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November 19, 2009

Popsci sees our gift guide...

Popsci's Mike Haney liked our Under $20 Gift Guide so much, he raised us another five, adding additional under $20 gifts from the Maker Shed. Thanks, Mike! We love you guys, too.

[And in the spirit of Phil's guide, where he included an item he couldn't resist over $20, Mike includes the MAKE Warranty Voider/Bomb Diffuser Leatherman, which is $39.95. Hey, count it as two gifts under $20.]

Great Gifts For Electronics Geeks For Less Than $20

Posted by Gareth Branwyn | Nov 19, 2009 08:30 PM
Gift Guides | Permalink | Comments (0) | Suggest a Site

Money hats

Moneyhats
Origami money hats, sent in by a maker - anyone know where this is from?

BEAM turns 20

Speaking of BEAM robotics, this "school" of robotic architecture celebrated its 20th anniversary on Nov 10th. Twenty years ago, on that date, BEAM creator Mark Tilden built his first BEAMbot, the Solarover 1.0, out of two dead calculators, two dead Phillips cassette mechanisms, and parts from Laser printer cartridges. Solarbotics has a little celebratory post, with some thoughts from Mark Tilden. Mark writes:

...I went on to build dozens of similar robots based on the primitive Solarengine neurons that year, which led to the BEAM International Robot games, international lectures, the 1992 Santa Fe Artificial Life conference (lecturing alongside Brooks), publications, books, TV, kits, Solarbotics, Los Alamos National Laboratory research, NASA, and a broad line of WowWee robots which have sold around 20 million units to date (not forgetting the thousands of hand-built robots by colleagues, enthusiasts, and steampunks internationally).

Oh, and Solarbotics is also having a sale of a bunch of BEAMbots and components through the end of the month.

20 Years of BEAM Technology

More:
BEAM coverage on Make: Online

MakeShift 19 deadline November 20th

The deadline for submitting your solution to the MakeShift challenge from MAKE Volume 19 is fast approaching. Napping in an ocean kayak is generally never a good idea, but what would you do if you stuck in this predicament? Work your brain, get creative, and win stuff! Here's the MakeShift in its entirety:

The Scenario: You're an experienced and avid open-ocean kayaker, setting off early from your favorite coastal launch point for a restorative and invigorating day on the water. You've checked with the Weather Channel and the National Weather Service, and both have predicted sunny weather, slight clouds, and virtually no wind. So, after donning some sunblock and checking your gear and supplies, you're off.

The launching goes OK, but you take on a little water fighting the breakers. When you finally clear them, you paddle steadily until you're about 1 mile offshore, which you confirm with your GPS. Venturing out a little farther, you paddle parallel to the shore for a few hours. Then, adjusting your life vest and seat cushion to make yourself more comfortable, you stop to relax and enjoy the scenery, but between the warm sunshine, the gentle roll of the ocean, and the hypnotically reflective water, you nod off.

The Challenge: When you wake several hours later, the ocean is choppy and a strong, southerly wind has picked up, which has pushed you at least 3 miles from shore and continues to grow in strength. You dig for your cellphone just in case you need to call for help, only to discover that the saltwater you took on earlier has rendered it useless. You paddle hard for shore, but even after a relentless hour, the winds and currents seem to erase all your progress and the tall beachfront hotels are becoming mere dots on the horizon. You realize more paddling might be fruitless and only exhaust you completely. So what do you do now?

What You've Got: Two gallons of fresh drinking water and a basic survival kit with a compass, a lightweight 6×7-foot survival blanket (silvered on one side and dark on the other, in a pouch), heavy-duty nylon tape, and a coil of thin but strong nylon rope. You've also got a Swiss Army knife (or similar tool), some marine binoculars, a GPS unit, your waterlogged cellphone, some basic medical supplies in their own self-contained marine emergency medical kit, and an extra paddle. You also have a lightweight, waterproof windbreaker and some foul-weather gear stashed in the small but useful front storage compartment.

To Enter: Send a detailed description of your MakeShift solution with sketches and/or photos to makeshift@makezine.com by Nov. 20, 2009. If duplicate solutions are submitted, the winner will be determined by the quality of the explanation and presentation. The most plausible and most creative solutions will each win a MAKE T-shirt and a MAKE Pocket Ref. Think positive and include your shirt size and contact information with your solution. Good luck! For readers' solutions to previous MakeShift challenges, visit makezine.com/makeshift.

Solar-powered miniball

It may look like some futuristic Christmas tree ornament, but the miniball is part of the BEAM robot family of "rollers." A miniball is a motorized hamster ball that, sadly, you don't see in the wild too often. Solarbotics used to sell a miniball kit. This Instructable, by MAKE contributor and Solarbotics intern, Jérôme Demers, shows you how to make your own.

Solar Powered Miniball Wannabe

More:
How-To Tuesday: Make a Beetlebot
BeetleBot Revisited
Mousey the BeetleBot?

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

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)