RSSArchives: July 2007
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July 30, 2007
HOW TO - Build a portable device cradle
This Instructable shows you how to create a device docking cradle using an old keyboard wrist-rest. Too bad there aren't more photos of the build (the drawings were done in MS Paint!).
Easy P.D.C. (Portable Device Cradle) - [via] Link
Posted by Gareth Branwyn |
Jul 30, 2007 09:50 AM
DIY Projects, Electronics, Gadgets, Instructables |
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Sketching in Hardware 2007
Sketching in Hardware 2, a summit on the design of/with physical computing toolkits, took place from June 23-24 2007 at the Mechanic's Institute Library in San Francisco:
The act of sketching defines and redefines boundaries. Everyone who makes sketches, whether on paper, in software or, increasingly, in hardware. Sketching may begin with an idea, but the process fundamentally changes that idea. Sketches identify both what an idea is, and what it is not. They serve as histories and illustrations. Sketching tools simultaneously help and constrain the possibilities of sketching. Make a new sketching tool and new boundaries appear, while old ones dissolve.
The Sketching pool on flickr is full of photos from the event (one of Julian Bleecker's CC-licensed photos is shown above), and you can download the presentations as well. [photos | presentations] - Link
Posted by Brian Jepson |
Jul 30, 2007 09:37 AM
Events |
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Pinholes, Zone Plates and A Camera Made Out of Boxes!
Two new Instructables about pinhole photography showed up this week. If you've never played around with non-digital photography, this is a really fun. Being in a dark room and seeing your own lensless photos appear magically in a tray of chemicals is a magical experience that everyone should have!
Zoneplates are like pinholes, but they have tiny rings instead of one hole and they give a slightly different effect than a pinhole. RCline goes into detail on how to design your own and get them printed out by a printer. - Link
LennyB used camera boxes and bellows to make an 8x10 pinhole camera. The great thing about pinhole cameras is that they can be made out of anything! - Link
Related Posts, Podcast and Articles:
- Check the digital edition for instructions on how to make a widescreen medium format pinhole. - Link
- The Weekend Projects podcast tackled a pinhole camera project. - Link
- There have been tons of pinhole projects posted to the blog! - Link
Posted by Bre Pettis |
Jul 30, 2007 03:38 AM
Imaging |
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July 29, 2007
Wiimote as car accelerometer
This fairly simple hack uses a Nintendo Wii remote to capture G-force readings in a car, dump it to a CSV (Comma-Separated Values) text file, and then graph it via Excel. The results aren't the most precise, but apparently good enough to give you some useful feedback on car mods.
Wii Remote Measurements [via] - Link
Related:
Posted by Gareth Branwyn |
Jul 29, 2007 03:50 PM
DIY Projects, Electronics, Gaming, Toys and Games, Transportation |
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Six-button capacitive touch pad
JustDIY has project for creating a six-button touch pad using the Quantum QProx QT160 QTouch chip. The build looks fairly straightforward, with the QTouch chip doing most of the heavy lifting. Gordon says you have to use mylar caps, as ceramics can't cut it. He promises more details later.
Capacitive touch sensing - Link
Related:
Posted by Gareth Branwyn |
Jul 29, 2007 03:04 PM
DIY Projects, Electronics, Gadgets |
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End of the Weekend - Watch the Weekend Projects Podcast!
Don't miss this weekend's weekend projects podcast! Watch the video and see a biosphere made and then download the pdf and follow the directions to make your own. Subscribe in itunes and get this video and more delivered automatically. - Link
Posted by Bre Pettis |
Jul 29, 2007 05:08 AM
Weekend Projects |
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July 28, 2007
HOW TO - Make a simple fly trap
Here's an Instructable on how to make an old school fly trap from a 2 liter bottle and a leftover food container.
Fly Trap - Link
Posted by Gareth Branwyn |
Jul 28, 2007 06:26 PM
DIY Projects, Green, Instructables |
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July 27, 2007
Home roasting rigs building contest
HomeRoasters.org, a community of avid (rabid?) home coffee roasters, is running the first-ever Roaster Building Competition. There are only a few days left in the contest (deadline is July 31st, midnight, Pacific time). The winning rig will be announced on August 15th. Submitted roasters are available for viewing on the association's Discussion Forum.
The Great HomeRoaster Building Contest [via] - Link
Related:
- Homemade and seriously modified coffee roasters - Link
- The Solar Powered Coffee Roaster - Link.
- Hot Rod
- home coffee roasters - Link.
- Hacking Coffee Machines - Link.
- Coffee Art (video) - Link.
- Homemade coffee roaster - The Uglyroast - Link.
From the pages of MAKE:
- DIY Coffee - The Bottomless Portafilter, Mod your espresso maker's filter holder for a tastier cup. Hot On The Spot, Get consistent shots by adding precise temperature control to your espresso maker. Automate - What good is a coffee pot if it can't be controlled from the internet?
- Coffee Roaster - Lots of folks think that quaffing a cup of coffee from boutique beans comes close to nirvana, but roasting your own beans will bring you even closer. That's why I call this roaster the Nirvana Machine. MAKE 08 - Page 110. Subscribers--read this article now in your digital edition!
Posted by Gareth Branwyn |
Jul 27, 2007 08:00 PM
DIY Projects, Events, Gadgets, How it's made |
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Thomas Edison Hates Cats
This video is exceedingly cute as it talks about the battle between AC and DC current and cats and elephants being electrocuted! - Link
Posted by Bre Pettis |
Jul 27, 2007 03:35 PM
MAKE Video |
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Make a Tabletop Biosphere - Make: Video Podcast
This weekend, watch the video, download the pdf and create a closed system to live on your windowsill! If you have an aquarium, you probably have all the chemicals you need for this. If you have to buy new chemicals, you'll have enough for hundreds of biospheres! - Subscribe Link
Weekend Projects is sponsored by Microchip Technology. Check out their seminars and the Microchip Masters Conference.
Posted by Bre Pettis |
Jul 27, 2007 07:31 AM
DIY Projects, MAKE Podcast, Weekend Projects |
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Make a Tabletop Biosphere - Make: PDFcast
This week, download the companion PDF to the Make: Video Podcast which includes the article written by Martin John Brown as seen in Make: Volume 10. PDF Link
I found it difficult to get amphipods in New York City until I went to Turtle Pond in central park and found a murky muddy place and scooped up some water and milfoil. There were lots of small little worms and teeny tiny leechy looking things that were too small for me to photograph, but interesting to observe. I'm hoping that some of the little critters in there are amphipods and will be able to do their part to keep the biosphere balanced.
When you take a break from staring at your biosphere, it's cool to check out some of the other large scale biospheres that have existed!
Biosphere 2 - Link
Bios-3 - Link
If you make a table top biosphere, make sure to take photos and upload them to the Make: Flickr Pool.
You can get all the Make: videos and PDFs automatically by subscribing in itunes! - Link
Posted by Bre Pettis |
Jul 27, 2007 03:00 AM
DIY Projects, MAKE PDF, MAKE Podcast, Weekend Projects |
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July 26, 2007
Make your own Moonbeam
Earlier in the week, we covered the Boston Globe piece about the Moonbeam, a three-wheel microcar. Bre Pettis pointed me to builder Jory Squibb's website where he has background info, numerous pics, video and a "How to Build Moonbeam" project journal.
How to build Moonbeam, a 100 MPG microcar - Link
Posted by Gareth Branwyn |
Jul 26, 2007 09:17 PM
DIY Projects, Green, Makers, Transportation |
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HOW TO - Track (and document) currency
Remember when your momma used to tell you: "Wash your hands after touching that money. You don't know where it's been!" Well, now you can reply: "I do so! Let's see: it first showed up in Dayton, Ohio, five years ago, at a Sonic drive-thru, then it headed south, then west, spending a lot of time being handed around amongst Texans. It was even found on the floor of a Dallas strip joint!"Okay, maybe momma was right. Go wash your damn hands!
This is an excerpt from an item I posted on my site, Street Tech, a few weeks back, about a currency tracking site I'd discovered after seeing a rubber stamp on a dollar that said: "Track this bill at whereisgeorge.com." It was on a bill I was about to feed into a DC Metro FareCard machine. This morning, standing at the same FareCard machines, I discovered another dollar in my wallet with a different "Where is George?" stamp on it. Someone in DC is having fun augmenting money.
DIY Currency-Circulation Tracking - Link
Where is George? - Link
Posted by Gareth Branwyn |
Jul 26, 2007 02:55 PM
DIY Projects, Toys and Games |
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| Comments (9)
MakeShift
The creator of MacGyver challenges you to retrieve your keys from the bottom of a 15-foot crevice in the desert.
The Scenario:
Thinking you could use a new hobby to get you off the couch, your significant other gifts you with a metal detector for Christmas. After digging up loose change in your backyard and at the beach for a few weekends, you decide it's time for a real prospecting adventure. So, after loading up your SUV with the metal detector, a pick, a shovel, pry bar, and enough snacks and water for the day, you both drive 80 miles out into the desert to poke around some abandoned gold mines you've heard about.
Finally reaching the end of the road in the middle of nowhere, you ask your partner to unload the car while you head for the rocks to survey the landscape. But as you climb through some old barbed-wire fencing to look for a trail, your keys - attached to your Swiss Army knife - fall out of your pocket and skitter off across the rocks before they disappear into a deep, six-inch-wide crevice between two boulders. (Don't you just hate when that happens?) Needess to say, neither your cellphone nor your OnStar system gets reception out here, and the fancy anti-theft option you went for makes hot-wiring your SUV all but impossible.
The Challenge:
Without transportation, you're stranded. To avoid the daunting prospect of walking back out to the main road - as well as "never hearing the end of this" from your mate - you're going to need to recover those keys.
The boulders are too massive to be moved in any way and you don't have a direct sight line to your keys. But you are able to ascertain that the depth of the narow crevice can't be more than 15 feet. It's about noon now, so you've got at least 6-7 hours of daylight to work with before it gets dark. Surely someone with your skills and ingenuity can get those suckers out of there in time to get you home safely, if not still salvage the outing, no? As the wheels start turning, your mate appears and asks, "Is something wrong, honey?"
Here's what you've got:
In addition to everything mentioned, there's a basic tool kit in the car: hammer, screwdriver, adjustable wrench, snippers, pliers, etc., as well as 100 feet of nylon rope. Because this is an old mining area, there may also be some small pieces of wood and metal lying around.
Send a detailed description of your MakeShift solution with sketches and/or photos to makeshift@makezine.com by Aug. 17, 2007. If duplicate designs are submitted, the winner will be determined by the quality of the explanation and presentation. The most plausible and creative solutions will each win a MAKE sweatshirt. Think positive and include your shirt size and contact information with your description. For rules and solutions to previous MakeShift challenges, visit makezine.com/makeshift.
MakeShift - Link.
Posted by Phillip Torrone |
Jul 26, 2007 02:23 PM
Make Challenge |
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Controling High-Current Devices Via Microcontrollers
The latest piece on uC Hobby explains how-to use low-amperage microcontroller signals to control high-current devices. Among other things, it explains how to use transistors to get from the logic of a MCU to the power needs of a motor.
Posted by Gareth Branwyn |
Jul 26, 2007 01:07 PM
Computers, Electronics, Robotics |
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Integrating RFID with Web Content on your Phone
Nick Bilton and Michael Young recently went of to London and won Yahoo Hack Day 2007 with a hack that uses RFID to manage content on your phone. Nice Hack! - Link
Posted by Bre Pettis |
Jul 26, 2007 06:56 AM
Gadgets |
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Pixie 2 40 Meter Tranceiver
KC7FYS soldered up this Pixie 2 40 Meter rig with Picokeyer installed. Nice tin! I looked around and found this walkthrough of a build too. - Link
Posted by Bre Pettis |
Jul 26, 2007 05:24 AM
DIY Projects |
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July 25, 2007
Huge lens: project or paperweight?
I like that MAKE contributor Steve Lodefink is suggesting you buy this "gargantuan lens" from American Science & Surplus (for $10.95) if for no other reason than it's badasss and will look cool weighing down your desk. Or, you can kick it old school (optically-speaking) and build an opaque projector with it. What's an opaque projector, you say? Ask an old person, anyone who went to school in the middle of the 20th century. It was a precursor to the overhead projector, which was a precursor to the video projector. It was commonly used to project (and enlarge) book art and other reference material onto walls and art media for tracing purposes. Stephen has a link to PDF plans for such a projector on his site. He plans to build one and document the effort.
Make an Opaque Projector - Link
Posted by Gareth Branwyn |
Jul 25, 2007 06:48 PM
DIY Projects, Imaging, Retro |
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Garmin quick-release mount with MintyBoost charger
Here's a great Garmin quick-release mount with MintyBoost charger mod, John writes -
The aim of this tutorial is to explain how I modified my Garmin quick-release bike mount (for the Forerunner x05) so that it can be used as a charging cradle. This allows the GPS unit to be used on long cycles/triathlons such as double centuries, ironman where the inbuilt battery is insufficient.Garmin quick-release mount with MintyBoost charger - [via] Link.
Posted by Phillip Torrone |
Jul 25, 2007 01:43 PM
DIY Projects, Electronics |
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Pac Man Wall Painting
On Instructables, jojoquadrat painted a Pac Man wall motif across his room thanks to his computer and a video projector. Link.
Posted by Natalie Zee Drieu |
Jul 25, 2007 12:00 PM
Crafts, DIY Projects |
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AHAB High Altitude Ballooning - Best of Weekend Projects
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