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July 31, 2009

How-To: DIY mic pop filter

Instructables user d_malakian_69 writes:

When you are an aspiring musician you don't have a lot of money to buy expensive equipment and you have to record the best sounding demo with cheap recording tools. When I realized that popping is a common problem when recording vocals on any kind of mic, and when I saw that a good pop filter was about 50 bucks in my country I decided to make one myself.

Check out the instructions for this DIY microphone pop filter.

Pt 2081
Our pals released a very interesting presentation about smart parking meters at the Black Hat Briefings USA, Las Vegas, Nevada, yesterday... Good presentation to review on how they figured out the security (or lack of) on parking meters...

Throughout the United States, cities are deploying “smart” electronic fare collection infrastructures. In 2003, San Francisco launched a $35 million pilot program to replace approximately 23,000 mechanical parking meters with electronic units that boasted tamper resistance, payment via smart card, auditing capabilities, and an estimated $30 million annually in fare collection revenue. Other major cities, including Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, Philadelphia, Portland, and San Diego, have made similar moves. This presentation details our evaluation of electronic parking meters, including hardware disassembly, smart card protocol emulation, and silicon die analysis.

Call for Makers - SE Michigan, Mini Maker Faire

Dale Grover, of GO-Tech (Ann Arbor, MI), writes:

Developers, artists, and enthusiasts will display their ideas at the first Ann Arbor "Mini" Maker Faire, August 29, 2009, in downtown Ann Arbor. Applications are sought from people and groups with engaging, cool projects.

Entry Deadline: August 4, 2009. Space is limited--please submit your entry by the deadine!
Notification of Acceptance: Entries submitted by August 4th will be notified by August 8th.
Location: Neutral Zone, downtown Ann Arbor.
Hours: open to the public 10 AM - 5 PM Saturday August 29, 2009
Website: http://www.a2makerfaire.com
Entry Form: http://www.a2makerfaire.com/registration

Organized by members of the Ann Arbor tech and arts communities such as a2geeks and GO-Tech, this "Mini" Maker Faire is a small, local version of the huge Bay-area Faire, the newfangled fair that brings together science, art, craft, and engineering, and music, in a fun, energized, and exciting public forum. The aim is to inspire people of all ages to roll up their sleeves and become makers. This family-friendly event showcases the amazing work of all kinds of makers--anyone who is embracing DIY and wants to share their accomplishments with an appreciative audience.

We encourage you to join the fun and enter a project to exhibit. You can submit an entry through the web using the link described below.

Entries: The first step to participating in this Mini Maker Faire is to submit an entry that tells us about yourself and your project. Entries can be submitted from individuals as well as from groups such as hobbyist clubs and schools. Please provide a short description of what you make and what you will actually bring to the Mini Maker Faire. Please link to photographs or videos of what you make. Maker exhibits should be non-commercial. We particularly encourage exhibits that are interactive and that highlight the process of making things.

Maker Exhibit: Our standard setup for a Maker exhibit is roughly a 8' x 8' space. Use this space to display your work and/or demonstrate how you make something. Workshop/classes are also possible.

Additional presentation space (e.g., stage) may be available for presentations, performances, and demonstration workshops. We will ask accepted exhibitors for proposals to use this space on an hour-by-hour basis.

All proposals will be reviewed and we will notify makers of acceptance via email by August 8th (for entries received by the August 4th deadline).

NOTE: Makers whose entries are accepted will receive free registration to Mini Maker Faire. However, we cannot pay for transportation, accommodations, or other costs.

[The above photo is from a recent GO-Tech demo of lost-foam sand casting by Rick Chownyk.]

More information http://www.a2makerfaire.com

Oscilloscope text display from a single PIC

Ficara's oscilloscope scrolling text display project uses just one PIC chip & no other components (well, battery/power supply of course :) -

Scrolling text on oscilloscope, built with only one component: the Microchip PIC16F628A. The characters to be displayed are stored in EEPROM (ascii codes from 0x20 to 0x5f so numbers, capital letters and special characters).
[...]
The oscilloscope will be set for 2mS/div on X axis and 1V/div on Y axis. One full screen contains 10 characters.

More info + source available here. [via Hacked Gadgets]

Diamond-blade dicing saw from hard drive

Over at the mightyOhm, Jeff Keyzer has a guest blogger, his friend Tony. Tony's first project posted is (part 1) of this awesome diamond-bladed precision chop saw he built with parts from hard drives. The motor, pivot bearing, and motor driver are all from old drives. The blade is a surplus wafer-dicing blade, 300µm thick!

Tony's Diamond Chop Saw (Part 1)

Mint-tin key carrier

When I first saw this, I didn't think it seemed like such a bright idea -- maybe because of how it apparently beats the crap out of the tin and because this guy carries a lot of keys. I only carry three and a flat LED keyfob flashlight. And I always carry a tiny-tin Altoids box with my meds in it. I'm always looking to consolidate the contents of what I carry -- cut down on that chipmunk-cheeks pocket bulge -- so maybe I'll experiment.

Keychain box

Make: Projects - Mold concrete pots in scrap styrofoam

About a year ago Marc linked to the original version of this tutorial on my personal page. This is a revised version with more detailed and user-friendly instructions.

The idea here is to use a simple, inexpensive concrete mixture to cast decorative containers using common trash items as sacrificial mold elements. Styrofoam packing inserts, in particular, are available in an endless variety of shapes; the trick is to cultivate an eye for the negative spaces that are molded into these inserts, and set aside the interesting ones to use as outer forms. Inner forms, obviously, should be simpler, because the inside of the pot is not going to be visible.

Tools:

Wheelbarrow or other mixing bin
Shovel or other mixing tool
Tamping rod, e.g. 1.5" wooden dowel or closet rod, about 12" long
Knife or other metal straightedge
Old towel, preferably undyed
Saw or plastic pipe cutter
Hammer
Punch

Materials:

Styrofoam packing insert with interesting negative space
Beverage cup, food container, or other suitable inner mold
Play sand
Portland cement
Water
Plastic garbage bag
Short section(s) 1" pipe or other suitable drainage hole mandrel

Step 1: Gather your mold elements

I used a Styrofoam block I found discarded in a hallway in the UT chemistry department as an outer mold. It contains four identical cylindrical recesses and was originally used to package 4L glass solvent bottles. The inner forms are nested polyethylene tubs of the type provided at many grocery stores to package bulk dry goods.

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Student-made equipment in the Pratt metal shop

My pal Ross Connard is a Junior at the Pratt Institute and has a student job as a technician in the school's Fine Arts Metal Shop. The shop has a cool tradition of students building their own equipment and leaving it behind for subsequent generations of students to use. Shown above is a custom stencil Ross made to mark the positions of fire extinguishers on the concrete shop floors. Below is a custom tool rack he designed and fabricated from bulk steel and plywood. I can only imagine how great it must be to work in a space where every piece of equipment was built with love and respect by users like myself.

How-To: Rubber hose chair

Instructables user wholman made this chair from some plywood, a rubber air hose, and some long pieces of all-thread.

Some MAKEcation soldering suggestions

We hope you and your family are having fun learning how to solder. If you are, take some pictures and load them to the MAKE Flickr pool. The first five people who load family soldering pics and tag them "MAKEcation" will get a free Maker's Notebook.

To help give you some ideas for projects you can do, we've put together some of our favorites from the site. We tried to pick ones that are easy enough that a beginner can handle, but where you also get something useful (and/or fun) for your effort. If you are working on some soldering projects with the family, please tell us what they are in the comments.

Make a pocket LED cube - Weekend Projects Podcast
Make a pocket LED cube - Weekend Project PDFcast

Tiny Cylon Kit (one of the three kits in the Teach Your Family to Solder bundle)

MintyBoost USB Charger Kit v2.0

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Humans, bees, wasps living together

From the MAKE Flickr pool

Looks like Rob Cruickshank chills with bees on the daily!

A series of trap nests for solitary bees and wasps, mounted in plexiglas on our back window. The nests are open to the outside, and have plexiglas covers, alowing us to observe the activity from inside the house, as well as piezo transducer contact mics, allowing us to hear the activity inside, via the speakers on the right.

Wonder if he ever has to ask them to keep it down? Oh, I suppose he could just disconnect the speakers. I used to shared a place with a praying mantis ... nice guy, very religious. ... What? Check out the trap nest window on Flickr.

More:

DIY Bee Box

Weekend Project: Covert Wireless Listening Device

Install a sneaky bug in a book or any small covert object. I used an old vcr tape to capture secret surveillance.
Thanks go to David Simpson for the original article in MAKE, Volume 16.
To download The Covert Wireless Listening Device MP4 click here or subscribe in iTunes.

Check out the complete Covert Wireless Listening Device article in
MAKE, Volume 16 "Covert Wireless Listening" and you can see that in our Digital Edition.

Weekend Project: Covert Wireless Listening Device (PDF)

Install a sneaky bug in a book or any small covert object. I used an old vcr tape to capture secret surveillance.
Thanks go to David Simpson for the original article in MAKE, Volume 16.
View the PDF of this project. and then subscribe to MAKE Magazine for other great projects
you can do over the weekend.

Dancing meat … burf

Joan Healy's sound-activated Meat Market devices explore motions of organic materials under the control of … AGH! It's freakin' dancing meat, people!!!

[Thanks, Eric!]

How-To: Build a BEAM solarroller

Yesterday, I posted a reprinted from my old tech site, Street Tech, of a piece I did on Zach DeBord's solar-powered vibrobots. Here's another piece from Street Tech, one on building solarrollers, a simple kind of solar-powered car common in beginner BEAM robotics. Like the vibrobots, this would make a perfect project for a family who's just learned how to solder and wants to collaborate to build something fun (and cool!). - Gareth

Gopod bless Flickr! While searching on it recently to see if anyone else had built Mousey the Junkbot or a Symet or Solarroller inspired by my BEAM robotics articles in MAKE, Volume 06, I discovered Zach DeBord and his amazing BEAM creations. A Chicago-based designer and Web developer who's done work for (among others) Comcast, Volvo, and Yellow Tail (mmm...wine), Zach's bots put the "A" ("Aesthetics") back into BEAM, with gorgeous, meticulously-rendered designs that are as much objets d'art as autonomous robo-critters.

All of his robots are awesome-looking, but I was instantly attracted to this roller because it's bigger than any solarroller I've ever seen, and it uses two solar cells, four storage capacitors, and two gearmotors. Ingeniously, this roller can be steered (sorta). Zach writes: "It is currently configured to go forwards, but by angling either solar panel, it will turn more in one direction since one panel will be getting more light. With both panels angled in the same direction, it is pretty phototropic."

Read full story

Photographers discover LEDs

Introduction To LED Lighting

UK folding plug

This ingenious folding power plug design efficiently shaves off the extra bulk of a standard UK 3-prong plug, while increasing safety and ease of use. It has recently been entered to compete for the 2009 James Dyson Award and has been determined a shortlisted entry. Check out their entry page for more information, photos, and sketches.

When people carry laptops with U.K plugs in a bag, it always causes problems such as tearing paper, scratching laptop surfaces and, sometimes, it breaks other stuff. 'Folding Plug' changes the shape form the normal U.K plug into a 10mm thickness object, solving these damaging problems.

In the Maker Shed: The MAKEcation learn to solder bundle

MAKEcation learntosolderbundle2 copy.jpg

The MAKEcation learn to solder bundle is a fun collection of all things blinky. All the kits are easy to solder and each one makes a fun little blinky piece of hardware. The bundle also includes our Maker's Notebook and MAKE Volume 01, which features a great learn to solder tutorial. Have fun this summer, learn to solder, and blink some LEDs!

Features:
MAKE Volume 01 $14.99 value
tinyCylon $10 value
Wee Blinky $8 value
Lux Spectralis $10 value
Maker's Notebook $19.99 value

More about The MAKEcation learn to solder bundle

July 30, 2009

Ask MAKE: EPS foam

Ask MAKE is a weekly column where we answer reader questions, like yours. Write them in to becky@makezine.com or drop us a line on Twitter. We can't wait to tackle your conundrums!

Dan writes in:

How are big closed cell polystyrene bocks made? I've seen them 12" square and about 8' long.

Expanded polystyrene foam (EPS or Styrofoam) is made from pellets of polystyrene, which is a plastic made from crude oil. The pellets are expanded in a steam chamber. You can find these pellets in this form inside most beanbag chairs. To make solid objects, they use steam molds that fill a chamber with the pellets, then steam fuse them into custom packaging, foam drinking cups, etc. Here are a few videos I found on the topic; one's on Planet Green, the other one is a segment on Discovery's How It's Made:

Polystyrene is lightweight and good for protecting valuables in shipping, among other things, but it's not biodegradable. It can, however be recycled. I found a video on Planet Green where they turn styrofoam packaging into moulding for your house. Neat! Also, don't forget to check out the Wikipedia page on polystyrene foam.

More:

Styrobot built by father & son (pictured above)
Styrofoam chandelier
Moldable plastic from styrofoam
Hot wire foam cutter

City of staples

12 High-Rise-2006
12 High-Rise-2006-Detail-2
Artist Peter Root's Low-Rise via jwz.

Low-Rise is a precarious assemblage of thousands of free-standing stacks of staples densely tessellated to create a city-like mosaic. Like a city, the staples are subject to the elements, on a micro scale. The slightest breath or vibration and the domino effect kicks in.