Now I know what it's called when a jet of water is smooth like a glass rod: laminar. Watch this video to learn more than you ever wanted about making a laminar jet of water from a normal one. Great for building your own fountains.
Read more | Permalink | Comments | Read more articles in DIY Projects | Digg this!
Syuzi Pakhchyan, the author of our first Craft: Projects title, Fashioning Technology, has created a nice site for the book with a community discussion area. If you're interested in the book and the types of projects it covers, please register in the forums and share your experiences building the projects.
Buy Fashioning Technology by Syuzi Pakhchyan in the Maker Shed today! This book demonstrates how to blend sewing and assembly techniques with traditional electronics to assemble simple circuits using conductive thread, solder joints for snaps, and switches for buttons. With the sewing machine as a viable substitute for the soldering iron, you can craft a new generation of objects that are interactive, quirky, and fashion-conscious.
Look for Fashioning Technology Kits soon this Summer in the Maker Shed! For now, check out the rest of our CRAFT Kits.
Read more | Permalink | Comments | Read more articles in Crafts | Digg this!
MAKE Contributing Editor Mister Jalopy (Los Angeles, CA) was profiled on NPR's Day to Day.
Mr. Jalopy describes himself as a mediocre welder, a fair mechanic and a clumsy designer -- not the type of fellow one would expect to create what he playfully calls the "biggest iPod in the world," a beautiful retro stereo, re-wired with an iPod so it can transfer songs from old vinyl records to MP3s.
...
Like many of his fellow makers, Mr. Jalopy is simultaneously an artist, a tinkerer and a craftsman. For him, it's a lifestyle. His garage is lined with cabinets full of parts, an unimaginable number of widgets, wires and springs. There are broken sculptures, pinball machines and dozens of bicycles and old cars in various states of transformation.
...
Mr. Jalopy has been consulting with Disney, Apple and other major corporations, preaching the gospel of open source manufacturing. He tells them to use screws instead of glue, and to make schematics readily available so consumers can fix and re-imagine the objects they buy. He also urges technology companies to create forums for consumers to share ideas, and pushes car companies to sell patterns so people can create accessories like seat covers.
Robert writes in to point out the P2P Radio Broadcaster -
Remember those little pirate radio stations in the 80's? Enter the p2p radio broadcaster by Juan Esteban Rios, this little device provides a means to transmit audio content to local radio receivers, and by having the listeners act as peers, the network can be expanded as much as it needs to. Overlooked communities in remote areas or poor urban environments can now take back the radio airwaves. The device is also powered by handcranking it, 1 minute for every 40 minutes of airtime.
- P2P Radio Read more | Permalink | Comments | Read more articles in Telecommunications | Digg this!
Toool has designed two laser-engraved lock picksets to commemorate the 7th and final Hackers On Planet Earth conference -
It is called 'the last hope' emergency pickset, and the main idea is to carry it in your wallet. You will most likely use it when you lost your keys, or when you are assisting others who lost their keys.
If you look at the back of the set, you see the edges of the set can be snapped off too, and are actually four separate tensioners. If you snap off all tools, you will end up with and eleven (!) piece pickset. As you can see, there are three basic picks, designed with the novice pickers in mind. [...] The other Toool pickset is the new and improved 'double sided picks series'. There will be eight double sided picks in this set. For the moment I will only show you one of the picks, but you can imagine what the other seven are going to look like.
MythBusters needs volunteers to attempt another recreation of Archimedes' legendary solar death ray. David writes -
Because it's been so popular with our viewers, this will be our third attempt at a story called Archimedes Death Ray. The myth is that the [Greek] army defended themselves from invading [Roman] ships by lining the shores with 300 soldiers. But these soldiers did not use conventional warfare. By using their mirrored shields to focus the sun's rays at the invading ships they could, the myth alleges, set the invading ships on fire and save the city.
WHAT WE NEED 300- 350 Volunteers to operate mirrors for the one day of experiment (engineering and science backgrounds preferred)
VOLUNTEERS
We would require volunteers to be 18 years or older and to Pre-register with us prior to the experiment date by email.
All volunteers would be required to sign a Participant Release/Liability waiver.
Experiment will take place in September (date still to be determined).
Volunteers will need to be available from 9am to 7pm and would have to bring their own lunch and transport themselves to the location (similar to going to an outdoor concert). Possible locations include the Greek Theater, Oyster Point Marina or Alameda NAS.
We'll supply volunteers with a MythBusters T-shirt, a signed autograph card and possibly a group photo with Jamie and Adam.
HOW TO GET INVOLVED Send and email to: myths_volunteers@beyond.com.au Please provide Full Name, Age and Contact Information Please write [*MythBusters - Death Ray*] in the subject header. MythBusters will then follow up and contact them with more details very soon.
Read more | Permalink | Comments | Read more articles in Events | Digg this!
Daniel writes in with the goods news about the the Kuiper belt object formerly known as (136472) 2005 FY9 - it has been rechristened Makemake and classified as a dwarf planet and plutoid by the International Astronomical Union. Makemake has appeared here before and we welcome this new addition to the universe of making.
According to slashdot, the most recent named dwarf planet is "Makemake". It's Polynesian, so I'd imagine it's "Mah-kee Mah-kee", but still, what's better than your blog's own tiki-god named planet???
Say hi to the USB cable flash drive -- As seen at MAKE and now it's a real product, excellent work Windell and Lenore - this is a great hacky "make" project that's now for sale!
HACKED. Holy crap—somebody just went and TORE MY FREAKING USB CABLE IN HALF while it was still attached to my laptop! No — wait — sorry. That's just my USB flash drive. My bad. Nevermind. Mammoth 2-gig capacity. Peggable blistercard packaging. Design: Windell Oskay
Read more | Permalink | Comments | Read more articles in Gadgets | Digg this!
Radiohead just released a new video for its song "House of Cards" from the album "In Rainbows".
No cameras or lights were used. Instead two technologies were used to capture 3D images: Geometric Informatics and Velodyne LIDAR. Geometric Informatics scanning systems produce structured light to capture 3D images at close proximity, while a Velodyne Lidar system that uses multiple lasers is used to capture large environments such as landscapes. In this video, 64 lasers rotating and shooting in a 360 degree radius 900 times per minute produced all the exterior scenes.
Watch the making-of video to learn about how the video was made and the various technologies that were used to capture and render 3D data.
If you manage to create a data visualization that you'd wish to share, the band would love to see it. You can share your videos on the House of Cards YouTube group.
Read more | Permalink | Comments | Read more articles in Arts | Digg this!
I ran across videos of Brad Litwin's kinetic sculptures a while back, this is one of my favorites. It would have been fun to see him at Make:Philly last night - I'd love to hear about it in the comments.
Read more | Permalink | Comments | Read more articles in Arts | Digg this!
This DIYThermocouple project uses a MAX6675 chip and takes the millivolts produced by a standard K-type thermocouple, amplifies it, and spits out the results to the attached LCD screen. This particular unit can read temperatures up to 1800 degrees Fahrenheit which is probably hotter that you ever want to be near with your electronics.
This mod shows you how to install 4 LEDs above the controller port of an XBOX to illuminate when the plugs are installed into the machine. I guess this maker had the problem where his controller was always loose from his console, so he decided to make it official and have the connection "glow" when attached. You'll need some basic soldering skills for this mod, but the details are all spelled out at the link below.
This video shows is an all-hardware remix of Radiohead's "Nude" from their album, "In Rainbows". Watch as discarded old hard drives, computers, tape decks, and an oscilloscope combine forces to create the track. The project was entered into a contest the band held for fans to creatively remix their song.
I think the title says it all. The video, by Lorin Edwin, explores some simple techniques to figure out how to circuit bend your own toys and electronics.
This DIY project is perfect for all those audiophiles out there. The end result is a nice amp that fits inside an old CD enclosure. It isn't exactly portable, but the sound quality is great!
This is a simple do-it-yourself (DIY) headphone amplifier project that is fashioned primarily after the Class A MOSFET Headphone Driver project by Greg Szekeres and to some extent Mark's DIY Class A 2SK1058 MOSFET Amplifier Project.
Learn how to make you own High Quality Headphone Amplifier Read more | Permalink | Comments | Read more articles in Electronics | Digg this!
This is a great instructable for making your own tandem bicycle. It is amazing how simple it is to make with just a bit of hacking and drilling. This is a lot cheaper than buying one since you can always pick up a couple of old bikes on Craigslist really cheap.
Dreams in High Fidelity is a painting that evolves. The artwork was designed and rendered with the Electric Sheep, a cyborg mind composed of 60,000 computers and people mediated by a genetic algorithm. It's one of the few acceptable uses of "crowd sourcing" I can think of :)
Physically it consists of a small computer driving a large high definition display. The computer creates a continuously morphing, non-repeating, abstract animation. It is not software that you can download, but a custom configured computer preloaded with a large database.
The animations are rendered by the Electric Sheep, but at triple the resolution and with more stately motion. The image quality is striking on a large display. It requires 20x the computation to make a high fidelity sheep, and it shows.
The artist selects his favorite sheep from the archives and public flock, and sends them back to be re-rendered at high fidelity: heaven for an electric sheep. This new flock has grown to 100GB, totaling 18 hours if played end-to-end, and requiring over 200 years to render on a single computer.
A version of Dreams in High Fidelity is at 3LD for the next two weeks - July 11 - July 26, if you're in the area it's worth checking out (night time-ish is best).
Scott's work is "open source" the tools and software can be downloaded by anyone, the "creatures" created are in Creative Commons. Similar to open source hardware Scott makes his living by selling a physical version of the art, an installation, this is one of the reasons it's most interesting to me and I think a glimpse of what's to come for digital artists.
