Depressed by the utter unmanliness of the plastic toolboxes at my local hardware store, I headed to the flea market to see if I could do better. I was looking for a heavy-duty hunk of American steel. It didn’t take long to spot a real beauty … if you find rust and worn paint to be beautiful. But how could I resist a box labeled “Park Manufacturing Co?” After talking the seller down to $13, the old beast was mine. None of the rust seemed to be below surface level. Time to take it home, sand it down to the metal, and bring it back to its original glory.
Materials:
Dremel Multi-Max or other oscillating tool/sander with sander attachment, and sanding pads. Dremel Rotary Tool and wire wheel. You could use sandpaper and wire brushes instead if needed. Shop cloths or old t-shirts Masking tape Primer Ruste preventative enamel spray paint Spray truck liner Safety goggles Dust Mask Goggles
This is great explanation of how the piezoelectric effect of quartz is used to keep accurate time. via Reddit
The amazing everyday wristwatch: We never think about it, but only because engineers have made it so reliable and durable that we don’t need to. At its heart lies a tiny tuning fork made of the mineral quartz. In this video Bill takes apart a cheap watch and shows extreme close-ups of the actually tunings fork. He explains how the piezoelectric effect of quartz lies at the heart of the watch’s
operation.
This is a great example of how to have fun when learning to program Netduino. Yes, a Netduino is total overkill for this project, but you won’t be saying that after you come up from a long day of mining and are attacked by monsters!
Ever since I downloaded the MineCraft Canary for my Android, which lets me know what time of day it is on the surface, I wanted to make an electronic version using LEDs. I am not yet skilled enough to make a version using just electronic components from scratch (you know – the oldfashioned way with soldering and stuff), so I thought “Why not use the netduino?”
Snow is on the minds (and driveways) for us in the northeast, so Johngineer couldn’t help but to cylon-up a lawn tractor snow plow. He writes:
Back in September I attended the Open Hardware Summit — Everybody who attended got a swag-bag of goodies. Included among these was a Larson Scanner by Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories. So, for the past 3 months, I’ve been trying to decide what to attach it to. I thought about using it in a pumpkin, but that’s been done way better than I could ever do it. So I finally decided to stick it on my dad’s lawn tractor — in this case, just in time for a huge 20-inch snowfall.
For now, it’s just stuck in there with gaffer’s tape. I need to wire it up and fasten it permanently to the grille. Shouldn’t be too hard, though. Maybe when it’s warmer.
Looking for a smartphone remote app for your robot project? Look no further than the new Cellbots app for Android. The gang over at Cellbots.com have been busy creating an accessible and full-featured controller app with multiple modes for maximum flexibility. The app works with iRobot Create, LEGO Mindstorms, VEX Pro, and, of course, custom Arduino cellbots.
Take control of your robot using a D-pad, accelerometer, joystick, or voice control with Direct Control mode. Chat with your robot and issue commands over Google Talk from anywhere in the world using Chat mode. Connect to a web server and view streaming video in Google Chrome, issue commands using keyboard shortcuts, type a phrase for the robot to speak, and change the robot’s face using Phone to Web mode. And you can do all that and more in a native app with Phone to Phone mode.
The app is currently available for free from the Android Market and source code is available for folks interested in adding more features or other robot platforms.
Love the articles in MAKE about cool science projects? Wish there was a mag dedicated to just science, stuff like biology, chemistry, physics, art+design, and math? Well the The Citizen Science Quarterly gang are raising money for their first run of 1000 magazines. Check out their Kickstarter video, you can see founder Jacob Schiach mock up a whole first edition by hand!
Have you checked out our Green Projects Contest yet? Some clever, fun projects and ideas have been submitted. Vote for the ones you like. Put up your own projects, grab your “tag,” and spread it across the interwebs. Get your social network to vote for your projects. Tag Your Green!
Jeri Ellsworth shares her simple secret to learning electronics: give yourself permission to make mistakes! I think the same advice applies to any skill or task you are trying to achieve.
Back in June, I posted about mathematical objects made on a lathe. Here are two more difficult examples, both by Claude Lethiecq, a wood turner working near Montreal. I have examined these in person and they are truly masterpieces of technique. This first object consists of twelve hollow spheres each free to jiggle but interlocked (via five holes linked through five holes) with a single larger sphere, plus another smaller spiked sphere floating freely in the inside. Unbelievably, everything was carved in place from a single block of wood, with no gluing (except the darker finials).
Nested spheres are made with special-purpose cutters that fit along the curve between two spheres as they turn on the lathe. When there are many holes in the outside of such a sphere, the cutter only has to reach halfway to the next hole, to remove all the intervening material. But in the example below, there is only one exterior hole. Through it, you see three nested spheres and a spiked center piece, which are free to rotate in the interior. Again, the complete construction was made on a lathe from a single block of solid wood with no gluing. Imaging how the curved cutter had to be able to reach in through the large outer hole and curve all the way around to the back to free the inner spheres. Very special curved cutters were specially made for this.
More:
See all of George Hart’s Math Monday columns
