Makers
3D printer used to make custom blade server type mounting system
We usually have no problem hacking together electronics into something useful. But finding an enclosure that makes sense for the build can be a real drag. In this case [Vincent Sanders] already had a working ARM build farm that leveraged the power of multiple ARM boards. But it was lying in a heap in the corner of the room and if it ever needed service or expansion it was going to be about as fun as having a cavity drilled. But no longer. He took inspiration from how a blade server rack works and 3D printed his own modular rail system for the hardware.
Each group of boards is now held securely in its own slot. The collection seen above mounts in a server rack which has its own power supply. This image is part way through the retrofit which explains why there’s a bunch of random pieces lying around yet. Instead of printing continuous rail [Vincent] uses a threaded rod to span the larger frame, securing small chunks of rail where needed by tightening nuts on either side of them. The white and red trays are prints he ordered from Shapeways designed to secure the eurocard form factor parts.
[Thanks Thomas]
Filed under: 3d Printer hacks
Maker Faire Inspires Father/Daughter Steampunk Table
Last year our first trip to Maker Faire Bay Area. My daughter Sawyer and I saw many creative projects and were inspired by the work we saw. Sawyer, who was 7, really got the bug to make things. One of our first projects was a table built out of 1-inch black steel pipe, wood 2 x 4s, and glas
Knock Knock Calculator
Knock Knock is a clever Arduino-controlled calculator toy, designed for small children. The user knocks out a calculation on the surface — addition, multiplication, subtraction, or division — and Knock Knock will spit back the solution, in the form of knocks, of course. It's a fun idea for a toy, but good luck trying to use this in secret during a "no calculators" test at school!
Mapping Buildings with a Kinect
This cool mapping system created by MIT uses a Kinect motion tracker, a laser range finder, GPS, and inertial sensors to map out the interior of a building. [via Beyond the Beyond] Filed under: Computers & Mobile, Science
Pitches with Prototypes: Solar Tracker
To get the most efficient use of solar electric energy, you must keep your solar panel pointed at the sun. Manually moving the solar panel is impractical. An automated solution may be beyond the reach of many green energy enthusiasts or anyone who just wants to keep the lights on without developing robotics expertise. Hoping to fill that need is technology savvy Jay Doscher, with his prototype solar tracking robot. His tripod mounted, GPS steered solution is portable and could be used for emergencies, camping or any time off-grid power is needed.
LilyPad MP3 Released
The new Lilypad MP3 board is out and it looks pretty sweet! Lilypads are washable Arduinos designed for wearable electronics. You can sew them onto your clothing and wire them up with conductive thread. The new MP3 board is basically an Arduino — it’s got the standard ATmega 328p with [...]
Movers and Makers: Drone Dudes
Drone Dudes are a team of filmmakers and designers who use RC copters to capture stunning aerial cinematography. In this video we interview Andrew Petersen and Jeff Blank, who operate a radial octocopter capable of lifting cameras up to 12lbs. on a 2- or 3-axis gimbal. All the gear stows away inside their Transit Connect, which doubles as a camping vehicle when they are on the road.
Close Encounters of the T-Rex Kind
The Maker Faire Bay Area brings in Makers from around the world, like 15 year-old Gabriel Diaz Yanten, who is coming all the way from Chile along with his animatronic dinosaur puppet, Anacleto. Anacelto is a 12.8 feet tall and 8.2 feet long T-Rex that Gabriel designed and built with the help of his uncle, a mechanic. 
Tool Review: BioLite CampStove
We're impressed with the BioLite CampStove, a fan-stoked, twig-fueled rocket stove with a thermoelectric module that converts heat into electricity to charge your cell phone or other device. 
Fabricating a mechanical wristwatch at home
Our mouth is still agape after digging through [Tom's] watchmaking blog. This gentleman spent several years designing and machining his own mechanical wristwatch. A dozen years ago or so [Tom] answered an ad for an apprentice watchmaker. He worked on watches and came across a book that detailed how timepieces are made. He was told that no-one does it like that anymore, which only fed his curiosity. What he came up with is, to his knowledge, the first timepiece every made in Australia.
It’s no secret that we have a thing for clocks. But we feature digital timepieces almost exclusively. We’ve love mechanical watches too but don’t see them as hobby projects very frequently. After looking at what goes into the mechanism it’s not hard to see why.
[Tom] was faced with a variety of challenges along the way. One of the biggest was having to come up with tools that would let him perform the precise milling work necessary to achieve success. You’ll want to read through his movement design and manufacture posts. He laid out the plan in CAD, but ended up using some hacked together milling tools to get the job done.
[Thanks Amit]
Filed under: clock hacks
The Maker Pro Newsletter #11
Hardware Companies are Getting Accelerated
Applications are now open at Haxlr8r. Joining a growing contingent of hardware accelerators vying for companies and ideas.
Conductive Paint Liquidity Lamps
Scottish designer Patrick Stevenson-Keating made these innovative lamps using Bare Conductive's nontoxic electrically conductive Bare Paint suspended in oil for the 2012 Milan Furniture Fair. Tilting the lamps so that the Bare Paint makes contact between the two electrodes extending from the bulb turns the lamp on.
Annika O’Brien Plays with Giant Robots
Annika O'Brien works full time making cool robots. She also founded the popular LA Robotics Club, which has over 1,200 members including high school students, hobbyists and professionals who share an interest in building robots. The club meets in real space to work on projects and participate in presentations, as well as holding classes as part of their community outreach to under-served teens.
Annika's boundless enthusiasm and outspoken demeanor jumped right through the screen at me as we met via video chat to discuss her experience on SyFy's ground breaking show, Robot Combat League, where teams control giant humanoid robots duking it out in an arena.
"It's like WWE wrestling with robots. It was a concept that no one had actually done before," she said. "It was a helluva lot of fun."
DVD laser diode used to build a laser engraver
[Johannes] has been reading Hackaday for years but this is the first project he’s tipped us off about. It’s a laser engraver built from a DVD burner diode (translated). It turned out so well we wonder what other projects he’s forgotten to tip us off about?
This is the second CNC machine he’s seen through from start to finish. It improves upon the knowledge he acquired when building his CNC mill. The frame is built from pine but also uses bits of plywood and MDF. It can move on the X and Y axes, using drawer sliders as bearings. The pair of blue stepper motors drive the threaded rods which move the platform and the laser mount. Just above the laser he included a small DC fan to keep it from burning up. The control circuitry is made up of an Arduino Nano and a stepper motor driver board. Catch a glimpse of the engraver cutting out some stencil material after the break.
There must be something about Spring that brings out the urge to work with laser diodes. We just saw a similar 1W cutter last week.
Filed under: clock hacks, laser hacks
The Othermill, a Desktop Milling Machine with Snap Fit Joints
Today Otherfab announced a Kickstarter for the Othermill, a unique desktop milling machine. The Othermill is an evolution of the MTM Snap milling machine developed by Otherfab's Jonathan Ward over the past few years. Otherfab is a small group of engineers and designers within Otherlab, and Jonathan was formerly at the Center for Bits and Atoms. The Othermill comes out of the Fab Lab ecosystem, and is comparable to the Roland Modela in that paradigm.
DIY Hacks & How To’s: Get Emergency Power from a Phone Line
What do you do if the power is out, but you need to charge your cell phone to make an emergency phone call? In this episode of DIY Hacks & How To's, Jason Poel Smith shows you how to tap the power flowing from your phone line.
Tracking ships using software-defined radio (SDR)
When we first started hearing about software-defined radio hacks (which often use USB dongles that ring it at under $20) we didn’t fully grasp the scope of that flexibility. But now we’ve seen several real-life examples that drive the concept home. For instance, did you know that SDR can be used to track ships? Ships large and small are required by may countries to use an Automatic Identification System (AIS) transponder. The protocol was originally developed to prevent collisions on large ships, but when the cost of the hardware became affordable the system was also brought to smaller vessels.
[Carl] wrote in to share his project (which is linked above). Just like the police scanner project from April this makes use of RTL-SDR in the form of a TV tuner dongle. He uses the SDRSharp software along with a Yagi-UDA. The captured data is then decoded and plotted on a map using ShipPlotter.
Filed under: radio hacks
Things from Rings
From the Museum of Mathematics The Math Mondays Experimental Making Labs recently received numerous binder rings in its Incoming Raw Materials box. You know — the little circles that clip closed, used to hold a sheaf of hole-punched paper together. According to the donor: “Here’s an office supply item that [...]
DIY Space Exploration Takes Flight
I visited the Citizen Astronaut and Space Hacker Workshop in Silicon Valley this weekend, hosted by Hacker Dojo, to see what’s new and exciting in DIY space stuff. This much is clear after just the first day: If you haven't explored it before, now is the time to start looking in to sending your experiments into the mesosphere (and beyond).
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