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March 31, 2008

Preamp-in-a-cable

Preamp Cable
In-Cable Preamp Schem

This one could be great for bass players and other DI-ers

A Preamp Cable is a phantom powered discrete FET (Field Effect Transistor) preamp built into the plug of a guitar cable. It provides almost all the advantages of an on-board preamp with none of the disadvantages.

To the best of my knowledge I invented the Preamp Cable in 1992 and improved it in 1996, though it wouldn't surpise me if someone has done this before. I've built up a number of prototypes with subtle variations and have been using them ever since.

A newfound need for phantom power could be disadvantage if you're mixer is not properly equipped. The author discusses a phantom power pass-thru box for such situations, but that sort of defeats the project's convenience. Check the site for variations and project description - FET Preamp Cable

Hmm, anyone seen a phantom fuzz cable yet?

Related:
Diy Sc1 Images Sc1Promo1
Preamp kits

Flower signs

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Spring is here again... Mark Jenkins, Flower signs via Wooster Collective.

The elder lemon joule thief

Lemon Joule Thief
From the MAKE Flickr photo pool

Like some sort of cyborg fruit-turned-electronic hedgehog - Flickr member s8's 2-week old lemon-powered joule thief is showing its age. Hmm. I wonder if it smells as good as it looks. - middle-aged lemon

Make a Joule Thief - Weekend Projects Video Podcast

LED with breath switch

Electrick made this interactive LED candle. It uses an Arduino and a simple aluminum foil switch to control the flickering. There are more photos and the code on the web site.

The LED glows, but when I blow across a simple little switch I tossed together, the LEDs flicker like a candle does when you blow on it! Soon after the LEDs return to normal operation. I know this isn't much, but then again its my first Arduino project.

Read more about Arduino powered LED with breath switch.

Related:

From the MAKE Flickr photo pool
The LED birthday candle

"Craft" 80's computer audio & video

David sent in this cool AVR project called "Craft". It uses an AVR microcontroller to make 80's type computer graphics and music. If you just can't wait to hear the awesome music, skip to 1:00 in the video. All the schematics and lots more pictures are on the web site.

Having successfully built a soundchip out of a microcontroller together with my friends in kryo, I wanted to tackle the greater challenge of generating a realtime video signal along with the sound. This is the result.

"Craft" 80's computer audio & video

DIY Telegraph sounder

Our friend Jake von Slatt sent in this remake of a telegraph sounder:

A kind fellow sent me these step by step instructions for building a telegraph sounder that closely resembles the classic brass and iron sounders of yore - only this one is a re-make with wood that can be accomplished with simple hand tools!

Make your own telegraph sounder

Related:
Tg26
HOW TO - Make a Telegraph that clacks out RSS Feeds

Maker Faire returns! May 3rd & 4th 2008

Make Pt0560
"Combining old-fashioned crafters with forward-thinking technorati, fashionistas, and mad scientists of all stripes, the Maker Faire is a hands-on celebration of all things DIY brought to life by Make magazine." -- The Onion

Buy tickets now and save! Discount ticket sales end on April 25th, 2008.
Maker Faire returns! Booming DIY fest expects record crowd - May 3rd & 4th 2008! Last year, over 45,000 people from all across the country (and beyond) came to the Bay Area to celebrate the world's premier event for DIY (Do It Yourself) creativity--Maker Faire! This year, May 3rd and 4th, the event returns to the San Mateo Fairgrounds once again, for what will be the biggest and wildest Maker Faire yet! Put together by Make Magazine and Craft Magazine, Maker Faire celebrates things people create themselves--from electronic gizmos that would make James Bond jealous, to "slow made" foods and homemade clothes that would make Martha Stewart swoon. The event is a non-stop "wow-fest" where surprises and inspiration are as ubiquitous as the festival air.

"At the surface, Maker Faire is a fun event for people of all ages," explained Event Director Sherry Huss. "But more than just a weekend of creative entertainment, we want people to leave feeling inspired--that they too can create things, express themselves, and engage the world around them. Our goal is to resuscitate the spirit of American innovation!"

Named "Best Special Event" at the 2007 FOLIO FAME Awards, the 2008 Bay Area Maker Faire will put a special emphasis on "Green" living. There will be a huge exhibit featuring Farm Aid's Homegrown Village, a local farmer's market, Swap-O-Rama-Rama's giant used clothing swap, DIY workshops and fashion show, Bazaar Bizarre's crafts fair, a live Prius plug-in car conversion from Bay Area's Calcars.org, and much, much more.

Along with the hundreds of Makers displaying their unique creations, specific event highlights from this year's Maker Faire include:

Greg Leyh's 19 foot Tesla Towers - live performances daily
Wedding Bells! "The Neverwas Haul," a self-propelled 3-story Victorian House, will host the first-ever Maker Faire wedding
Saturday Evening Fire Spectacular (extended hours, 6pm - 10pm) - Power Tool Drag Races, Steampunk Spectacular, musical performances, The Flaming Lotus Girls, and more
Electronic Music Fest - an orchestra of musical toys, LIVE bands playing instruments you've never seen before, The Tarantulas Jug Band and much more
The Life-Sized Mousetrap - a giant re-creation of the popular board game
LUNAR (Livermore Unit of the National Association of Rocketry) will help parents and children build and launch Estes-Cox rockets
The Electric Giraffe - our huge, 17 foot tall, 1-ton walking robot giraffe will once again patrol the grounds of Maker Faire
The founders of ROBOEXOTICA present the "MindReadingMartiniMaker" and other award-winning cocktail-robots
Educational Robots - robotic demonstrations for two youth robotic competitions: FIRST LEGO League [5th through 8th grades] and FIRST Tech Challenge [7th through 12th grades]
"Like Father Like Son" - a local father/son team will be converting a 1967 Honda S90 motorcycle into a state-of-the-art plug-in vehicle
"ArtGolf" - the 3-hole artgolf course makes its Bay Area Maker Faire debut. Fore!
The Village Blacksmith - new to this year's Faire
Diet Coke & Mentos - Las Vegas' famed Bellagio can't match this DIY display - shows both days
The Institute of the Future Pavilion - what will Maker Faire look like in 2018?
Experimental Aviation - The Oshkosh Experimental Aircraft Association (eaa.org) will be taking Maker Faire aviation to new heights
Cyclecide Pedal Powered Bicycle Rodeo

Many more headlining activities to be added in the weeks ahead...

Preliminary event sponsors include Microsoft, Adobe, Chronicle Books, Epilog Laser, Google, Hewlett-Packard, Lion Brand Yarn, Plenty, Sakura, ShopBot Tools, Scharffen Berger Chocolate Maker, Singer, SparkFun Electronics, Sun and Walt Disney Imagineering.

"This is going to be the biggest and best Maker Faire yet," said Dale Dougherty, editor and publisher of Make magazine. "If you want to see the future of American innovation, this is the place to be."

The Details:

When:
Saturday, May 3, 2008 (10am - 10pm) - Sunday, May 4, 2008 (11am - 6pm)

Where:
The San Mateo County Event Center and Fairgrounds, 2495 South Delaware Street, San Mateo, CA

Admission:
Adults: $25/$20 in advance; Students (13-21): $15/$10 in advance; Youth (4-12): $10/$5 in advance; and children under 4 are free/

For the very latest information and updates, please visit: www.makerfaire.com

About Maker Faire:
Maker Faire is the premier event for grassroots American innovation. The event started in San Mateo, California in 2006 and expanded to Austin, Texas in 2007. Held annually in each of these locations, the event may expand elsewhere in the future. Maker Faire is supported by Make Magazine and Craft Magazine and O'Reilly Media the premier information source for leading-edge computer technologies. The company's books, conferences, and web sites bring to light the knowledge of technology innovators.

Buy tickets now and save! Discount ticket sales end on April 25th, 2008.

March 30, 2008

Assign USB drives to a folder

When a drive is mounted in Windows, it's normally assigned the next available drive letter, and using the disk management tool, you can force a disk to use a specific drive letter. It turns out you can even take this one step further and map a drive to a directory/folder path on another disk.

With this hack, you can have your external USB disk show up on "c:\usb", or anywhere else you like. Here's how:

Open the disk management utility: Start->Run>diskmgmt.msc
With the USB disk inserted, select the drive from the list.
Right-click and select "Change Drive Letter and Paths"
Click add and select the "Mount in the following empty NTFS folder"
Browse to the folder you want the disk to mount beneath

Now when the disk is inserted, it will always show up mounted beneath the directory of your choosing.

This could come in handy if you have a folder that's filling up your disk. Normally if you move it to another disk, it affects a bunch of paths (especially if it's your program files or something on your desktop). With this tip, you could add another drive, move the contents of the directory to it, and then mount it beneath the former directory.

Assign USB Drives to a Folder [via Lifehacker]

MAKE Flickr pool weekly roundup

Flickrmosaic 3-30-08
From the MAKE Flickr photo pool
A few projects covered this week each hailing from distinct areas of the maker spectrum. Keep-a-postin' - looks like there's some really cool stuff incoming for next week as well!

HOW TO - Deaf dog caller collar from RC car

Instructables user arcticpenguin hacked an RC car to make a vibrating dog collar for his deaf dog and shows us how to do the same for about five dollars. The hardest part may be training your old dog to the new trick! Via the Instructables Weekend Builder.

New audio for Soviet aviation helmet

In this Instructable, the author shows how he put modern haedphones into a Soviet-era SHZ-84 flight helmet.

Hacking a SHZ-84 Soviet aviation helmet

Best of CRAFT

Here are some of my favorite posts from the CRAFT blog this week:

Chloe Dao's design studio tour - CRAFT Video Podcast

MP4 Video | QT Video | HD | Subscribe in iTunes

Chloe Elle

I always like looking behind the scenes to find out how a designer, crafter, or artist works. With this CRAFT Video Podcast, we go behind the scenes with Project Runway Season 2 Winner and fashion designer, Chloe Dao. Chloe's boutique and brand Lot 8 in Houston is quite the shopping destination. She designs most of the clothing in her boutique and works hands on throughout the production process from cutting all the fabric and more. We got a chance to be the first to see Chloe's new design studio where she shows us the designs and clothing for her new upcoming wholesale line. Can you believe she used to work in her mom's kitchen and dining room? She was gracious enough to be filmed in her sweats and no makeup, since she and her employees had just completed the Houston AIDS walk that morning. Look for a feature on fashion designer Chloe Dao in a future issue of CRAFT magazine!

With me on the video shoot is Diana Eng fashion designer and Project Runway Season 2 contestant, who you may here giggle in the background. You can see more photos of our visit in my Flickr set.

Tvt052 01
Chloe's tip on pressing is an important one. Here's a Threads video that shows you the best pressing techniques to make your garments look more finished and professional.

Chloe Runwaydress
This was dress featured in Chloe's runway show for Project Runway (Fall 2006) and is prominently placed in her boutique. Another version of the dress is also displayed in the Smithsonian Museum in Washington D.C.

DIY Lathe chip guard

Nick made a chip guard for his Cummins mini-lathe. Anyone who has worked on a metal lathe knows what a mess the chips make. They can also do a lot of damage if they get into the gears and/or lead screws. This is a nice modification that really should be an OEM part. DIY Lathe chip guard

From the MAKE Flickr photo pool

Pulse2008 art fair NYC

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Busy week in the art/MAKE scene in NYC, in addition to the massive Armory show (coverage here) - there's also "Pulse" - a large art fair featuring living artists and over 90 galleries.

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PULSE featured a lot more "traditional" fine art, but again - MAKE/CRAFT-like trends are emerging (toaster prints words).

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Beads = Captain James T. Kirk...

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Star Trek art (yarn)...

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One thing that was evident, there was more "grittiness" to PULSE, there was a performace + art piece called "Blog Script" by Mary Coble. In Marker New Yotk (2006) Mary Coble stood silently while people who passed by wrote hate speech they experienced on her body, now in 2008 over 75 of these words are going to be tattooed (without ink) on her. Each blood impression is displayed on the wall...

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There was also a few artists/galleries featuring what I think we'll see a lot of in the next few years, pharma-art. Art with pills, medical equipment or just bio-themed.

More Pulse2008 art fair NYC photos here.

Held annually in New York, Miami and London, PULSE presents leading international galleries and artists showcasing the latest movements in contemporary art in powerful architectural environments designed to serve both seasoned and emerging collectors.
The Fair, which was conceived to bridge the gap between established and alternative art fairs, has enjoyed tremendous success in both Miami and New York, and this past year brought 40 exciting and innovative established and emerging galleries to London.

The format of PULSE is based on an exclusive selection of galleries exhibiting contemporary art invited by the PULSE Invitational Committee which is comprised of international dealers, advisors and curators. The fair was created to provide a friendly and intimate context for visitors and exhibitors alike.

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Related:
Pulse 2008 - NYC.

Editor's note: This is part of the "mobile post" series which will appear on MAKE - sponsored by Windows Mobile. Only the links and voice that appear in the mobile post box (below) are part of the campaign on MAKE - pt.

March 29, 2008

Little drummer bot

Yellow Drum Machine is a tiny musical robot who's sole purpose in simulife is to motor around looking for suitable surfaces to drum a beat on.

Notice how the robot first plays on the object it finds (or is forced to find by the angry cameraman), plays a small beat, and records the beat it plays on it. Then this recorded beat is played again, and it starts to play on the object (an belt tracks and everything else it has),and also playing this sampled beat :)
...

Why? Well.. I was sitting thinking what I should do for my next robot, what it should do.. Listening to music.. making a rythm with some robot-parts.. Thought; "Hey, I will make a robot that drives around and plays on stuff"

It's a pretty simple robot, which could make this a fun little weekend project. The main components are a Picaxe brain, an ultrasonic rangefinder for position sensing, and 6 gear motors for moving and drumming. It's funny how the simple addition of a speaker and drum kit transforms a simple obstacle avoider into a soul machine.

Yellow Drum Machine

Build a BristleBot to clean up your apartment

If you are like me, you hate to sweep and are too poor to buy a "Roomba". This BristleBot project by 11th grade programming wiz, Erin Kennedy, is a pretty simple way of getting some basic cleaning done and watching the bot scuttle around on the kitchen floor is pretty fun too.

Bristlebot @ RobotGrrl

Gloggomobil : Programmable barrel-organ

Dug sent in his write-up about the Gloggomobil. It's a really cool, and very expensive, programmable barrel organ that is screaming for a remake. You can start with the keys from a toy xylophone. Read more about the Gloggomobil & the Product Page

Update:

Spike sent in this great remake

MakePhilly - Sunday, March 30th

Habla Chris Vecchio
Details about the - MakePhilly - Sunday, March 30th meeting!.

Its that time here in Philadelphia.
MakePhilly is meeting this Sunday at 3PM in the Industrial Design department of UArts.

We are extremely excited to welcome one of our own to the guest speaker mic. MakePhilly charter member, Chris Vecchio, will present an overview of his work over the past few years including his Meterbox series - an investigation into the narrative potential of electronic circuitry, Evidence of Toolmaking - a series of hand-held sculptures integrating electronics and bone, and concluding with a demonstration of CUBE - an interactive sound installation and study in the design of ambiguous but suggestive user interfaces.

Chris is an electrical engineer who began creating sculptural electronic devices and interactive installations to help him better understand the relationship between man and technology. Chris holds a PhD in Electrical Engineering from Drexel University and is the Chairman of the Board at Nexus Foundation for today's Art, Philadelphia. He also holds several patents for his work in the field of ultrasonic measurement.

:: OPEN MAKE - SIGN UP! ::
A staple of all our meetings is Open Make -- an opportunity for you to
share with the group a project you recently completed. As we have been
growing in size, we are going to be limiting the Open Make
presentations to three per meeting. We have 2 slots still open... if
you're interested in presenting be sure to email us: makephilly@gmail
to reserve your spot ASAP!

:: MAKER CHALLENGE ::
This time we're keeping it a surprise :p
However, we are thrilled to announce that we have bought TONS of awesome
new materials and stuff for this and all future maker challenges
(we're talking over $900 worth of surplus electrical and mechanical
parts!)

:: MEETING SPECS ::
Date: *THIS* Sunday, March 30th
Time: 3PM Sharp
Location: University of the Arts, 333 S. Broad Street, Anderson Hall,
4th Floor
Cost: $5 donation suggested

NYC Armory Show 2008

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Today MAKE visited the NYC Armory Show 2008, over 160 international galleries roll in and feature new art by living artists. I've gone for a couple years and this show was fantastic. I think the part of the reason I enjoyed this show so much is where art seems to be heading (lately) more "crafty" and more electronics. While there is traditional fine art (paintings, etc) the really striking works are using modern materials and modern processes like 3D printers and laser cutters.

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Neon was big this year, there were at least a dozen artists who used neon in their works in some way - in a world where everything we use glows, it makes sense that the art is starting to glow too.

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My favorite artist there was Jenny Holzer, she's best know for her "text as art" in public spaces, "truisms" and lately she has been using LED signs. Her twitter is interesting (not sure if it's hers, but her aphorisms are there).

I took tons of photos, view more of the NYC Armory Show 2008 photos here.

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About the show:

The Armory Show, The International Fair of New Art, is the world's leading art fair devoted exclusively to contemporary art. In its tenth annual exhibition, The Armory Show 2008 will celebrate the spirit of contemporary art. The exhibition includes many of the most important contemporary dealers showcasing new art from around the world.

New York is home to more collectors, galleries, critics and artists than any other city in the world. During The Armory Show, they are joined by many thousands of their peers from around the globe making New York the true center of the international art world.

The Armory Show is the successor to the highly acclaimed Gramercy International Art Fairs that attracted thousands to their New York, Los Angeles and Miami shows between 1994 and 1998. The Armory Show was first presented in February 1999 at the 69th Regiment Armory, the very site of the now legendary Armory Show of 1913 that introduced modern art to America and for which The Armory Show is named.

After the deaths of Founding Members Pat Hearn and Colin De Land the remaining founders of The Armory Show established a benefit foundation in their name. The Pat Hearn and Colin De Land Cancer Foundation is a not-for-profit corporation whose mission is to provide assistance for medical expenses to members of the visual arts community with cancer.

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Some fast facts: