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2013/12/18

Make: Daily

Make: Daily

DIY Hacks & How To's: Glowing Treasure Chest

Img_8448bcWe have all seen movies and TV show where someone opens a treasure chest and the treasure inside is so shiny that the container is glowing as soon as it is opened. I thought that this would make a great effect for Christmas presents. So I made a small treasure chest with a built-in light that turns on when it is opened. The lights are activated by a normally open momentary switch.

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New Project: How to Use LEDs to Detect Light

LED-2Since an electromagnetic telephone receiver can double as a microphone, can a semiconductor light detector double as a light emitter?

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Gifts for the Electronics Whiz, Geek, Nerd, Wonk, Ace, Pro, Babe, or Stud in Your Life

This thing is a giant chip! Not a disproportionate Dorito (nor even a tremendous Tostito), but a giant integrated circuit, or IC. These little "black boxes" combine dozens, hundreds, thousands, and upwards into the kajillions of little discrete resistors and transistors in a single package with inputs and outputs that respond in well-defined ways. Learning to understand and use ICs is one of the earliest and most exciting challenges when you're entering the field. And the classic 555 timer is the chip that almost everybody cuts their teeth on. It's so useful, so versatile, so robust, so reliable, so inexpensive and so widely available, that it's pretty common for old-timers to get a bit nostalgic and/or sentimental about it. Hence you see things like 555 benches, 555 footstools, 555 jewelry, and other fandom-y projects that, considering we're ultimately talking about a little black wedge of silicon and plastic, might be a bit confusing for the uninitiated. This thing works just like the familiar 555 timer chip, but instead of being manufactured from a sliver of silicon wafer, it's manufactured by you, on your benchtop, from a stack of discrete resistors and transistors soldered into the black PCB body. When it's done, you can hook up wires to the finger-friendly screw terminals and use it just like a monolithic 555 for projects, demonstrations, or educational activities. Pay attention to what you're doing, as you build, and by the time you're done you'll understand the 555 literally inside and out.Take it from one who knows: this stuff is awesome. Even if you have no idea what it does or why anyone would care.

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2013′s Notable Maker Books

collageI get to read a lot of the books that I help create, but I also have to contend with a constantly-growing list of books I plan to read... when I find the time.

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The Women Behind the Wright Brothers

wright-brothers-airplane-001-1The Wright Brothers could not have invented the airplane without the involvement of two key women in their family.

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