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Archives: March 2005

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March 26, 2005

Transparent Screens

A lot of people have been taking photos of their laptops and/or computers with the background "showing" through. This collection of transparent screens now have a home on Flickr. Here they are, this one is my favorite. The really cool thing to do would be to auto-set an iSight or Webcam to take photos from behind the laptop and replace the background. A little update: More here, and a little how-to here.

March 25, 2005

MAKE on Geek Speak

I'll be on KUSP radio's "Geek Speak" via telephone as a guest this Friday (3/25) at 10am talking about Make and other techy stuff. KUSP is an NPR station in the Silicon Valley/Santa Cruz area. You can read more about the show here, and listen live here. Update: The show is posted! It was a lot of fun, thanks Lyle!

March 24, 2005

PEZMP3 player is a go!

Wow, this is exciting news for any Maker out there with an a great idea and some persistence. Pat from Pez MP3 just posted up that he's inked a deal with PEZ to make actual PEZ MP3 players. The player will be built in the USA (yay!), 512mb, LCD screen, six button interface, uses existing PEZ heads and best of all- supports MP3, WMA, OGG, USB 2.0, mounts as flash drive!

$10 Infrared Googles

wbeaty commented on our IR Web cam post with a great tip (and link) "A couple of layers of Congo blue makes a great IR-pass filter. I use these on my own B&W CCD cameras to make low-cost IR converter scopes."

Project: Annihilation

UrbanSherpa.ca's iTrip stopped working- she was given a replacement right away. But now she needed to destroy the non-working one and send proof. There are lots of ways to dispose of a non-working item, but she decided building an iTrip incineratior with C6 end stage rockets.

March 23, 2005

DIY WiFi train

Over on Seattlest they have a great story about SeattleWireless member Casey Halverson and how he is providing WiFi access to passengers on the Sounder commuter rail service from Tacoma. The self-contained backpack based 144Kbps portable hotspot can be found in the first car of the last morning train and in Car 403 on the 5:10pm return trip.

Radio Shack Robots

About a year ago I was at Radio Shack headquarters hanging out with my friend and Make pal Dave, while there I saw the now released Vex Robotic Kits in early development. The cool thing, amongst other cool things about these robotic kits is that they were specifically designed to be used in the FIRST national high-school science competition (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology). We'll try and do a review of these here right away. I'm so thrilled to see these. PC Magazine article here, along with photos here.

Using SMT components in your electronics projects

Make Flickr group pool member drewish asks "I'm trying to find out more about using surface mount components in my projects. I came across a link that's almost got me convinced that I can make it work. If anyone else has any info or must-have products for hand-assembling/soldering SMT components I'd love to see them". Anyone have any advice for him? Post here or join the Make photo pool to post.

Bill Nye the Science Guy!

Starting in April Bill Nye is hitting the public broadcast spectrum with some science shows- his latest is called "Eyes of Nye" and the show (according to the /. story) will cover topics like addiction, cloning and climate change. I hope they release these via the web Bit Torrent'ed. If anyone knows anyone that is connected with the show or Bill can you drop me a line?

The Elevator Slingshot

The Elevator Slingshot- When the elevator door opens, the pencil is pulled from the two rings that hold the slingshot back, launching a wet paper towel into the door of the elevator. Here are the pictures from the engineering floor of Daniels hall, Winter 2004 at the University of Cincinnati by Steve Farber.

March 22, 2005

The Pixel Roller

[Via WMMNA] This is the one of the most incredible projects you absolutely need to see. The Pixel Roller "rolls" out a picture in any direction on any surface using phosophescent ink which will eventually fad away. Check out the video here and gallery here.

Solar Death Ray

What do you get when you combine some particle board, 112 mirrors and our closest star? The Solar Death Ray. Each of the tiny mirrors are angled to hit one area (the target). The Solar Death Ray can heat the target up to 500-600 degrees Celsius (930-1100 degrees Fahrenheit). More about the tech here, and some target gallery action here (burnt stuff).

POV in 3D

Previously on Makezine I posted up a POV (Persistence of Vision) round up and this seems like the Logan's Run end game of LED arraying- the Revolver. This MIT Media Lab project uses the same technique as most POV projects, but revolves the flat plane of blinking lighting to potentially create 3D images. Check out the site for images, source and videos. Has anyone ever made a POV metronome?

Home Lan Caddy

Jonathan doesn't have a complex LAN, but he does like to keep a tidy NOC. Say hello to the Lan Caddy. He uses disposable aluminum baking trays to house the power strips, wires, etc... It's just a matter of time until the LAN caddy has been productized and on sale at BestBuy for $29 (with $10 rebate).

March 21, 2005

Flickr to Moveabletype post test!

Here's a photo from pmtorrone (me) uploaded to Flickr and posted to our Makezine.com blog. I think it's going to work out now. Let's see. Click the image for a larger view.

Make readers in Arizona!

Update: Thank you for all the responses, we found our AZ makers! We (were) looking for a Maker in AZ to be interviewed by a local paper. You can be a Make subscriber, Maker contributor or Make-pal. The image is the Arizona state flag, I really like it- who knew it was that cool.

Persistence of vision projects

There's quite a bit of POV (Persistence of vision) projects lately. Most POV projects are a series of LEDs (lights) blinking and when moved produce a word- it's the same "hack" when you play 30 frames a second to see a movie. A couple years ago I made a pair of shoes that spelled "NIKE" when you run (View image) and when I get time, they'll display speed too. If you're interested in the POV "movement" here are a few great examples to get started. Drewish's 2-sided pov toy, Lady Ada's minipov and Make pal EverythingDigital's recent posts using off the shelf parts.

PSPCasting

PSP Video 9 is a free tool that will manage and convert video files to play on your PlayStation Portable. The cool part is- you can add Videora and using RSS, and BitTorrent subscribe to video feeds. While this is just another example of podcasting, videocasting, etc... the really interesting thing here is that many portable devices capable of playing audio and video are hitting the market with applications that can automatically grab and convert stuff you want from the cloud using RSS and BitTorrent. Music, Audiobooks, eBooks, how-to videos, movies, TV, it's all starting to really happen.

Sci-Fi plans from Future Horizons

There are a lot of super interesting and super-odd plans as well as fully assembled Sci-Fi type projects over on Future Horizons. Before I click on through to the purchase side, has anyone ever ordered a set of plans from them, how were they?

March 20, 2005

The vinyl sketchbook (sans the vinyl)

I keep a sketch book (here) of my artwork but I've been looking to make my own for bigger drawings. This how-to shows you how to turn those old vinyl albums in to sketchbooks and you can of course extend that to other types of notebooks or books. Most garage sales have a variety of weird albums that are perfect for this sort of project.

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