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November 19, 2009

Did he say "cheesemakers?"

MAKE editor and publisher Dale Dougherty has his five minutes of creativity fire-starting with this recent presentation of "Blessed are the Cheesemakers," at Ignite Sebastopol II. Take a whiff of "the feet of God."

Ignite

Posted by Gareth Branwyn | Nov 19, 2009 03:00 PM
Makers | Permalink | Comments (0) | Suggest a Site

Photographing Spiral Jetty

On a tight budget, documenting art that lives in a lake can be quite a challenge - especially when it's composed of "6,000 tons of rock and soil" -

After considering nearly every possible way to document "Spiral Jetty" from above -- Rent a weather satellite? An airplane? A helicopter? Use a kite? -- the institute, which often works in countries where conservation projects are carried out on shoestring budgets, came up with a remarkably simple solution: a $50 disposable latex weather balloon, easily bought online. Along with a little helium, some fishing line, a slightly hacked Canon PowerShot G9 point-and-shoot digital camera, an improvised plywood and metal cradle for the camera and some plastic zip ties (to keep the cradle attached and the neck of the balloon cinched), a floating land-art documentation machine was improvised, MacGyver-like.

Full Story over at NYTimes. [Thanks, Erica!]

How-To: Custom wooden case for wireless charging mat

wood charging mat.jpg

Instructables user jvalal didn't like the look of his Powermat inductive device charging station, so he stripped out the guts and "re-skinned" it with a handmade wooden case.

Ask MAKE: Software for designing circuits

Ask MAKE is a weekly column where we answer reader questions, like yours. Write them in to mattm@makezine.comor drop us a line on Twitter. We can't wait to tackle your conundrums!

Bjorn writes in:

I'm doing my 2nd Arduino project (and 2nd electronics project ever) and am trying to design some of the circuit stuff on computer instead of just wiring it up or scribbling some stuff on paper. I'm trying out Fritzing and am wondering if you have any other suggestions for software that can be used for breadboard, schematic and/or PCB design. I would like to maybe figure out/learn/teach myself enough about electronics to be able to design my own PCBs, so it'd be nice if I could do all the types of designing in one program. I downloaded Eagle but haven't really tried that out yet and am not entirely sure what that's used for, but I think it relates to PCBs.

You sound like you are off to a good start. The kind of programs you are looking for are referred to as Electronic Design Automation (EDA) tools, and traditionally allow you to draw out a symbolic representation of a circuit using a schematic capture interface, (sometimes) simulate it with a circuit simulator, and then finally lay out the circuit on a printed circuit board (PCB). In the commercial world, many companies use tools designed by Synopsys, Cadence or Mentor graphics, but these are prohibitively expensive and overly complex for most hobbyist use. You are on the right track with Fritzing and Eagle. They are both good choices for documenting your circuits and designing PCBs, although they have been designed for somewhat different purposes.

For people who don't already have a strong background in electronics, Fritzing is a great place to start. Instead of forcing you to understand the circuit schematics for each piece, you can use it's pictorial 'breadboard' mode to connect drawings that look like the actual pieces that you would place on your breadboard. It sounds kind of cutesy, but it is pretty powerful because it also generates a schematic view of your circuit. This way, you can learn what the symbols for all of your parts look like by just connecting them up and flipping between the two views. You can either leave it at that to document a project that you made on a breadboard, or try out the PCB mode to design a simple 1-layer board that you can then etch yourself. To get started, check out their tutorials.

While Fritzing is a great way to get started with electronics, if you start to do more complex things, you will eventually need to turn to a more powerful tool. The second program that you mentioned, Eagle (Easily Applicable Graphical Layout Editor), is a good choice for this. It isn't open source software, however they offer a freeware version that is powerful enough to build many useful circuits. It doesn't have a breadboard mode, so you have to start by making your circuit as a schematic. Once you have a schematic drawn up and have checked to make sure everything is connected properly, you create a new PCB and lay the components out. To get started, check out this tutorial by the folks at Sparkfun.

There are a multitude of other free PCB design programs out there. For instance, ExpressPCB is a proprietary schematic capture/PCB layout program that is closely integrated with the companies PCB fabrication service. gEDA aims to be a comprehensive open source circuit simulation/design environment, but appears to be quite complex. FreePCB looks good for designing PCBs, however it doesn't appear to include a schematic capture program.

My advice would be to stick with Fritzing and Eagle for a while, use them to design and build a few PCBs, and if you aren't satisfied with them, try out one of the other tools to see if it works better for you. Good luck!

[photo by Flickr user Zach Hoeken]

Little Gem guitar amp

Instructables user garagemonkeysan made this guitar amp from the popular Little Gem circuit, and put it in this useful little case with a cord reel on the back. Nice work!

More:

Flashback: The $5 Cracker Box Amplifier

Make: Holiday Gift Guide 2009: Science and Chemistry

Those of you who know me will know I'm slightly biased toward chemistry, the discipline in which I'm trained, so it's hard for me to resist the natural temptation to focus on gifts that I might like for myself. So, if you astronomers, physicists, biologists, geologists, mathematicians, ecologists, computer scientists (and anybody else I may have accidentally left out) have suggestions for those in your own disciplines, please feel free to submit them in the comments! Chemists, too, of course!

Molar beach ball ($7.50 from the American Chemical Society)
A "mole," in case you don't know, is the unit used by chemists to enumerate atoms or molecules. One mole is Avogadro's number (6.02 x 10²³) of individual atoms or molecules. One of the remarkable things a person learns in general chemistry is the huge difference in molar volumes between liquid and gas phases. A mole of liquid water, for instance, takes up 18 mL, whereas the same number of water molecules in the gas phase takes up 22400 mL! Another interesting fact is that, because molecules interact so little with each other in the gas phase, all gases have effectively the same molar volume, which, again, is 22400 mL, or 22.4 L, at average atmospheric temperatures and pressures. The American Chemical Society has designed this cool beach ball to contain 22.4 L, or one mole, of gas. It's a great teaching aid and a nifty idea in general.

Borosilicate coffee cup ($9.99 from ThinkGeek)
Part of the experience of becoming a chemist is learning to appreciate glass. Glass is totally ubiquitous in our world, but only after working with it under the relatively extreme conditions of the lab does one really begin to appreciate how truly amazing its properties are. Worked with relative ease, resistant to almost all chemicals, capable of enduring extremes of temperature and pressure, and to top it all off, transparent so you can see what's going on, borosilicate glass is surely one of the greatest achievements of materials science. Besides these reasons, chemists and other scientists tend to run on coffee (I've even gone so far as to suggest that coffee causes scientific thinking, to some extent), and at ten bucks, you'd be hard pressed to find a more cost-effective gift for one than this borosilicate coffee mug from ThinkGeek.

Water aspirator ($19.90 from Science Kit)
Every hobby chemist wants a vacuum pump, but many of us can't afford one, either in terms of absolute cost or in terms of available space. Fortunately, there's a wonderful low-tech way to generate a low vacuum, suitable for filtration and many distillations, using an ordinary sink and this inexpensive bit of kit called an "aspirator." The aspirator exploits the Venturi effect (Wikipedia) to generate negative air pressure at the sidearm from the flow of water out the bottom. And while it may look like the sort of thing you could build yourself from hardware store bits and pieces, in point of fact the hydrodynamics of a good aspirator are fairly complicated and it makes much more sense to just buy one. You may have to buy an adapter to make it fit your particular sink, but these can almost always be found at the corner hardware store for a couple of extra bucks.

MAD SCIENCE.jpg

Theo Gray's Mad Science ($24.95 from The Maker Shed)
I reviewed Theo Gray's newest book for MAKE, Volume 19, and had this to say about it:

If you've ever thrilled to a chemistry demonstration, Mad Science will bring you great joy. If, like me, you've ever wiled away an evening (or eight) figuring out just how hard it would really be to construct your own 3 MeV linear accelerator for making Lichtenberg figures, you may be unable to put it down. My review copy is dog-eared at nearly half of the fifty chemical wonders included: Investigate this. Build that. Would it be possible to...?. In the week since I got it, I've already been to the shop more than once to fan some spark that struck while leafing through its pages.

The book has beautiful photos of those experiments that are too dangerous for most of us to try on our own, and plenty of safer fare for those who want to play along at home.

illustrated guide to home chemistry experiments.jpg

Robert Bruce Thompson's Illustrated Guide to Home Chemistry Experiments ($29.99 from The Maker Shed)
Illustrated Guide to Home Chemistry Experiments is absolutely the best guide to hobby chemistry that I have ever encountered. In 22 chapters across 413 pages, Bob takes his readers through the basics of keeping a notebook and safely storing chemicals to the subtleties of organic synthesis and forensic analysis, and all with a ferociously independent, hands on, less-is-more DIY style. I really love this book.

separatory funnel.jpg

1000 mL separatory funnel ($39.95 from The Science Company)
The dedicated amateur or hobby chemist can achieve amazing things using old jelly jars and coffee pots, but there are several pieces of "professional" laboratory glass that are difficult to improvise from common materials, and the most useful of these is probably the separatory funnel. A good sep funnel, with a teflon stopcock and a ground-glass joint and stopper, is essential to perform the liquid-liquid extractions that are a routine part of even the most basic isolations and syntheses. And you can almost never have too many. This 1000 mL version from The Science Company is large enough for nearly any purpose. A ring stand and 4" support ring to hold it in place makes a nice afterthought.

distillation kit.jpg

Distilling apparatus ($49.95 from The Maker Shed)
The Maker Shed offers this really beautiful borosilicate glass distillation kit, including a 1000 mL sidearm flask with stopper and a 200 mm spiral "Graham" condenser, all at the truly astounding price of $49.95. All the joints are easily demountable gas/liquid-tight ground glass, so there's no monkeying around with rubber stoppers or bits of glass or rubber tubing to make the connections. Distillation is used for separating mixtures of liquids having different boiling points, and the most common use, of course, is in making liquors like whiskey or brandy from beer, wine, or mash. Again, you might want to throw in a couple of ring stands and utility clamps.

centigram balance.jpg

Electronic tabletop balance ($117.00 from The Maker Shed)
A good balance is a totally indispensable tool for quantitative chemistry of almost any type. The important figures of merit for a balance, in rough order from most to least vital, are resolution (the number of zeroes after the decimal point), capacity (the maximum upper mass limit), precision (the consistency of repeated measurements of the same mass), accuracy (how close it reads to the "true" value, which is easily corrected by calibration), and linearity (how well precision and accuracy are maintained across the balance's mass capacity). The better each of these figures, the more the balance will cost. Professional "analytical" balances, capable of weighing to a milligram (0.001 g) or less, cost thousands of dollars and include an enclosed glass cabinet over the weighing pan to prevent interference from air currents, which they are sensitive enough to detect. Hobby chemists generally have to compromise, but good centigram (0.01 g) balances are quite accessible and are adequate for most purposes. This My-Weigh iBalance 201 digital balance from The Maker Shed has centigram resolution and a capacity of 200 g, and was recommended to us by Robert Bruce Thompson, author of our Illustrated Guide to Home Chemistry Experiments.

laboratory hot plate stirrer.jpg

Laboratory hotplate / stirrer ($149.95 from The Maker Shed)
After using a stirring hotplate for awhile, you'll start to get annoyed that your kitchen stove doesn't include a magnetic stirrer. And for $150 new, you'd be hard-pressed to beat this combination unit from The Maker Shed, which includes a built-in ring stand support, rod, and thermometer clamp. Don't forget a couple of teflon stir bars to actually do the stirring.

For many more chemistry and science-related gift ideas, check out the Science Room in the Maker Shed.

The Maker Shed has all sorts of other great holiday gift ideas, Arduino & Arduino accessories, electronic kits, science kits, smart stuff for kids, back issues of MAKE & CRAFT, box sets, books, robots, kits from Japan and more.

Holiday Shipping Deadlines in December:

04 (Fri) - Deadline for microscope shipping
11 (Fri) - postal shipping deadline
14 (Mon) - ground shipping deadline
18 (Fri) - FedEx 3-day shipping deadline
21 (Mon) - FedEx 2-day shipping deadline
22 (Tue) - FedEx overnight shipping deadline

*Customers experiences on orders with these ship methods placed after these dates may vary, the dates listed are what we call "safe dates"

USPS (Any Method):
Due to the high volume of mail that the postal service deals with around the holidays, order by Dec. 10th, however, many packages are lost or delayed in transit and we do not replace or refund any orders lost using this ship method, we strongly encourage you to not use this method in December.

Visualizing sound with fire

Wow, rad physics experiment in which FIRE is used to visualize sound. Don't try it at home, unless you're a physics teacher, in which case please show this to your students. [Thanks, Tyler!]

Sundial cannon fires at noon

noon gun.JPG

The glass is aligned to concentrate the sun's rays, lighting the cannon's fuse at high noon. More pics here, and a very detailed .pdf from the British Sundial Society on so-called "noon cannons" here. [via Neatorama]

MIDI kit test-drive

MAKE contributor Michael Una posted a review of Highly Liquid's MD24 kit which converts MIDI events over to an array of 24 +5V outputs -

The new MD24 falls into the latter category. It takes a MIDI input and gives you 24 discrete +5V outputs that can be used to drive relays, transistors, or servo motors. Functionally, the MD24 is similar to HighlyLiquid's MSA-T or MSA-R kits, except that you now have 24 outputs instead of just 8- a significant improvement.

More over at Create Digital Music.

From the pages of MAKE:

Make - Volume 15 - Drumbot Activate!

Synth Frog tours DIY workshops

Synth DIY's amphibious mascot, better known as "Mr. Braska", has been visiting a series of home labs via postal transport. The photo galleries of his modeling efforts serve as a nice way to bring together otherwise unconnected, private workspaces - plus he's getting pretty good with an iron -

See a whole lot more from Mr. Braska's travels over at SynthFrog.

Arduino in Unity3D

Unity3D hacker Pieter Floris writes in to say that ~~he's~~ Patrick Gutlich has finally got his Arduino connected compass controlling a camera in Unity3D. The barrier of entry continues to be lowered by projects like this. Kudos, Patrick!

More:

Updated Power Glove with Bluetooth and Arduino

New in the Maker Shed: 6-in-1 Educational Solar Robotic kit

The 6-in-1 Educational Solar Robotic Kit is an excellent beginner building kit designed to teach how solar power is used to drive a small motor. Kids use the 21 snap-together parts (no tools required) to build 6 different working models including an airboat, car, windmill, puppy, and 2 different airplanes.

Robot body by Lego, brains by Arduino

Hector of Make: en Español sent us this piece from the site:

What happens when you give an Arduino to a student whose resources barely provide for the most basic maker needs, but is nonetheless eager to create something awesome? You get tech-art in the making.

David Busto Torres, the newest member of the elite robotics club from ITESM SLP campus (Mexico), shares with us his creation. It is a robot made only with an Arduino, some Ethernet cable, a couple of IR LEDs, two salvaged DC motors, an improvised H-bridge, and of course, some Lego bricks.

The total cost was less than US$10 (around $100 Mexican pesos) -- the Arduino was provided by the crew at Make: en Español.

David promised to share a video with us once he's finished creating an Arduino shield to replace all the cables and improve the robot's aesthetics, but for me, what could be more beautiful than the pictures above?

[Thanks, Hector!]

Line-following chassis from RepRap

Here's a set of chassis parts for a line-following robot, made on a RepRap machine, by a member of the IEEE Robotic Club at Rutgers. The mechanical and electronics parts were part of a kit everybody got. This builder created this RepRap body to go with his kit.

RepRapBot Mrk II
Chassis for Line Following Bot (on Thingiverse)

Crayon rings

Pt 2286
Timothy Liles Crayon rings...

Flashback: Spinout

Back in August of 2006, on the pages of MAKE Volume 07, Colin Berry shared the story of his maker brother Kevin Berry and the role that the Soap Box Derby played in his short life. This intimate story moved us all. In October of 2006, Colin read the story as part of our Maker Files series, with an introduction by Dale Dougherty, MAKE's editor and publisher. Below is Colin's story in full. To hear him tell the tale, here is the MP3. Or you can get the audio delivered automatically with iTunes.

Spinout
Was building a Soap Box Derby racer my brother's last best chance at escaping his fate?
By Colin Berry

All his life, my brother Kevin was plagued with terrible luck. It began when he was a teenager in the early 70s, in Longmont, Colorado — our hometown — and soon became something of a family legend. If the Trojan theater was giving away free tickets to Planet of the Apes, the kid in front of Kevin in line would get the last one. If Kevin sold enough newspaper subscriptions to win a clock radio, it was broken when he opened the box. If one of his friends shoplifted a pack of Odd Rods bubblegum cards on the way home from school, Kevin got collared for it. It was a pattern. He weathered it well, half-joking about his luck with his shy, gap-toothed grin, but over time it took a terrible toll.

In shop class, however, Kevin seemed to step out from its shadow. He was adept with tools and proved himself a skilled carpenter at an early age. I was seven years younger and remember marveling at the projects he brought home from junior high school: a varnished gun rack; a Newton's Cradle, with its five suspended steel balls; a sturdy set of bedroom shelves for his Revell models. Looking back, it follows that the noisy, meditative setting of the woodshop appealed to Kevin. It was a place where no one shouted at him and where no electronic parts could mysteriously fail.

In our basement, Dad had a woodshop, too, a flagstone-floored, fluorescent-lit grotto with an oversized plank workbench, barrels of wood scraps, and tools hung on a pegboard. It was here, from 1969 to 1972, that my brother built four Soap Box Derby racers. He would start in late winter, when snow still covered the ground outside, transforming a small stack of lumber and paper sacks of hardware into a teen-sized, gravity-propelled vehicle.

Balancing the shell of the car across two sawhorses, he built each the same way: a pine plank floorboard supported several plywood bulkheads, to which he anchored Masonite sides and a top. Each car ran on four red-rimmed Soap Box Derby wheels, controlled by a simple cable steering system and foot-pedal drag brake. Each was painted and then lettered with Kevin's name, number, and sponsor logo (Weicker Moving and Storage). And each one got faster.

Read full story

This week in Maker Events

Looking to take a break from tinkering on your latest project this weekend? Here are some fine maker events to check out, from The Maker Events Calendar. Wish your event was on the list? Add it to the calendar!

Coming up this week:

Dorkbot SF
San Francisco, CA
Wednesday, Nov 18, 2009, 7:30pm +

AUTOMATIC: An Art Show Benefit for RoboGames 2010
San Francisco, CA
Thursday, Nov 19, 2009 - Saturday, Nov 21, 2009, 5pm - 8pm

Breadboard Arduino Class
Garland, TX
Thursday, Nov 19, 2009, 7pm +

BRAF Presents - The Artumnal Gathering
San Francisco, CA
Friday, Nov 20, 2009, 9pm +

Make an Arduino from scratch workshop
Columbus, OH
Saturday, Nov 21, 2009, 11am - 2pm

Electronics 101
Atlanta, GA
Saturday, Nov 21, 2009, 2pm - 4pm

Los Angeles Microcontroller Club meeting
Topanga, CA
Saturday, Nov 21, 2009, 11am +

Google Sketch Up Workshop
Baltimore, MD
Saturday, Nov 21, 2009, 1pm - 4pm

Craft Night: Intro to Screen Printing @i3Detroit
Royal Oak, MI
Monday, Nov 23, 2009, 7pm - 9pm

Drop-in Arduino and Electronics classes
Berkeley, CA
Tuesday, Nov 24, 2009, 7pm - 9pm

Project Lab with Expert Included
Berkeley, CA
Tuesday, Nov 24, 2009, 3pm - 6pm

Start planning for:

Make:KC - Show and Tell
Parkville, MO
Tuesday, Dec 1, 2009, 6pm - 8pm

Intro to Welding @Willoughby and Baltic
Somerville, MA
Tuesday, Dec 1, 2009 to Tuesday, Dec 22, 2009, 7pm - 9pm

Woodshop Fundamentals @Willoughby and Baltic
Somerville, MA
Tuesday, Dec 1, 2009 to Tuesday, Dec 22, 2009, 7pm - 9:30pm

build your own lightsaber!
New York, NY
Wednesday, Dec 2, 2009, 1pm - 4pm

Tinkering 2.0

In a follow-up to the the WSJ piece, "Tinkering Makes Comeback Amid Crisis," NPR did an OnPoint segment on "Tinkering and American Innovation," with the article's author, Justin Lahart, Bre Pettis, and David Hounshell, Tech and Social Change professor at CMU.

Tinkering and American Innovation

"Father of video games" documentary

Motherboard has this wonderful look inside the world (and workshop) of Ralph Baer, creator of Pong, Simon, and other electronic/video game classics.

Ralph Baer and His All-Purpose Boxes

Electroluminescent liquor labels

glowing liquor labels.jpg

Among the hairier of my hare-brained schemes involves formulating a safe-to-drink chemiluminescent cocktail. I think the first person to do it will become a very wealthy laughingstock, which, as I understand it, is the very definition of The American Dream.

So I got really excited when I first saw this post over on TheDieline.com, because I thought somebody had pulled it off. Unfortunately, it's just the labels that are glowing, not the booze itself, but still it's pretty cool. If you ignore the crass commercialism, the shameless marketing, the horrors of alcoholism, drunk driving, etc., etc. [via Geekologie]