Last weekend, I had the great fortune to visit All Hands Active, an up-and-coming hackerspace in Ann Arbor, Michigan. When I arrived, they were just wrapping up a planning meeting for the upcoming Ann Arbor Mini Maker Faire. They have some excellent plans in the works, but made me promise not to spill the beans. Afterwards, they showed me some of their current projects, including:

These stylish and attractive small batch iPhone cases from EXOvault are machined from solid pieces of billet aluminum. They add a retro-futuristic charm to something already heavy on the futuristic.[Thanks, Revolverkiller!]

For the last couple of years there has been a resurgence in popularity of vinyl records. Largely due to digital downloads rending the portability of compact discs obsolete, people are starting to gravitate to vinyl as the physical format of choice. In this short documentary from Nick Cavalier we get a behind-the-scenes look at the production of vinyl records at Gotta Groove Records, a new vinyl pressing plant in Cleveland, Ohio.

It's pretty easy to see how knitting might be relaxing and a good way to spend idle time for a person who's on the road a lot. Someone like an Olympic athlete. But taking apart a weed whacker to relieve stress? That's something only a maker can understand, and that's exactly why Olympian Jeret "Speedy" Peterson takes things apart.

The 28-year-old has been taking things apart since he was a wee tot, and has been on the U.S. National Ski Team since he was 16. He's used his building skills to do construction work, and dreams about designing, or at least witnessing, the first magnetic motor. And he's the only person to have completed an intricate 3.2-second jump called the Hurricane.

So this February, while you're watching freestyle skier Speedy perform his signature Hurricane jump, remember that he's likely to be taking apart a lawn mower or dirt bike when he gets home. Just like you or me.

After qualifying for his third Olympics this past December, Speedy was nice enough to answer a few questions for us relating to his tinkering urges. Here's what he had to say...

Todd Greene is the Los-Angeles-based inventor of the HeadBlade, shown above, which is an ergonomic razor designed specifically for shaving the head, rather than the face. It was chosen as one of Time's Ten Best Designs of 2000. Greene, who claims to have made millions selling HeadBlades, is one of several inventors and inventing "gurus" featured in this interesting article on CNN.com about the groundswell of ambitious citizen inventors in the United States triggered by the recession. The article includes lots of sound advice about getting your own inventions off the ground.

Now that the book is out, I thought it'd be fun to ask Charles and Gareth some questions about the book and share their answers here on Make: Online. First, I asked Gareth a few questions about how the book came into being. Then, keep reading to find out what Charles' first electronics project was and why all of the telephone engineers in England are happy he stopped messing around with "their" equipment!

How did Make: Electronics come about?

Gareth: When I came onboard as an editor for Make: Books, in 2007, we were sitting around brainstorming ideas for books. We started in on our new Illustrated Guide series. We'd just published The Illustrated Guide to Astronomical Wonders and were working on The Illustrated Guide to Home Chemistry Experiments. We were tossing out all sorts of crazy "Illustrated Guide to..." ideas and somebody said "The Illustrated Guide to Electronics." It hit me (and I think all of us) like an eastbound bus -- how about a beginner's guide to electronics that could appeal to the growing community of MAKE readers who really wanted to learn electronics but who are not engineering/tech-minded -- true beginners -- a book that had the same sort of "hey, I can do this!" look, feel, and plain-spoken writing style as MAKE magazine itself. Not part of the Illustrated Guide series, but a special, stand-alone title.

I thought about Forrest Mims' Getting Started in Electronics and how I meet people all the time who do venerating bows whenever that book comes up. 'cause that's how they go their start. That was MY first significant electronics book, too. We could create the Getting Started in Electronics for the early 21st century! We could create a book that, several decades from now, self-made electrical engineers and career-makers might speak in awe and hushed-tones when OUR book was mentioned.

So, this became the organizing principle for the book. We started thinking about authors. We were tossing around different ideas in the ensuing months. And then Mark Frauenfelder mentioned Charles, after I'd seen the "Home Electronics" section of MAKE, Volume 10, and the amazing job he'd done there, introducing home electronics and showing several 555 projects. He seemed like the perfect candidate. Luckily, he was up to the challenge.

Katherine Sharpe at ReadyMade did an interview with Doug Repetto, founder of Dorkbot, Artbots, and the director of Columbia U's Computer Music Center, focusing on how he got where he is today.

Andrew Plumb is a really active member of the MakerBot community, and there's a nice interview with him about his experiences up on the MakerBot blog. I'm writing a piece about MakerBot for Make: 21, and found his story particularly interesting.

I was fortunate to be going through university in the early ’90s right when Linux was making the rounds – Math and Engineering, Control and Communications Systems program at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario. (Cool! There wasn’t a Control and Robotics option back then.) That box of a hundred-odd 3.5″ floppies landed on my desk and I was plunged into the second emerging wave of Open Source software – the first being the BSD origins of UNIX. With healthy wiki, forum, google group and twitter extended participation (to name a few channels), the RepRap+MakerBot+Thingiverse projects feel like they could be leading a third wave of open source innovation and community.

The other night at Maker Faire Rhode Island, I met up with Raphael. He had brought along these neat prototyping kits made from cigar boxes. I asked him about why he made them and what he does with these mobile prototyping platforms.

You may also want to check out Raphael's Twitchie kit, which people were passing around like mutant babies. Very disturbing indeed.

In the Maker Shed:

Make: Arduino

The other day Jimmie was making throwies at the Pawtucket Arts Festival. He had a neat little jig that helped make the process quicker and more effective. After his roll of tape ran out, he was able to help people keep on making festive blinky tricolor LED throwies. He helped people make a LOT of them.

Jimmie will be helping facilitate soldering and circuit bending workshops at Maker Faire Rhode Island.

Last weekend I bumped into puzzle maker Bram Cohen at Make HQ, where we had the opportunity to check out some of his amazing mechanical puzzles and talk a bit about the various processes with which they are made (please excuse the A/V quality of my mobile).

One of the tools Bram uses to make these mind bending objects is a piece of software called Burr Tools. It's a 3D design program that builds puzzles out of basic units. Puzzles created with Burr Tools can be exported to an STL shape file that can be printed on a 3D printer.

Bram also showed off a prototype he designed that was milled from hardwood by a friend on their woodworking mill.

We also get to see Bram's first commercial puzzle. It's called "Cast Marble" by Hanayama. It's a captive marble inside a block. Both the marble and block are composed of cast metal segments that twist and turn into each other.

Fabricación de modelos navales con partes reutilizadas

Se buscan Makers

Jordi Muñoz, orgulloso Maker mexicano

Arte Rupestre - (English)

Tagtool en Cholula - (English)

Mini generador eléctrico con motor de CD

More:

Make: en Español

Heads on Fire hosted the Bay Area Maker Faire Fab Lab. At Maker Faire Austin, the Fab Lab has been hosted by the Boston Fab Lab at the South End Technology Center. Wikipedia has a decent list of the various Fab Labs around the world.

Megan Simmons of ISKME tells us about the Sun Curve Design Challenge. OERCommons is a place where they are storing and sharing educational resources about the Sun Curve and other educational projects. The structure and systems were designed by INKA Biosperic Systems. You might also check out her photos of the project at Maker Faire.

Bilal has been hanging out with the Instructables folks for a while. When I bumped into him at Maker Faire, he was typically animated as he told me about what they do there.

Jonathan works for a company that makes promotional USB drives. There may have been a few lying around to stir up his answer to the question "What am I going to wear to Maker Faire?"

http://tinyurl.com/oyelyr

At the beginning of April I was lucky enough to go to New York City to help Mark Frauenfelder, editor-in-chief of MAKE, prepare for his appearance on The Martha Stewart Show!

The show was taped on April 1st, and will finally air this coming Monday, May 18. You can see a quick preview by clicking here, and then clicking on Monday's show at the top.

On an insider's note, being at the studio and taping the show was fun and exciting. The amount of lights, cameras, tools, and other accoutrements was mind-boggling. All the staff were friendly and helpful and very, very competent at what they do.

Even when some of our projects were lost for several hours in transit, everyone was calm, cool, and collected. I, on the other hand, started to run down 20+ blocks, from Midtown to Chelsea, desperately trying to figure out where we were going to find a cigar box, an old VCR, an electric screwdriver, and some lumber at 6 p.m. on a Monday in Manhattan.

Dress rehearsal with the producer and Mark Frauenfelder; the teleprompter proudly displays the MAKE name!

But no need for alarm; the projects were found and worked great on camera, Mark did a fantastic job describing and demoing the projects, and then for the finale, he and Martha made little vibrating robots out of a candy tin, a paperclip, and a motor from a Dollar Store fan. The audience seemed to like it, the staff liked it, and Martha kept one afterward, so I'm guessing she liked it!

Don't forget to watch or DVR Monday's Martha show! Yay, Mark!

The authors of iPhone Hacks will be having a webcast Friday, May 15, 2009 at 10am PDT.

Register here to participate in this live event.

This webcast will focus on the last two chapters of iPhone Hacks, involving hardware and software development. We'll focus on some of the hardware and software development you can do without having to go through the app store, for personal or jailbreak community release. You'll learn various ways to get hardware connected to the iPhone, without having to go through the 3.0 approval process. We'll include several specific hacks on how to connect keyboards and serial devices to the phone.

Check out this cool interview with wearable technology guru and Botanicalls co-creator Kate Hartman by Dave Caputo. Via Fashioning Technology.

Alex has been using Scratch to teach problem solving and programming with kids.
Here is the balancing cat.sb file. Here is Alex's solution.sb.

You will need a copy of the free program Scratch. Try it out, post your results on the Scratch site, and let us know what you think.

Alex and Bilal have been working on creating their part of a concert with no sound.

Waves and Signs: A conference and workshop on low-frequency vibration with a performance and dance party. _

A project by Wendy Jacob with students and faculty from MIT and Gallaudet University, school for the deaf.

Photo from Connors934 on Flickr

If you are looking for an exciting sensory perception tonight, head on over to CAVS!

Acting as a silent speaker, a raised floor at MIT's Center for Advanced Visual Studies will be activated to insert low-frequency vibrations into the space of architecture. The floor will be used alternately as a platform, instrument, and stage for an event in three parts.

In the first part, the floor will be used as a platform on which to hold a dialog (in speech and sign) between artists, designers, scientists and students. In the second part, the floor will be used as an instrument in a workshop on resonant vibrations. In the third part, the floor will become a stage for performances and a silent dance party. This project is part of an investigation of the politics of experience.

Sunday's DIY workshop at CHI 2009 was a great time, with a thoughtful mix of academia and hands-on projects. DIY for CHI was a workshop presented at the CHI2009 conference in Boston. We had a chance to meet and greet important people who are teaching and studying the arts of creating computer interfaces with students and other participants. There were productive discussions about creating data collecting systems, opportunities to grow the academic side of the DIY movement, and the pleasures and pitfalls of living with DIY practitioners. Demonstrations included creating wearable input devices, making RFID sensing units, making fabric out of plastic bags, circuit bending, a site visit to the Boston Fab Lab and more.

As a followup for the workshop, dorkbot boston has created a get together at the MIT Media Lab:

Dorkbot: DIY for CHI What: Dorkbot: DIY for CHI Methods, Communities, and Values of Reuse and Customization When: Tuesday 7 April 2009 7:00 PM Where: Bartos theater, Lower Level, at the MIT Media Lab (building E15 on the MIT campus) map Cost: Free! Open to everyone!

Check it out and bring your ideas for building community around DIY in education, and society.

A few weekends ago I had the chance to check out the Northeast regionals for USFIRST in Boston. Above, Matt and Chris of Blackstone Valley Regional Vocational Technical High School, Team 61 tell about being involved.

Here is a segment of one round of the competition:

Norwell High School has a great robotics program mentored by teachers Ross Kowalski and Mark Herman.

Could you tell us some of your experiences with USFIRST or other engineering competitions? Add your thoughts in the comments and please contribute your photos and video to the MAKE Flickr pool.

Marcy Gunther is the producer of Fetch! with Ruff Ruffman, a reality game show featuring a Host Dog and six real life kids as contestants. Ruff always seems to have something going wrong in the doghouse, and he has the kids help him learn about how to solve the problem with science and engineering.

Have you or your kids seen Fetch? What do your kids think of Make:TV? What are some of the best shows on tv to help kids become more creative and competent? How can adults cultivate kids' interest in science and technology? Join the conversation in the comments, and contribute your photos and video to the MAKE Flickr pool.

Selectism did an interview with American commuter bike makers Freeman Transport on the importance of feeling the hand of the maker in their product (bikes). It's all around inspiring!

...We wanted people to know how important it is for us to support US manufacturing and the lack thereof. If things continue to go the direction they are going, we could potentially have no products made in America. I think it is important for us to take control of that. I see that Jeff Staple has produced a line of button down shirts made in New York. Steven Allen makes some clothing in New York. Freeman Sporting Club makes most of their clothing in New York. Band of Outsiders, Thom Brown, Engineered Garments. I just saw that Huf did a bunch of his cut and sew in America. So that's really nice. That's not to say we don't see both sides of the conversation and recognize the challenges and limitations. I mean after all, there are certain things that just can't be made here anymore.

Via Core77.

Thermistors are pretty cool little items. They convert heat into resistance. By having the temperature available as resistance, you can use the value to control other things like circuits and programs. Photo cells do the same thing with light, and they are in lots of common devices from night lights to dimmers on clock radios.

How could you use a thermistor with your shiny new Arduino? What could you measure with a thermistor? Have you got any videos like this where somebody demonstrates an interesting device? This video came from a summer youth program in Boston. Does your community have a similar opportunity for teenagers to learn incredible things and work on neat projects? Show your ideas in the comments, and iinclude your photos and video in the Make Flickr pool.

This morning, Ed Baafi, Amon Milner, Jacob William, and a number of the youth leaders at Learn 2 Teach, Teach 2 Learn developed an idea of how to teach electricity to youth with a new kit idea.

What we are looking to do is reinvent the Alternative Energy module in the summer program. The kit will be flexible enough that experimenters can have hands-on experiences with power generation, storage and output. We also hope that they will be able to add on various technologies as they become available to the experimenter.

The Electricity Experimenters' kit helps promote exploration and understanding of the ways that people can use store, and generate electricity. A focus is made on allowing the user to interchange a number of different modules for generating, making use of and storing small amounts of electric current. These modules will enable youth to gain hands on experience with creating, storing and using energy for personal exploration.

The result of exposure to this kit is that we want people to be able to think, say and believe:

I can make a choice between clean and nonclean generation and the electricity is the same.


and:


I can make my own electricity without harming the environment.

How do you teach electricity? What do you do to help people understand the systems in their lives? What could you add to this kit idea to make it better? What information would you want people to have when they do experiments with electricity? Do you have any existing projects that could be used with a kit like this? How would you make the physical objects? What activities would bring out valuable learning outcomes when experimenting with electricity generation, storage and use? How can we use modifiers like voltage regulators and resistors in ways that don't confuse experimenters? What do you tell or show people that helps them understand the workings of a multimeter?

Add your comments to the discussion, and post your photos in the Make Flickr pool.

One of the great things about Maker Faire is the opportunity to meet clever people and their fascinating projects. Often you have a conversation with a person who is highly skilled in an area you have never really considered before. This was the case when I met up with Jerry Etheridge of the North Texas Battle Group.

The idea behind the battles is that each ship is a 1:144 scale model of ships built prior to 1945. The hulls are made of balsa sheet, and each ship is armed with a CO2 powered gun firing ball bearings at each other. You fire onto the other ship until somebody gets wet. Since they run in fresh water, they don't worry too much about motors and other electronics getting damaged. When you sink, somebody rows out and grabs your superstructure and recovers the vessel, you patch up your holes, and go out to battle again.

The North Texas Battle Group has a wealth of information on their site. You may find that there is a group doing similar work near you. There seems to be a decent collection of battle ship videos on Youtube.

Has somebody sunk your battleship? Have you built, battled or seen a battle in miniature? How can you use your students' and your maker skills to help understand other subjects like history, science, language, math or art and music? Add your ideas to the comments, and contribute your photos and video to the Make Flickr pool.

Raelinda Woad is a storyteller and jewelry maker.

She began in jewelry in the 1980's working her way up from bead sorter to jewelry maker's assistant.

On New Years Eve of 1989 Raelinda had a chocolate induced vision: Become a storyteller! Two years later she was sharing her 'true stories that haven't quite happened yet' with coffeehouse audiences across New England. This led her to create and host StoryLAB, a storytelling concert series in Harvard Square's legendary Club Passim.

In the early 90's Raelinda combined her love of storytelling with her skill as a jewelry designer. The result was Storyteller Jewelry, a line of wearable books with her own coffeehouse stories hidden inside.

Take a look at some of her work, and maybe even read one of her stories.

Do you tell stories? How do you combine your various creative selves? Add your comments below, or send your photos to the Make Flickr Pool.

Jenna Faden and Jess Horton, recent Fine Arts graduates of Umass Amherst showed their recent work at the Duxbury Art Association Winter Craft Showcase. Together, they are pickled. They took a brief break from sales and knitting to show their work, saying "we're really just grandmothers in disguise", told some stories and returned to the yarn.

Jenna made friends with a pack of alpacas. They wouldn't look at her until long after she started visiting with them. She used minimal photomanipulation, leaving the backgrounds intact.

Jess makes these neat birds, that were inspired by the suggestion of a child she was babysitting for.

This is the 36th year for the Duxbury Art Association's Winter Craft Showcase, a juried show with artists and crafters from all over the Northeast.

Does your work bring out a story? How can you get your tale told?