Justin Shull built this solar-powered terrestrial shrub rover, sort of the diet version of a cupcake car. Our apologies to Monty Python. [via laughing squid]
June 18, 2010
Bicycle wrench that looks like a fish skeleton
I designed this multi-wrench years ago but just now finally managed to get a prototype water-jet-cut in stainless steel by my pal, Makers Market seller Dustin Wallace. The design features 21 distinct wrenches for metric and SAE nuts, 3 flat screwdrivers, a serrated cutting edge, a can opener, a wire breaker, a centerfinding tool, and a lanyard loop hole. It’s a long way from perfect–the can opener tooth, the serrated edge, and a couple of the tail-fins that are supposed to serve as flat-blade screwdrivers still need to have their edges ground, and the surface of the tool needs to be polished up quite a bit, but I was so stoked to get it in the mail I just had to share. The DXF file is available for download on Thingiverse.
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Peggy 2 clock concept contest from EMSL
Evil Mad Science Laboratories is having a clock contest! Windell writes:
There are probably thousands of cool ways to build clocks based around an LED matrix, and we’ve seen some neat analog and digital clocks based on our Peggy 2 kit. But we’ve also come up with a few dozen other cool ways to show the time, and realized that we’ve only scratched the surface.
So today, we’re announcing a Clock Concept Contest: Show us your coolest idea about how to build a Peggy clock, and you could win one!
How to enter
First, come up with a cool idea.
Is it analog? Is it digital? Just abstract blinkenlights? Is is receiving a live video feed from the internet? Is it a word clock? A game clock? A binary clock? Or hexidecimal? Is it a world map with LEDs wired up from a Peggy board that tells the time by latitude and longitude illuminated? Or something far more outlandish and never heard of?
The deadline is June 22, and prizes include a Peggy Awesomeness Bundle and EMSL gear. Get all the details at their site!
In the Maker Shed:
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Superfast pick n’ place robot
This Delta robot developed by MimixMotion moves very quickly and precisely. Gotta love your Friday morning robot pR0n!
More:
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Oloid-shaped gold bar
This is a limited edition 1.000 kg solid gold bar from German designer Martin Saemmer. Its shape is mathematically interesting because, at least in its ideal form, it will “develop” its entire surface area when rolled. In other words, if you were to let it roll down an inclined plane covered with paint, its entire surface would be covered when it got to the bottom. It belongs to a class of shapes, all sharing this property, which can be characterized as the convex hull of two perpendicular circles or sectors on the same axis, which is a fancy way of describing the surface you’d get if you were to shrink-wrap two disks slotted together at right angles to one another. Oloids and sphericons are members of the same class, but each term implies a specific relationship between the radii of the two disks and the distance between their centers which this gold bar does not have. So “stretched oloid” is about the best I can do to describe it.
The familiar two-circle roller or wobbler toy (an example of which we showed you how to make make from two coins back in MAKE 15) is basically the same thing but without the “shrink-wrap.”
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The 37 ingredients in a Twinkie – it’s art…
Dwight Eschliman’s still life (photo) of the 37 ingredients in a Twinkie…
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Humanoid with quad-Roomba drive
Via Hizook comes this QuadDrive Roomba robot from the University of Bonn’s Autonomous Intelligent Systems Lab (NimbRo@Home). Check out the (German-language) video to see how the Roomabs move in unison via four servos connect to the base of the bot. And as Hizook points out, built on four Roombas, this is a bot that cleans as it goes! And the resulting humanoid doesn’t look anything like a creepy character from Clockwork Orange.
Roomba QuadDrive: A Whimsicle Omnidirectional Mobile Robot Base Created From 4 Roombas
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Add your image to the last shuttle missions – NASA Face in Space
Add your image to the last shuttle missions – NASA Face in Space, via BoJ…
NASA wants to put a picture of you on one of the two remaining space shuttle missions and launch it into orbit. To launch your face into space and become a part of history, just follow these steps:
First…Select the Participate button at the bottom of this page and upload your image/name, which will be flown aboard the space shuttle. Don’t have a picture to upload? No problem, just skip the image upload and we will fly your name only on your selected mission!
Next…Print and save the confirmation page with your flight information.
Later…Return to this site after the landing to print your Flight Certificate – a commemorative certificate signed by the Mission Commander. You can also check on mission status, view mission photographs, link to various NASA educational resources and follow the commander and crew on Twitter or Facebook.
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Toolbox: Show us your screwdrivers
In the Make: Online Toolbox, we focus mainly on tools that fly under the radar of more conventional tool coverage: in-depth tool-making projects, strange, or specialty tools unique to a trade or craft that can be useful elsewhere, tools and techniques you may not know about, but once you do, and incorporate them into your workflow, you’ll wonder how you ever lived without them. And, in the spirit of the times, we pay close attention to tools that you can get on the cheap, make yourself, or refurbish.
Since it’s “Physical Science and Mechanics” month, it seemed only appropriate that we cover screwdrivers, a simple machine if ever there was one. So simple, in fact, that my call to my usual networks of makers didn’t yield a tremendous number of responses. Maybe screwdrivers should have gone into last Toolbox’s Homeliest tools round-up. OK, so it’s little more than a rod with a handle on one end and a shaped tip on the other, but as we all know, our world is… well very screwed, so without drivers, we’d be in a real pickle.
I thought what I would do is inventory the significant drivers in my personal collection, followed by a few thoughts from friends and colleagues, and then throw it open to you all. What screwdrivers do you use and recommend? What tips for driving? Do you do any tap and die work? What do you recommend there? Please tell us in the comments below.
If I had to choose a “desert island” set of screwdrivers, it’d be a Wiha set of slotted and Philips drivers. Some tools just feel different in your hands. Wiha is like that. The blades are precision-ground high alloy chrome-vanadium-molybdenum. OK, I don’t even know what vanadium and molybdenum are, but they produce a really strong alloy that makes these drivers extremely tough and keeps their tips intact. The handles are well-proportioned to the blades so you get good torque and they have rotating caps for fingertip control. Some sets, like the above Wiha 26199 Slotted and Phillips Screwdrivers, come in a heavy-duty canvas roll-up. This is a really sweet set of tools for just over $25 on Amazon (MSRP $40.50).
Wiha 40010 Magnetizer or Demagnetizer ($6) — I don’t actually have one of these, but when the driver discussion came up on HacDC, someone was recommending magnetized drivers. Sometimes you want a magnetized head to help pick up and hold your screw, sometimes you really don’t want this. This device lets you to “turn on” and “turn off” a magnetic field. Nifty.
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Webcast video now available: First steps with Arduino
Thanks to everyone who came out to yesterday’s First Steps With Arduino Webcast! The video is now available on O’Reilly Media’s YouTube Channel.
Also, the Maker Shed discounts on selected kits is still good. We’ve lined up a discount code you can use (ARDBJ when you check out), which will give you 15% off any of these kits until June 21, 2010:
- Getting Started With Arduino kit (includes a copy of the book Getting Started with Arduino)
- Arduino Projects Pack
- Advanced Arduino Starter Kit (includes a copy of the book Making Things Talk)
O’Reilly Webcast: First Steps with Arduino.
You can find the changes I made to Blink during the webcast right here
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