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November 16, 2009

Oh no, my painting has crashed!

MAKE subscriber James Theophane writes in to share his project, called My Painting Has Crashed. I like the idea- can I order one to put on my coffin, for when I pass away?

I made this at work the other day. They asked me to contribute a piece of art for our reception. I decided to hack an old replica painting from my local flea market. I built a motor using one of those kits you can buy from a good electronic store, painted acrylic on canvas and glued a spinning beach ball of death cut out of mounting board.

Posted by Matt Mets | Nov 16, 2009 06:00 PM
Arts | Permalink | Comments (1) | Suggest a Site

The Bloop of Cthulhu?

This may be one of those situations where my love of a good story gets me in trouble with the more hard-minded scientific types among you, so please understand first that this is all intended in fun. Nonetheless, there are some intriguing facts here.

During the summer of 1997, the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) repeatedly detected an extremely powerful underwater sound on an array of Cold War era hydrophones originally installed to listen for soviet submarines. "While it bears the varying frequency hallmark of marine animals, it is far more powerful than the calls made by any creature known on Earth." Phil Lobel, a marine biologist at Boston University, purportedly "agrees that the sound is most likely to be biological in origin," although his opinion appears to be in the minority. (Both quotes from this article at CNN.com.) The approximate origin of the sound has been identified as 50 S x 100 W, which is almost exactly the same latitude as Lovecraft's fictitious sunken city of R'lyeh, at 48 S x 123 W, although it is 1000 miles distant in terms of longitude. [Thanks, Maredith!]

You can listen to a sped-up version of "The Bloop" on the NOAA website here.

Make: Philly meeting November 22nd

Live in Philly and looking for a chance to meet up with fellow makers? Well, here's a splendid opportunity. Make: Philly is holding a meeting this weekend!

Make: Philly November meeting - Sunday, November 22nd, 3PM
GUEST SPEAKER

Dana Schloss is a curious and enthusiastic museum nerd. She has been an exhibit fabricator, prototyper, museum educator, and exhibit designer in many museums in Philadelphia and around the country. She's currently playing and prototyping on the New Science Centre Project 2011 at the Telus World of Science in Calgary. She will share her work and experiences to date in exhibit design, fabrication and education.

OPEN MAKE

A staple of all our meetings is Open Make -- an opportunity for you to share with the group a project you recently completed.... if interested in presenting email us at makephilly@gmail to reserve your spot

MAKER CHALLENGE

During the second half of this and every meeting we break into teams and build something to meet the objective of the 'maker challenge'. For this meeting we're going to design and build a "Maker's Museum" -- a suite of museum style mini exhibits in just 45 minutes. Teams will select a topic in the theme of "How Things Work" and build an exhibit that teaches how something works through interaction and visuals but without using any words. Teams will keep their topics secret from other teams during construction. At the close of the meeting, everyone will get the chance to tour the museum exhibits and guess what each exhibit is about.

Make: Philly November meeting
Sunday, Nov.22 at 3pm
University of the Arts
211 S. Broad Street, Terra Hall, 5th Floor
Philadelphia, PA 19107

Do you have an event coming up? Check out the Maker Events Calendar and add yours!

Nintendo cartridge throne

A throne fit for a retro gamer! Nintendo cartridges comprise this seven foot chair.

DIY sonar visualizer with Processing + Arduino

Spotted in the MAKE Flickr pool:

Lucky Larry made this neat looking radar visualizer for an ultrasonic scanner, using Arduino and a Processing sketch. I dig the green sweep line! He has an excellent write-up of the project on his blog, including schematic, wiring, and source code.

Millenium Falcon holochess table

chesstable02 (Custom).jpg

I just discovered the Replica Prop Forum, and it has me on a bit of a Star Wars kick. This replica holochess table from Star Wars Episode IV was built by Philip Wise of Dallas, Texas:

Here's a video showing the basic demo mode, which is the audio and light pattern from the 50 seconds the game has in the first movie. The table is playing music from an internal flash drive and you can start the demo mode by pressing one of the 7 functional knobs. During the mode the audio plays and the lights repeat the pattern from the movie. After the demo, it goes back to the light pattern it was running, one of many, and returns to playing music.

Make: Holiday Gift Guide 2009: Toys for grown-ups

I'm old (never you mind the hard number). But I'm still a kid at heart and I love toys. And I'm not talking about motorcycles and cars and speed boats, aka "grown-up toys," I'm talking model rockets, radio-controlled anything, little toy soldiers, and board games. TOYS! The cool thing about being an adult, and being into the toys of youth, is that you've got a lot more money in your piggy bank! In this, our first Make: Gift Guide 2009, we'll look at a few top of the line traditional toys, with an emphasis on toys you build, mod, and hack. Please share with us in the comments what sorts of cool toys you'd like to see under the Christmas tree or Hanukkah bush this year.

Initiator Rocketry Starter Kit (Aerotech, MSRP: $299/$172 at Tower Hobbies)
Most every grown up geek remembers being a young geekling and building and flying Estes Rockets. If you haven't been paying attention, you may not know that hobby rockets have been growing, in power and size, ever since. And growing, and growing, and growing. Motors are designated in nearly every letter of the alphabet now (and each lettered motor is twice as powerful as the previous-lettered motor) and some rockets require teams to build them (and heft them to the launch tower -- and it's a tower, not a rod). AeroTech is one of the leading manufacturers of hobby rocket motors. Their Initiator Rocketry Starter Kit will launch you into this very grown-up hobby (where your credit card bills may get equally astronomical). The kit includes a launch system and a 3' 9" rocket that can handle motors E thru G. This starter kit usually costs $230 (w/ one motor), but Tower Hobbies has it for $172 (w/ no motors). Motors will cost you about under $20 each.

Novus CP Nano Sized 2.4GHz RTF Helicopter (Heli-Max, $220)
R/C cars, planes, and helicopters keep getting more sophisticated and more "real" by the year. Just as hobby rockets keep getting bigger, more powerful, and are closing in on the smaller, cheaper, faster bottom-end of commercial and governmental rocketry, hobby R/C is starting to look not that different from man-portable recon systems used in the military. In fact, that line has already been largely erased. New technologies and economies of scale are also allowing extremely sophisticated R/C vehicles to be offered at really affordable prices, such as with the Novus line of "nano-sized" helicopters.This Novus CP model shown here is actually the top of that line and capable of some pretty amazing aerobatics. Several cheaper models are also available, for as low as $125.

FPV Flying Systems
Long Range Ready to Fly FPV System (ReadyMadeRC, $4,500)
One of the more amazing things to come out of the R/C flying (and driving) world is FPV (First Person View) systems which use tiny cameras in the cockpits of model planes and wireless transmitters and receivers to send point-of-view video to a video monitor, or even a virtual reality-type head-mounted display, on the ground. This allows you to fly the plane like you're in the cockpit. Some FPV hobbyists have gone so far as to put instrument panels in the cockpits, displaying real-time flight information, so that you feel as if you're really flying the plane. With the VR rigs, when you move your head, the camera's POV moves with you. As you can imagine, this is not a cheap hobby to get into. You're adding wireless color video and virtual reality equipment on top of radio-controlled flying gear. The above $4,500 system, from ReadyMadeRC, includes the plane, the R/C gear, the FPV set-up, and everything else -- it comes ready to fly. FPVPilot is a great place to start exploring the FPV hobby.

Compound Oil Immersion Microscope 163 (Maker Shed, $820)
While most of the items in our guide are toys, not tools, we couldn't resist drooling over the new microscopes in the Maker Shed. I had two scopes as a kid, and had the greatest time exploring unseen worlds by peering through their eyepieces. This top-of-the-line microscope is trinocular. It has a third eyepiece so that you can attach a still or video camera to capture what you're seeing through the binocular eyepiece. This is a laboratory-grade microscope, with surprising features and high mechanical and optical qualities, at a hobbyist's price. Note that the other reason we have it in this gift guide is that you need to order the microscopes by December 3 to guarantee Christmas delivery. If you'd like some advice on what scope to choose, check out our "Choosing a Microscope" article in the Make: Science Room.

Gakken Kits
When I was a kid, model kits from Japan had an intense allure. They seemed (okay, they generally were) of much higher quality than American kits, and the instructions just looked so dang cool! Age has not diminished this impression and the popularity of the Gakken kits we carry in the Maker Shed prove that lots of people feel the same. These are unique and gorgeous kits that any tech enthusiast and kit-builder on your list will be thrilled to get. Above are the Sterling Engine Kit ($120) and the Vacuum Tube Radio Kit ($100, currently on sale for $86). The Gakken range is wide, from mechanical centipedes to tea-serving robots to retro 4-bit computers. See all the kits here.

Read full story

Nothing but heavy duty

Artist David Ersser created this balsa wood installation called "Nothing but heavy duty," a workshop of hand-replicated tools. From Seventeen Gallery's site:

David Ersser creates seemingly cold, meticulous reproductions of Hi-Fi equipment, turntables and keyboards. The thin wooden cable running down from the stereo to the floor and to a sculpted plug, is made up of short sections of straight balsa to give the impression of a curve. From a distance these works appear at first flawless, however scrutiny reveals the makers hand. This hand is the hand of an enthusiast model maker fervently gluing late at night in his garage. This mode of production and subject matter evoke the nerds hermetic and frantic DJ-ing in his bedroom. Lifeless and slightly wonky, his facsimiles are drawings and aspirations made solid, as the teenage geek fetishizes the stereo equipment of his dreams.

I think I recognize that circular saw as a Festool, can anyone confirm? [Thanks, Andrew!]

Make: Holiday Gift Guides 2009

Well folks, it's that time of year again. I know, I know! The holidays fill you with a heady mixture of excitement and dread, pleasure and performance anxiety. So many things to do, obligatory events to attend, a Santa-long list of presents to buy, embarrassing moments to witness at the company Christmas party, etc. We hear ya. But we don't have to tell you the upsides: the time off, the opportunity to take stock and give thanks for the bounty with which you've been blessed, the time spent with family and friends. And, let's be honest: the PRESENTS!

And, just as Halloween provides an opportunity for makers to go wild with costumes and decorations, there are plenty of opportunities over the next few months to indulge in your joy of making, whether it be handmade invitations and decorations for a party, an all-out Thanksgiving feast, or handmade gifts. If you need an excuse to set aside free time for making, here's your golden opportunity. You can tell yourself (and/or your spouse) you'll be saving money and the time and hassle of shopping. Even if you don't make the presents themselves, you can make the wrapping and gift cards. With a color printer and the vast image and idea libraries of the internets, the sky's the limit in terms of what you can create for wrapping paper and gift cards.

Over the course of the next few months, we'll be posting DIY gift, wrapping, and other holiday-related projects and ideas here on Make: Online. This would also be a good time to check out our sister site, CRAFT, for more creative holiday ideas.

If you don't want to go the DIY present route yourself, but want to give presents that encourage your gift recipients to make things, we've got you covered there, too. Over the next five weeks, we'll be running a series of gift guides geared toward makers, everything from expensive DIY toys for adults who refuse to grow up, to "interestingly dangerous" gifts, to gifts that go blinky-blink, to our massive annual round-up of open source hardware. These guides will be written by our usual Make: Online contributors, but we'll also be bringing on guest guiders, such as Bill Gurstelle, of Backyard Ballistics, Paul Overton, of DudeCraft, and Diana Eng, of Fashion Geek.

So, welcome to the holiday hustle. Try and take care of yourself, don't let yourself get too stressed out (remember: these are supposed to be holidays of joy and peace and family and sharing your love and your bounty), and please, use this as an opportunity to get creative. If you do make any presents, or wrappings, or cards, or anything else, please take pictures and share them with us in the MAKE Flickr pool.

Lamellophone built from surgical steel

The Steel Rod Box creates some surprisingly pleasant sound from surplus surgical hardware -

For reasons unclear, my father has a few boxes of unused spinal surgery equipment and tools in the garage. including a whole heap load of stainless steel rods that are threaded the entire length.

Something had to be done.

So i've come up with the Steel Rod Box, rods of varying width screwed in on both ends into a basic wooden box. I've included a simple contact mic from a piezo transducer to pick up the vibrations for amplification.

More infos + sound samples over at Vulpestruments. [via Oddstruments]

Han Solo carbonite desk

From Tom Spina Designs.

How-To: Arduino-based laser tag

J44 outlines his steps for converting a basic gaming light gun into a custom Laser Tag-like system, including gun and head mounted 'hit' detectors (a la Photon) -

I hope many of you will find this instructable useful and will go on to build your own duino taggers. There is much scope for improving and upgrading this system outlined here. If you do go on to improve on this duinotagger please share your work and hopefully in time the system will evolve into a much richer gaming experience.

The system is designed to be compatible with the DIY MilesTag system. Check out the project's instructable for full details.

Related:

Build your own laser tag system

iPhone home button earrings

Symbology befitting a Dan Brown novel exudes from these handcrafted iPhone home button earrings. Do they imbue the wearer with mystical iPhone powers? Does wearing two buttons break Apple's Human Interface Guidelines? You'll just have to acquire a pair to find out. [via iPhoneIndia]

Arduino EMF Detector + piezo

YouTuber jodex96 souped up the basic Arduino EMF detector project with a piezo buzzer. The resulting audio feedback from the device is reminiscent of a geiger counter - very cool! I'm loving all the variations people are cooking up for this one.

Related:

Making the Arduino EMF Detector

MAKE Flickr pool weekly roundup

From the MAKE Flickr pool

MIDI fader controller with Arduino [above, bottom-right]
DVD rack built from VHS tapes [above, bottom-left]
My new favorite etchant [above, top-right]
Amazing homemade globe [above, top-left]

Folding lightbox from IKEA changing table

Furniture hacker Boris converted an IKEA Sniglar baby changing table into a portable folding lightbox. [via IKEAHacker]

I first thought to keep the table structure as it, but finally, I preferred to use the two level of the table to make one foldable table. I first fixed together the two vat with a long piano hinge. Then I stuck aluminium foil into the vats to reflect the light and I fixed four neon tubes into it. A few meters of cable later, I then closed the vats with two white and opaque plexiglass panels and that's it.

In the Maker Shed: Cabaret Mechanical Movement

The Cabaret Mechanical Movement book is packed with information, diagrams, and useful tips on making your own automata. The book uses machines and automata from the Cabaret Mechanical Theater to explain levers, shafts, cranks, cams, springs, linkages, ratchets, gears, and even coin-op control. This is a great introduction for those inspired to go and make their own work.

History of curved origami

Interesting article from MacArthur fellow Erik Demaine covering the history of origami-style models that include curved folds. Shown above is "Concentric Circular Tower" by late UCSC Professor and noted computer scientist David A. Huffman (Wikipedia), whose curved-origami work was covered posthumously by the New York Times in 2004. The Flickr curved fold pool is chock-a-block with fascinating models of this type. [Thanks, Jon!]

More: Curved tetrahedron origami

Amazing Star Wars Tauntaun costume

Solid Works2
First Caulk
Seethru

Check out the amazing build log of this Star Wars Tauntaun costume, Scott (the maker writes)...

TaunTaun costume, 2009 for the Exotic Zone ball in Sacramento. I'm wearing the Luke Skywalker outfit for this shoot. On Halloween my buddy Brian wore the Luke outfit, and I was his spotter dressed as Han Solo. Sorry bout the shaky camera, my wife was walking and holding our daughter in the other arm.