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December 31, 2006

Make Video Podcast 2006 Wrapup

It's been a good year this year for the Make: Video Podcast. I made 60 videos since coming on board in April. I've put together a little video of some of my favorite moments.

The making of a warbot and death of a RAZR phone - Link
The little robot that could - Link
Lee Krasnow makes puzzles - Link
Microsofties make bugbots at the maker faire - Link
Getting "chipped" - Link
Make a paper turkey - Link
Batometer - Link
Mouse powered nightlight - Link
Shovercraft - Link
Tazer-Totter - Link

Here's an mp4 for you to download - Link Happy New Year from everyone here at Make: magazine!

Generate the Atari Rainbow Effect

One of the amazing things about the 8-bit Atari computers was how they could rewrite their display list on the fly, changing video modes every scan line. My favorite application of this was the rainbow effect. I've always wanted to know how to do this, and some searching led me to Alan Watson's example in Compute!'s Second Book of Atari. I trimmed it down a bit to come up with this BASIC code, which you can run on a real Atari computer or in your favorite emulator:



110 FOR I=0 TO 17

120 READ B

130 POKE 1536+I,B

140 NEXT I

200 POKE 512,0:POKE 513,6

210 GRAPHICS 8

220 START=PEEK(560)+256*PEEK(561)

300 POKE START+3,78

310 FOR I=34 TO 98:POKE START+I,14+128:NEXT I

320 POKE START+99,78+128

330 FOR I=102 TO 164:POKE START+I,14+128:NEXT I

400 POKE 54286,192

410 DATA 72,173,198,2,24,105,2,141

420 DATA 10,212,141,198,2,141,26

430 DATA 208,104,64

In case you're wondering about what's going on in those data statements, here's my attempt at a translation:



72         PHA       ; Push A(ccumulator)

173,198,2  LDA 710   ; Load A with playfield 2 color luminance

24         CLC       ; Clear carry

105, 2     ADC #2    ; Add 2

141,10,212 STA WSYNC ; Wait for horizontal sync

141,198,2  STA 710   ; Playfield 2 color luminance

141,26,208 STA $D01A ; Background color register

104        PLA       ; Restore A

64         RTI       ; Return from interrupt

Related:

Cigar Box Camera

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Paul Beard's made up a cool cigar box pinhole camera.

A brief overview of the cigar box pinhole camera I built yesterday and today.

Built around a 4x5 film holder. Focal length of about 30mm, pinhole of indeterminate size, f/stop 100-150, I think. So reasonably fast -- 1-2 second exposures in Sunny 16 conditions.

Lessons from Mk I that I tried to incorporate:
* use a smaller box so you can more easily remove the dark slides without muffing the shot
* tripod sockets are a good thing
* a shutter is also a good thing: using the dark slide a shutter not always effective. - Link

Binary Clock

This then drives a 4024 7bit counter for seconds connected to a 4 input AND gate, half of a 4082, which in turn drives the clock input of another 4024 which counts minutes. A similar thing happens for minutes to hours. - Link

December 30, 2006

Steam Candle

Check out this little steam candle that spins... someone could adapt the rodent powered nightlight and make it run on steam! Link

Electric Canon Fires BBs

Bbs

Check out this BB canon scan from a 1963 Popular Mechanics magazine [via] - Link

Ultraviolet Photography

Ultraviolet

For years I've wanted to mess around with UV photography. Unfortunately, all the websites on DIY UV seem to assume an infinite amount of money and access to specialized equipment on my part. There are two things that I don't like, when someone tells me I HAVE to spend a lot of money (quartz lenses starting at $3000) or that i need specialized equipment (Wratten 18A filters, not cheap either). So I set out to do it my way, and here's my $5 solution to UV wavelength photography. - Link

Hmm, how big a chunk can i get out of a lightbulb so I can make a filter for my srl lenses!

Knife sharpening tricks (video)

Instructables TV is back again this week with a handy video on knife sharpening... - Link & QuickTime (M4V).

December 29, 2006

LED's for beginners

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Great beginner guide on using LEDs - Link.

Fake Bluetooth Phone

Phoney
Stephen needed a bluetooth case mod to functionally hide his snazzy phone!

When i got my $1000/€900 I-mate JasJar last week I certainly wanted to do anything possible to stop it being stolen, So I came up with the idea of having a phone shell that has a bluetooth headset mounted inside so it doesn't appear that i have a JasJar, but instead a cheap old phone, in my case a Nokia 3330. - Link

December 28, 2006

DIY baby rocker

Thomas writes -

"This was made by a friend of mine, in a few hours, with a microwave oven motor. A new version is already in the pipe to follow this prototype." - Link.

December 27, 2006

Sputnik tags @ the ccc

Sputnik
The 23rd Chaos Communication Congress (23C3) is a four-day conference, lots of tech and hackery, check out the badges attendees are wearing--

"CCC-Sputnik is the first public appearance of the Open Source Project OpenBeacon.org and every attendant of the 23C3 is warmly invited to take part in this realtime in-building location tracking system. The CCC-Sputnik project intends to demonstrate the actual possibilities and threats of tracking and data mining with the RFID technology.

The transmitting device is a small 36x36mm pcb, powered by a coin cell. A Nordic RF Chip and a PIC microcontroller are used to control the 2.4GHz RF communication and a red LED indicates the transmitting periods. The device also provides a touch sensor in the upper right corner for further interaction possibilities.

There will be 1000 Sputnik devices available for the expected 3000 guests at the conference. Each device will transmit its unique id. The transmitted signals will be collected by up to 25 RFID base stations within the congress building and transferred to a centralized server via Ethernet. " - Link.

Multiprocessor CD-ROM chess table

Cdchess1
This DIY chess table is made from a ton of old CDs and Pentium processors - Link.

Kat litter cake -- Gifts Impossible to Re-Gift

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Worst cake ever, Trebuchet03 writes -

"Instructions to Make - Kat Litter Cake. What to give to someone that works in a vet's office and studying to become one (well, a veterinarian - not an office).

Of course, its not real cat litter. Like crab meat spelled with a "K" - so you know its not the good stuff " - Link.

IKEA table mod - TORD coffee table edition

Foqht4Euekevydx9Il.Medium
Jason shows you a stone upgrade to an IKEA table, he writes -

"This Instructable shows how to transform an IKEA TORD file cabinet base into a slate top coffee table. The total cost of this project was $16, though I had some materials on hand." - Link.

Presents - Made

00012
Riskable writes -

"This Christmas my wife gave me two items from the Make Store... The "Build your own electronic game" kit and the POV kit. I soldered it all on Christmas day in the time it takes to watch Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest." - Link & poem!

If you made some stuff over the holiday, let us know in the comments, or the MAKE photo pool.

Shake control your music - Wii remote + Linux

Wii-Music
Walter sent is this fun way to control your music, he writes -

"Today I hacked my christmas present. A Wii remote controls my xmms mp3 player in linux now. Shake the remote and it switches to a new song.

To get this working in ubunto linux you need the following packages: WMD driver 0.1.2 xmms control python files written by myself. Read the README's in the .tar.gz's for install instructions " - Link.

December 26, 2006

Recumbent generator part #2

Drive Train
Wired Stator
FrankG writes -

"This installment details winding the coils, laying out the 3-phase stator, some resin casting, and the addition of a Jack-Shaft to bump the rotor speed to 6.5X the pedal RPM.

As well as some suspect mathamatics and more questions..." - Link.

Related:

Bent Genny (Human powered recumbent generator) - Link.

December 25, 2006

HOW TO - Make customizable fleece hats

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F9Vtp6C27Ievydw6Fp.Medium
Ryzellon writes -

"You want to keep your noggin toasty in the nasty winter weather.
You don't want to wear a hat that looks like everyone else's hat.
You like lions (or dragons).

Now you can combine all of these desires into a simple, yet useful, item of clothing that's infintely customizable and tailorable to your (or a recipient's) tastes." - Link.

New shield connects Phidgets sensors to Arduino board

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Bjoern writes -

"I just received my first Arduino Shield PCB design in the mail from Advanced Circuits. We have lots of Phidgets sensors lying around in the lab; they may be a bit pricey, but their plug-and-play model is sure handy when you're in a hurry. This PCB makes it easy to connect these sensors to the Arduino platform. The board has six Phidgets (aka 3 pin Molex C-GRID) connectors which are routed directly to the Arduino's A2D ports. It also breaks out 8 bits of digital IO to .1" headers and provides the all-important reset switch and status LED." Thanks Kevin! - Link.