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Live from Art Hack Day

Art Hack Day begins tonight, so if you’re in NYC and looking for something to do, come out and see a few dozen art-hacker projects that were all made over the last two days by over 50 participants. Following are some sneak peek photos of what to expect, and these don’t include the iOS jump rope software, earthquake jello project, pizza machine, 10-second GIF photobooth, and numerous other projects being assembled as I write this!


Mesh4LYFE, by Sean McIntyre, a homemade mesh network whose LEDs are displaying Conway’s Game of Life

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Posted by | Saturday January 28th, 2012 3:30 PM

Categories: Arts, Events, hacks | No Comments

Intern’s Corner: What’s in Dan’s Jeep?

I’d like to introduce what I hope will be a recurring feature here on Intern’s Corner: a peek at what we interns have in our cars. To kick things off, let’s have a look at Dan’s Jeep, shall we?

Those four metal boxes are transformers of the type you might find on a neon sign. Each one produces thirty milliamps, although the voltages vary from 1,200 to 12,000 volts. He actually has a fifth one installed in his Tesla coil, back at the lab.

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Posted by | Saturday January 28th, 2012 1:30 PM

Categories: Intern's Corner | 1 Comment

Digilent Design Contest

Digilent is proud to announce the 8th annual US regional Digilent Design Contest, to be held on May 6-7, 2012 in conjunction with the IEEE EIT conference in Indianapolis. Digilent Design Contests are engineering contests open to all students enrolled in any educational institution in that region.

Dates
Jan 25, 2012 – Registration begins
Feb 13, 2012 – Registration ends
Feb 23-Mar 1, 2012 – Hardware distribution
Apr 10-15, 2012 – Pre-evaluation report submission
May 1, 2012 – Submission of final project reports and presentations
May 6-7, 2012 – Final presentations in Indianapolis, IN

Challenge
The contest is open to all students and the goal is to develop innovative projects using Digilent products. Students are challenged to create an original project using Digilent boards, whether FPGA boards featuring state-of-the-art Xilinx FPGAs, microcontroller boards featuring Microchip microcontrollers, or chipKIT boards based on the Arduino development environment.

Prizes
Digilent will be awarding prizes to the top finishers. Also, as a courtesy from Digilent, all participants who present their projects in the final EU contest will get to keep the Digilent hardware they used for their work.

You can learn about the contest at http://www.digilentinc.com/events/ddc2012/ or its Facebook Page

Information on past contests can be found here: http://www.digilentinc.com/Showcase/Contests/ContestList.cfm

Posted by | Saturday January 28th, 2012 9:30 AM

Categories: Education, Electronics | 1 Comment

Pedal Powered Machines by Maya Pedal

Worldwide Cycling Atlas produced this excellent video about Maya Pedal Asociación, a Guatemalan organization which has been repurposing bicycles into machines since 1997. Created because of the expense and scarcity of electricity in the municipality of San Andrés Itzapa, their Bicimáquinas are pedal-powered pumps, blenders, threshing machines, and washing machines. They’re doing great work and if you want to help them out, they accept donations (of money or bicycle parts). For more information, check out their site. [Thanks, Manuela!]

More:
Pedaling forward with Maya Pedal

Posted by | Saturday January 28th, 2012 7:00 AM

Categories: Bicycles | 2 Comments

NEWS FROM THE FUTURE – Drone Pilot Discovers “River of Meat Blood”

News From The Future-2

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Drone Pilot Discovers River of Meat Blood…

A Dallas drone hobbyist was flying his rig around one bright Texan afternoon, scouting the skies, when he hovered across something perturbing: an enormous, oozing river of blood behind a meatpacking plant.

Pt 353-1

This was one of our predictions for 2012, not the rivers of blood, but drones being used by “citizen journalists” more and more – I think this is a good example, even if accidental. My friend Johngineer posted up a great list of “The future of Drones”.

Posted by | Friday January 27th, 2012 3:00 PM

Categories: News from the Future | 4 Comments

Fused Filament Printing with Water-Soluble Support

Veteran Thingiverse user Tony Buser has printed a model (intended to be an approximation of the fractal Hilbert curve) using polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) as a support material. Once everything is printed and cooled, the PVA is dissolved away in a glass of water, leaving only the polylactic acid (PLA) model. This technique, when perfected, should allow RepRap-style FFF printers to produce objects with overhanging parts that are currently very difficult, or impossible, for them to print. Tony used two of MakerBot’s Mk7 extruders mounted on a Thing-o-Matic.

Posted by | Friday January 27th, 2012 1:00 PM

Categories: 3D printing, Chemistry, News from the Future | 1 Comment

Got Weekend Plans? How About a Visit to the Materials Library?


Two years ago I wrote about what a delight it was to discover the UT-Austin School of Architecture’s Materials Lab when I was on campus there, and it seems appropriate to resurrect the topic in honor of our theme this month. Kevin Kelly just posted a roundup of major materials libraries around the USA over at Cool Tools, and I was surprised to discover that UT’s, which is decades old, was one of the first in the country.

Publicly accessible materials libraries are usually associated with universities, and there is at least one major subscription-based commercial materials library with branches in eight major cities. I’ve been poking around trying to find a geographic listing of materials libraries with no success, so I thought I’d throw this one out to the readers: Is there a materials library near you? If so, please share in the comments!

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Posted by | Friday January 27th, 2012 9:00 AM

Categories: Education, Hackerspaces, Science | No Comments

In the Maker Shed: Teleclaw – Telerobotic Gripper Kit

Need a hand? Build your own with the Telerobotic Gripper Kit from the Maker Shed! This kit includes everything you need to make the Teleclaw featured in MAKE: Volume 27, right down to the batteries. Assemble the kit and attach the Teleclaw to your robot, rover, or anywhere else you could use a grip. The pre-programmed Picaxe microcontroller interprets commands from the IR remote to make the gripper open and close. Have a look at the Make: Project build for more information and directions.

 

 

Posted by | Friday January 27th, 2012 8:00 AM

Categories: Kits, Make: Projects, Robotics | No Comments

Smartphone-Controlled Ball Launcher


Andrew and his brother built this great ping-pong ball launcher out of salvaged and repurposed parts. I especially like the 13-ball hopper made from two paper towel tubes taped together, and the clever K’Nex-controlled release mechanism. The launcher is controlled with an Arduino connected to a computer and activated via a remote desktop app from a phone or iPod Touch. See this video for an explanation on how it works.

Posted by | Friday January 27th, 2012 7:00 AM

Categories: Arduino, Toys and Games | 1 Comment

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Maker Shed: Deal of the Day

TILT: The Battle to Save Pinball DVD
On Sale: $10.00

TILT: The Battle to Save Pinball DVD

One of the great maker tales of the game industry. In 1998, Williams was the world's biggest pinball manufacturer, but they were in trouble. Two legendary designers took their "crazy" idea out of the company and into a garage; creating a sensation, until Williams mysteriously pulled the plug.

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