The Light Theremin is officially one of our most-modded Weekend Projects so far, suitable for both beginner and novice makers dabbling in electronics. We’ve seen a breadboard prototype by Matt for his first foray into circuits, and a further modded version by Steven with a potentiometer thrown in for additional sound control. Now Edward writes in with this wonderful Snap Circuit mod of the Light Thermin, combining stock parts from various sets with custom-made snaps. Explaining his own improvisations, Edward says: - The jumper wires do not come with any of the sets. I just ordered them seperately, but they are really handy to use with the IC socket.
- The IC socket comes with the biggest set (the 750), but I don’t believe it comes with any of the smaller sets. Of course it can be purchased seperately.
- I added a switch, but that comes with one of the smaller sets.
- I added the 1M Ohm resistor with a Snap Circuits 2-Spring Socket (see first picture below).
- I swapped out the stock photoresistor with a RadioShack one in a 2-Spring Socket (see second picture below).
Thanks, Edward! This mod is especially useful for explaining circuit design to young kids. The jumper cables allow you to visually trace the 555 Timer’s pins to the rest of the circuit, and various photoresistors can be swapped out on the fly to produce different sound results. 
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See all of the RadioShack Weekend Projects posts (to date)  Our featured image from the MAKE Flickr pool this week is Pete Prodoehl’s lovely shot of his MakerGear Prusa Mendel printer frame. It looks like a piece of pricey Danish furniture! It was a hard choice, for me, between that and Rob Hopeless’s photograph of the transparent Venus de Milo bust he recently printed on his homemade stereolithography system. And now, a pro tip for getting your images featured in this space: Good photography is always important to us, when choosing stuff to write about, but in these weekly Flickr pool roundups, it’s the whole ball game! There are usually tons of great builds, clever ideas, and fascinating projects submitted to the pool, each week, and I try to feature as many of these as I can during my regular weekday posts. But when I’m choosing images for these Sunday roundups, style wins out over substance. A few of our regular contributors have figured this out, already, but now it’s time to let the cat out of the bag: Here, it’s all about presentation. So keep the eye candy coming, folks! Let’s see what you’ve got! 
MakerGear Prusa Mendel RepRap (In Progress) from Pete Prodoehl.
Venus from robhopeless.
[Untitled] from arms22.
Joule Thief breadboard from hudson.
Woodbug, standing tall from fasaxc.
Dual Axis Angular Sensor with Video from Mr. Bell.
Controller from Brigade Neurale.   We’re giving away amazing kits from our new Make: Ultimate Kit Guide EVERY DAY — thousands of dollars worth of merchandise, including MakerBots!
To celebrate the release of our latest publication, the Make: Ultimate Kit Guide 2012 (and its companion website), we're giving away one of the cool kits reviewed in the issue each day during the holiday season. Today’s item is our extremely popular Getting Started with Arduino Kit V3.0 and the new 2nd edition of the Getting Started with Arduino book (combined $80 value). Here’s Make: Labs intern Tyler Moskowite’s review from the Guide: The world of Arduino microcontrollers can be a challenge to break into — but not if you’re equipped with this kit, which includes all of the hardware you need to work through each of the experiments in Getting Started with Arduino, the popular introductory book by Arduino project co-founder Massimo Banzi. To make it even easier, all of the components are solder-free, except for the DC plug and battery pack – just plug, play, and learn. Not only does the book go over all of the Arduino’s features, it also gives a good overview of basic electronics. After completing this kit, I found myself ready to take on all sorts of physical computing projects.
To be eligible for today’s giveaway, all you have to do is leave a comment below in this post. The entry period for today’s prize will be until 11:59pm PST tonight. We’ll choose one person at random, you’ll be notified by email, and you’ll have 48 hours to respond. The Winners List is kept on the Giveaway landing page. That’s it! No purchase necessary or anything else to do. Please leave only one comment per post. You can enter as many giveaways as you like until you win. This giveaway is for US residents only. You also must be 18 years old to enter (Kids: Ask your parents to enter). See the Kit-A-Day Giveaway landing page for full sweepstakes details and Official Rules. Day 1 and 2 Giveaways: The winner of the Day 1 MakerBot giveaway was James Garrett. As you can imagine, he’s very excited. Congrats, James! Winner of Day 2 has been notified. They have 48 hours to respond.  
Instructables user urant shows us how to turn some copper pipe fittings, lead-free solder, a plastic syringe, and a few odd bits of hardware into a truly pocket-sized espresso maker, complete with integral alcohol stove and boiler. More:  More Recent Articles | |
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