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July 9, 2009

How-To: Cryptex

Instructables user merijnvw made this cryptex, and shows you how as well.

Posted by Becky Stern | Jul 9, 2009 02:00 PM
DIY Projects, Instructables | Permalink | Comments (0) | Suggest a Site

On the heels of our Toolbox column on knives and multitools comes news of a new tool in the Leatherman family, the Knifeless Fuse. The tool is marketed for "knife-prohibitive situations" and has everything you'd expect on a similar multitool (needlenose/regular pliers, two wire cutters, wire stripper, small/large/Phillips screwdrivers, scissors, file, can/bottle opener, 8″ ruler) except for a blade. But as Steven Leckart says on BB Gadgets: "...The thing's still potentially-lethal and probably won't get through TSA. So really, I don't get it." We don't either.

Leatherman Fuse [via Toolmonger]

EV dragsters!

Design News has an article and slide show piece on electric dragsters. The car pictured here is Mike Willmon's electric Pinto, the Crazyhorse. The infamous Pinto gas tank (and the back seat) has been replaced with 848 lbs of lead-acid battery. The car is powered by two nine-inch diameter brush DC motors, coupled back-to-back. The Crazyhorse uses the Cafe Electric Zilla motor controller, which allows you to slam huge amounts of current (up to 2,000 amps!) into the motors to blast the car off the line like any respectable fuel-based dragster. Last year, the Crazyhorse did a quarter-mile in 12.47 seconds.

Drag Racing Goes Electric

Party with Barbot the bartender robot

This Saturday, let a robot serve your booze at NYC Resistor's Barbot party. Barbot, the bartender robot knows how to make a variety of mixed drinks. Like all great hacks, sometimes it gets its drink mixing protocol confused. Last time, my gin and tonic was 4 parts gin 1 part tonic.

Date: Saturday July 11th, 2009
Time: 9pm-2am
Where: 397 Bridge St, Floor 5, Brooklyn
Cover: $20 gets you as many drinks as you'd like made by a robot

Greenhouse made of glass negatives

An old friend of mine, photographer Billy Baque, once told me of a rumor about gardeners in the early 20th century reusing unwanted glass plate negatives to build greenhouses. This idea--a sunlit glass room full of growing plants, dappled with the accidental shadows of unwanted memories--is to me almost too beautiful to explain.

So I tried to track it down in the tubes, and discovered that the story is apocryphal, likely originating in the tale of American Civil War photographer Mathew Brady, who is rightly famous for being one of the first journalists to bring images of the true horror of modern warfare into the homes of the taxpayers who fund it. During reconstruction, however, Brady's graphic images of "the late unpleasantness" were decidedly unwelcome--so much so, the story goes, that he eventually sold the negatives to gardeners who needed cheap glass for their greenhouses.

I have found no online evidence of the existence of any such period greenhouses. However, in the summer of 2003, collage artist and assistant professor Michael Oatman, together with a class of architecture students at Rensselaer Polytechnic, undertook the construction of the greenhouse shown above. It incorporates about 2500 glass negatives culled from a database of more than 15,000 criminal mug shots from the turn of the 20th century. I have no word on the fate of the work, titled "Conservatory," so I can't say if it's still possible to view it. If anyone knows, do please drop me a comment below.

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Visualize your heartbeat by gluing a straw to your neck

straw.heart.monitor.jpg

I recommend doing this in a crowded, public place. Perhaps an airport or a police station. Ignore all who question you.

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ATtiny2313 breakout board v1.1

Upgrading their ATiny2313 breakout board business card, Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories writes:

There are a couple of nice improvements for the new version. First, we made the board single sided to match our original ATmegaxx8 board-- this means that it's relatively easy to print out the layer separations and make your own at home, if you like to etch your own boards. We also changed around the configuration of the prototyping areas, making it so that you can now fit up to two DIP-8 packages, breadboard style, on the board.

As usual, it's open source with files included to make your own at home.

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Business card AVR breakout boards (for ATmetaXX8)

From the pages of MAKE:

Printed Circuit Boards. Step-by-step instructions for making your own PCBs at home. MAKE Volume 02 - Page 164. Check out this article now in the digital edition!

Frayed Wire, Seattle, Saturday, July 11th

Josh Kopel, of Dorkbot Seattle, wrote in to tell us about the latest db event, called Frayed Wire. The event is a collaboration with the Youngstown Cultural Center and 911 Media Arts Center, a one-day conference, unconference, and workshop series. Check out their amazing roster of speakers and workshop presenters. Looks like a lot of fun. The event is $50 for the day.

Frayed Wire

Peter Semmelhack, of Bug Labs, on "Hacking Health"

Peter Semmelhack, Founder and CEO of Bug Labs, sent us the following piece on creating an open source movement in health care technology. We thought it was interesting and something MAKE readers might want to chew over and chime in on. - Gareth

This is my first attempt at putting into words what I've been contemplating for several weeks, so you'll have to forgive me if it seems a bit rough around the edges. But I've learned that when an idea bangs around in my head long enough, it's usually a good idea to share it with others and either start a larger discussion or euthanize it. So here it is. Tell me what you think.

I believe we need an open source movement dedicated to health care. In essence, I want to rally the same fanatical zeal that has helped build some of the best, most complex software systems (LAMP, etc) ever devised to help address some of the world's thorniest health care problems. I understand that's a very easy thing to say and enormously complicated to actually do, but I'll try to provide a simple example of how I think we could start. After all, open source as we know it today did not start with Linux.

Right now, if you have someone in your life with Type 1 diabetes, I bet it's safe to say that you'd want notification (email, txt msg, IM, etc.) if he or she experienced a life threatening low or high blood sugar level. You'd especially want to know if they experienced one of these events and then fell down. It's also a safe bet that you know getting this type of alert is virtually impossible today. There isn't a device or gadget you can go buy that provides it. Building a wireless glucometer with an integrated accelerometer would not be too hard technically. In fact, I know a few people who could hack it together in a week.

The same could be said about a device that helps monitor the breathing of kids with juvenile asthma, or the whereabouts of someone suffering from Alzheimer's. I could go on, but you get the point. There are hundreds, if not thousands, of specific (and specifically precise) tools that could be developed to help everyone lead healthier lives, and help communities take care of one another. If you look at all the active communities devoted to open source software - games, music, programming languages, etc. - I'd like to hope that it's not too far a stretch to believe we can inspire the same energy and passion around improving the health and well-being of others. Think of the benefits associated with groups worldwide sharing their discoveries, methods and processes to achieve better results. This is not new territory. It happens everyday right now with FOSS communities.

One of the biggest hurtles is economics. Building these types of systems are expensive. But maybe there is a way address it. There are approximately 1M children suffering from juvenile diabetes in the US (29,000 new occurrences each year). If the community could design, build, and certify an open source prototype device that could potentially reduce mortality by even 5% per year, you would have a huge impact. Potentially, the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundationa (JDRF) could sponsor its manufacture and sell it/give it to any/all sufferers. Assuming a reasonable price for making 1M devices (say $90 --> $90M to equip every child with a device, though, of course that wouldn't be necessary) it would be within easy reach of any number of foundations and/or government programs. Or sell it at a profit with the proceeds going back to JDRF. Communities have worked this way in the past. Why not apply it here?

This is just one example. I'm sure there are better ones. But the point is, you could make the same case for virtually any health issue. The key to living longer, healthier lives, and lowering the costs of providing care is via better information. Getting better information is what good tools are designed to do. I'm arguing that we should explode the creation of these tools. But rather than rely solely on the world of business to lead the charge, why not organize and energize communities of hackers to create the technical foundations for a health care revolution unlike anything we've seen before? It can't be any more complicated than hacking a Linux kernel ;)

P.S. For a list of some of the activity going on now around health care and open source, check here

Interactive LED wall in Montreal

Vimeo poster Steve Bulhoes writes:

This is a project I worked on with Marc-André Baril while I was at Moment Factory. They created an interactive wall for the tourist information office, La Vitrine in Montreal.

The installation includes tracking devices and low-resolution LED displays and is capable of showing many different visualizations based on the presence and movement of people.

Visitors can interact with the installation every night from 7 PM to 11 PM. La Vitrine, 145, rue Sainte-Catherine Ouest, Montréal

La Vitrine - Montreal [Thanks, Katie Wilson!]

Arduino solar tracking

I really like the idea of using an inexpensive micro-controller for this project. There are commercial solar tracking devices, but those are a lot more expensive and aren't nearly as satisfying as making your own. Check out the web site for a lot more information.

This is just the first part of my overall project idea which I will keep posting about as I progress further. I was able to power up my 65″ HD TV, cable box and Wii with the solar panel I am using by adding my scooter battery and an invertor. So I want to pursue some of this idea but make something that is more effecient. I am going to start keeping a better track of our energy bill each month, and see if I can bring it down. I wont be able to go of the grid just yet, but I think it will be interesting to experiment with.

More about Arduino Solar Tracking

In the Maker Shed:

Arduino Family
Make: Arduino

NYC Subway Cuff

This NYC Subway cuff by Tiffany Burnette would be a reasonable remake for a beginning metalsmith using a toner-transfer etch process (or a laser cutter) and a bracelet mandrel. Via Core77.

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Moleskine map preserves your street cred

Geometric reactive bioforms

Meridith.Pingree.raindrop.jpg

Some incredible artwork from Meridith Pingree.

My artwork physically tracks human behavior and traffic patterns using quasi-scientific, homespun, reactive sculptures. I use sensors to pick up on people's energy and movement throughout a space. My work exists as amplifications of this subtle energy, creating unconventional, complex portraits of people and spaces. For example: kinetic links of a centipede-like creature respond individually to create a live mutating curve. Robotic, rainbow colored gel pens selectively record human traffic patterns. Personalities captured by subtle head movements are frozen in rapid-prototyped sculptures.

Flashback: Convertible Jockey Box

It's no mystery that warm weather and cold beer go mighty well together. Which brings me to our flashback for this week: the DIY Convertible Jockey Box by Carlo Longino from MAKE Volume 07. For those not in the know, a jockey box is a funny little cooler with a built-in beer tap on the outside. Inside, the cooler houses plumbing to draw beer from a keg and a metal coil or cooling plate to chill it. Warm beer in a keg becomes cold beer in your cup. Great, but ready-made versions run about $150 or more. This homebrew version is not only cheaper but more adaptable. Longino writes, "In jockey-box mode, the convertible cooler houses the heat-exchanger coil while the keg stays outside. In mini-keg mode, the entire keg goes inside the cooler, and you don't use the coil. Standard compressed-air coupler and plug fittings let you easily swap internal parts to change the cooler's beer operational mode."

Here is the entire project shared through our Digital Edition, so you can get the good times flowing.

We are sold out of all back issues of Volume 07, including The Next Year box set which includes it. Luckily, if you subscribe to MAKE, you get access to all 18 volumes on our Digital Edition.

Citizen Engineer zine/comic/kit

It's a good thing that Limor and Phil of adafruit industries only use their powers for good. Otherwise, we'd all be in trouble. The dynamic hacking duo has just released a new comic book version of their awesome Citizen Engineer video, episode 1, on SIM card hacking. They're printing the books on-demand at adafruit, limited edition, 32-page, full-color. It also comes with an adafruit SIM Reader Kit v1.0. Can't wait to get mine. I haven't fed my zine/ homebrewed comics habit in a while. Great job, guys!

SIM reader & Comic book - Citizen Engineer Volume 01

Creating a continous inking printer

There are few personal tech indignities that get me more riled up than the cost of printer ink, the control of the ink trade by the big printer companies, and the inability of most cartridges to be user-refillable. So I love this ol' hack, from 2002, that's resurfaced on the hack sites. It takes an Epson 760 printer and makes it into a continuous ink supply system by hacking each of the carts and attaching tubing that feeds ink to them. I assume folks have done similar hacks to other printer models.

Eddie's El-Cheapo CIS (Continuous Inking System) [via Hack n Mod]

Next Dorkbot SoCal, July 11th

This Saturday, July 11, 2009, is the next meeting of Dorkbot Southern California:

***** 1:00pm
***** Machine Project
***** 1200 D North Alvarado Street
***** Los Angeles, CA 90026

Here's the line-up of speakers:

Heather Knight Previously with the Personal Robots Group at the MIT Media Lab, Heather is a Social Roboticist who works at the Jet Propulsion Lab. She will present her work enabling robots to understand nonverbal human gestures and talk about the potentials for interactive technology incorporated into everyday objects, such as clothing.

Jody Zellen
Jody Zellen is an artist living in Los Angeles, California. She works in many media simultaneously making photographs, installations, net art, public art, as well as artists' books that explore the subject of the urban environment.

Xuan "Sean" Li
Sean will show a "Hertzian Explorer" that reveals the invisible electromagnetic waves of computation and communication in information society.

More info here.

This welded art is nuts (and bolts)

These amazing welded creations from Brown Dog Welding are so characterful and detailed, it's hard to imagine they're basically constructed of nuts, bolts, screws, and bits of scrap metal.

Brown Dog Welding photostream

How-To: Simple metal-air battery

Here's a nice demonstration of an aluminum-air battery which produces 1.0 V and 100 mA from the oxidation of aluminum foil. Metal-air cells such as this find common application in hearing aid batteries, for instance, which are driven by the oxidation of zinc.

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How-To: Make your own Montgolfier ram

clemson hydraulic ram.jpg

A Montgolfier ram, also called a "hydraulic ram pump" or "hydram," is an arrangement of valves and reservoirs that can, without the addition of external power, raise downward flowing water to a point higher than its source. It does so, essentially, by dividing the flow into two streams, the larger of which gives power to raise the smaller. It is, in effect, a hydraulic transformer, and can be extremely useful in situations where a large flow of water is available, but at an inconvenient location. Clemson University hosts an excellent tutorial on making your own from hardware store parts.

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