Make: Online

Most recent posts: page 3 of 6
1 2 3 4 5 6

February 7, 2010

Study structures with straws

The forces that affect buildings and other structures can be modeled inexpensively and quickly by using the humble drinking straw. Usually, the projects built with drinking straws are rapid build. Storage can be an issue if you plan on having students work the design over multiple classes, or saving the structure for reference. This really becomes a problem if you are doing the same project with a full load of 5 classes. By doing the project in a single class period, you can easily reuse the straws, having students discard any cut ones and replenish them with new for the next group.

For fasteners, there are a few options. Tape can work, but is hard to remove if you are reusing straws. This can be good if you are aiming for a more durable product. Sewing pins can be used over an over again. Having students count out the pins they need and keeping them in plastic cups is works for multiple classes. As a new batch of kids collects their supplies, they just check to see that the last group left the right number of pins in the cup. This can occur at the same time they get the straws they will need. Some towers are built with paper clips as the fastener. If you do this, you may give the option of using wire cutters and pliers to modify the pins.

In introducing the ideas of the project, you will want to discuss the forces of tension, compression, torsion and shear. As students build, they should be able to recognize the forces that affect buildings and other structures and devise ways to compensate for them.

Often in straw towers, you will want to incorporate the differences between live load and dead load. Sometimes called dynamic load and static load, you can model them by having the tower hold a weight, representing the live or dynamic load. You can also have students become more aware of factor of safety and failure analysis of their structure.

The building of these towers can lead to a competitive situation. You can have students all build with the same materials, and set the grades on how high the towers stand while holding the live load. One way of doing the calculation is to set the highest and lowest possible grade, 100 and 75 for example. Then you measure the towers, identifying the tallest structure. If the tallest tower is 50 inches, then each inch is worth 1/2 point. The group with the tallest load bearing tower gets the 100. A tower that holds the live load at 40 inches would get a 95. The group that has the ball on the floor gets the 75. The other groups in between get grades based on the height of the ball, or other load.

You can also use a project like this to examine the forces affecting a building during an earthquake.

Have you built a straw tower as a student, or have you used the project as a teacher? How well does a project like this work in homeschooling? What techniques work well, and what resources are really helpful?

Posted by Chris Connors | Feb 7, 2010 04:00 AM
DIY Projects, Education, Kids | Permalink | Comments (0) | Suggest a Site

You launch some, you scrub some

Spaceflight is complicated, with many constraints and requirements that must be met before all systems can claim "go" for launch. Unfortunately for STS-130, this evening's "dynamic" weather proved to be too risky for this morning's launch. Endeavour's first launch attempt was scrubbed at 4:30 AM EST. The good news? We get to try it again in just under 24 hours and get to experience all the launch countdown fun twice. Not bad! Check back with my tweets tomorrow for the status of Endeavour's second launch attempt.

Pictured above: Endeavour's crew as they walk out to the famous Astrovan that will deliver them to the launch pad.

Beautiful cube sculpture from copper pipe fittings

This 2007 piece by Vancouver artist Steven Shearer (Wikipedia) is called "Geometric Healing Cell for Youth - Model III." It reminds me of some of my favorite work by Tom Friedman. I love art that challenges our expectations of everyday materials. [via Neatorama]

Safety (beer) glass

With 87,000 bar fights a year in the UK, with a combined health care cost of over 2.5 million pounds per year, the British Design Council saw a need for better bar glassware. Design agency DesignBridge stepped up with these concepts. What do you think, readers? How would you redesign the classic pint glass to to make it safer, while keeping it glass? [via Core77]

What to do with lots of Altoids tins?

From the MAKE Forums:

Forum user LeversFulcrumsLoads has amassed a large quantity of leftover Altoids tins, and is trying to think of something to do with them. Now, we've covered many projects that make use of a single tin, but I can't think of any that called for a whole pile of them. Got some ideas? Chime in on the forum discussion!

It was like stumbling onto something out of National Treasure.
Is there an elegant way of punching holes in the sides without having sharp jaggies surrounding a USB socket?

With literally hundreds of tins, I was thinking on the best use of these (pocket survival kits, minty boosts, recycle, really big LED Throwie's, etc...) but have been overwhelmed by the staggering amount of sugars and fillers ingested in order to stack this cache up. Insights are welcomed. Wow, talk about supporting the U.S. market.

More:

Rachel in Space: Wake up (or stay up) for shuttle launch tonight

I'm here at Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, in preparation for the launch of STS-130 and the Space Shuttle Endeavour. After a brief spell of heavy rain last evening, the skies cleared, making a perfect backdrop for this morning's retraction of the Rotating Service Structure to reveal Endeavour in all her glory.

Endeavour is scheduled to launch at 4:39am EST Sunday morning, and it will be worth waking up - or staying up - to see. This is the last scheduled night launch of a shuttle. With only five remaining launches, not only are the opportunities to view one dwindling, but experiencing the impressive views of a night launch will be likely gone forever by this time tomorrow. People who live along the eastern coastline have a good chance of viewing the launch from their backyards. If you're further west in the US, why not just stay up a little later with friends and celebrate this milestone in the space program? You'll still have plenty of time to go back to bed and wake up in time for football (if that suits your fancy).

I'll be tweeting from Kennedy Space Center all night long as the launch approaches, and I've been constantly updating pictures over on Flickr. Stay tuned for continued mission coverage over the next week and a half, including an interview with the STS-130 crew member who is a maker at heart.

Pictured at top: This morning's RSS Retraction, revealing Endeavour. Below: A night launch of the shuttle Discovery. Image courtesy NASA.

Extech giveaway winners

Thanks to Extech for giving away all this swag! And it keeps getting better. Not only was the RC100 upgraded to a RC200, but there are TEN of them now, and TEN pen-style multimeters! Hot dog! Still only one EX540, however.

(winners after the jump)

Matt Cottam's talk on Heirloom Electronics at interaction10

Matt Cottam at interaction10

Matt Cottam, founder of Tellart, presented Wooden Logic: In Search of Heirloom Electronics at interaction10 yesterday. Here are my running notes on his discussions of sketching with tangible objects, physical interfaces to the iPhone, and heirloom technology.

LEGO smartphone gaming rigs

These are fun enclosures for your iPod or other smartphone. I made a simple one for my G1, and now need to find some driving/biking games to try it out on. It was fun and frustrating to stir the bin in search of just the right part. So often, when kids build with them, they make wildly complex designs that are at times of low structural integrity. Is there any formal LEGO design curriculum out there?

This is a great way to test out your rapid prototyping skills. Once you get a decent iteration, then the hunt is on for a more permanent solution.

ChumbyChimp and Po

Back when I got my Chumby Guts kit a few months ago, I imagined that it would be pretty funny to set up it up Teletubby style with the screen in the belly of a plushie. At the time, I didn't have a suitable doll to sacrifice at the alter of maker fun, but like Kent Barnes, I did have the box it came in. I like the alarm clock features, and enjoy being chirped awake. Eventually, though, the box kind of wore out, and my Chumby Guts lay loose on the night table.

Sunsue heard my call for a sacrificial Teletubby and found me a Po doll. When I saw it, I realized that this one would not work, since it is smaller than the ones my daughter used to have. It does have an interesting voice box, so that will come in handy some other day. A bit later, I fell upon a Build A Bear monkey at the Duxbury Mall. In his first invasive surgery, I found the heart, bar code and a monkey voice box with a dead battery. After swapping out the dead battery, I hid the voice box in my daughter's school bag, where it occasionally went off (ooh ooh aaah aah) as she bumped the bag. It now sits atop her social studies teacher's desk as a warning signal for those about to get a detention.

The monkey looked like he was on a starvation diet for a couple of weeks, as his stuffing sat in a bag in the cave as waited for the right moment to do the next operation. Eventually I got tired of loose ChumGutz on the night table and got together with my neighbor, Robin. She's pretty crafty and I figured would have some good techniques for the project. We went over and got to it. A few snips in the belly and monkey boy had gastric bypass of a kind. We hot melt glued the screen in place. Then I removed the speakers from the plastic holder and fit the circuit board inside the body behind the screen. I thought that I would have the switch loose, but left it attached over the power input and usb connectors. We re-stuffed him and he became ChumbyChimp. He is pretty happy to hang out with Po, and even gets to spend a little time with Creepy Baby.

This is the third iteration for my Chumby Guts, and I suppose that it will be a somewhat transitional situation. It would be useful to sew an old PDA stylus into his hand. That way it will always be easy to make accurate selections on the screen. I would like to put in some iMac ball speakers left over from the 50 iMacs project into the body instead of the nice little box speakers it came with. It would also be neat to add a switch to the hand with either a tactile switch or some conductive thread. I would definitely like to explore battery power, if only to add a bit of portability between locations in the house. The kitchen counter is a decent location, and with the right widgets ChumbyChimp really adds to the room.

More

Star Trek Next Generation Pinball Modifications - Trouble with Tribbles

Jeri's Star Trek Next Generation Pinball Modifications - Trouble with Tribbles. Nice!

Modifications to a Williams Star Trek Next Generation pinball. Added lasers to the cannons, custom-etched flipper bats and added animatronic tribble for replays.

The end of the video has some great tribble action.

Projects: Failure and the cover of MAKE, Volume 06

When I think of horrifically frustrating project experiences that end in an outcome far exceeding expectations, two instances spring to mind. I tell these stories frequently (stop me if you've heard this one before) because I think they represent the power of perseverance in the face of projected failure.

The first tale I've told countless times, probably even here on MAKE, about a friend of mine, a fabric artist, who, back in the 80s, entered a weaving contest in a fabric arts magazine. She'd never done any weaving. She got some how-to books, borrowed a loom, and decided to weave the fabric to make a seersucker shirt. It quickly turned into a nightmare. The seersucker threads kept breaking as she wove them. It became a huge exercise in frustration, but she kept at it. She thought her difficulty was due to the fact that she was a newbie. Finally, after much struggle and heartache, she finished the weave, made the shirt, and submitted it to the contest. The magazine called a month or so later and said they were stunned by the piece, especially because you "can't" hand-weave seersucker! She'd won the contest, and a ginormous, gorgeous Swedish loom that consumed most of a small room in her house. This is a perfect example of how you can do things when you're ignorant of (or ignore) the common belief that you can't. Sometimes ignorance is a huge advantage.

The second story concerns my BEAM robot pieces in MAKE, Volume 06. I agreed to write an introduction to BEAM and two simple BEAM robot projects for the issue. I've done plenty of BEAM projects over the years (since the mid-90s) and had made several Symets (think: solar-powered top), but I'd never made a Solarroller, except for a kit version. Still, I figured I'd choose those as my projects. How hard could a roller be? It used the same solar-engine circuit as the Symet, and frequently used a cassette motor and part of the body of the cassette player for the structure, and a couple of wheels. No biggie. So, of course, I made sure to wait until the absolute last minute to start working on the piece.

Cool Java-based circuit simulator

Having trouble visualizing how current flows in a circuit? A great way to get a feel for how a circuit works is to use a circuit simulator, however most are either expensive or require a fair bit of electronics knowledge to use. If you are just wondering how a common circuit works, then you might want to check out this Java-based Circuit Simulator. It's got a large library of parts and pre-built circuits that you can simulate and modify to get the feel for how they work. Though it may not be a full substitute for more traditional full-featured simulators such as LTSpice or Qucs, it is free, runs in your browser, and is actually pretty fun to play around with. [via Stephen Hobley]

Quantum-logic clock is the new hotness in accuracy

The quantum-logic clock, which detects the energy state of a single aluminum ion, keeps time to within a second every 3.7 billion years. The new timekeeper could one day improve GPS or detect the slowing of time predicted by Einstein's theory of general relativity.

[via Wired Science]

"Why I believe in maker culture"

My friend, Willow Bay, has a brief piece on The Steampunk Workshop called "Why I believe in maker culture." Snip:

All the things I do in life (which, admittedly, is a lot) are about Doing. I'm up to my eyeballs in Stuff to Do and up to my elbows in What I'm Doing because I love it, and because I so adamantly believe that Maker Culture is a healthy response to an unhealthy pop culture. Here's a glimpse at why I feel this way.
When you're a hammer, everything looks like a nail. Which is to say, you use the tools you have to solve the problems at hand. Tools and technology do, of course, range everywhere from a wrench to language to roads to electricity. And when your tool is the mindset of a maker, any system at hand looks like something to be tinkered with and improved upon.

Willow is also the director of a relatively new makerspace in Seattle called Jigsaw Renaissance. I love the first paragraph of their About Us page:

So, here's the idea: Ideas. Unfiltered, unencumbered, and unapologetically enthusiastic ideas. Ideas that lead to grease-smeared hands, lavender sorbet, things that go bang, clouds of steam, those goggle-marks you see on crazy chemistry geeks, and some guy (or girl) in the background juggling and swinging from a trapeze.

What is your feeling about the concept of "maker culture?" Is there such a thing in your mind? It it a fad or something more significant and enduring? Has becoming a maker and participating in things like Maker Faires, hackerspaces, Dorkbots, or other DIY festivals and activities, changed the way you look at the world?

Why I believe in Maker Culture

Arduino package for Eagle

Ardeagle1
Ardeagle2
Arduino package for Eagle, I know ya'll are going to like this... now you can make shields and custom projects with ease (site and on github).

25 chips that made history

IEEE Spectrum's 25 Microchips That Shook the World presents a list of most groundbreaking IC's, including familiar classics like the 555 timer, 741 operational amplifier, and a link roundup to relevant info resources - good stuff. [via jeriellsworth]

Dazzle camouflage

Interesting article over on TwistedSifter about the use of so-called "dazzle" or "razzle-dazzle" camouflage beginning during WWI. (The Wikipedia article is pretty good, too.) It's a kind of practical op-art: The idea was not so much to make the ship invisible against the background, but to confuse enemy weapons operators as to its distance and heading. The Rhode Island School of Design has a wonderful online collection of various paper plans for dazzle camouflage schemes donated by Maurice L. Freedman, who was district camoufleur for the 4th district of the U.S. Shipping Board, Emergency Fleet Corporation, and would go on to invent the board game "Battleship." [via Dude Craft]

Egg Ocarina

There has been no shortage of food-based instruments around here, however I particularly like this one that Youtube user heita3 made from an egg shell. It's a good reminder that pretty much any old thing can be made into a fun project! [Thanks, Nancy!]

More:

Lego hexapod bot

YouTube user GusJanss made an awesome Mindstorms walker that uses only 3 NXT servos to move six legs. Nice hack!

The Hexapod Walker is a six legged LEGO NXT robot walker. It uses a gait that causes very little slippage at the feet so can walk well with rubber tipped feet all the way around. The left and right motors control their respective sides corner legs. The motor in theback controls the middle set of legs so that either left or right corner legs can be lifted. When left middle goes down, left corner legs go up and right middle goes up.

First program just walks in a simple pattern. The second program was for a walking robot race and uses the small LED lights as navigation aids. Light sensor, mounted in the back but looks forward, sees the light and with every step adjusts step size to aim for light.

[via the NXT Step]

Previous Page | Home | Next Page

Most recent posts: page 3 of 6
1 2 3 4 5 6