MAKE

In This Issue...

Maker Faire New York: Successful Build for a Young Maker
Maker Faire New York: Giant Mechanical Thumb Wars
Open ROV at Maker Faire
SketchChair: "Open Source Ikea"
Ebon Upton/Raspberry Pi Accepting Makey Award
Maker Faire New York: Lumiphonic Creature Choir
See the Lego Pancake Bot at Maker Faire
Mini Mustache Machine
Pinhole Polaroid Photography
Adafruit's Electronic Coloring Book

Maker Faire New York: Successful Build for a Young Maker

It was great to see Audrey Armstrong, age 9, successfully complete her first solderless breadboard project at our breadboarding workshop. She built a 555 timer-controlled blinking LED circuit with a photo resistor to control the rate of the blinking. I was impressed. Great job, Audrey!

Filed under: Maker Faire

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Maker Faire New York: Giant Mechanical Thumb Wars

The classic game of thumb war meets rock-em-sock-em-robots—if the robots in question are 30 feet tall and have hands the size of engine blocks. Thumby Wars, as it’s known, was the “Team’s Choice Selection” winner in this year’s Red Bull Creation contest, and saw its first public appearance today at Maker Faire New York. The winner, team Maker Twins of Scottsdale, Arizona, is lead by designers and identical twins Mike and Pat Murray.

Red Bull Creation – Maker Twins Profile

Filed under: Maker Faire, Toys and Games

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Open ROV at Maker Faire

I ran into David Lang, co-founder of the OpenROV Project and MAKE contributor, at the OpenROV booth at Maker Faire. He and his cohorts build open source submersibles and they have a couple of the robots on hand to show off. They’re at Robot Row in Area C.

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SketchChair: "Open Source Ikea"

Greg Saul holds up a tiny CNC-cut chair. The 3D software for the chair is available on SketchChair.

Everybody likes Ikea for its cheap and relatively cool-looking furniture. The only problem is a trip to Ikea is a half-day commitment what with all the time spent parking and waiting in line. Diatom Studio’s SketchChair hopes to solve that problem.

The start-up company was one of the exhibitors at Maker Faire New York and their digitally rendered, CNC cut chairs were a big hit.

“It’s an open source Ikea,” said co-founder Greg Saul.

SketchChair is currently in beta and offers open source 3D software tool that allows you to design, build and share your furniture design. There are also stock designs and ones from other users you can download and fabricate with a laser cutter.

The company raised about $32,000 on Kickstarter, most of which went into giving backers their rewards, said Saul.

“The best part about part Kickstarter was it helped create our community,” he said.

Filed under: Desktop Manufacturing, Maker Faire

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Ebon Upton/Raspberry Pi Accepting Makey Award

MAKE contributing editor Matt Richardson awards the 2012 Makey Award for Most Hackable Gadget to Raspberry Pi. Accepting was Ebon Upton, creator of the Pi, the wildly popular new Linux-based computer system on a chip.

We have Raspberry Pi boards and starter kits in the Maker Shed here at the Faire, if you want to stop by, pick one up, and start experimenting with this exciting new technology.

[Photo: Gregory Hayes/MAKE]

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Maker Faire New York: Lumiphonic Creature Choir

Come see the Lumiphonic Creature Choir at World Maker Faire inside the Great Hall. The Choir will be performing at these times and this project is not to be missed. Part music performance, part projection, the faces that appear on the end of tentacles talk & sing and complete the performance. Spectacular and simultaneously surreal, the Choir is the brainchild of Synarcade Audio-Visuals.

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See the Lego Pancake Bot at Maker Faire

One of my favorite projects of the Faire — and there are tons of insane ones! — is Miguel Valenzuela’s Lego pancake CNC that can output pancake batter in any shape you’d like, including the shape of water molecules as well as the obligatory (if you have kids) Mickey Mouse format. Be sure to check it out, Miguel and his wife Runi are showing it off in Zone A in the north wing, or check out Miguel‘s web site. And don’t miss his peristaltic syrup pump!

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Mini Mustache Machine

Jason Kridner from BeagleBoard.org and Texas Instruments is currently wandering around World Maker Faire New York with a BeagleBone-based mustache machine. The device uses a webcam and computer vision to detect faces and superimpose fancy mustaches. The project is powered by an off-the-shelf battery pack, which he keeps in his pocket. If you spot Jason at the Faire, say hello and see what a more distinguished version of yourself would look like.

Filed under: BeagleBone, Maker Faire

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Pinhole Polaroid Photography

Here’s 15-year-old Chip Mahoney with his nifty pinhole Polaroid camera. It takes about 20 seconds to make an exposure. He showed me a photo he took earlier in the day and the people are wispy ghost trails. Very beautiful.

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Adafruit's Electronic Coloring Book

I ran into Phil Torrone and Ladyada here at Maker Faire New York and they gave me an advance copy of their coloring book, E is for Electronics, an A-to-Z intro to electronics, from Andre-Marie Ampere to Clarence Zener (namesake of the Zener diode). The delightful illustrations are by Robert Ullman.