Egg Drop Strategies

By , 2007/02/05 @ 6:31 pm

Update: I’ll be testing firing contraptions this week, wait to build your egg drop safety container until after Friday so that you can see the firing contraption in the podcast. Rules may change at that time to accomadate something like a giant crossbow!

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On February 13th, Brady and I will be hosting Ignite Seattle, a Maker/Geek event here in Seattle. We’re going to be having an egg drop. You make an egg-safety device that is smaller than an 18″ x 18″ x 18″ cube and less than 3 pounds. You bring it to the event at 6:30 PM at the CHAC upper level on February 13th and we’ll put it in a giant slingshot and smash it against the wall. If you’ve done an egg drop event and have any advice for me, drop me a note in the comments!

You can make your own egg safety container on your own time or you can come and work on your design as early as 4:30 if you want. I’ll have popsicle sticks, hot glue, and newspaper there for you to make your own. If you have any other ideas for supplies to have there, drop me a note in the comments and I’ll see what I can do. No matter what, all building stops at 7:30 so that we can put the eggs into a giant sling shot made of a lot of surgical tubing and fire them at a (plastic protected) brick wall. No metal or glass allowed since we don’t want to break the place.

Did you do an egg drop in school or have a brilliant idea for an egg cushioning device? If so, you can help out by uploading a picture of your cushioning strategy or drawing a diagram and upload it to the MAKE: flickr pool. I’ll be putting some of these pictures in the Weekend Project podcast this weekend which will be all about egg drops and I may even try and use one of the uploaded strategies.

As if that wasn’t enough, there will be 5 minute presentations through the rest of the night to spellbind and amuse you!

What is an Egg Drop? – Link
What is Ignite Seattle and where do I go on February 13th at 6:30? – Link

AVR LED Clock

By , 2007/02/05 @ 3:03 pm

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Here’s a neat AVR based LED clock you can make, all the plans and software are released under the GNU GPL.

It is a clock with a big display unit, that has a DCF77 (german timesignal) Receiver and can be connected to an ethernet network, where it can serve as a NTP server. All of this based on an Atmel AVR microcontroller with 8 KB flash.

NTP DCF77 LED Clock – - Link.

HOW TO – "Fly" a human powered hydrofoil – the "Aquaskipper"

By , 2007/02/05 @ 1:35 pm


Tim shows you how those Aquaskippers work and how to take one out for a spin…

The “Aquaskipper” is a human powered hydrofoil made by Inventist.com . It’s similar to the original Swedish Trampofoil, which is no longer available. There’s also one called the “Pumpabike” from South Africa.

They’re also called “hull-less watercraft” and “flapping wing propulsion vessels”. You bounce up and down to make the wing fly and propel you. If you stop you fall into the water and swim back to the dock. It’s completely ridiculous and works really well once you get the hang of it. It’s hard to do at first but that seems to make it even more fun.

HOW TO – “Fly” a human powered hydrofoil – the “Aquaskipper” – - Link & M4V.

Get Your HyperTerminal Back

By , 2007/02/05 @ 11:34 am

CoBox Micro Connection - HyperTerminal.png
If you switched to Vista and you tend to hack anything with a serial interface, you probably noticed that HyperTerminal has been removed from the Windows operating system. Only a minor setback: Hilgraeve, makers of HyperTerminal, offer a free (for private use) edition of their product that works just like the HyperTerminal you have come to rely on. Now you can get your serial comms on again! Link

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