Make: Online: How it's made Archives

Archive: How it's made

July 4, 2009

How fireworks...work

Dark night, bright flashes, ooooh, ahhhh....hmmmm, how does that work? Here is a collection of how those flashy bangs and pops do their thing.

How Stuff Works does a typically thorough job explaining the hows and whys of fireworks.

When the fuse burns into the shell, it ignites the bursting charge, causing the shell to explode. The explosion ignites the outside of the stars, which begin to burn with bright showers of sparks. Since the explosion throws the stars in all directions, you get the huge sphere of sparkling light that is so familiar at fireworks displays.

Pyrouniverse is up for giving the abstract on how they are loaded, but keep their lips sealed on the ancient family secrets.

Fireworks tubes are made by rolling thick paper tightly around a former, such as a dowel. Though they can be made by hand, most firework/tube factories use machinery to manufacture tubes.

The shells that hold the individual charges are loaded with various metals and other ingredients.

Inside a shell are pellets that, when burning, produce the colors in a fireworks explosion. Various compounds create various colors -- strontium gets you red; barium, green; copper, blue; sodium, yellow. Aluminum, titanium and magnesium brighten the flames.

The Boston fireworks show has a tradition of drawing huge, potentially panic attack producing crowds. Each of the charges have been built and are planned and manufactured for months in advance. When the time comes, they will be fired off in coordination with the music emanating from the stage.

They downloaded the soundtrack onto a specially designed computer system and began the time-consuming work of matching their arsenal of Roman Candles, Comets, Meteors, Spinning Wheels, and other fireworks with the rhythm of the music.
"You judge what to use by the feel of the music,'' Art Rozzi said. "You have to know what you've got. You have to know if you're going to shoot a lot or a little. And you have to keep in mind the finale, so you're not giving anything away.''

Though many cities have fireworks shows, lots are also dampening the fuse this year because of the expense and budget priorities. For the lucky remainders, people have been prepping the sites for the past few days and weeks.

Each firework is encased in a shell that looks like an oversized light bulb wrapped in brown paper. Inside, one fuse launches the firework like a rocket, while another has a time delay that makes it burst in the air.
The fireworks are made of gunpowder and beads that form various shapes and colors depending on the chemical pigments and how they are arranged inside. They come from all over the world, though most are from China.

The color of a compound in a firework will be the same as its color in a flame test. Not all compounds that produce a colored flame are appropriate for coloring fireworks, however. Ideal colorants will produce a pure, intense color when present in moderate concentration.

Check out the wikipedia entry for more details, and a trip around the world detailing ways that fireworks are used in other cultures.

Share with us in the comments your experiences of making and deploying fireworks.

Image above from Wikipedia

July 3, 2009

Making mischief

There are a few clever pranks here. I particularly like the Mentos stealth geyser. From the Mischief Makers' Manual.

June 28, 2009

AIDG: water solutions

AIDG is a NonGovernmental Organization (NGO) that helps provide low technology solutions to help address environmental and health needs to people living in communities without great access to the systems that many of us consider requirements.

Here are a few of their water-based initiatives:

Solar Hot Water:

XelaTeco, with support from AIDG's wonderful interns, recently installed a solar water heating system and water tower for La Guarderia, a childcare center in Llanos del Pinal, Guatemala. La Guarderia was started by two non-profit organizations, Pop Wuj and Jóvenes Juntos, who saw the need for daycare and after school homework assistance in a community plagued by poverty, domestic violence and alcoholism.
Jóvenes Juntos requested the hot water system to promote healthy hygiene practices amongst the children served by center, particularly in the cold winter months. The presence of hot water is expected to reduce the occurrence of skin ailments, such as scabies and other rashes. This segment of the project was funded by AIDG.

Ram Pump:

As the water runs downhill from the source to the ram pump, it gains force and velocity. When this velocity reaches a determined point, the water closes a valve in the ram pump known as the "impulse" or "waste" valve. The force of the water against the now closed impulse valve causes pressure to build inside the pump. The water sends high-pressure shock waves in all directions (the "water hammer," or "ariete" in Spanish, from which the pump gets its Spanish name, "Bomba de Ariete"). These shock waves open another valve, the delivery check valve, and water squirts through reaching altitudes of up to ten times greater than the vertical distance from the water's source to the pump. An air vessel installed in the pump acts as a kind of regulator which keeps the flow at the top steady, instead of delivered in bursts, as the pump internally functions

Sand Filtration:

Properly managed sand filters remove 96%-98% of water borne pathogens such as E. Coli and Giardia, producing a positive significant impact on the health of target users. The greatest effect is expected for young children, who are extremely susceptible to diarrheal diseases caused by exposure to contaminated water. Diarrheal disease causes approximately 2 million deaths per year among children in developing countries.

The World Health Organization has some good documentation on sand filtration technology.

To find out more about AIDG, check out their blog and their photos.

Make your own radio programming

[Photo from MetroMode]

Michael Jackson's death caused radio's roboprogrammers to take a back seat for a while. Increasingly, over the past few decades, broadcast radio has ceased to be a local affair. As the FCC regulations on local ownership of media outlets has faded towards corporate behemoths, radio programming more and more these days is done by databases and distant decision makers. For those of us who remember real radio dj's who made personal decisions about what song would come next, this has driven us more towards our own music collection, rather than being stuck listening to the corporate drivel. Pandora and Last.fm are okay, but they lack the personal touch.

With Michael Jackson's death announcement, the clacker driven music machine was taken off line, if only for a few hours and only on a few stations. Human beings again ruled the airwaves of some radio stations.

"It's a good reminder of what live radio can do, of the role that radio can play in bringing a community together,'' said Scott Fybush, editor of Northeast Radio Watch in Rochester, N.Y.
Many stations no longer have live announcers, using canned voices for part or all of the day, and so can't react to a major news event, he said.

DJ Deirdre Dagata, 39, has been working at Mix 98.5 part time since May, after being replaced at Kiss 108 by recorded programming the month before. And yesterday, she was back in action for the biggest radio day in memory.

Dagata was in constant motion during her 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. shift. Sitting in an elevated office chair in front of four computer screens, she punched blinking phone lines, tapped on keys, and slid knobs - simultaneously editing recorded calls and fielding a steady stream of new ones from listeners who wanted to share stories about Jackson.

Back in the day, I recall listening to the radio knowing something unique was happening. The radio announcers had their own tastes in music, and they helped to create a following around their musical tastes. Sometimes there was dead air as the dj missed the cue for a variety of human reasons, some more innocent than others. This caused me to volunteer at and work at several radio stations in the 1980's and 1990's. I actually chose my university because I liked the on air feel of the campus radio station, which turned out to be a very influential organization for me. At the station, I did on-air work, production of public service announcements, newscasts, dj training, and eventually became Program Director. The audience's active listenership of the music and programming was exciting to be involved with.

Back then, radio was a public service to be provided to the community, not just a marketing opportunity. Almost radio programming was done with people at the microphones, nearly always they were playing actual records, tapes or cds. Even the commercials were created in-house, except those for national campaigns.

Do you miss real radio? There are a bunch of college radio stations around, and most of them depend on the student body and sometimes local community members to create their programming. With web streaming, it is possible to listen way beyond the broadcast range of your favorite station. WERS in Boston plays a good mix curated by communications students. KEXP in Seattle has a wonderful mix of live performances and genuine djs choosing the music they play. Transom and Youth Radio are helping to cultivate the new voices of radio that we need. Public Radio Exchange has a channel on XM radio, and features a mix of voices that you may not have heard before.

With podcasting and the great suite of computer software and hardware available for free, just about everybody has the radio recording studio in their laptop, desktop, cellphone and digital camera that I had in my bedroom as a high school kid. If you want to broadcast, you may want to build your own transmitter. Sending out your homebrew radio programming out to your house or close neighbors could be a neat experience. You could record some short pieces like songs, jokes, or seque buffers, drop them into your music library and set your music player loose, sending your personalized radio program out to the transmitter.

Radio used to be a LOT of fun as a listener and programmer. Now the tools are much easier to get and use for us regular folks. Hopefully, the corporations will lighten up on their centralized programming and return to the human touch of radio, but even if they don't we can realize that we can choose what radio we listen to or create. If you have any stories of making your own or listening to real radio, pirate or otherwise, tell us in the comments.

June 18, 2009

Ann Arbor Aluminum Casting Demo

Last week, I spoke at the GO-Tech meeting, which was held at the A2 Mechshop in Ann Arbor, MI. I was there for a terrific demo of aluminum casting by Rick Chownyk. He was not only well-informed but very entertaining.

Rick began with a styrofoam mold he had created already.

He had built his own burner for melting scrap aluminum. (He said that you can't do this using aluminum cans.)

He buried the mold in a bucket of sand. When the aluminum was red-hot, the exciting time for the pour arrived. In the video below, listen to the enthusiastic audience and their questions -- this is why these demos are so cool.

Minutes later, after the mold had cooled, he removed it, dunked it water, and raised it high to the delight of the crowd -- a metal Make sign!

Rick recommends the site, Backyard Metalcasting, for instructions on how to do this yourself. He also credits the Dave Gingery books available from Lindsay's Technical Books.

Thanks to Dale Grover and A2 Mechshop for inviting me to speak and to the hundred or so who came out.
A2 Mech Shop, a "co-engineering" space, is a positive sign that good things are happening in Michigan.

June 14, 2009

Early olive oil factory

This reconstruction of the earliest known olive oil factory demonstrates a simple yet ingenious process to extract olive oil from olives using pulleys, levers, and gravity decanting. This was much more effective than using mortar and pestle to make olive oil, typically used for small scale production. Dating back to the 6th century BC, this factory was located in the Ionian city of Clazomenae, on what is now the coast of western Turkey. This photo shows the press used to squeeze the olive oil out from burlap sacks filled with a paste of ground up olives.

Read full story

Where's all the CNC kerf-bending?

Here's a traditional wood-bending technique that seems ready-made for CNC millers, and yet I can't find much online evidence that it's being done.

To make a kerf-bend, the wood is first corrugated on the inside of the intended radius. The width, depth, number, and spacing of the kerfs all affect the qualities of the finished bend. The open kerfs are flooded with glue, and the bend is made and clamped in place until the glue dries. Stuart Lees of Stu's Shed has a nice piece on the subject.

I imagine it's tedious work, cutting all those kerfs, at least if you're doing it manually with traditional tools, like a table saw or a fence router. And perhaps more intimidating, for some, is the mathematics of figuring out just how many kerfs you need, and just how thick, deep, and widely spaced they ought to be to achieve a particular radius. Yet both functions can be performed automatically by a CNC system--the cutting by the hardware and the calculating by the software.

In fact, it seems like such a natural fit that I'm having a hard time believing it's not already out there. So sound off, CNC-millers: Who's doing this today, and where can I learn more about it?

June 11, 2009

How-To: Knap an arrowhead from a beer bottle

(Image courtesy of Kevin Dunn, whose book Caveman Chemistry, along with a bunch of other cool hands-on projects, contains a chapter on knapping in bottle glass. Thanks Kevin!)

Anybody else read Snow Crash? Remember the big scary Aleut who likes to steal warheads from nuclear submarines using only his canoe and handmade glass knife? Remember how, when you first read that book, you kinda wanted to be that guy? Well, I'm here telling you: It's not too late to become the baddest mango-farmer in the world. After all, even Raven had to start somewhere, and apparently chipping an arrowhead out of bottle glass is the "hello world" of the flintknapping user community. Mike Melbourne and Tim Rast's venerable tutorial shows you how.

Cardboard surfboards

Mike Sheldrake makes surfboards out of interlocked ribs of cardboard, coated in fiberglass sheet. He was at Maker Faire showing off some of his prototypes. I'm digging the natural materials as the core of the board, and the cool patterns in light that they create.

June 5, 2009

Watt's linkage and possible app in rapid prototyping hardware

As Primus tells us: "Jerry was a race car driver." Jeri Ellsworth was both a race car driver and a race car designer. In this segment from a Fat Man & Circuit Girl episode, she talks about the concept behind Watt's linkages she used in a rear suspension system she designed and how this mechanical linkage could be used in rapid prototyping/CNC machines to achieve precision positioning using much less expensive parts.

The linkage model she has in the video might be hard to understand. This animation on Wikipedia might make it easier.

BTW: I finally got to meet my new idol at Maker Faire, but alas, I did not get to hear her talk or to see her booth where she had her Easy Bake Chip Fab set up. I was there to see her present her "homebaked" solar cells to Jérôme Demers, Solarbotics' intern (and MAKE Contributor), for him to build them into a BEAMbot. Can't wait to see what he does with them.

June 3, 2009

Dice-O-Matic rolls randomness the old-fashioned way

Generating dice-rolls over at the GamesByEmail HQ is a surprisingly efficient (and analog) matter. The conveyer belt based Dice-O-Matic can toss up to 1.3 million rolls per day, recording the results via die-recognition software.

The Dice-O-Matic is 7 feet tall, 18 inches wide and 18 inches deep. It has an aluminum frame covered with Plexiglas panels. A 6x4 inch square Plexiglas tube runs vertically up the middle almost the entire height. Inside this tube a bucket elevator carries dice from a hopper at the bottom, past a camera, and tosses them onto a ramp at the top. The ramp spirals down between the tube and the outer walls. The camera and synchronizing disk are near the top, the computer, relay board, elevator motor and power supplies are at the bottom.

Wow - a mighty fine alternative to generating pseudo-random sequences in software! [via Gizmodo]

In case you missed it, this is quite a leap forward from the earlier lego-based version we highlighted here many moons ago -

Dice rolling machine made from LEGOs

May 30, 2009

Dan and the puzzle houses

Dan Smithwick is working on developing a system so that people can design houses, buildings and other structures in Sketchup, then have the parts cut on a Shopbot, which can then be put together with a few more tools than a rubber mallet. Dan has been working with MIT Professor Larry Sass.

Take a look at his site, Physical Design make a design and put your puzzle house together!

At the Faire you'll be able to see first hand how easy and fun the Physical Design Co structures are to assemble and you'll be able to meet the co-founders who have developed this technology.

You can download the 3D model of the San Mateo Artist's Studio from the Physical Design Co website.

May 27, 2009

Laser-cut gingerbread bridge

Via Boing Boing Gadgets comes this model of Berlin's Oberbaum Bridge, being cut with a laser out of gingerbread. The builder hasn't completed the whole thing, but has put up an Instructable slideshow showing his progress thus far.

Laser Cut Gingerbread Bridge

Inventaholic pulls back the curtain on inventing at Maker Faire

[Image from Inventaholic]

Perry Kaye is a great inventor I met at Maker Faire Austin in 2007. Recently, we have had several conversations about the process for bringing a product to market. He has set up a site around the idea of inventing for regular people.

Invention is not always about money. For many of us inventing is primarily the quest for discovery and advancement. Fun seeking also plays a major roll. No, it's not always about profit. Because attempting to monetize every inventive product is silly. Superman does not require a Visa Card before he'll rescue you.

And right now, the World needs an ocean of Super-men/women (i.e. heroes) who help first and worry about money later. How do we inspire philanthropic inventaholics?

[Image from Inventaholic]

One of the great things that I recall from our conversations is the idea of having a process for creating designs that solve a problem.

Identify the need. There is some problem that needs a solution.
Gather some information: What do you need to know about the problem?
Build a working prototype of your solution. Gather whatever materials make it work.
Test it out and get some feedback: How well does it work?
Then onto the manufacturing process: Identify the techniques and processes to actually make some working models of the device.
Create a process for making 5 to 10 copies of the design
Create a workflow for making 50 to 100 units of the design
Create another plan for making 500 to 1,000 units of the design.

By having a decent design, and a plan for making the design in various quantities, you can make your design in however many units you can sell. If you get an order for 20, run your plan for 10 twice. If you get an order for 4,000, run your plan for 1,000 four times. If you need more that that, hopefully you are making money off of it and can hire out for parts of the manufacturing process.

Well, you see, Perry is an Inventaholic. If you feel like you might or could be an Inventaholic, then make sure you come play with him at the Inventaholic Prototype Playground at Maker Faire.

May 25, 2009

Mendocino Motor: coming to Maker Faire

Appearing at the 2009 Bay Area Maker Faire is the Mendocino Solar Motor:

The motor is pretty easy to get right. The construction difficulty is not easy or medium -- definitely "hard." It is best if you have good soldering skills, and the ability to think about the theory of the motor so that you get the polarity of the cells correct. Make sure the current flowing through the bottom of the coil flows from left-to-right every time that part of each coil is closest to the base magnet.

The Mendocino Motor is a great project for teaching kids about solar, electricity, soldering and more. The Mendocino Solar Motor should be a great maker exhibit to check out. You may want to look at the complete list of the Bay Area Maker Faire 2009 exhibitors.

Back yard kayak

[Photo from Bouyant Safety Paddle]

Joe caught the kayak bug, but didn't want to pay to have one shipped to his home in Hawaii, so he made one.

In the summer of 2005, I bought a dealer demo Perception Sonoma 13.5 and a used Honda Element. I bought the kayak thru Ebay from Adventure Sports, and the Element thru Craigslist. After 18,000 miles and paddles in Arizona, Ontario, Saskatchewan and British Columbia it was time to go home. Freight for the kayak back to Hawaii was more than $300 with packing. I decided to leave the kayak on Vancouver Island and buy or build one on Maui.

His build documentation shows the process he used to make is own kayak on the picnic table in the back yard.

Working outside, ventilation was never a problem. Wind, dust, leaves, insects, birds, chameleons, noise restrictions, sunlight, proximity to living quarters all impacted the build. Wind broke the EPS foam before I got started. Dust and leaves fell on the wet epoxy. A big, black bee burrowed into the EPS. Birds were always chirping and chameleons entertained me from the fence. I used hand tools whenever I could to prevent noise fines from the condo association. Sometimes I had to slather on the SPF and wipe sweat out of my eyes. Mrs. was constantly after me about EPS balls and glass threads on her fancy Indich carpet.

You can check out the rest of the story. Some of the build process would have gone better with a hot wire, and the choice of materials doesn't look like they are the way he would do it again. He did, however make a kayak that met his needs for practicing rolls. Have you made a kayak or other boat? Tell us the story!

[via DIY Happy]

May 24, 2009

Leather hip pouch from Urban Threads

[Photo from Urban Threads]

There is a nice set of instructions for the project on Urban Threads:

For embroidering or sewing on leather, you'll want to pick up some leather needles. The thing about sewing on leather is that the holes your needle leaves behind won't be invisible like when you sew on regular cloth, and you want a small, special needle to keep the damage and tear-age to your leather at a minimum. Large needles can actually perforate your leather enough that you basically just punch off a section. Not what we're going for here.

The photos and text are informative, and the design could be rolled out to meet many different needs.

Make a whole bunch to slip on a belt and you've got one sweet utility belt. A pouch this size will fit everything from credit cards and cash to a passport if needed, and makes a great travel pouch. Make a smaller, daintier one for more dressy outfits in need of a little spice. You can customize it to any shape or any need.

[From the MAKE Flickr pool]

May 22, 2009

They used to make spaceships here

As the current Space Shuttle mission (STS-125) comes to a close, the Shuttle is nearing the end of its functional life, its final mission slated for 2010. On a recent visit to Downey, CA, near Los Angeles, I had the chance to visit a series of buildings, now empty, that were the birthplace of the Shuttle, and before it, the Apollo spacecraft. In fact, it's the birthplace of the American aerospace industry. Today, these buildings bear the name Downey Studios because some of them are in use by moviemakers. Yet these still-standing hulks suggest the size and significance of what was once built there, and the echoes of engineers who lived out their careers there can still be heard. I met with members of Aerospace Legacy Foundation, headed by Gerry Blackburn, which exists in a few cluttered rooms on site. It's a home away from home for some of these retired engineers like Gerry, who worked here from the time he graduated high school until the plant, then owned by Boeing, closed in 1999. The foundation hopes to preserve the history of this site for future generations to learn how we made spaceships here.

Read full story

May 8, 2009

12 steps with Paul Polak

Last summer, I went with several youth leaders from Learn 2 Teach, Teach 2 Learn to hear Paul Polak speak. He was one of the opening speakers for the IDDS conference hosted by D-Lab at MIT.

He appeared on Fresh Air last year:

Paul Polak, founder of the nonprofit International Development Enterprises, has spent 25 years working to eradicate poverty in Bangladesh, India, Ethiopia, Zimbabwe and other countries in the developing world.

His perhaps-surprising conclusion: Government subsidies for the rural poor often make things worse.

Instead, Polak teaches families and farmers -- many of whom live on a dollar a day and own perhaps an acre of land -- how to increase crop yields with simple technologies, such as cheap, foot-operated water pumps and inexpensive drip hoses for irrigation.

Paul Polak has been working hard and realistically to create solutions to some of the world's most challenging poverty.

Below are his twelve steps to Practical Problems Solving:

Step 1: Go to where the action is

Step 2: Talk to the people that have the problem and listen to what they have to say

Step 3: Learn everything you can about the problem's specific context.

Step 4: Think big and act big

Step 5: Think like a child

Step 6: See and do the obvious

Step 7: If somebody has already invented it, you don't need to do so again.

Step 8: (part 1) Make sure your approach has positive measurable impacts that can be brought to scale

Step 9: Design to specific cost and price targets.

Step 10: follow practical 3 year plans.

Step 11: Continue to learn from your customers.

Step 12: Stay positive: Don't be distracted by what other people think.

The work of Paul Polak is worth checking out, and his approaches could be adapted to many possible challenges in the world.

Bass string winding with antique machinery

Marc points this bit of maker zen documenting the how a string is wound on a circa-1850 machine. From the vid's author, Stefan Schafft -

Many people say to me, it is impossible to make good strings with such a machine.
But I can tell you, the strings are perfect. Ok, It takes a time but it`s great to work like in the 19th century

They certainly don't make 'em like they used to. Check out Discovery's video on the modern guitar string-making process -