Open source hardware is a term slowly working its way into many new projects and efforts, but what is it? There are a few definitions, some of which come from “open source software,” which is usually considered software’s “source code under a license (or arrangement such as the public domain) that permits users to study, change, and improve the software, and to redistribute it in modified or unmodified form.” So how does this translate to hardware? This session will focus on electronic hardware, the layers they can be divided into, different document types, licensing concerns, and a show-and-tell of hardware. Because of the openness of the movement it is increasingly being tied to Web 2.0 services.

We are going to embroider a dress with conductive thread so that it is touch sensitive. What do you imagine happening when the dress is touched and a closed circuit is made?

Artists Chris Reilly and Taylor Hokanson appear to be getting some impressive results from their DIYLILCNC. They certainly aren't the first to develop an open source CNC mill, however their build looks particularly nice. They claim that the whole thing can be assembled for around $700, including the stepper motors and drive electronics. Want to get in on the action? CAD drawings for the parts and build instructions are available on their site, under the Creative Commons license. [via core77]

When I put together my Chumby Guts kit, I had to stop and scratch my head a few times because I didn't know how to orient a part or which screws to use. I filmed the second time around, to share with you how easy it comes together! Now all that's left is to build a plush enclosure for it. Keep an eye out for an upcoming CRAFT Video about that!

Subscribe to the MAKE podcast in iTunes, or download the m4v video.

More:

• Chumby in a box
  
• The Chumby has landed!
  
• Custom case for Chumby Guts
  
• Chumby Guts -- so delicious!
  

In the Maker Shed:

Chumby Guts

One of my fave websites at the moment is Hizook, Travis Deyle's robot news portal. Here's a snippet from a piece he posted about the University of Stuttgart and University of Karlsruhe's open source swarm robot project:

I'm a huge fan of so-called micro robots -- those with cm length scales, thus μ m3. I've posted about numerous micro robots before, including the amazing Alice micro robot swarms from EPFL, and I am a long-time micro and nano autonomous sumo robot advocate (see RoboGames). Perhaps that is why I'm so excited about the SwarmRobot.org open hardware micro-robot swarm, developed by the University of Stuttgart and the University of Karlsruhe. All of the hardware and software is open (in the GPL sense), including parts lists, circuit board and chassis designs, and software. With a stated goal to produce sub-€100 robots, I'd really like to see this take off. Combined with a wireless power surface, a micro-robot in perpetual motion would make a great desk ornament!

Open Hardware Micro-Robot Swarm Project

Want to fly your plane or drive your car using GPS signals, but finding that your receiver just isn't accurate enough to make things work? Well, MAKE subscriber Bruce Mueller writes in to point us at an impressive solution: an open-source real time kinematic GPS receiver. Researchers Tomoji Takasu and Akio Yasuda of Tokyo University developed the RTKLIB library to perform the RTK-GPS calculations, and then ported the whole thing to run on a low-cost beagle board and commodity GPS receiver. Want to try it out? Full source code, circuit layouts and instructions are provided on their site.

So, how does it work? A GPS receiver normally works by measuring the delay between an internally generated signal and one received by a satellite. This specially crafted signal makes it possible for the GPS receiver to find and latch onto the satellites signal, however it's wavelength limits the accuracy of the receiver. The real time kinematic system gets around this limitation by measuring the phase delay in the carrier signal. Because this signal has a much sorter wavelength, it is possible to make a system that is accurate to the centimeter.

From hacker spaces to profitable businesses, tinkering is experiencing a renaissance. WSJ's Andy Jordan explores some of the "stuff" people are making with new devices that encourage hacking and creativity.

Usually I write about ham radio. But looking at communication devices of the future from the past, I thought it would be fun to have a Star Trek: The Original Series Bluetooth communicator for a cellphone. I worked with Dave Clausen to hack one together from a toy Star Trek communicator, a Bluetooth module, and a microcontroller. Following are the directions and program to make your own. And of course a video to show how the Star Trek Bluetooth Communicator works.

And if you really want to geek it up, the Star Trek Bluetooth Communicator can also be used with the Yaesu VX-8R ham radio. It also makes an awesome gift. Read on for the full tutorial.

Contraptor is a DIY open source construction set for experimental personal fabrication, desktop manufacturing, prototyping and bootstrapping. Various сartesian robots can be assembled from Contraptor and used as a prototyping platform for projects such as XY plotter, mini CNC machine, 3D printer etc. You can make components of the Structural + Basic linear motion subsets of Contraptor at home for about $300 in parts and materials, plus shipping, taxes and time. Sketchup models of Contraptor components are hosted on Google 3D Warehouse while the DXF exports and SVG templates are hosted on Thingiverse, a cool new site for sharing hardware designs. If you like the set but don't want to make it, we're working with Hines Design Labs to fabricate a small quantity of Contraptor subsets, and then release the design/manufacturing files under an open source license, so that anyone with Shopbot could do the same. The initial kits are planned to be sold at or below cost - $150 to 250 depending on the subset. We need 10 committed buyers for Structural subset kit ($200) and 10 for Basic linear motion subset kit ($250).

Gordan Savicic and Gottfried Haider of DSbrut fame have tipped us off that they've just released their DS Bluetooth adapter for the Nintendo DS.

Almost two years in the making, we're happy to finally release our DS Bluetooth adapter. The tiny Slot-1 cartridge allows you to hook up the Nintendo DS wirelessly with other devices such as GPS-receivers, robots and so forth. Today we're making all materials of the project openly available, including the schematics and a GPL-licensed software library for the Nintendo DS, because we believe in open hardware design and want to encourage collaboration in the hardware hacking community.

If you've got a homebrew Nintendo DS project that we should know about leave a link in the comments.

Nice work Ian.

Man, what don't monomes do? Robert Böhnke puts the popular open source controller to work as a Twitter display.

Related:
Monome's 64 (video) fingers

Josh Klein developed a machine that trains crows to trade coins for peanuts. Literally, for peanuts. So you fill this thing with peanuts and set it out, say, in a public park, and the crows will scour the ground for loose change, carry it to the machine, and drop it in a slot in exchange for food. The project, dubbed "CrowBox," made a big splash when he unveiled it back in 2007. Now he's made the complete plans for the CrowBox freely available online so you can roll your own. And there's no reason you couldn't train your fly-monkeys-fly to gather other crow-portable objects. Twenty-dollar bills? Keys? iPods? Human eyes? The possibilities are endless. Set one up at the beach! Train seagulls to trade whole wallets for pre-shucked oysters!

MakerBeam is an open-source metal building system. There's a technology called T-slot (example here) that is widely used for industrial automation, robotics and machine enclosures.

MakerBeam has defined a standard called Mini-T which is a miniature version of T-slot. It's small enough to work as a model building system, and precise and strong enough to build real machines and robots with it.

I don't do CAD or 3D printing, but this software at least looks promising from my armchair. It's an open source CAD/CAE app based on OpenCasCade, QT, and Python. It offers features like macro recording, the ability to run as a server and dynamically load application extensions, and it runs on Windows, Linux, and Mac. One of the many cool features it offers is 100% scriptable objects in Python:

Besides the standard object types such as annotations, meshes and parts objects, FreeCAD also offers the amazing possibility to build 100% python-scripted objects, called Python Features. Those objects will behave exactly as any other FreeCAD object, can be saved in a document and opened on any other installation of FreeCAD, since the python code that defines the object is also saved in the document.

The project is still in alpha. The only official builds are in Windows and 32-bit Debian Linux, but you can download (from their SourceForge site) unofficial builds for AMD-based 64-bit Debian/Ubuntu, openSUSE. and Intel Mac OS X.

FreeCAD

At Maker Faire Rhode Island, I saw Christina waiting near the AS220 Fab Lab for her son Forest. She was holding some of the replacement parts that he had made for his MakerBot. We talked a bit about what making means to her and Forest. They're already looking forward to Maker Faire 2010.

MAKE subscribers, watch your mailboxes for Volume 20: Kids, which should be arriving very soon.

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.

Check it out!

• Source code, Schematics, PCB files
• Design
• Downloads

AT A GLANCE

* Open-source hardware offers an advanced start on your design.
* Open-source software complements open-source hardware.
* Open-source hardware prepares your PCB (printed-circuit-board)-fabrication and -assembly houses for high-volume production.
* You may want to share your improvements by making them open-source additions, as well.

Many designers are familiar with open-source software, such as Linux, in which the source code is available to all. However, fewer are familiar with organizations offering open-source hardware. These organizations release free information, including schematics, BOM (bill-of-materials) information, and PCB (printed-circuit-board)-layout data, covering the overall hardware design.

Designers with this information can build or add to a freely available design. In many cases, open-source software supports the original design, providing additional advantages. Some aspects of open-source hardware go beyond the sharing of the design itself.

These aspects can save time and money for not only hardware developers but also PCB designers and fabricators, contract manufacturers, and even software developers.

You can license open-source projects from organizations such as Creative Commons, which offers the Attribution-ShareAlike licensing program. Creative Commons stipulates that a user must attribute the open-source work in the manner that the original designer specifies but not in a way that indicates that the original designer endorses the user's work. Likewise, if users provide that work as open-source hardware, releasing it back to the community for access by others, then they must provide that work under the same Attribution-ShareAlike licensing...

This is still a work in progress but the MakerBot actually seems to print braille rather well. I can't read braille so I can't judge for sure whether it's readable but it certainly seems like it. The trick is to get the G-code right to prevent warts on the front face (i'm still fiddling with this). I think this might have a lot of potential. A braille bracelet will be next in my printing/designing queue.

Creatrope has posted an interesting discussion on the use of Phil Jergensen's reusable grid beam elements for Halloween props. I dunno how much I can get behind the whole gridbeamer thing just yet, but for seasonal stuff it does make a certain sense: If you like it a whole bunch, store it complete, and if you don't, take it apart and reuse the elements.

A German hacker named Ray has printed a working handcuff key, to the Dutch national pattern, on his RepRap. You can download the .STL file here. Not that we encourage that sort of thing. <SUBLIMINAL>Do it do it do it do it.</SUBLIMINAL> [via Boing Boing]

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

Strategy & Business magazine has an interesting article on the shan zhai manufacturers in China at the moment. It’s the first business press article I’ve seen in the US that takes a relatively balanced approach to reporting on them. It’s worth a read, as it’s a trend that’s already affecting business, particularly the electronics business. It suggests a new approach to economic recovery as well, one based on small companies well-networked with each other.

I first learned about the shan zhai on a recent trip to Shenzen, China, hosted by PCH International and Bunnie Huang (Bunnie’s got a good blog post describing the shan zhai). The popular image of these companies in the US is that they’re producing cheap knockoff goods based on established multinationals, but there’s more to it than that, as S&B and Bunnie point out.

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.

When I wrote the first version of this article six years ago, I called it “Why Free Software usability tends to suck”. The best open source applications and operating systems are more usable now than they were then. But this is largely from slow incremental improvements, and low-level competition between projects and distributors. Major problems with the design process itself remain largely unfixed.

Many of these problems are with volunteer software in general, not Free Software in particular. Hobbyist proprietary programs are often hard to use for many of the same reasons. But the easiest way of getting volunteers to contribute to a program is to make it open source. And while thousands of people are now employed in developing Free Software, most of its developers are volunteers. So it’s in Free Software that we see volunteer software’s usability problems most often.

That gives us a clue to our first two problems...

Many designers are familiar with open-source software, such as Linux, in which the source code is available to all. However, fewer are familiar with organizations offering open-source hardware. These organizations release free information, including schematics, BOM (bill-of-materials) information, and PCB (printed-circuit-board)-layout data, covering the overall hardware design. Designers with this information can build or add to a freely available design. In many cases, open-source software supports the original design, providing additional advantages. Some aspects of open-source hardware go beyond the sharing of the design itself. These aspects can save time and money for not only hardware developers but also PCB designers and fabricators, contract manufacturers, and even software developers.

Modded from the 64 Fingers Monome sequencing software, Charlie Visnic's 64 (Video) Fingers, adds video manipulation to the popular controller's open-source arsenal - download here. [via Matrixsynth]

More:
Open-source grid controller - the monome

We keep hearing about all of these amazing devices and objects that other people are making with CNC tools like laser cutters, Shopbots, mills, and maybe you are feeling left out. You may be like the college student in the mid 1980's who didn't like completing papers on the typewriter and looking for a way to use the word processor. If today, you make a design for the part you need, how can you get it machined? You can leverage the power of 100 thousand garages.

You may be surprised to learn, that there are several thousand shops all over the world with tools for digital fabrication (sometimes called CNC tools) that can make exactly what you want (how can replicating parts be that easy?). There's probably even one near you. Some are regular businesses, some are part-timers, and some are small shops that have some spare production time: each has the capability to help you make all kinds of things. You know what a 'Copy Center' is for getting printed pages and projects made, 100kGarages is like a virtual 3D copy center for getting real parts and projects made.

Check out Bill Young's thoughts on the idea at 100k Garages.