Make: Online: Kits Archives

Kits Archive: Kits

October 20, 2009

45 Seconds in the Maker Shed: Gakken Cross Copter EX

The Gakken Cross Copter EX has two contra-rotating rotors, driven by one small electric motor that's connected via a cord to the hand-powered generator. Build one of three different configurations, or try one of your own!

Easy to build -- instructions are in Japanese but feature highly detailed assembly pictures (sorry, no English translation at this time). MAKE is proud to be the exclusive distributor in North America for these brilliant kits from Gakken.

Note: The original video is 45 seconds long....YouTube seemed to add a second just to make us look silly!

October 19, 2009

New in the Maker Shed: Plug-in Breadboard Power Supply 3.3V/5V

This is very simple breadboard power supply kit that takes power from a DC wall wart and outputs a selectable 5V or 3.3V regulated voltage. The .1" headers are mounted on the bottom of the PCB for simple insertion into a breadboard.

October 15, 2009

Custom case for Chumby Guts

My friend Joe Bowers bought a Chumby Guts kit. Step one: get it up and running. Step two: give the poor, naked thing some clothes. Joe designed a case for it and asked me to laser cut it for him. It reminds me of an old television set. This is an early prototype; we plan to refine the design, add some etched graphics, and more. Maybe some rabbit ear antennae?

Clever trick alert: Joe put the Chumby on a scanner and traced the rounded-cornered bezel in CorelDraw to get an exact fit. It pops in there beautifully!

In the Maker Shed:

Chumby Guts

Joe's blog

October 1, 2009

Larson Scanner Kit

Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories, pioneers of the Cylon Jack-O-Lantern, just released a new Larson Scanner kit!

Today we're releasing a new open-source project and kit, which is an updated approach to the "Larson Scanner." The Larson scanner is named in honor of Glen A. Larson, the man responsible for producing both the original Battlestar Galactica and Knight Rider television shows, and consists of a set of red LEDs that scan back and forth.

Three years ago, we showed how to make a Cylon Jack-O-Lantern, in what has become one of our all-time most popular tutorials. The circuit for that project was based on a 555 timer, driving a 4017 decade counter, and has 6 pixels of resolution. To create the incandescent fading effect, we added low-pass transistor drivers. We also wrote up a version of that article for the 2007 MAKE Magazine Halloween special, which included a slightly nicer version of that same circuit.

And while it's been popular, we've always had some nagging reservations about it, and in particular its battery life. This year, we decided to do something about it and made a much better version of the Larson Scanner, and so here it is!

The kit is open source and designed to be hackable. Read more about the kit in their announcement.

From MAKE magazine:

DIY HALLOWEEN from MAKE & CRAFT!

DIY HALLOWEEN from the editors of MAKE and CRAFT brings you 40-plus DIY projects for the holiday that's made for makers. From the craftiest costumes to amazing animated props and the latest in computer-controlled haunted house effects.

September 26, 2009

Exorcising Billy Mays with the TV-B-Gone

Last week I was stranded in a waiting room. The old magazines didn't really bug me, but listening to infomercials did. However, what really bothered me the most was when Billy Mays tried to sell me from the beyond the grave. Right then, I made a solemn vow not to endure that sales pitch ever again.

Fortunately for me, Maker Faire Rhode Island was just a few days away. I knew that I'd be able to get my hands on a TV-B-Gone kit and build it at the soldering workshop. Maker Faire RI was a blast, and towards the end of the evening, I settled down with the iron and got to work.

Read full story

September 9, 2009

Drawdio videos!

Two great Drawdio videos from Ars Electronica Festival via leobard & Jay! Kit is available in the Maker Shed too!

September 7, 2009

Inkjet PCB kits

Full Spectrum Engineering is selling a parts kit for printing circuit board etching resists. The kit includes -

Stainless Steel PCB CD Stencil

Special Inkjet PCB Resist Prefilled Inside a Black Refill Cartridge for Epson Artisan 50, Stylus RX580, RX595, RX680, R260, R280, R285, R290, R380

10x Double Sided 3.5"x2.5"x1/32" Copper Clad

Hmm, looks tempting. Be sure to leave a comment if you used it or know of other ways to simplify the process.

September 3, 2009

Pattern kits for Gingery machines?

So here's a random idea I had.

Most readers are probably familiar with Dave Gingery's series of books on building a set of homemade machine tools. The technique, basically, involves building an inexpensive homemade charcoal furnace and crucible for melting aluminum, then using traditional green-sand casting techniques to mold the various machine parts from wooden patterns. Much of the content of Gingery's books details the construction of these patterns.

As I have recently discovered, however, lost-foam casting is a much more accessible metal-casting technique than traditional green-sand. It requires no special flasks, no special sand, and no consideration of parting-line placement in designing patterns. Basically you make your pattern from styrofoam, bury it in sand, and pour hot aluminum into it. The foam vaporizes and diffuses into the sand, and you're left with a perfect aluminum duplicate. The only downside is that the pattern itself is destroyed, so if you screw up the casting or want more than one copy of a part you need a new pattern.

Here's what I'd like to see: Some enterprising soul with a CNC foam cutter could sell kits of the Gingery machine patterns ready-cut in XPS foam.

Then, if you wanted to build the Gingery tools, you wouldn't have to spend a lot of time learning the art of green-sand casting, or building the special tools required, or carpentering on the patterns themselves, most of which will only be used once anyway. You'd just buy a few ounces of pre-cut foam patterns in a kit, bury them in sand, and start pouring hot aluminum right away. Depending on sales volume, it might even be practical to make the foam patterns in conventional molds, the same way styrofoam packaging inserts are produced, at lower cost than CNC machining.

If you're interested, supportive, or (for your own unfathomable reasons) furious, feel free to sound off in the comments.

September 2, 2009

Tactile metronome

Twin Cities makers Adam Wolf and Matthew Beckler have created an interactive metronome kit that lets you tap your own beat directly on the PCB!

The Tactile Metronome is a tap-controlled metronome and "beat looper." "Syncopation machine." "Metronome with an attitude."

You tap the piezo speaker to set the frequency. The display shows the beats per minute, and the two buttons adjust the speed.

"Ehhh." "Boring," you say. Not so fast!

You can tap patterns into it, currently up to 11 beats long. As long as you tap the pattern in three times, it jumps in and continues beeping in that rhythm. The metronome can beep in three different tones, so you can play with more than one at a time.

Kits are available at the duo's web site wayneandlayne.com.

August 31, 2009

Rocketboom visits Adafruit

In this video, Rocketboom Tech correspondent Ellie Rountree visits with Limor at Adafruit!

August 27, 2009

Cool punch-out posable robot kits

I really like these "Metabots" posable mecha kits from EnjoyMobil. They are inexpensive but well-made, and the coolest part is that each of the seven printed designs is also available in an all white "prototype" version so you can decorate it yourself.

August 26, 2009

Möbius strip music box

Ranjit Bhatnagar took one of those punched-strip programmable music box kits, put a half-twist in the strip, and looped it back on itself to make an endlessly-looping Möbius strip music box. The melody plays through once, and then a second time with the ordering of the notes on the scale reversed. An interesting compositional challenge, if nothing else.

August 21, 2009

DIY epoxy surfboard -- it rips!

It's official, the DIY epoxy surfboard featured in MAKE Volume 19 is my new favorite board! I had a super fun session this morning -- it's fast, skatey, and incredibly light and buoyant. At just 6'5" it catches waves easier than my old 7'4".

Big ups to Greenlight Surfboard Supply and their eco-friendly surfboard kits. The expanded polystyrene (EPS) foam is recyclable, the stringer and fins are bamboo, and the low-VOC epoxy resin is much less toxic than traditional polyester resin. Greenlight's new lamination technique, using a stretchy bamboo fabric instead of fiberglass cloth, is easier and safer. The kits include all materials and hand tools for first-time shapers (like me) plus complete instructional vids. Check them out!

Greenlight Surfboard Supply: Link.

MAKE, Volume 19, DIY Outdoors, "Greener Waves": Link.

Some pix from the build:

Read full story

August 19, 2009

New TV-B-Gone works all over the place

Hate having to flash your chip to bring your TV-B-Gone to Europe? Well, cross it off your packing to-do list, the new TV-B-Gone turns off TVs in North America, Europe/UK, and Asia.

More:

August 18, 2009

Propeller board as a DIY kit

Looks like Parallax is catching on to solder-it-yourself kits! The P8X32A-Q44 SchmartBoard Kit comes with surface mount and through-hole components to make a powerful microcrontroller dev board. It says it "makes surface mount soldering easy," but doesn't say how... do those pins look farther apart than in a standard SMD package to you?

In the Maker Shed:

Propeller Proto Board USB

Our Price: $39.99

The Propeller Proto Board USB has all the features of the Propeller Proto Board and includes the USB programming interface on the board for those projects which need the USB interface in the application.

TV-B-Gone design docs

Sonycodepulses
Ladyada's design documentation of the TV-B-Gone kit, it explains how the TV-B-Gone works (people ask this all the time) and this information might come in handy when building IR receivers or transmitters! Pictured above, the Sony on/off code.

July 31, 2009

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

Read full story

July 30, 2009

$100 Maker Shed shopping spree could be yours!

Don't forget, we're giving away a $100 Maker Shed gift certificate to our favorite entry in the "Teach Your Family to Solder" MAKEcation challenge. We're also giving away five additional prizes (your choice of The Best of MAKE or The Best of Instructables) and some Maker's Notebooks, so be sure to upload your images and videos to Flickr and YouTube and tag them "MAKEcation."

All the details about the soldering challenge can be found here.

And, to make them more convenient and cheaper, we've put together a special bundle of kits (and some other goodies) for the event:

MAKEcation learntosolderbundle2 copy.jpg The MAKEcation learn to solder bundle is a cool collection of all things blinky. All the kits are easy to solder and each one makes a fun blinky piece of hardware. The bundle also includes our Maker's Notebook and MAKE, Volume 01, which features a great soldering tutorial. Have fun this summer, teach the family to solder, and flash 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 26, 2009

Soldering Dale Wheat's creations

At this year's Maker Faire, I met Dale Wheat. He was at a counter in the Maker Shed demonstrating his kits. I was impressed at how clever they were, and how inexpensive. We talked for a few minutes, and then I went off to explore. Before the weekend was over, I dropped a few of Dale's kits into my shopping bag. They seemed like they'd be fun to work with. This week, I finally got around to assembling the three kits I got.

The Wee Blinky is the simplest and easiest of the kits. With two transistors, two LEDs, two capacitors, and four resistors, it makes for a very quick build. Since the parts for stuffing the board are labeled on the silkscreen mask, you don't even need documentation. He does have some docs for the build, and they are worth reading through. They're written in a conversational tone with some of his personal perspective on choices you might make.

Lux Spectralis is a little more complex, but again, the mask on the board tells you where to put everything, and the online documentation steps you through it perfectly. This kit has two clever part features: a preprogrammed Atmel AVR ATtiny13, and a red-green-blue tricolor LED. The chip comes with a bunch of color combinations loaded which show some uses for each of the colors on the LED. If you pick up a programming cord and want to get into learning to program with it (or already know about programming AVRs), then have at it. Otherwise, the program on the chip should keep you happy. The RGB LED is a neat thing in itself. With the three colors, you can make it glow or blink in each of them, or it can cycle through the colors.

Tiny Cylon is the third kit I tried. It sports a row of five red LEDs that are controlled by an ATtiny chip. Already on the chip are a cycle of blink and glow patterns that make it useful as soon as you're done with a quick solder. HAL, KITT, and Cylons are a few of the cultural references in the lighting patterns.

These kits are great for beginnings. Why? Because they're inexpensive, have instructions embedded onto their physical surfaces (and easily located online), and because once you see how they work, you can customize them to suit your own purposes. The programmed ones use momentary buttons for selecting the settings. The button could be mounted off of the board to help fit it into another project. If you want to make a plushy doll with blinky eyes, you could add wires to the Wee Blinky's LED pads and move the illumination further away from the board. If you want to make a model car into KITT from Knight Rider, you could Dremel out the hood of a remote control car and pop the LEDs into the hole.

Once you start to see that you can solder a kit, and that it's fun to build and use, you'll want to see what else you can do with soldering and kits. Once you see how easy it is to make one, you'll feel confident in making chances on the next one. These kits have a low cost of entry and a high probability of success for the beginner. Once built, they can lead you into customizing your own circuits and programming for light and sensor control.

You can check out Dale's site for more information, downloads, build instructions and more.

In the Maker Shed:

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 20, 2009

Gakken mag and 4-bit computer rollout party in Tokyo

Above is a table with some GMC-4s on it and some Gakken analog synth kits. Below that is Francesco Fondi (right) talking to Kaneko San, the editor of the Gakken's Otona no Kagaku magazine. (More pics of the evening, including several of the NEC TK-80, after the jump.)

Our pal Francesco Fondi, of Modellismo Hobby Media, was in Tokyo a few weeks ago. On July 5, he attended Tokyo Culture Club's Mycon Night. The event was organized to celebrate the recent release of the 24th volume of Gakken's Otona no Kagaku magazine, which features the very first 4-bit microcomputer kit to be produced in the last 25 years: the GMC-4.

Fra writes:

The GMC4 has a 16-key keyboard, a build-in speaker, a 7-segment LED display, and a 6 LED display. A tennis game, music software, and two other 4-bit games come pre-installed in the GMC-4.

While drinking some great Kirin beer with friends from Sansai Books and Gizmodo Japan, I listened to the introduction speech by the Gakken editors. The inspiration for the GMC-4 comes from the TK-80, released by NEC in 1976, and partially, from the FX MYCON R-165, which Gakken released in 1983.

Several people in the room had the GMC-4 with them, so the speaker started to read some code and help everyone with a GMC-4 to program it "live." Then they introduced the Arduino, and being Italian, I was really happy to see how a board "Made in Italy" is so well received by Japanese engineers and toy hackers!

With the presentation finished, it was time for my friends Polymoog and Gan to play live with a special setup of three GMC-4s patched into Gakken SX150 analog synths. Gan is the guy who designed the SX150, and once in a year, with Abe, he organizes the Analog Synthesizer Builders' Summit Party in Tokyo.

The event concluded around 9:30 pm with another live act, but by then, I'd had too many beers and too much deep discussions about Gakken gadgets with Musahsi from Gizmodo.jp to remember the artists' names who sat in with Polymoog.

In the end, it was by far the geekiest event held in Tokyo in the last few months, even geekier than Danny Choo's CGM nights (sorry Danny)!!