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March 31, 2008

BoxMaker makes any size box template

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Ryan O'Hara writes in about BoxMaker, a postcardware app for making boxes. From the site:

BoxMaker is a little Java application that can generate the outlines for a box to be out of some material with a cutting device (ideally using wood/acrylic on a lasercutter!). You tell it the dimensions of the box (width, height, depth, material width), and it generates a PostScript file with the outlines for the 6 sides of the box. The dimensions are the outside lengths of the box.

Postcardware means the app is free, but you send them a postcard from where you live. How's that for site metrics!

Robosapien has a coil gun

This custom coil gun for V2 robosapiens is outstanding. The video was posted to youtube over a year ago, but I just noticed it now, so let's all just sit back, enjoy, and pretend it's super fresh. Mmmkay?

It looks like Marcus based his coil gun on the bic-pen and disposable camera capacitor design that's been floating around. To that, he added a servo controlled auto-reload mechanism, complete with a LED "armed" indicator light. The final package, with laser sight, should terrorize pop cans and Teddy Ruxpin with a half-Joule of kinetic robo-chaos. The CoilOsapien site below has complete build instructions, in case you'd like to make your own.

CoilOsapien

Faster Windows shutdown

It pretty typical for Windows to take a minute or two to shutdown. Most of this wait is due to the OS being extra patient, waiting for all of your applications to safely close. So when an application hangs during shutdown, you are forced to twiddle your thumbs until Windows decides that enough time has elapsed to force-kill the application.

It turns out that most of these arbitrary timeout periods are configurable through the registry and Dennis O'Reilly has posted some easy tweaks that will force Windows to shut down a lot faster.

The registry keys in question are "HKEY_CURRENT_USER/Control Panel/desktop/WaitToKillAppTimeout" and
"HKEY_CURRENT_USER/Control Panel/desktop/HungAppTimeout". The first controls the amount of time, in milliseconds, to wait before killing applications at shutdown, and the second is the amount of time to wait before killing a hung application.

There are some other registry adjustments that can be made which will automatically end running tasks and speed up killing hung services. Check the link below for the nitty gritty.

Shut Down Windows in an Instant

Carbon fiber draft tower

Raelx made this absolutely sick draft tower for his keggerator with carbon fiber. DIY alert, however, the guy works for Cannondale, so he's got primo access to supplies and tools. He includes some nice construction photos, too.

Related:

From the pages of MAKE:

Working with Carbon Fiber - Form, lay up, and cure your own high-performance composites

Temperature-sensitive LED Glowies

Via Hack N Mod comes this cool LED project:

The Glowies use a small microcontroller, but they are really quite simple in both parts and function. The core of the unit is a silicon diode used as a temperature sensor (actually, two of them). These Glowies sense when temperature drops, and it turns blue. If the temperature rises, it turns red. Plus, it's completely solar powered, so you never have to change the battery. And I used very inexpensive parts, so you can't get much cheaper!

Color-Changing Hot & Cold LED Glowies

Synth schematic collection

Lightcontroller Schem

Matrixsynth points out this nice little collection of relatively simple music synthesizer schematics - hmmm, the IR/CV Light Controller looks quite interesting.

Building circuits @ home is a great way to learn about electronics. One doesn't need to know how every component works at first - it's a lot of fun to learn by 'doing'.

Related:
Socrates 2 Small
Socratic electronics

In the Maker store:
Mkemkit-2
MAKE:it - Electronic Makers Toolkit

Arduino pocket piano synth - coming soon!

Arduino Piano Synth

Coming soon to the Maker store - The Pocket Piano Arduino Shield, from Critter and Guitari -

This is a board for making the Arduino into a portable stand alone music synthesizer. It plugs directly into the Arduino board and provides 25 multiplexed keys (2 full octaves), 4 pots, status LED, reset switch, digital to analog converter IC, and a RCA audio jack. The Arduino board with its powerful AVR processor is more than adequate for a wide range of sound synthesis techniques. We have experimented with simple additive / wave-table synthesis, frequency modulation, ring modulation, sampling, polyphony, various arpeggiators. The whole thing can be powered over the Arduino's USB port for convenient experimenting.

So very awesome - start planning that cool enclosure design, we'll keep you posted as to availability.

Related:

Arduinosynth alpha

In the Maker store:
Mkcellavs-2
Video Synth Screens
"Critter & Guitari" Cellular Automata Video Synthesizer Kit

Mklok-2
Loud Objects Noise Toy Kit

Journal of Pyrotechnics

I just discovered the website for the Journal of Pyrotechnics:

Issues of the Journal of Pyrotechnics [ISSN 1082-3999] appear twice a year. Early issues contained 40 to 50 pages. More recent issues contain 70 to 80 pages printed in 8-1/2x11" format with medium-sized print. Areas of pyrotechnics addressed include fireworks, pyrotechnic special effects, propellants & rocketry, and civilian pyrotechnics. The Journal is "dedicated to the advancement of pyrotechnics through the sharing of information". This is accomplished with a mix of different types of articles; however, most fall into two areas. One area is reports on pyrotechnic and fireworks research conducted by both professional scientists and individual experimenters. The other area is reviews of various technical and craft areas of pyrotechnics, some at an advanced level and others at a tutorial level.

At $25-40 per issue, this is clearly an industry-priced publication. PDFs of articles can be bought at .50 per page.

Journal of Pyrotechnics

DIY night vision scope

Nightvision Sight
Nightvision Sight Example-1
From the MAKE Flickr photo pool

Member Jiskar built this sweet night vision scope -

Finished nightvision device. XX1080 image intensifier tube @ 10kV, powered by two 9V battery blocks, ccfl inverter and voltage multiplier. All mounted in plumbing pipe. Adapter for pentax lenses. IR flashlight mounted on top for small distance illumination.

Head over to Flickr to see more photos - Night vision scope

Spygear Nightvision
Technical details on Spy Gear Night Vision Goggles

New @ MAKE -- Make Robotics Workshop: Humanoids

Mkitw1-2
Nothing says "robot" like an android. So lets make one of our own! This course will take you through the steps of building your own android. You'll leave with a working, foot tall programmable android! You can use it for kung-fu matches, dancing, stair-climbing or many other events. Only 20 slots available (one or two people max per slot) Humanoid is designed to be remote controlled, but can be used autonomously by adding sensors.

Materials include all parts for one 13" tall humanoid, an infrared controller, programming software and a bearing head screw driver. Motherboard contains 8 I/O slots for upgrades like Sonar or Bluetooth.

Parts Cost - $399
Lab Fee - $200

You will need to bring a Windows laptop (or Mac/Linux box with a windows emulator). Your laptop must have a 9-pin serial port or a USB port and a USB-to-serial adapter. Attendees might want to bring a variable-speed power-drill or power screwdriver with a 3" long #0 Phillips head screw bit.

Features:

April 12, 10-6pm
April 13, 10-6pm
Includes lunch both days (specify in order comments if vegetarian)
Please include you Make Subscriber ID in the comments field at checkout.
Bring a copy of your printed order confirmation with you as proof of registration.
San Francisco State University, 19th and Holloway in San Francisco, CA.
Further details will be emailed to registrants.

More details and sign up here.

April Fools contest

As you know, tomorrow is April 1st. So be prepared to prank and be pranked. Instructables is running a contest (through the 13th) to find the best in April Fools shenanigans. Check out the entries so far -- you might find something worth torturing friends and coworkers with tomorrow.

April Fools' Speed Contest

Ant Farm retrospective

We make money not art has a piece about a retrospective on Ant Farm, the American media art collective from the 1970s. Ant Farm is most famous for their Cadillac Ranch installation in Amarillo, Texas.

I had the pleasure of meeting and becoming friends with Ant Farm co-founder Doug Michels in the early '90s. He was as delightfully crazy as ever, drawing up designs for spheres of water floating through space filled with dolphins, a Japanese sex theme park, a giant couch, called the National Sofa, in the park across from the White House, where people could come and interact with the First Family via the National TV set. This was definitely not a guy who liked to paint inside the lines. Sadly, Doug died in a freak climbing accident in 2003.

The Ant Farm retrospective is at The Centro Andaluz de Arte Contemporaneo in Sevilla, Spain.

Ant Farm retrospective in Sevilla

Al Jaffee's fold-ins for Mad Magazine

Make Pt0562
Al Jaffee's fold-ins for Mad magazine, from the 1960s to the present via Boing Boing.

Related:
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MAKE visits MAD Magazine.

Wiimote to Arduino Hack adds thumb navigation to Processing

This is a pretty cool Arduino to WiiMote NunChuck hack from Jeremy Keith to control 3D visuals in Processing on an iMac. Simple but effective.

Arduino WiiMote Hack

Made in Japan - Volume 8

This week:
MIDIfied finger piano hack, Interaction 2008, an impalement simulation belt, a safety-first robot paper shredder, the Sociable Trash Box, a long-distance drinking device, the Limonect ambient footstep network, Kazuya Kanemaru, a rotary remote control, a robot controlled by a TV remote, a young girl rocking out to Max/MSP/Jitter, edible rice tableware, and a very stylish paper clip holder.

Read full story

Garbage Reader makes your trash a bit less hazardous

The Garbage Reader 1.0 (aka G.R 1.0 or Grone), is the first of a series of robots by Ireland-based, French artist Ben Gaulon that analyzes the contents of garbage bins. The bot senses its immediate environment for toxicity, temperature, and humidity levels and remotely reports the data over a network while it's head-mounted camera streams back live images. I guess its true what they say about making sure you have a paper shredder for those important documents you don't want others reading after you trash them.

Garbage Reader 1.0

Five hundred and seven mechanical movements

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Dugg writes in -

One reader of The Automata / Automaton Blog wrote to me with an interesting question. "I'm looking for a simple mechanism to convert rotational motion to reciprocal motion along the SAME axis as the rotation, not perpendicular."

I decided to investigate potential solutions in one of my favorite books on mechanisms, Five Hundred and Seven Mechanical Movements: Embracing All Those Which Are Most Important in Dynamics, Hydraulics, Hydrostatics, Pneumatics, Steam Engines... (Astragal Press, 1995).

Answers and more here. Looks like a great book!

HOW TO - Make a Ping pong pistol

Pingpongpistol
Here's how to make a fun ping pong pistol... from Dangerously fun.

Use a CB radio to order a Whopper

This hack shows how to modify an old CB radio to broadcast on the channels that fast food restaurants usually reserve for their drive-thru windows. Although we here at MAKE don't condone this particular use, it's still a valid way of modifying existing systems to create new opportunities for interaction on open frequencies.

Phone Losers of America [via]