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November 24, 2009

EmbeddedSPARK 2010 Challenge

Microsoft is running another contest for 2010 centered on embedded systems and their embeddedSPARK platform, the Windows embedded software for hobbyists. The grand prize this year is a $15,000. The theme is "Fun & Games." See the embeddedSPARK website for all of the contest details.

embeddedSPARK 2010 Challenge

Posted by Gareth Branwyn | Nov 24, 2009 04:00 PM
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A breadboard for your groaning board

The folks at Sparkle Labs have put up a cute project on their site. It's a simple LED circuit on a breadboard (built with their Discover Electronics Kit), with some Turkey papercraft attached, to create a Thanksgiving table decoration. This is a great way to get your kids involved in a basic electronics project that becomes part of the holiday festivities (er... for those of you in the States).

Thanksgiving LED Turkey centerpiece project

Jonathan Wolfe's puzzle acorns

My buddy Jon makes these awesome little puzzle boxes from acorns. There are four shown in the video: one pair consisting of a smaller hinged acorn that nests, matryoshka-style, inside a larger one with a wire spring latch; a larger, locking nut that is opened by removing a small pin; and, finally, a large hinged version that is unlatched by knocking it against a surface from a certain angle. Besides this post, the project doesn't have any web presence to speak of, but Jon says its fine to e-mail him directly if you are interested in more information.

Make: Holiday Gift Guide 2009: DIY photography

Know someone that is interested in photography? Or a tinkerer who wants to present their work in a better light? Then we have a guide for you! Here are some project and gear recommendations to help you find the perfect present.

Make them a photo with DIY bokeh effects (Free, if you have the equipment)
Use your leet photography skillz to make a photo that you can give as a gift, with a bokeh filter made from a piece of cardstock.

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Dance of the Christmas Robots

It's still way too early for holiday music and decorations, however this was too good to pass up. Robobuilder made this RoboBuilder Xmas Dance Routine to demonstrate the capabilities of their 5720t 'Huno' robotics kit. Ok, I'll take ten. [via neatorama]

SPARK Project #3, Post #2

Blinking an LED and transmitting text to a serial terminal is not the most exciting thing in the world, but it's very cool to breathe life into a balky computer, even at the most basic level. Also, I have worked with enough development tools to know that it can be a lot of work going from the first build to basic function. Many vendors, like National Instruments, Texas Instruments, and others, have recognized the value of making a good first impression, while preserving all the power and sophistication available to the user. I do understand that ease of use can be hard to achieve, especially with complex, powerful tools. I own a small Sherline CNC mill that I built up with 3-phase brushless motors, a custom motor controller, and optical limit switches. It was a fun project, especially building the machine and seeing it run for the first time. I use it much less frequently than I would like, but it's been very handy for many of my projects. The mill is powerful enough for small projects, and simple enough that I can ignore it for several months without forgetting how to use it. I also have a little experience running large industrial CNC mills. I could make a lot of cool devices if I had a 5-axis commercial CNC machine, but using the machine effectively would require a substantial and continuous investment of time. Given what can go wrong, improper operation resulting from infrequent practice can be disastrous.

I've experienced a similar comparison between Windows Embedded CE and other prototyping and development tools I've worked with. For simple embedded projects, I use a wide variety of tools, from Arduino to ARM and others. I like to program in C or C++, using assembly only when I have to. I have been known to slip uLinux into projects when I can. These systems are like the Sherline CNC mill. They have limitations, yet are valuable from an ease-of-use perspective. Windows Embedded CE is more like the large industrial CNC mill - very powerful once time has been invested.

Now about those XBees, check out the Microsoft SPARK site for more!

Sparkfun's free day January 7th

Sparkfun is giving away things for free on January 7!

You can blame it on Chris Anderson's book Free. After reading his book, I started kicking around the idea of what we can do that's 'free'. Sure, we have free bits (open-source hardware designs, available code, etc.), but we don't have free physical widgets. Now combine that with our love of creating shear havoc (AVC, C&D letter, Portable Rotary Phone), and you get Free Day.
Nobody gives away a free physical thing. There's always a catch. So up front: you have to pay shipping. Other than that, it's open season.

$100 max per household

You pay shipping

Limit of $100,000 in giveaways for the day

Starts 9AM MST January 7th, 2010

Ends 11PM MST January 7th, 2010 (or when we hit $100k, whichever comes first)

Rainchecks for popular items will be allowed

DIY capacitive pressure sensor tile

I am a sucker for a good SketchUp exploded view (although I think the screws shown in this one just have to be wrong). This plan comes from the usbddr project. From the readme file:

usbddr is firmware for the Atmel ATMega8 which implements a usb controller ("dance pad") for games such as stepmania. In contrast to other homebrew dance pads, it uses capacitive sensing, eliminating mechanical wear and allowing adjustable sensitivity.

There's some good discussion of the project over at Hack a Day,

Paxtruder

Charles Pax is working on a new MakerBot extruder he's aptly calling the Paxtruder. It makes it super easy to change out the plastic filament, and can even be butted up against another one of itself for potential support material extrusion one day. Check out the plans on Thingiverse.

Make: Gift Guide 2009: Gifts that will inspire your kids

The holiday season is a great time of year, especially for kids! This year I came up with a list of products that will inspire your children, and let you in on the fun too! Many of these recommendations were inspired by my own childhood. I certainly made a lot of kits growing up, and I've included a few of my favorites in this list! Remember, the holiday season is a great time to start a new project with your kids. Teach them something new, get involved....and don't forget to have some fun!

Haba architectural blocks (OOMPA, $16.49 - $89.99)
I was lucky enough as a kid to have a really cool set of blocks that were made by my grandfather. We made houses, mazes for our little rodent friends, racetracks, and just about anything else you could imagine. Most blocks today are standard squares and rectangles, maybe an arch or two. Haba blocks are the exception. They make an incredible variety of blocks, including Baroque Building Blocks, the Coliseum, Leaning Tower of Pisa, Castle parts, and a lot more. Be sure to click through all the pages to see the complete line of Haba architectural building blocks.

Drawdio Kit (Maker Shed, $19.50)
Drawdio is a really fun DIY electronics kit and musical instrument. It's easy to assemble, and fun to hack! Drawdio has been kid-tested at my house for many hours, and is a hit with everyone who tries it! The kit requires some soldering, but you could make that into a great learning experience for your little engineer in training.

Drawdio is an electronic pencil that lets you make music while you draw! It's a great project for beginners: An easy kit with instant gratification! Essentially, its a very simple musical synthesizer that uses the conductive properties of pencil graphite to create different sounds. The result is a fun toy that lets you draw musical instruments on any piece of paper.

Telescope (Orion, $49.95 - $300+)
I have to admit, I never owned a telescope, but that may change soon. Recently, I've been researching telescopes, both DIY and commercial versions. I plan on getting a truss tube Dobsonian scope one day, but they're fairly expensive, so I might have to wait a while longer, or try to make a DIY version. Orion seems to have a nice selection of beginner scopes, at reasonable prices. However, do your research before making any large investment.

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Working handcuff made with Makerbot

From the MAKE Flickr pool

Flickr member Giant Eye created a handcuff mechanism with his Makerbot Cupcake CNC -

3d printers are incredibly boss, cool, fantastic, and other words that mean they make me tingle. I designed these handcuffs (okay I've only printed one out at the moment) using only fdm printable parts.

Nice work! Check out the project plans on Thingiverse.

Amazing origami mushroom video

I'm not sure if this isn't more rightly called "paper sculpture" than origami. True it uses only one sheet of paper and there are no cuts, but, well...watch the video and you'll see what I mean. Besides getting to see the mushrooms themselves, which are almost photo-realistic, it's worth it to see how a master with 20 years of experience moves his hands. [via Boing Boing]

Science gets auto-tuned

A refreshingly different kind of mash-up -

"We Are All Connected" was made from sampling Carl Sagan's Cosmos, The History Channel's Universe series, Richard Feynman's 1983 interviews, Neil deGrasse Tyson's cosmic sermon, and Bill Nye's Eyes of Nye Series, plus added visuals from The Elegant Universe (NOVA), Stephen Hawking's Universe, Cosmos, the Powers of 10, and more. It is a tribute to great minds of science, intended to spread scientific knowledge and philosophy through the medium of music.

Download the mp3 over at Symphony of Science. [via Tag Sale Cosmology]

3D scanner using standard webcam

With so much cool stuff popping up these days you notice when something truly draws awe. Qi Pan, a PhD candidate at the Engineering Department of Cambridge University, has developed a novel approach to capturing 3D objects with a standard webcam. Called ProFORMA, Pan's software digitizes and image maps an object in 3D as the user rotates it in front of the camera in realtime. Additionally, the physical object can be used as a marker to overlay the virtual object in realtime for potential Augmented Reality applications. [via Core77]

As the user rotates the object in front of a stationary camera, a partial model is reconstructed and displayed to the user to assist view planning. The model is also used by the system to robustly track the pose of the object. Models are rapidly produced through a Delaunay tetrahedralisation of points obtained from on-line structure from motion estimation, followed by a probabilistic tetrahedron carving step to obtain a textured surface mesh of the object.

CupCake CNC build, part 4: Update & burning the bootloaders

IMG_9407 2.JPG

I planned on writing an entry about burning bootloaders and updating the firmware, but I just realized my kit comes ready to go! Yay! This is a major advantage to purchasing the Generation 3 Electronics kit. If you're making you own boards, be sure to check out these detailed instructions on burning bootloaders and updating firmware before going any further.

Here's the description of the Generation 3 Electronics kit [Mostly Assembled]:

This is a kit of mostly assembled electronics. All of the hard stuff is taken care of for you, and the only soldering that remains is the opto endstops which are very simple (only through hole components, no SMT). The stepper drivers, extruder controller, and motherboard all come fully assembled and ready to use. The extruder controller and motherboard have been pre-programmed with the MakerBot firmware and Arduino bootloader.

I know, I know, it's been a while since my last entry, and I apologize. The truth is, I was a bit under the weather last week, and my CupCake CNC kit had to sit and wait patiently for me to recover. The good news is, I'm feeling much better now and am super motivated to start printing parts! The next entry will be packed with CupCake building goodness. Promise!

Next up, making the pulleys and enclosure. As you can see, I chose a butchers wax finish. It's nontoxic, and nonflammable, which makes documenting it in my studio a lot easier. Also, it preserves the beauty of the wood, including the laser burns! Besides, if I don't like it, I can always cut out a new enclosure.

Ask questions! Do you want to see a better picture of a particular part, a different camera angle, a video perhaps? Maybe you have a suggestion for a cool mod or hack? Let me know in the comments. I'll try to answer them as best as I can. Thanks!

Build history:

Part 1: Introduction & background
Part 2: Unboxing
Part 3: Electronics
Part 4: Update & burning the bootloaders
Part 5: Pulley & enclosure assembly
Part 6: Y Stage Assembly
Part 7: X Stage Assembly
Part 8: X/Y Stage Installation

Man invents electric lobster taser

Photos Xlarge Lobster11 Rgb 11-19-09
Tasering just isn't for 10 year olds, a UK man invented a lobster zapper that some feel is more humane than just tossing them in boiling water. I would like to try this electric lobster they speak of. Looking at the photo, it looks like two big metal plates that "zap". The company is called "CrustaStun".

A company in the United Kingdom is about to lift the lid on a device that zaps lobster with electricity to kill them, and the inventor said Wednesday his humane alternative to boiling is about to give the entire industry a jolt.

British entrepreneur Simon Buckhaven said the CrustaStun system, developed over the past decade by his company Studham Technologies Limited, near London, kills the lobster with an electric charge, so the crustacean feels no "pain or distress."

The application of a stun (110 Volts - 2-5 amps) causes an immediate interruption in the functioning of the nervous system of the shellfish. By interrupting the nerve function, the shellfish (be it Crab. Lobster or other) is unable to receive stimuli and thus by definition, cannot feel pain or suffer distress (Dr. Dave Robb 2000 - Bristol University - paper on sentience in Crustacea, Baker 1975, Jane Smith 1991, Bateson 2000, Sherwin 2000 & Gregory & Lumsden 2000). The prolonged application of the stun causes a permanent disruption which kills the shellfish.

Sounds tasty! This isn't the only lobster tech from Crustapreneurs...

Wholeshucked-Copy

In short, Hathaway took the idea of providing people with pre-shucked lobster, researched it and found that the government had been looking for ways to extend the shelf life of foods without freezing or irradiation for years. He discovered there are only two companies in the world that make machines that use extremely high water pressure to process foods and give them extended shelf life. (The government applied that process to its MREs, or meals ready to eat, for the military.) About a year and a half ago, Hathaway learned that this process also separated shellfish meat from the shell and that several Canadian lobster processors were using this system. Hathaway came up with the money for a machine. He started the new business by qualifying for a block grant from the state (which had a matching fund) and through private investors. Then, instead of having an architect design a fancy, state-of-the-art building on the coast, he decided to go back to his roots. He took a space in the nearly empty, old Etonic sneakers factory in Richmond, a slightly down-at-the-heels river town in central Maine between Wiscasset and Augusta, an area with people needing work. In April 2006, he opened his new company, Shucks Maine Lobster.

Buckhaven, meet Hathaway.

GAKKEN Japanino: An Arduino clone in Japan?

Img 2009 11 Gakken-8Bit-Japanino
Wow, this is interesting... Hobbymedia writes -

Yesterday I went to Tokyo MAKE Meeting 04 with Gianluca Martino: a member of the Arduino team. He has been super popular and he really appreciated the Japanese Arduino scene. During the show Gakken displayed the prototype of the JAPANINO (Arduino clone). It will be released next spring in the Otona no Kagaku (in Japanese it means “Science toys for adults”) magazine series with a Persistence of Vision plastic Toy with color LEDs. The price tag will be less than 3500 yen (ca$35) and it will help a lot of people to get into the “Makers” scene. I’m doing consulting for Gakken on this project so I can not reveal all details but this release will definitely make the Japanese Arduino scene the biggest in the World as in a couple of months the magazine will probably sell what the original Arduino sold worldwide in the last years. As all Otona no Kagaku issues there will be also a magazine with many information about original Arduino and simple guide for beginners. There will be a Japanese IDE downloadable from Gakken website but foreign users can use the standard Arduino software.

Motorsports carving? Who knew?

There are woodcarvers, and then there's Gary Tatman, of Glen Burnie, Maryland. Gary explains his incredible work on Hemmings Auto Blog:

You're correct in your assumptions- these carvings start out as a block. I use the Internet motorsports archives to obtain enough photos of the project car for detailed areas such as interiors, engine compartments, suspensions etc. Once all data and photos are assembled, a ratio has to be determined for scaling (in reference to actual body size). Then all areas can be measured and used in the ratio to determine the actual size of the pieces. Once this is accomplished, the design needs to be drawn on the block, for references while shaping takes place.

Fast Wood

Pop-up cardboard office

What could be cooler than pop-up books dioramas? How about if they were life-sized? That's exactly what designers Liddy Scheffknecht and Armin B. Wagner have created with their pop-up office. Unfortunately, it doesn't look like the furniture is strong enough to use, but what fun! [via neatorama]

"Scientists and engineers ought to stand side by side with athletes and entertainers as role models"

Images 2009 11 23 Us 23Cnd Obama Caucus Blogspan
Interesting quote from today's big education announcement (MAKE is part of it!). Reminds me of when Dean Kamen says "We are what we celebrate"...

Mr. Obama said academics should be receiving an athletic-like focus. And as he presented a set of initiatives intended to improve the science and math scores of American students, he announced that the White House would begin holding an annual science fair starting next year.
"If you win the N.C.A.A. championships, you come to the White House. Well, if you're a young person and you've produced the best experiment or design, the best hardware or software, you ought to be recognized for that achievement, too," Mr. Obama said. "Scientists and engineers ought to stand side by side with athletes and entertainers as role models, and here at the White House, we're going to lead by example."

He added, "We're going to show young people how cool science can be."

Mr. Obama presented the "Educate to Innovate" campaign on Monday. Sally Ride, the first American woman in space, was on hand, along with students and dozens of scientists and other administration officials. After speaking for about 15 minutes, the president inspected the "Cougar Cannon," a device made by two students that is intended to scoop up and toss moon rocks.