RSSArchives: February 2008
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February 25, 2008
Fish Tank Lights and Temperature Sensor
This would make a great addition to your fish tank, and it's a good starting point for a complete automation system. Alan admits a simple stick-on thermometer would have worked, "but what is the fun in that?"
When the tank is cleaned the fish are removed and placed in a small amount of the tank water. The problem is that fish don't like rapid temperature fluctuations. I guess a simple in tank or stick on thermometer would have done the trick but what is the fun in that? If the unit just did temperature monitoring it would have been such a waste of processor capability, so I thought adding colored lighting would be a great addition.
Fish tank light and temperature sensor - Link
Related:
Fish tank LED moonlight / moonlighting - Link
Posted by Marc de Vinck |
Feb 25, 2008 01:00 AM
DIY Projects, Electronics |
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HOW TO - Make plants talk! They'll Twitter you when they need to be watered (and more)...
BREAKING NEWS FROM MAKE: The gang from Botanicalls (Kate Hartman, Kati London, Rebecca Bray, and Rob Faludi) used one of Adafruit's new Ethernet shields for Arduino to make some plants talk - and now you can too! That's right, having your houseplants Twitter you when they need water and more!
"Botanicalls Twitter answers the question: What's up with your plant? It offers a connection to your leafy pal via online Twitter status updates that reach you anywhere in the world. When your plant needs water, it will post to let you know, and send its thanks when you show it love" - Link.
More:
- Adafruit ethernet shield for Arduino - Link.
- Learn more about Botanicalls - Link.
- Follow pothos the plant on Twitter! - Link.
- Learn how to do projects like this and more with "Making things talk" - Link.
Posted by Phillip Torrone |
Feb 25, 2008 12:10 AM
Arduino, DIY Projects, Electronics |
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| Comments (12)
Homemade capacitor (Leyden jar)
Here's a 2 liter plastic soda bottle leyden jar, can be shocking, even dangerous, don't do this unless you know what you're doing (here's what they're all about, Wikipedia)...
The Leyden jar is an early device for storing electric charge invented in 1745 by Pieter van Musschenbroek (1700-1748). It was the first capacitor. Leyden jars were used to conduct many early experiments in electricity.Homemade capacitor (Leyden jar) - Link.A typical design consists of a top electrode electrically connected by some means (usually a chain) to a metal foil coating part of the inner surface of a glass jar. A conducting foil is wrapped around the outside of the jar, matching the internal coated area. The jar is charged by an electrostatic generator connected to the inner electrode while the outer plate is grounded. The inner and outer surfaces of the jar store equal but opposite charges.
Related:
- Historical scientific instrument gallery - Link.
- Leyden jar - Link.
- Homemade Lightning: Creative Experiments in Electricity - Link.
- Electrostatic kits - Link.
Posted by Phillip Torrone |
Feb 25, 2008 12:00 AM
DIY Projects, Electronics, Instructables, Science |
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| Comments (1)
February 24, 2008
MAKE Flickr pool weekly roundup
From the MAKE Flickr pool
Treat your eyes to a swim in the photo pool as we enter the last week before the close of our MAKE Flickr pool contest.
Remember to submit by this Friday 2/29, if you haven't already!
- Schickard machine [above, top-left]-Link
- Optical theremin (from space?) [above, top-right] -Link
- Jumping cylinders game [above, middle-left]-Link
- TV-B-Gone clone -Link
- Very small midi controller -Link
- Coconut banjo -Link
- StrobeTronic noise synth -Link
- RGB M42 [above, middle-right]-Link
- Heartbeat midi controller [above, bottom-right]-Link
- PIC based laser spirograph [above, bottom-left]-Link
- DIY remote for Sony DSLR camera -Link
- "PlumbingPunk" bed and closet -Link
Posted by Collin Cunningham |
Feb 24, 2008 03:00 PM
Photography |
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Best of CRAFT
Here are some of my favorite posts from the CRAFT blog this week:
- HOW TO - Make Bagels - Link.
- Softbots by Completely Cactus - Link.
- DIY Laundry Soap - Link.
- Scrabble Coasters - Link.
- Refashioned Denim Pouch - CRAFT Video Podcast - Link.
Posted by Natalie Zee Drieu |
Feb 24, 2008 01:00 PM
Crafts |
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Quadruple layer bike improves your balance
This bicycle makes me question the laws of gravity and balance in general. It also make we think that the guy riding this probably fell in a dismal crash right after this picture was taken. Still, it's a pretty amazing feat of engineering to even get this bike up and running in the first place.
Posted by Jonah Brucker-Cohen |
Feb 24, 2008 07:00 AM
Bicycles |
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| Comments (28)
La Chica Postal
Gorgeous dress and umbrella made from laser cut postal stuffs - "La Chica Postal" - Link.
Posted by Phillip Torrone |
Feb 24, 2008 05:00 AM
Arts, Crafts |
Permalink
Bookcase staircase
Apartment Therapy has a great write up on this clever staircase turned bookshelves, one for the remake list! -
The flat occupies part of the shared top floor of an existing Victorian mansion block. Our proposal extended the flat into the unused loft space above, creating a new bedroom level and increasing the floor area of the flat by approximately one third. We created a 'secret' staircase, hidden from the main reception room, to access a new loft bedroom lit by roof lights. Limited by space, we melded the idea of a staircase with our client's desire for a library to form a 'library staircase' in which English oak stair treads and shelves are both completely lined with books. With a skylight above lighting the staircase, it becomes the perfect place to stop and browse a tome. The stair structure was designed as an upside down 'sedan chair' structure (with Rodrigues Associates, Structural Engineers, London) that carries the whole weight of the stair and books back to the main structural walls of the building. It dangles from the upper floor thereby avoiding any complicated neighbour issues with the floors below.Bookcase staircase - [via] Link.
Posted by Phillip Torrone |
Feb 24, 2008 03:00 AM
Arts, Made On Earth, Remake |
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| Comments (9)
Jumpin cars, sled stoves, battery powered cars and steampunk RC trains...
"Build a comedy ford", old timey version of bouncing suspension once found in rap music videos. Modern Mechanix 1933 - Link.
Sled stove for skating parties, Modern Mechanix 1933 - Link.
Back in world war II people would conserve gas and use battery powered/pedal powered ways to get around, Popular Mechanics, 1941.
Steampunk remote controlled train, retro Crab-Fu! Popular Mechanics 1936 - Link.
All of this and more @ Modern Mechanix - Link.
Posted by Phillip Torrone |
Feb 24, 2008 02:00 AM
Modern Mechanix, Retro |
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| Comments (3)
Solar dragonfly
James Watt has made one of the most beautiful little electronic insect-bots that I have ever seen. The dragonfly has several solar cells, and some simple electronics, that allow the wings to flap via a pager motor. His sculptures are incredibly well thought out and put together, amazing! - Link
Related:
- HOW TO - Build BEAM Vibrobots - Link
- Solarbotics - Link.
- A Beginner's Guide to BEAM - Link.
- BEAM robot - flashing eyes - Link.
- Pummer! Part robotic plant life, part techno-sculpture, these desktop toys are easy and fun to make. MAKE 08 - page 84. Subscribers--read this article now in your digital edition.
Posted by Marc de Vinck |
Feb 24, 2008 02:00 AM
Arts, DIY Projects, Electronics |
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| Comments (1)
Cityscapes made from kitchen stuff...
Incredible cityscapes made from pots, pans and misc kitchen gear. The works can be seen @ the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco -
Zhan Wang is among the most respected artists in China, having become world-renown for his stainless steel sculptures of “scholars' rocks,” the graceful, craggy boulders found in several provinces around China that seem to have been sculpted by natural forces into complex forms worthy of thoughtful contemplation–almost like mental or spiritual landscapes. Collecting these rocks from around China, Wang painstakingly pounds, bends, heats, and molds sections of stainless steel plate across the cloud-like topography of each rock, as if wrapping it in steel–in essence, applying a modern industrial skin to an ancient geologic body. After the steel has been shaped around the rock it is peeled away in sections, welded together as a single unit–a now-hollow duplicate of the rock–and polished to a flawless steel sheen, in some cases almost a mirror finish. The resulting play of light upon their surfaces has the effect of seeming to disembody and even liquefy the steel sculptures, as if they were luminous floating masses or shimmering topographies.Zhan Wang - [via] Link, more & gallery.For his exhibition at the Asian Art Museum, Wang has selected rocks from the foothills of the Sierra Nevada, alluding to the nineteenth-century Chinese immigrant experience of mining gold during the California gold rush. Both the actual rocks and their stainless steel versions will be exhibited. The artist will also create a topographic San Francisco cityscape–one of his “urban landscape” series– using steel rocks, mirrored surfaces, silverware, and stainless steel pots and pans.
Posted by Phillip Torrone |
Feb 24, 2008 12:00 AM
Arts, Made On Earth |
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| Comments (1)
February 23, 2008
Interview with the "God of fountain pens"
PingMag has an interview with Nobuyoshi Nagahara, a Japanese pen nib craftsman who's been on the job for 50 years:
PingMag: You must need a lot of patience to deal with each customer with such care.Nobuyoshi Nagahara: The thing that makes me most happy doing this work is being able to help people with their worries and unhappiness, thanks to fountain pens. Nearly all of my repair jobs come to me with a letter attached. I once made a pen nib for a junior high school girl. She was a quiet, unhappy girl. But when I made her a new nib, I suppose she must have practiced writing really hard. She won a calligraphy award. And thanks to that she brightened right up. Or, I get a lot of repair jobs from people who have a pen that belonged to their father. Those times, I tell them just what I think. "Your father must have been a great father. In those days it was no joke to get hold of a pen as good as this one. This is your father's medal as a man." Even a simple fountain pen can be steeped in deep family relationships, you see.
The God of Fountain Pens - Link
Posted by Gareth Branwyn |
Feb 23, 2008 08:58 PM
Makers, Toolbox |
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| Comments (4)
Backpack bike trailer
Lonny Grafman writes in about a tutorial on making your own bike trailer. The folks at the Appropedia wiki write:
It's a lot of fun hauling cargo around on a bike. A bike trailer can make a bicycle more practical for transporting groceries, laundry, friends, etc. This is one of the least-expensive bike trailer designs out there, all that is needed to build a backpack-frame bike trailer is an old external-frame backpack, 18 feet of metal conduit, and some other hardware.
Make your own bike trailer from a frame pack - Link.
Posted by Becky Stern |
Feb 23, 2008 07:00 PM
Bicycles, DIY Projects |
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| Comments (5)
Action figure lamp
Ryan makes these really cool action figure lamps, they're made of recycled toys which are bonded together and then coated with polyurethane - [via] Link.
Related:
Melted plastic soldier bowl - Link.
Posted by Phillip Torrone |
Feb 23, 2008 01:00 PM
Arts, Remake |
Permalink
| Comments (1)
Photos from MAKE:NYC 2/23 meeting
Here are some photos from the MAKE:NYC 2/23 meeting, packed house (again!) and some great projects. The kit that was built was a through-hole and surface mount LED binary timer, the maker will be posting more info after the kit is updated. - Link.
Posted by Phillip Torrone |
Feb 23, 2008 12:50 PM
Events |
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| Comments (1)
Updates to the MAKE digital edition
With the wonders of the MAKE digital edition, the online DRM free version of MAKE print (complete, vivid recreation online) - we're able to figure out what the top articles are and we share that data each month or so.
After running our "What you're reading in MAKE 12" and "Top articles in MAKE 1-11" a subscriber made some suggestions and we've updated the digital edition - here's what's new: More IP addresses, you can now view the magazine from 20 IP addresses - before it was 5 but there were a couple people that used more than 5 computers in a day and wanted to read MAKE from all of them (awesome!). We've also adjusted printing - before you had to print 10 pages at a time, now you can "print all" - it's still a better idea to print sections and articles (the pages are big) but now you can print all of them. Thanks SuperJdynamite for the suggestions!
So, if you want to dive in to the digital edition you can start right away, subscribe to MAKE (use code CMAKE for $5 off USA) and get going - Link.
Posted by Phillip Torrone |
Feb 23, 2008 12:00 PM
Announcements |
Permalink
| Comments (3)
How a cesium fountain atomic clock works
How a cesium fountain atomic clock works, currently the primary time standard for the USA -
NIST-F1 is referred to as a fountain clock because it uses a fountain-like movement of atoms to measure frequency and time interval. First, a gas of cesium atoms is introduced into the clock's vacuum chamber. Six infrared laser beams then are directed at right angles to each other at the center of the chamber. The lasers gently push the cesium atoms together into a ball. In the process of creating this ball, the lasers slow down the movement of the atoms and cool them to temperatures near absolute zero.NIST-F1 - Cesium Fountain Atomic Clock - Link.Two vertical lasers are used to gently toss the ball upward (the "fountain" action), and then all of the lasers are turned off. This little push is just enough to loft the ball about a meter high through a microwave-filled cavity. Under the influence of gravity, the ball then falls back down through the microwave cavity.
NIST-F1 Cesium Fountain (Block Diagram)The round trip up and down through the microwave cavity lasts for about 1 second. During the trip, the atomic states of the atoms might or might not be altered as they interact with the microwave signal. When their trip is finished, another laser is pointed at the atoms. Those atoms whose atomic state were altered by the microwave signal emit light (a state known as fluorescence). The photons, or the tiny packets of light that they emit, are measured by a detector.
Posted by Phillip Torrone |
Feb 23, 2008 11:00 AM
Science |
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| Comments (4)
HOW TO - Make slime
Megan @ PopSci shows you how to make "slime", she writes -
It's flu season, so why not gross out your friends by whipping up a batch of totally disgusting synthetic snot? You might even learn a thing or two about non-Newtonian fluids in the bargainHOW TO - Make slime - Link.
Posted by Phillip Torrone |
Feb 23, 2008 03:00 AM
DIY Projects, Science |
Permalink
DIY Laser range finder
It is amazing what you can accomplish with a web cam, cheap laser pointer and a bit of C++ coding. The complete build, along with all the source code, is available on the site. - Link
There are many off the shelf range finding components available including ultrasonic, infrared, and even laser rangefinders. All of these devices work well, but in the field of aerial robotics, weight is a primary concern. It is desirable to get as much functionality out of each component that is added to an airframe. This page describes how a mini laser pointer can be configured along with a single camera to provide mono-machine vision with range information.
Posted by Marc de Vinck |
Feb 23, 2008 02:00 AM
DIY Projects, Electronics |
Permalink
| Comments (3)
Use condoms for your next dance party
This project shows you how to make a music light out of inflated condoms and LEDs wired up to the sound out of your computer.
Magnum Condom LED Music Light - Link
Posted by Jonah Brucker-Cohen |
Feb 23, 2008 02:00 AM
DIY Projects |
Permalink
| Comments (4)
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Features and more @ MAKE!
MAKE @ The NYC Toy Fair 2008 - Covering DIY!HOW TO - Build the arms of assistance.
MADE in Japan - Part I.
MADE in Japan - Part II.
MADE in Japan - Part III.
Make store - Blinky bug kit - Blink!
Make store - Loud Objects Noise Toy Kit
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Phillip Torrone
Senior Editor
Tel: 707-827-7311
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CRAFT
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