwyn, when working on his Absolute Beginner’s Guide to Building Robots book, surveyed about 20 experts in the field, and came up with a solid definition:
A machine that senses its world in some way, processes the information from those sensors in some way, and then actuates a response in some way.
Caveat: our executive editor Paul Spinrad pointed out that this definition works as long as “senses its world” isn’t limited to merely sensing whether the world flipped its on/off switch, though switch “sensing” (e.g. bump-switch navigation) is fair game.
Questions? Post them in the comments below. Good luck, and most importantly, have fun!
This transmitter design is commonly credited to Japanese multimedia artist Tetsuo Kogawa. It takes audio input through a 1/4″ phono jack and, constructed as shown, without the optional antenna connections, will broadcast an FM radio signal about 30 feet.
This is the standard model of Mr. Kogawa’s simplest FM transmitter, which is slightly more complex than his most basic design in that it includes a trim capacitor to adjust the transmitting frequency. It can be powered by a 9V battery and uses a hand-turned copper coil.
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