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Archives: April 2009

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April 29, 2009

Phoenix Art Exhibition: Imagined Geographies

If you live in or around Phoenix, you probably know about the monthly art walk that happens on the first Friday of every month. The Arizona State University School of Art is putting on a huge and awesome show this upcoming Friday at Bragg's Pie Factory; it will include metal, fiber, video, wood, and lots of other MAKE-y artworks. Hope to see you there!

Imagined Geographies (download press release)

Friday, May 1 2009 6:30-9:30

Bragg's Pie Factory

1301 W. Grand Ave Phoenix

More:

Speaker cozies for art exhibitions
Plush Knee on CRAFT

Steve's cigar box guitar

MAKE advisory board member Steve Lodefink made this totally snazzy cigar box guitar and posted pics to Flickr. To Dinosaurs and Robots, he sent the above pic of a cigar box amplifier experiment he tried. He writes:

I thought that it would be cool to build in amp inside the guitar, you know, so that I would not have to plug it in to an external amp, just turn it on and play. The speaker would be hidden inside.

An obvious thing that didn't occur to me was that if you put the amp, speaker, and pickup together in a box, all you get is feedback (which is of course what happened) .

But I thought that you might like to see the picture anyway.

Oops, I guess they can't all be winners...

Cigar Box Guitar photos on Flickr
Cigar Box Guitar Self Amplication Experiment

MAKE presents: The Diode

It's the simplest semiconductor device made. It's technology ushered in the age of radio. Say hello to the electronic valve that rectifies and regulates - the diode!

Download the m4v file or subscribe in iTunes

As per usual, making this installment of the series taught me quite a few things. Prior to reading up on the diode, I wasn't aware how closely its development was tied to the birth of radio - and just how finicky crystal detectors can be. I had a crystal demo in mind for this one, but it seems temperature and humidity hampered efforts to use my newly acquired galena samples. Oh well, more to come ... Fortunately there is a good example of a DIY razorblade diode in Bre's Foxhole Radio vid - good stuff.

And just in case you've missed any past installments of the MAKE presents vids, here they are in a big ol' stack format -

MAKE presents: The Transistor

MAKE presents: The Capacitor

MAKE presents: The Resistor

MAKE presents: The LED

Hand-powered synthesis with Exertion Instruments

Noah Vawter has been developing these rather awesome hand-powered electronic instruments at MIT's Media Lab. Dubbed 'exertion instruments', they reconnect the players physical strength with the instruments volume. This brings a level of expression to electronic music that before seemed confined to traditional acoustics - plus no power strips/batteries! Check out the project research/documentation for relevant details. [via Hack a Day]

Using temperature sensors with Arduino

Mr. Morgellon runs through a bit of testing with three DS18B20 temperature sensors interfaced with an Arduino via 1-wire protocol. I have one of these little guys just waiting to be put to use once the right project comes along. When it does I'm sure the sample code he posted will come in quite handy - check out the full post over on Daily Duino.

Cereal box notebooks

This was posted next door on CRAFT, but I thought it was interesting enough to post here too. I use the pocket-sized Moleskine Cahiers and they look just like this. I actual did make one of my own, using some black lightweight card stock and 1/10 graph paper inside. It was easy. I saddle-stitched it and rounded the corners with scissors. It didn't look all that different from the commercial black-cover Cahiers. These sewn-bound ones look great.

Cereal Box Journal

Stylish game grip for iPhone

Have you ever felt the need for a little something extra to hold onto while you played a game on your iPhone? This stylish iPhone accessary helps you keep a grip on your phone as you navigate the latest FPS.

This cool-looking GameGrip for iPhone came out today in Japan from Trinity, a company that makes lots of cool-looking accessories for Apple products. The bright blue gaming grip has a silicon sweat-proof lining and neatly tucked in slits for cables in case you're playing while charging or have a headset plugged in.

via TokyoMango

Arduino powered buttonless remote control

Timo sent me a link to his latest Arduino project. He made a wooden, buttonless, IR remote control from an Arduino and an accelerometer. I really like the idea of a remote that doesn't have any buttons. The fact that it all fits inside a small, seamless, wooden enclosure makes it even cooler! Check out the link for more information and source code. Thanks Timo!

A couple of weeks ago while I was playing with the Wii remote I got an idea: why not to control a TV with an accelerometer-based remote, too? I made a standalone Arduino and fitted it, other components needed and a battery pack inside a wooden, remote-sized case. Making the case was a bit of pain, since I had to drill two 20mm wide, 10cm deep holes without a drill press...

More about this Arduino powered buttonless remote control

Related:

How-to Tuesday: Arduino 101 Accelerometers

In the Maker Shed:

More about the Memsic 2125 accelerometer

Children's Arduino Workshop

I absolutely love this video posted by Jessica Wolpert. It's (3) eleven-year-old girls working on an Arduino project. It looks like the final project is a "mouse alert system" that blinks the eyes of the cat when the mouse gets too close. I am so happy to see kids experimenting with electronics and micro-controllers. Are you working with kids on any electronics projects? If so, please post them in the comments so we can write about it! Thanks!

More of Jessica Wolpert's videos

In the Maker Shed:

Arduino Family
Make: Arduino

April 28, 2009

Latest Fatman and Circuit Girl vids

Here are some recent video clips from George Sanger and Jeri Ellsworth, aka The Fatman and Circuit Girl. In the first vid, Jeri attempts to build a Sprinthariscope, a tool for viewing radiation, using the radioactive Americium from a smoke detector. She also attempts to pronounce Sprinthariscope and Americium. All three attempts fail, but it makes for an entertaining and educational video.

In the second segment, Jeri has the entire Fatman and Circuit Girl crew in hysterics when she shows off her drive bay heating and cooling cupholder which employs a Peltier thermo-electric junction she's overclocked to 16MHz using three early 8-bit microprocessors, a Z80, a 6502, and a 8088. Geek hilarity ensues.

Fatman and Circuit Girl

Sculpture made entirely out of welding wire

Tomás Libertiny made this sculpture entirely out of solder, using a stationary welder setup and a welding turntable. It was at the Design/Miami Craft Punk exhibit at Milan design week, hence the Fendi welding suit. Via Cool Hunting.

How-To: DIY TiVo IR Blaster

From the MAKE Flickr pool

MightyOhm shares this uber-simple recipe for building an "IR blaster" which allows a TiVo recorder to control a cable box -

The IR blaster that came with our TiVo was lost long ago, in a time when no unnecessary electrical-optical-electrical sillyness was required for it to function. Rather than spend $3 on eBay and wait a week to get a replacement, I decided to make one out of spare parts in my junk bin:

an infrared (IR) LED
a 1k resistor (not sure if this is necessary, safety first)
a 1/8″ mono headphone plug with a couple feet of cable attached
some heatshrink tubing
duct tape

I don’t know if the resistor is required - the TiVo may already have an internal resistor. I used 1k, if I see any problems with the cable box getting an intermittent signal I’ll try lowering the resistor to 330 ohms.

Looks like a nice little intro to electronics & soldering, if you're in need of one of these. More detailsavailable on the mightyOhm blog.

CNET Maker Faire contest

CNet is running a contest to give away 20 passes to Maker Faire San Mateo, May 30-31, 2009. Here's what "Geek Gestal" columnist Daniel Terdiman says about it:

The event's organizers have given me 20 passes to award CNET News readers. And all you have to do to win one is tell me, in 150 words or less, how you would use DIY to remake America (the event's theme).
It's a broad topic, I admit, and I'm sure there are an infinite number of ideas that could win. But in order to pick the best 20, I'm going to turn to my celebrity judge, MAKE magazine senior editor Phil Torrone.

So, send your 150-words-max ideas to me at daniel(dot)terdiman-*at*-cnet(dot)com by May 8 (please include the words "Maker Faire contest" in your e-mail subject line, as well as your full name in your e-mail), and maybe I'll be seeing you at Maker Faire.

Win free Maker Faire passes from CNET News

Arduino and Wii Nunchuck to control iTunes

I found this Arduino project really interesting and educational. They used several different techniques to get everything to work properly. I love the disclaimer of "way too many technologies". How true! However, it's not always about the practicality of a project, as much as it's about the process and documentation.

Here's my latest project. It involves way too many technologies for the sole purpose of controlling iTunes with Wii Nunchuck. Signal flow is almost uni-directional, so let's go from step by step from the Nunchuck to iTunes.

More about using an Arduino and Wii Nunchuck to control iTunes

In the Maker Shed:

More about the Arduino Mega in the Maker Shed

Spinning vinyl on the iPhone

Theo Watson just wrote an iPhone app to simulate spinning vinyl by spinning your phone. He writes:

The app uses the accelerometer of the ipod touch to control the speed of a ‘vinyl record’ on the ipod screen. Slowing down the record and speeding it up is just a matter of controlling how fast you spin the device. Next up scratching!

Made with openFrameworks.

More:

AR tag record scratching

Uncomfortably augmented reality

Our pal Eric Gradman came up with a cool augmented reality set-up for an event which poses the musical question: If you put all sorts of personal information on your Facebook, MySpace, and Twitter accounts, would you want to walk around in the real world with that data literally hanging over your head? He writes:

I installed this device at an event I help run every month. When people registered for the event in advance, I asked them for their Facebook and Twitter IDs, and then collected as much information as I could about them before the event. Then at the event, everyone got a custom badge with a sort of 2D barcode. I used face tracking and superimposed their personal data in a thought bubble over their head.

The Cloud Mirror

Adding head-mounted LEDs to Rovio

Here's a piece on the WowWee RoboCommunity forums about adding LEDs lamps onto the head-stalk of your Rovio. One of the criticisms of the Rovio is the rather poor camera mounted in the head. The lack of lighting on the head-stalk doesn't help. If you try and look up at something with your robo-head, and there's inadequate lighting where you're looking, you're pretty much screwed. Adding these two bright-white LEDs can help (or at least I'd assume so).

WowWee Rovio Hack: Head-Mounted LED Lights

Autonomous PIC-based blimp

Here's a robo-blimp that some students at Colorado State University designed. They score points just for coming up with the name infraLED Zeppelin. The article includes PDF build instructions and a complete parts list.

Gadget Freak Case 139: The Autonomous Blimp [Thanks, Phillip!]

Control your motors with an L293D and Arduino

I just came across this really interesting instructable about controlling motors with the Arduino. It looks like a really simple, and cheap, way to use an L293D chip for use in robotics. Check out the link for all the details and code.

After long research and trial and error, I have came up to a new walkthrough regarding this nice chip, the L293D.Each project is one project and each one has its own unique power configurations, so you must be aware of the best battery choice and how to distribute voltage through your robot.

More about Controlling your motors with an L293D and Arduino

In the Maker Shed:

Arduino Family
Make: Arduino

April 27, 2009

Blackberry pale ale

While taking a break from painting the inside of my new home studio/office this weekend, I tasted a glass of the blackberry pale ale that my friends and I have been working on for the past two weeks. The ale is a recipe we got from Brewer's Connection here in Tempe, AZ, and we added four pounds of frozen berries to the wort right at the beginning of fermenting (for a five gallon batch of beer). Freezing berries breaks their cell walls, allowing the juices to be released upon thawing, and the berries had to be "flash pasteurized" by pouring two pitchers of hot wort over them in the fermenting bucket before cooling down the rest of the wort. This sanitized the berries without ruining their flavor. The brewmaster at the store suggested using a fruit extract as an alternative, if we so desired. The color of the beer is just out of this world, and the flavor's pretty far up there, too.

Here's a review of the beer by RC, one of my brewmates' cat (photo by Matt Mets):

The first thing that I noticed upon opening the bottle was the sweet, delicate fruit aroma that had just the right punch of flavor to tease the palate and whet one's appetite. Unfortunately, the neck of the vessel proved impossible to drink from (neither head nor paw would fit), which meant that the beverage needed to be decanted to a more suitable container for tasting. After moving the liquid to a glass, the complex flavor of the drink was analyzed and found to have the same fruity kick as the initial whiff predicted, and was followed by light notes of hops, with a smooth finish. Overall, the the beer receives a rating of 9/10, with points removed for not being milk or heavy whipping cream.