Oreilly Make Magazine No 21-2010
Oreilly Make Magazine No 21-2010
Oreilly Make Magazine No 21-2010
Cigar Box
Guitar!
page 76
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BY DALE DOUGHERTY
Much More to Do
Five years in, MAKE is just getting started.
Make:
Volume 21
46
46: The Revolution Will Be Squirted
An inside look at MakerBot Industries. By Becky Stern
Columns
68
ROBOT MADE:
Plastic milled by the
micRo CNC bot.
Vol. 21,Jan. 2010. MAKE (ISSN 1556-2336) is published quarterly by OReilly Media,
Inc. in the months of January, April, July, and October. OReilly Media is located at
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Make:
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Make: Projects
Traditional
Cigar Box Guitar
Build this 3-string instrument that
requires a minimum of tools and parts,
yet sounds great. By Mark Frauenfelder
76
Geared
Candleholder
Make an elegant, all-aluminum candleholder with a movement containing 3
handmade gears. By Benjamin Cowden
86
Reaction Timer
Use 555 timer chips to test your
reflexes in this experiment excerpted
from Make: Electronics.
By Charles Platt
96
Electroluminescent
(EL) Wire
Bring glow into your projects by learning
how to work this flexible, durable material. By Louis M. Brill and Steve Boverie
142
Make:
Volume 21
d
eck the URL associate
READ ME: Always ch you get started. There
with a project before dates or corrections.
may be important up
Maker
18: Made on Earth
Snapshots from the world of backyard technology.
DIY
115
128: Home
Drilled gourd lanterns,
leather embellishing.
115: Science
Radiation detection lamp.
32
133: Kids
Scratch programming.
119: Imaging
Time-lapse movie setup.
136: Office
Photo cube, brass balls.
123: Outdoors
Bow drill firemaking,
snowmaking system.
139: Workshop
Fan speed controller.
152: Toolbox
Almost affordable laser cutter, silicone rescue tape, and more.
HOT MODDER:
Inventor Eddie Pauls
creations will blow
your mind.
Make:
Dale Dougherty
[email protected]
EDITORIAL
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
CREATIVE DIRECTOR
Mark Frauenfelder
Daniel Carter
MANAGING EDITOR
Shawn Connally
[email protected]
ASSOCIATE MANAGING EDITOR
Goli Mohammadi
Katie Wilson
PRODUCTION DESIGNER
Fran Reilly
Dan Woods
PHOTO EDITOR
Sheena Stevens
Paul Spinrad
STAFF EDITOR
Gerry Arrington
Sam Murphy
Keith Hammond
E-COMMERCE
DESIGNER
PROJECTS EDITOR
COPY CHIEF
PUBLISHING
ONLINE
WEB MANAGER
EVENTS
Sherry Huss
EVENT INQUIRIES
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707-775-3376
Laura Cochrane
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[email protected]
SENIOR EDITOR
Phillip Torrone
CIRCULATION MANAGER
Sue Sidler
ASSOCIATE EDITOR
Becky Stern
Make: Volume 21
Rob Bullington
EDITORIAL ASSISTANT
David Pescovitz
EDITOR AT LARGE
Sherry Huss
707-827-7074
[email protected]
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PLEASE NOTE: Technology, the laws, and limitations imposed
by manufacturers and content owners are constantly changing.
Thus, some of the projects described may not work, may be
inconsistent with current laws or user agreements, or may damage
or adversely affect some equipment.
Your safety is your own responsibility, including proper use
of equipment and safety gear, and determining whether you have
adequate skill and experience. Power tools, electricity, and
other resources used for these projects are dangerous, unless
used properly and with adequate precautions, including safety
gear. Some illustrative photos do not depict safety precautions
or equipment, in order to show the project steps more clearly.
These projects are not intended for use by children.
Use of the instructions and suggestions in MAKE is at your
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Contributors
Ken Murphy (DIY Time-lapse Video) is a musician, programmer, artist, and tinkerer living
in San Francisco. He started programming at age 9, but then took a long hiatus and
focused mainly on playing music until 25, when I reconnected with my inner nerd. By day,
he helps keep the website for his local public broadcasting station humming along. Ken is
also the creator of Blinkybugs, and hes currently working on a childrens comic book and
kit featuring these simple little electronic insects. When hes not working on Blinkybugs or
his time-lapse project (murphlab.com/hsky), he likes backpacking, winter camping, and
motorcycle rides along the California coast.
Laura Cochrane (MAKEs editorial assistant) is a Northern California native who enjoys
wordplay. In college, she was able to write an A+ paper on the Greek philosophers Heraclitus
and Parmenides, even though her head almost exploded. She respects creativity and
genuine enthusiasm, and loves working with the MAKE and CRAFT crew because there
is an endless supply of both. She lives with a brother-and-sister pair of cats named
Cotswold and Trudy. When shes not hard at work fact-checking stories about amazing
and accomplished makers, she dabbles in Andean panpipes, yoga, biking, photography,
blowing bubbles, and knitting.
Brooklyn photographer Kate Lacey (cover photography) just remodeled her apartment,
and all of a sudden she would love to have you over for dinner. Kate was thrilled to shoot
this months cover, the MakerBot CupCake CNC 3D printer, and she cant wait to use one
to print out a sweet new Canon EOS 5D Mark II. Her book, Show Dogs: A Photographic Field
Guide, is coming this fall from Evil Twin Publications/DAP.
Jeremy Kerfs (DIY Scratch Programming) is a high school sophomore living in the San
Francisco Bay Area. He started programming with Lego NXT and BASIC and moved to
Python and Java for creating video games, where he makes his own graphics and sounds as
well. When not hacking, he likes juggling, and he hopes one day to merge his love of robotics
with the aforementioned juggling. His science fair project takes up vast amounts of his
time, but he also enjoys running track and cross-country.
Wendy Tremayne (DIY Bow Drill) is an event producer, conceptual artist, builder, and
teacher. She founded Swap-O-Rama-Rama (swaporamarama.org), a now international
event thats a hybrid of clothing swap and skill-sharing, in an effort to transform consumers
into makers. She frequently can be found giving presentations on the subject The Maker
Is the Revolutionary. Wendy writes regular features for CRAFT (craftzine.com) about
innovators of reuse and natural materials. She lives off-grid in Truth or Consequences,
N.M., where she develops sustainable building techniques. Check her out online at
blog.holyscraphotsprings.com and gaiatreehouse.com.
Louis M. Brill aka Louie Lights and Steve Boverie aka Dr. Glowire (Electroluminescent
Wire Primer) are co-founders of Light N Wire Productions. Dr. Glowire (pictured) has
designed and built a multitude of maverick and miscellaneous EL wire projects for
costumes, props, and Burning Man theme camps. Known for his deft technique with
a soldering iron and intuitive grasp of building custom devices, hes created many an
electronic gizmo. Louie Lights began his quest for an intimate knowledge of light in
New York Citys SoHo district in the early 1970s. He has co-designed many LED and
lightwire devices for Burning Man events, and operates The Theater of Performing Lights.
10
Make: Volume 21
TK
TK
TK
MAKERS NOTEBOOK
DELUXE MAKE:
ELECTRONICS TOOL KIT
TK
TK
TK
ARDUINO
PROJECTS PACK
MAKING TROUBLE
BY SAUL GRIFFITH
12
Make: Volume 21
MAKE FREE
BY CORY DOCTOROW
dont know if youve noticed it, but holy awesome, there is a lot of stuff lying around. If you
want some high-density memory, you can just
go get it off the shelf no need to shut yourself up
in the basement for a year winding cores.
Componentized pieces like Arduino boards are
likewise wonderfully convenient, getting a lot of the
finicky stuff out of the way so that you can focus
on creating. Weve got highly polished text editors,
web servers, operating systems; whole libraries
of preconfigured virtual machines; mountains of
cheap electronic toys to raid for parts.
The proliferation of stuff isnt without its problems
(theres a patch of plastic garbage bigger than Texas
floating in the middle of the Pacific Ocean), but
theres a lot of good news for makers in the stuff
explosion.
For starters, just consider the opportunities that
arise from standardized packaging (To make your
cantenna, first drill a hole in the cholesterol count
on the back of the Pringles can; then puncture the
Pringles mascots left eye, nose, and left lapel.)
Having a lot of stuff lying around opens the door
for a different kind of innovation than was characteristic of previous generations. You can buy
a whole, fully assembled radio and innovate by
changing its firmware so that it does something
the inventor never considered. You can innovate
by developing Chumby widgets, or by modifying
standardized knitting patterns to make them
more mathematically interesting.
You can even innovate by doing less (as Brian
Enos aphorism goes, Not doing the thing that
nobody had ever thought of not doing.) Think of
the iPod, which succeeded in part by having fewer
features and doing less than the confusing, cluttered first-wave MP3 players that preceded it.
Or you can innovate by finding a way to overcome
social problems that prevented a technical fix. Cipla,
an Indian pharmaceutical company, took advantage
of Indias compulsory license on anti-AIDS drugs
(a compulsory license requires pharma companies
to sell their drugs to all comers at a set fee) in order
to create an anti-AIDS cocktail that combined drugs
from rival manufacturers. Before Ciplas innovation,
14
Make: Volume 21
BY GARETH BRANWYN
15
READER INPUT
Make: Volume 21
I address this to all of those behind your marvelous magazine. There is hope. Hope for an inventive
culture, for a sense that solutions are more important
than problems. For statements of excellence (Adam
Savage mentions this in his Welcome to Volume 20).
The truly valuable human capability to create something new from what others have discarded.
I was blessed to grow up in just such a home.
Today, my fathers collection of items from projects
over the past 50 years is in the basement of his
home. Ironically, he is unable to enjoy the pleasures
described in this issue, of discovery and meditative
creation. It has been hard. But the joy lives on in my
shop, at my computer, and in my sons skills both
inherited and learned.
MAKE magazine represents the core of what
makes us human. The willingness, enthusiasm,
and pure joy of discovery, pursuit, and execution of
whatever is next. Best of luck!
Peter Blacksberg, Wayne, N.J.
P.S. Oh yes, I built a panoramic camera head in 1972
just a bit ahead of the current pano craze. You can
see some of my panoramic photography at flickr.
com/photos/peteblac/sets.
MAKE AMENDS
In the Toolbox section of Volume 20, the Topobo 50and 100-piece sets are universally available at $149
and $249, respectively, which is half the price they
used to be. Therefore the MAKE promo code is no
longer necessary or active.
Upon examining the bus in Bus Tag, which ran in
Volume 19, on page 24, sharp-eyed reader Heather R.
noticed that the vehicle is covered in a combination
of both knit and crocheted yarn.
MADEONEARTH
18
Make: Volume 21
Cranked-Up Creativity
Mike Adairs wife reports that he sleepwalks more
when hes in the middle of designing a toy. Adair, a
44-year-old artist from Overland Park, Kan., works
at Hallmark. In his spare time, he builds brightly colored wooden crank toys in his basement workshop.
Most of his toys employ a hand crank that powers
pulley wheels that create animation. The first crank
toy he made, The Debate, depicts the visceral nature
of human disagreement with humor and elegance.
The busts of two men face each other; the one
smoking a pipe nods his head slowly, while the
other, with a cigarette, shakes his head more vigorously. Using different sizes and shapes of pulley
wheels and arm lengths, Adair can generate multiple speeds of action using a single crank.
Growing up in Southern California, Adair loved
Disneylands animatronic attractions, counting
America Sings and Country Bear Jamboree among
his favorites: Great examples of animatronic genius!
His family made a pilgrimage to the park every other
year, and his parents raised money for the visits by
participating in neighborhood craft shows.
Make:
19
MADEONEARTH
The chandelier that Eric Lawrence built from the
molded styrofoam his new Apple computer came in
looks like barracks that Frank Lloyd Wright would
have designed for the Imperial Stormtroopers in
Star Wars, he explains. Hes right.
Lawrence, 42, a web designer and former art
student at the University of Texas, Austin, made the
first Styrolight a few years ago. Hed just bought a
new laptop, had all this styrofoam packaging lying
around, and owed his nephew a Christmas present.
He did the math.
I like the way the foam diffuses light, Lawrence
says. Its keeping it out of the landfill, and I just like
the shape.
More lights followed. He tested different glues
(settling on a hot glue gun) to connect the white
blocks of foam and play with new shapes. He joined
these to homemade aluminum frames of used bar
and angle stock using two-part epoxy.
He bought all kinds of compact fluorescent light
bulbs in search of the right color and brightness.
LEDs werent simple and their color wasnt as nice
20
Make: Volume 21
Bright Idea
Emotional Aquatics
Inspired by Argentine writer Julio Cortzars
short story of a mans emotional obsession with
aquarium life, Axolotl is about more than just an
algorithmically enhanced animation displaying
life-like traits from a fish tank. Its also about the
responses it gets.
NYU Interactive Telecommunications Program
(ITP) grad student Eyal Ohana, 35, came up with
the idea for Axolotl while brainstorming ways to
portray life and instigate reaction through
motion and form. Classmate Filippo Vanucci, 28,
joined forces for its physical and interactive implementation. The result is a 3D audiovisual display
attracting onlookers with a digitized squid-like
creature that responds to facial recognition by
simulating a sense of interaction and involvement.
To create Axolotls creature, Ohana and Vanucci
utilized the open source programming language
Processing 1.0. Each of the creatures movements,
such as undulating and contracting, are subject to
physical forces like gravity and friction, but are also
modified with unpredicted values. This generates
21
MADEONEARTH
The connection between a three-wheeled bike,
a shopping cart, and some paintings of old vans
might not jump out to most people right away, but
for Kevin Cyr the connection is obvious.
Cyr grew up in a Maine mill town whose economy
is in decline. His vehicular art series, including the
Camper Kart, Camper Bike, and paintings of vans,
reflects his interest in the industrial working class.
Formerly a bike messenger in Boston, Cyr conceived of the Camper Bike while working in Beijing.
In the Chinese capital, a large percentage of the
populace use bicycles as a principal method of
transportation and hauling, and only in recent years
have people come to relate to cycling as a recreational activity.
I was especially interested in three-wheeled
bikes and how workers hauled gigantic loads on the
bikes flatbed, Cyr explains. I saw people carrying
loads of building materials, large pieces of furniture,
huge bags of styrofoam, really huge items that
people in the West would use pickup trucks for.
The Camper Bike is an amalgamation of some22
Make: Volume 21
23
MADEONEARTH
In the imaginary mechanical underworld they
inhabit, the elephant is a bulldozer, the giraffe
is a crane, the cheetah a courier. In real life, the
mechanical animals, or mechanimals, are the
work of Salt Lake City, Utah, sculptor and commercial photographer Andrew Chase, who welded
them together from sheet metal, iron pipe, and
used car parts.
Chase, 42, began building the mechanical beasts
in 2004 as props for a childrens book he wrote and
photographed, Timmy. In the as-yet-unpublished
story, a robot leaves his subterranean home to
explore the surface. Chase took the background
photos first, then matched the lighting, and finally
positioned the mechanimals in his studio, later
merging the images via Photoshop.
About his use of old transmission gears and bearings, Chase says, It is partly a financial decision
theyre free. But beyond that, they look neat. Things
that are made for a purpose have a certain elegance
about them, he says. If I didnt incorporate gears
and bearings, the animals wouldnt look as industrial
24
Make: Volume 21
Mechanimals Menagerie
In the Zome
The next big thing in construction may follow the
example of the car industry it might be all about
the hybrid.
Rob Bell and Patricia Algara created their own
hybrid structure, a DIY greenhouse they call the
Algarden Zome. A Zome is a sort of hybridized
structure; part geodesic dome, part jewel, and part
yurt, explains Bell, who used the same concept to
make a tent-like Zomecile that won accolades at
the Austin Maker Faire in 2007.
By salvaging the plastic sheeting from an old
collapsed greenhouse and making good use of their
ShopBot CNC router, this software engineer and
landscape architect duo were able to inexpensively
build a replicable design. They based the structure
on a class of polyhedra known as zonohedra.
While a dome will tend to resemble a sphere,
a Zome will resemble a jewel, explains Bell, who
works as a designer and fabricator when hes not
writing software.
Designed as a model for building similar structures, the Algarden Zome designs are open source
25
COUNTRY SCIENTIST
Snow Science
Make: Volume 21
27
COUNTRY SCIENTIST
Make: Volume 21
MAKERS CORNER
BY DAN WOODS
Make:
29
123
+ +
Cup Positioning
System By Cy Tymony
3.
Make: Volume 21
SELF-MADE MAKER:
Engineer Eddie Paul
builds everything from
Hollywood custom cars
and special effects to
submarines and wind
turbines in his formidably equipped Southern
California shop.
Cutting His
Own Paths
Inventor Eddie Paul does more before
lunch than most people do, ever.
By Keith Hammond
32
Make: Volume 21
>>
Make:
33
Maker
SON OF AN INVENTOR
Growing up in California, Paul apprenticed with
his father before setting out on his own. My
dad was an inventor, he says. He invented allthreaded rod, rotisserie chicken machines in
supermarkets, a new kind of domed navigational
chart. He taught me to find a need and invent
a solution and make it as simple as possible.
I worked in his shops; he taught me how to weld,
grind, drill, all that stuff.
I was on my own at 13, making a living working
on motorcycles in L.A. and San Francisco, and
living off my 45 meter maid trike. This was in the
late 1960s. Soon Paul got into building and flying
hang gliders, which got him a movie stunt job,
which led him to The Dukes and a storied career
in stunts, special effects, and custom cars.
34
Make: Volume 21
Make:
35
36
Make: Volume 21
Maker
Photography by Noah Webb (Mustang, router, plasma cutter) and courtesy of Eddie Paul
RODS, MODS, AND INVENTIONS: (Opposite) Rods on racks; Chopper 1 superbike. (This page) Mustang fender
flares; CNC 3D router station; plasma cutter in action; full-sized Mater from Cars; Cut in Half fire engine; replica of Akira anime motorcycle; Pauls patented pump/engine with double-ended pistons and sinusoidal cams.
Make:
37
Maker
Make: Volume 21
By Nik Schulz
Make:
39
Maker
Locally Grown
Carving boards and waves with the maker of all-wood
Grain Surfboards. By Peter Smith
40
Make: Volume 21
Make:
41
Maker
The
Nonsense
Factory
obumichi Tosa stares straight into my
camcorder. He presses a button on the small
rectangular switchboard on his chest. The
wings strapped to his body start to slowly rise. He
pauses, expressionless. He raises his arms.
Then, with a snap of his fingers, he launches into
an upbeat, 20-second musical performance triggered by the beat of his snapping. Every snap makes
mallets at the end of his wings drum on a pair of
temple blocks. It sounds like a mashup between a
Buddhist funeral and a trance party.
Tosa is the president of Maywa Denki, a Tokyobased art collective whose quirky instruments have
made waves among musically inclined geeks and
artists across the globe. His warehouse is full of
handmade electronic instruments. He shows me an
automated folk guitar controlled by an external pick;
daisy-shaped xylophones with petals that open
and close to a beat; and a bellows-powered artificial
vocal cord connected to a PC that emanates sound
through a fake human ear.
Hes wearing blue work clothes over a shirt and
tie, which he tells me is his stage costume. I used to
wear a tuxedo, he says, but it made me feel like
a magician.
The name Maywa Denki comes from an electronics store that Tosas father used to own. Tosa always
knew he wanted to be an artist, but it wasnt until
he got to college that he realized his creative tool of
choice would be the machine.
There was a workshop at my university that
looked exactly like my dads old store, he says. And
I thought, Maywa Denki has become a forgotten thing
of the past, but maybe its time I can resurrect it.
Working closely with Masamichi, his older brother,
Tosa made a collection of 26 gadgets themed
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Make: Volume 21
The Solar
Catenary
Reflector
Build 21st-century renewable
technology using 17th-century
mathematics. By Tho X. Bui
ou can divide most solar power research into
two camps: increasing efficiency or reducing
cost. A few years ago, when I decided to do
some amateur solar research of my own, I chose
the cheap route.
I had the idea to use mirrors with a catenary
curve to concentrate sunlight. The catenary,
described by y = cosh x, is the curve that ropes or
other flexible materials naturally fall into between
two supports. This curve was mistaken for the
parabola (y = x 2) until the difference was cleared
up by 17th-century mathematicians.
Parabolas are often used for concentrators since
they focus parallel rays into one point. I reasoned
that if I could find parameters under which catenaries and parabolas are similar, I could make a solar
catenary reflector (SCR) that would effectively
concentrate sunlight.
The advantage of the SCR is that its self-forming.
Solid parabolic shapes dont occur naturally, and you
need to make them stiff and strong to maintain their
shape against wind, snow, and other destructive
outdoor forces.
And the SCR is quick and inexpensive to build,
requiring no special tools or knowledge. Just hang
some flexible, reflective material and you have it.
SCRs could ultimately be more durable than rigid
parabolic reflectors because of their Zen-like ability
to deflect with the wind, instead of fighting against it.
To determine when a catenary will reflect like a
parabola, I modeled the problem mathematically
on a computer. As expected, I found an aspect ratio
where a catenary reflector almost matches a parabolic mirror at concentrating light: 1 high to 4 wide,
for a symmetrical reflector.
Make:
43
SolidWorks is a registered trademark of Dassault Systmes. 2010 Dassault Systmes. All rights reserved.
SolidWorks presents an online series about three PRODUCT DESIGNERS forced to work in an overow trailer. Starring a USER COMMUNITY OVER ONE MILLION STRONG,
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PAGE 46
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BUILD A 3D SCANNER
PAGE 54
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PAGE 68
MAKERBEAM PROTOTYPES
PAGE 70
PAGE 71
Make:
45
THREE CUPCAKES:
Mayer, Smith, and
Pettis with their open
source 3D printers.
46
Make: Volume 21
An inside look
at MakerBot
Industries.
BY BECKY STERN
REVOLUTION
WILL BE
SQUIRTED
THE
Extruder
Printed object
Motherboard and
motor controllers
Z-stage pulley
Plastic lament
his is the Wild West of 3D printing, Bre Pettis explains as we stand inside
the so-called Bot Cave. This warehouse space in downtown Brooklyn,
N.Y., is home to MakerBot Industries, an open source hardware startup with
the mission of making the dream of desktop fabrication a reality for every
person on the planet. More hackerspace than superhero lair, the Bot Cave and
its shelves are full of electronics, packing materials, and prototype machines.
Something about the place has that feeling of a secret hideout, even if the hightech superhero vehicle in the garage is a single-speed with drop handlebars.
The edgling rm is in the business of making kitbased 3D printers. Also called rapid prototyping or
fabbing, 3D printing is a catchall term to describe
a group of technologies that are used to translate
virtual 3D plans into real objects. Unlike computercontrolled milling machines, which start with a block
of material and whittle it down into a nal form, 3D
printing involves building up layers of material.
This additive process is commonly achieved in one
of two ways: powder bed or extrusion. In the powder
bed method, a toolhead deposits a binder selectively
across a bed of powdered build material, then lowers
the bed and sweeps over another layer of loose powder. This process repeats until the object is complete,
at which point it can be lifted from the vat of loose
powder and dusted off. In the extrusion method, the
toolhead deposits a thin lament of heat-softened
material (usually ABS plastic) in layers that harden
as they cool, building up a nished object.
Zach Hoeken Smith, Adam Mayer, and Bre Pettis
founded MakerBot Industries less than a year ago. All
three men, who met through Brooklyn hackerspace
NYC Resistor, have been active in the DIY community
for the past ve years (Pettis produced videos for
Make:
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49
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51
ARMCHAIR
ARCHITECT
A new way to
create 3D models
for Google Earth.
BY COLIN BERRY
live in Los Angeles, but, like Tony Bennett, left my heart in San Francisco,
whose charming Victorians, swooping hills, and rolling fog spark my fondest memories. So when I heard Google was releasing Building Maker, a tool for
amateur designers like me to create geo-located 3D models of buildings in their
favorite cities, I looked to see if mine was listed: sure enough, there she was.
I updated my Google Earth, cracked open an Anchor Steam, and got to work.
Make: Volume 21
Once you choose the city (facing), a zoomable satellite map lets you choose the street and the very building
you want to model. Then pick from a series of fully adjustable 3D icons (this page) that most closely match
the building shape. The accurate model emerges incrementally through various satellite views.
We want to create
a community
of mapmakers.
I glowed with pride.
Sure enough, a few days later, my little phalanx
of San Francisco models appeared on Google Earth
abrupt, odd-looking edifices springing up from
the flat map and beginning to populate the citys
impossible topography. Every day I see more of
them, modeled by me and others, and soon anyone
will be able to tour the San Francisco I know and
love. I hope that in time, Google will perfect a
technology that models the fog, too, that clings
like cotton candy to her hills in the afternoons.
Building Maker: sketchup.google.com/3dwh/
buildingmaker.html
53
DIY 3D
SCANNER
Introducing the
SplineScan computercontrolled turntable.
BY ANDREW LEWIS
54
Make: Volume 21
USB Camera
Laser emitter
Turntable
MATERIALS
PC running Linux or Windows
USB A-to-A cable
TOOLS
Hacksaw or band saw to cut aluminum sheet
and copper pipe
Epoxy
Drill press or hand drill and drill bits
Screwdrivers
Allen (hex) wrenches
Soldering iron and solder
Electrical tape
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Build Your 3D
Scanning System
Time: A Few Weekends Complexity: Moderate
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57
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and since most laser emitters and LEDs use substantially less, youll need to step down the power
using a monolithic voltage regulator. I recommend
the LM317, which can be wired to produce a range of
different voltages.
The design of the emitter casings is quite simple.
I used Neutrik " cast phono plugs, which t neatly
into " copper pipe (Figures I, J, and K). I had ample
space to t the power regulator circuit (Figure M)
and a tiny laser line generator that I got on eBay.
I used a standard plumbing end-cap to nish the
top of each emitter and then painted them black
(Figure L), and held the copper tube onto the cast
plug using a combination of hot glue and grub
screws.
Andrew Lewis ([email protected]) is a keen artificer and computer scientist with interests in 3D scanning,
computational theory, algorithmics, and electronics. Hes a
relentless tinkerer whose love of science and technology is
second only to his love of all things steampunk.
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Router
Power supply
Breakout board
A
C
E
D
Machine Overview
You can see the final CNC machine in Figure A.
Its frame is built from medium-density fiberboard
(MDF) sturdy and strong, affordable, easy to
cut, and best of all, no welding required. The entire
machine can be built from just two 4'8' sheets of
MDF. Its parts are connected by a combination of
bolts and cross dowels, providing the machine with
a tough and reliable frame.
Believe it or not, many of these machines have
been built with nothing more than a miter box,
saw, portable drill/screwdriver, and a tap (check
out the videos at buildyourcnc.com for proof), but
having a drill press, table saw, and a few other basic
workshop tools will make your build go a little faster
and smoother. Ultimately, though, a DIYer can easily
build this machine with a bit of patience and the
most basic of tools.
The machine uses threaded rod for lead screws
(Figure C, following page). Three stepper motors
each mate to a lead screw to control the forward/
backward (x-axis), left-to-right (y-axis), and up-anddown (z-axis) movements of the machines router.
A full-sized router or smaller laminate router (also
called a hand router) can be attached to the CNC
machine (Figure D) and to the nozzle of a dust collection system (and CNC machines create a lot of dust).
The three stepper motors are controlled via
a small collection of electronics: three stepper
motor drivers, a power supply, and a breakout board
(Figure E). The breakout board connects to your
PC, which runs the control software. We use the free
version of ArtSoft Mach3 (machsupport.com) but
any CNC control software can be used.
How well does it work? That depends on what you
do with it. Patrick uses his DIY CNC machines to cut
and drill the parts required to build more DIY CNC
machines hows that for trusting in your own design?
Im just getting started with using mine, but
engraving is something that a novice (like me) can
get immediate satisfaction from, and the results are
sharp and clear (Figure F).
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Have Fun
Building my own CNC machine was just as enjoyable as using it. During the assembly, I learned
some new woodworking techniques, became more
proficient with a table saw, and learned to love
the Forstner bit (which I highly recommend for
counterbores and drilling holes in general).
Ive also started to dig deeper into the use of
CAD software for designing, and CAM software for
converting my designs into G-code, the instructions
that Mach3 uses to control the motors and direct
the router.
The most surprising thing Ive learned after
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DIRECT DIGITAL
WEDDING
RINGS
64
Make: Volume 21
Alternatives
Of course, creating a simpler design and not
setting stones will save time and money and will
allow you to do more of the work yourself. Also keep
in mind that precious metals are very expensive
and currently rising in cost on a daily basis.
Most jewelry foundries use silver to test designs
before wasting expensive gold or platinum, and
silver can be very affordable as the final material.
Alternately, try titanium, copper, or bronze if you
really want something unique.
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OPEN SOURCE
SELFREPLICATOR
Make: Volume 21
IN THE THICK OF IT: (Opposite) Lawrence Kincheloe and Marcin Jakubowski pose inside the RepTab cutting
table. (This page) Kincheloe practices cutting with the plasma cutter tip on the RepTab.
Make:
67
CNC
MACHINE
KIT
BY STEVE LODEFINK
Z-AXIS
I
Y-AXIS
X-AXIS
C
J
J
F
H
J
E
A
D
J
G
A
X way
Bearing
Y motor
Y way
Z motor
Z way
Spindle/
tool mount
Leadscrews
Bed
Controller
X motors
or the longest time, Ive wanted to start tinkering with CNC milling and
routing. But despite the number of well-documented homebuilt CNC
machines out there, I could never quite get the momentum to start building
one. So I decided to fast-track my entry into DIY CNC by starting with a kit.
Make: Volume 21
The basic machine assembly went pretty effortlessly, with almost no opportunity for mistakes.
Documentation and assembly instructions reside on
the Lumenlab website, and the companion forums
are full of helpful tips from other CNC machine
builders.
Once you get the machine all bolted together, you
need to use a framing square to make sure that the
X ways are perfectly parallel, and that the y-axis
carrier (gantry) is perpendicular to the x-axis. This
is referred to as tramming the machine.
The optional spindle kit for the micRo is a exible
shaft, hanging grinding tool, and a set of mounts for
attaching the toolholder/chuck to the Z blocks. It
worked well for me, though you could easily mount
a Dremel, or other type of rotary tool, if you choose.
The spindle had more than enough power to cut
through hard plastic without bogging down.
Running a Job
There are two fundamental software steps to preparing a job for a CNC machine. First you have to
draft the part in a CAD (computer-aided design)
program. Next, you use CAM (computer-aided
machining) software to interpret the model and
generate the appropriate tool path for the machine
to follow. CNC tool paths are written in a language
known as G-code. The machine controller software
then uses the G-code as a map, and drives the tool
around appropriately to carve the piece (Figure A).
I have a confession to make: Im not really up to
speed with CAD just yet, but I did nd a cool CAM
program called Image to G-Code, which converts
a grayscale image into a cutting depth map. I fed
a photograph of a skull, along with the size of my
material and cutting tool, into the software, and it
generated the proper G-code to mill the photo into
a translucent material. I machined the image into a
sheet of white Corian acrylic, and when held up to
the light, it looks like the original picture (Figure B)!
Ive got some CAD learning to do before I can
start making robot parts, but let me just say that
this desktop CNC tinkering feels good, and Im really
glad I started with a kit.
Resources
Image to G-Code program: makezine.com/go/gcode
GeckoDrive (good CNC drivers): geckodrive.com
EMC machine controller software: makezine.com/
go/emc
Lumenlab: lumenlab.com
My build photos: makezine.com/go/lodefinkcnc
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MAKERBEAM
An open source building
system for project boxes,
robots, and more.
BY JOHN BAICHTAL
Make: Volume 21
3D FABBING
STATE OF
THE ART
BY GARETH BRANWYN
71
Fig. B: A growing map of fabber garages around the world. Not 100,000 yet, but its a start. Fig. C: An Adafruit
Industries Ice Tube Clock kit with a laser-cut acrylic enclosure. Fig. D: The newest RepRap, Version II Mendel.
Its both bigger and smaller than Version I: it can make bigger things, but is physically much smaller.
Fig. E: CandyFab is an open source 3D printer designed to print candy or other 3D objects using low-meltingpoint materials like sugar.
Make: Volume 21
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Projects
In this issue of MAKE, we give you the tools to
create some atmosphere. Need music in your
life? Dont fret build a classic cigar box guitar.
Then let there be light by cranking up a kinetic,
self-leveling candleholder with handmade gears.
Finally, make a fun game of measuring human
reactions using 555 timers.
76
Geared Candleholder
86
Reaction Timer
96
Make:
75
TRADITIONAL
CIGAR BOX
GUITAR
By Mark Frauenfelder
76
Make: Volume 21
makezine.com/21/cbg
HAND-ROLLED MUSIC
Make:
77
makezine.com/21/cbg
<
Fret Spacing
A strings frequency is inversely proportional
to its length; if you halve the strings vibrating
length by fretting it at its midpoint, it vibrates
twice as fast. Musically, this means it plays
one octave higher. Western music divides
the octave into 12 equal intervals, so you
can determine the distance between
adjacent frets by successively dividing each length by the 12th root of
2. This is an irrational number,
8
and any rounding error accrues
with each division, so youll need
to carry it out with a lot of digits.
Using 1.05946309436 should be safe.
:
CK
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GUITA
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RAforFT
Cigar Box Guita
use with your
PERC
PA
guitar picks
Buildable paper
J\Zfe[]i\k&(%',0+-
t.com
usankleinar
WEB: www.s
tful picks
n
Susan Klei
Portland OR
based fine
ts these deligh
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BONUS!
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picks
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Matthew Crai
Portland OR
based fine
ts these beauti
artist presen
nance.com
WEB: www.r
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Rob Nance
78
Tacoma WA
ng picks
these diverti
based cartoo
Make: Volume 21
=`ijk]i\k&(%',0+JZXc\c\e^k_&(%',0+JZXc\c\e^k_
SET UP.
B
L
H
M
E
F
G
MATERIALS
[A] Cigar box I buy them at
my local cigar store for $3
each. You can also find them
on eBay.
[B] 12 oak or maple
lumber, 3' length The actual
dimensions are "1". A
6' stick (enough for 2 necks)
costs about $10. Pick the
straightest, flattest, clearest
(free of knotholes) piece you
can find.
[C] Guitar strings Standard
medium-gauge strings work
well. CBGs typically use
open G tuning. I use strings
5, 4, and 3 (A, D, G) and tune
them to G-D-G.
[D] Tuning pegs Elderly
Instruments (elderly.com)
sells a set of 6 (enough to
build two 3-stringers) for
$10. Sometimes theyre
called tuning machines.
[E] Fret wire $10 at elderly.
com or cbgitty.com. You can
also use flat toothpicks or
go fretless.
[NOT SHOWN]
Yardstick A decimal inch or
millimeter scale is best, as
opposed to fractional inches.
Wood saw
Drill or drill press
and bits for wood
Phillips head screwdrivers
Hammer
TOOLS
Files
T square or carpenters
square
Jeweler's file (optional)
Make:
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makezine.com/21/cbg
MAKE IT.
BUILD
YOUR
CIGAR BOX
GUITAR
>>
START
1c. Mark the lines for the nut and headstock. Starting from the
pencil mark you just made for the bridge, make another mark
indicating the scale length (I decided on a scale length of 24").
This second mark is where the nut will go. Make a third mark "
farther past the nut. Make a fourth and final pencil mark 3"
beyond the third mark.
4
2
1d. Cut out the headstock. Your third and fourth pencil marks
indicate the beginning and the end of the headstock. Use your
saw to cut away the material shaded in red in the illustration
above. The headstock should be half as thick as the neck, or 2".
1e. Sand the fretboard. Now is a good time to sand the top surface of the neck so its dead flat. Use a
sanding block, starting with rough sandpaper and finishing with fine-grit sandpaper.
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2b. Cut the fret slots. About 5" should be deep enough. The saw
blade should be thin enough so the fret tangs bite into the slots
you cut. I buy medium-gauge fret wire and have had no problem
with frets popping out. A coping saw and a hobbyists miter box
will help you keep the fret slots square with the neck.
2c. Form the back of the neck. On the backside of the neck,
shape the sharp 90 edges into soft curves so your fretting hand
can easily slide up and down the neck. A Surform shaver tool will
quickly rough out a rounded edge. Follow up with sandpaper until
the wood is very smooth.
NOTE: Dont shave the headstock or the part that will fit into the cigar
box only work on the area under the frets and nut.
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2d. Tap the frets into the slots. Fret wire usually comes pre-cut,
and each piece is about an inch longer than the width of the
neck. The wires cross section is T-shaped, and the barbed center
rail goes into the slot.
At each fret slot, align one end of the fret wire so it overhangs the
side of the neck just a fraction of an inch. Press the fret wire into
the slot, then place a thin block of wood on the fret and tap on
the block with a hammer until the fret is all the way in.
NOTE: You can smear a tiny bead of super glue across the part of the
fret that fits in the slot if you wish, but I usually skip it, because its
hard to keep the glue from getting onto the neck.
2e. Clip the fret wire. Cut it almost flush with the neck. Repeat
Steps 2d and 2e until all frets are installed. I installed 21 frets on
my cigar box guitar.
2f. File the ends of the frets. The cut ends of the fret wires are
very jagged and would shred your hands if you attempted to play
without filing them smooth. Use a file to form a gentle curve on
both ends of each fret. (If you have a store-bought guitar handy,
inspect it to see how the frets should look.) Run your hand up
and down the neck. If your skin snags, you need to keep filing!
Use a magnifying glass and look for any small burrs that need to
be filed off with a jewelers file.
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3a. For each peg, drill a large hole for the post and 2 small
pilot holes for the mounting screws. A drill press will make
things easier, but if you use a handheld drill, try your best to
drill straight down.
TIP: When you drill the holes for the posts, use drill bits made for wood.
I used the wrong kind of bit and it tore out big splinters. (You can see a
missing piece above the top tuning peg, inside the orange circle in the
bottom photo).
4.
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makezine.com/21/cbg
4d. Paint position marker dots on the neck. Use paint or a Sharpie to make dots above frets 3, 5, 7, 9, and 12.
4e. String the guitar. Thread the barrel ends of the strings
through the hinges unused mounting holes. Wind the other ends
of the strings onto the tuning pegs, but not too tight yet. Here's
a good video that will teach you how to wind a guitar string:
makezine.com/go/guitarstring
NOTE: I inserted a screw to keep the middle string centered in the
headstock. You might have to do this, too.
4f. Slip in a bridge and a nut under the strings. I used a wooden barbecue skewer to make the bridge and
the nut. Snip 2 pieces to size and place one above the line you drew for the nut. Place the other under the
strings on the cigar box at a distance equal to the scale length you chose; this is the bridge.
4g. Screw down the tailpiece. Drill a hole through the hinge
and drive a screw through it into the lid and the neck. This will
increase tension on the strings and prevent rattling.
4h. Make a sound hole. Use a small hole saw (" diameter or
so) to cut a sound hole in the top of the box. Make sure to position the hole so it doesnt cut into the neck. (I made this mistake
when I made my first cigar box guitar!)
Guess what youve built your guitar! In the next section, Ill
explain tuning and playing, as well as direct you to other helpful
cigar box guitar resources.
FINISH X
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NOW GO USE IT
USE IT.
TUNE UP
AND TURN ON
GET IN TUNE
The most popular tuning
for cigar box guitars is
called open G tuning.
Many of the original
blues guitar players
used open G, and its
a favorite with Keith
Richards of the Rolling
Stones.
Visit makezine.com/
21/cbg for an MP3 file
of this tuning played
string by string on a
six-string guitar. For the
CBG, you can ignore
the first string thats
plucked, and tune it to
the 3 strings after that:
G, D, and G.
TURN IT UP
You can electrify your cigar box guitar in 2 ways.
The easiest is by adding a piezoelectric buzzer.
Buy one at RadioShack or salvage one from a
discarded smoke alarm. Carefully crack open the
plastic housing, remove the metal disc, and sandwich it between the neck and lid of your guitar.
Wire it to a patch cord jack and plug into an amp
(if you dont have an amplifier, make our Cracker
Box Amp featured in MAKE, Volume 09, page 104).
Another way to electrify a cigar box guitar is by
adding an electromagnetic pickup. In a future issue
of MAKE, well show you how to wind your own.
Make:
85
GEARED
CANDLEHOLDER
By Benjamin Cowden
86
Make: Volume 21
makezine.com/21/candleholder
ENLIGHTENMENT AESTHETIC
Nothing says machine quite like a
bunch of gears turning in time with each
other. Its an iconic image. Unfortunately,
gears are expensive and hard to find
pre-made. You can scavenge them from
discarded machines, but the selection
is limited, and its possible to amass
a whole drawer of gears without having
any two that actually fit together.
Make:
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makezine.com/21/candleholder
Creating
a Movement
A geared movement raises
and lowers the candles
via parallelogram-linkage
arms that keep the
candles level.
4
4
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SET UP.
C
D
L
M
F
B
N
G
O
S
H
A
I
MATERIALS
[A] " aluminum plate,
1'2' for the body and gears.
Aluminum plate and rod
are available from a metals
supplier such as Metal
Supermarkets
(metalsupermarkets.com).
[B] 6" or 1" aluminum
plate, 2"4" for the candleholders
[C] 4" aluminum rod,
8" length for the feet
[D] "1" aluminum
bar, 6' length for the arms;
McMaster-Carr part
#8975K527 (mcmaster.com)
[E] " steel rod, 4" length
from a metals supplier
[F] Candle drip cups, glass
(2) from a crafts store;
I bought them at Michaels.
[G] Threaded standoffs,
"1", 8-32 thread (4)
McMaster-Carr #93265A482
[NOT SHOWN]
Center punch
Small hammer
Band saw
TOOLS
Hacksaw
Tapping oil
Vise
[R] Protractor
C-clamp
[U] Calipers
Respirator mask
Epoxy
[X] Scotch-Brite scouring
pads or steel wool
[Y] Sandpaper
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makezine.com/21/candleholder
MAKE IT.
BUILD
YOUR
GEARED
CANDLEHOLDER
>>
START
1d. Wherever the pitch circle crosses the radiating lines, punch
and drill a " hole. Also drill the center with the " bit.
The connecting arm holes need to be tapped for 10-24 threads,
so punch then drill these with a #25 drill bit.
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Make: Volume 21
1e. Cut the gear out as much as you can on a band saw.
1f. Finish the teeth by filing them until they are semicircular and
even-looking.
1g. Test-mount the gears onto a wood board using " bolts or
rod. Leave a tiny bit of room, or slop, between the gears to
decrease the chance of binding. Turn them, and mark any
problem areas for more filing.
1h. To tap the holes for the connecting arms, clamp the gear so
the hole location is off the edge of a table. Secure the 10-24 tap
into the handle, put a couple drops of tapping oil on the tap, and
screw it slowly into the hole. Apply light pressure, and turn back
every quarter turn to break off the curls of metal. Go all the way
through the hole before backing the tap out. Clean the hole, and
screw in one of the 10-24 shoulder bolts to test the threads.
2b. Follow the pattern to outline the body. Use your center marks to create the outline, scribing circles
and connecting them with necks. I used an oval drafting template to make smooth curves.
For the 2 feet, mark two 4"-diameter half-circles at the bottom. In the upper corners, mark 4"-radius
circles (1" diameter) that encompass both arm pivot holes. Make the central circles small enough to
show off the mechanism inside. The resulting outline will be fun and reminiscent of old machines.
Make:
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2c. Roughly cut the back panel of the body on a band saw and
drill the holes. The Y" holes in the corners are for 8-32 machine
screws that hold 1" threaded standoffs between the 2 panels.
2d. Use the back panel as a template to mark the front panel.
To improve visibility of the gears, make the middle area of the
front panel a little smaller. Clamp the panels together and redrill
the " holes for the pinion (the smallest gear) and the Y" arm
holes through the back and front panel together. These are the
only holes in the front panel.
2e. Tap the holes for the larger gears on the back panel the same way you tapped the gears in Step 1h.
2f. For the pinion axle, which will connect to the knob, cut a
1" piece of " steel rod. Put one end through the center of the
pinion and slip a clamp-on shaft collar on top. To join the collar
and pinion, drill a 5" hole down through both, off to one side,
and use a small hammer to drive in a 5" tension pin.
2g. Make the knob the same way you made the gears, as a
5-tooth gear with " teeth (pitch radius = 0.796", marks every
72). Drill and attach the knob to a shaft collar with a tension pin,
the way you did the pinion in Step 2f.
2h. For the feet, cut two 4" lengths of 4" aluminum rod. They
need 2 slots cut halfway through them, " wide and 1" apart.
Put the feet in a vise and use a hacksaw to cut each side of the
slot, and then saw diagonally across both to clear out material in
between. Finish clearing out the slots with a coarse file until the
body panels fit in them. Youll attach these feet with epoxy later.
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Make: Volume 21
3a. Cut the arms. Refer to the connecting arms pattern at makezine.com/21/candleholder. All measurements are based on the centers of the holes, so add some extra length for the ends, and grind or file the
corners round.
3b. Drill the holes. Some need to be " while others are U". The connecting arms attach to the gears
with "-diameter shoulder bolts and the parallel arms pivot on " threaded standoffs. The arm parts
attach to each other and to the candle brackets using U" binding posts.
3c. Cut the spacers. Ten spacers of varying lengths hold the arms and gears at the correct distances
between the front and back panels. Referring to the spacer plan online, cut the 2" unthreaded aluminum
spacers down to the lengths needed with a hacksaw. Cut them a bit long and then file them down to a hair
short, to allow for free movement.
4d. To stake down the posts, clamp the bracket in a vise, then
position your center punch in the middle of each post and use a
small hammer to drive it in gently, spreading out the aluminum
slightly, like a rivet.
TIP: The aluminum will crack if pushed too far, so be gentle.
4e. Use 2" binding posts to join the brackets to the parallel arms, then finish the holders by using epoxy
to attach glass drip rings on top of the disks.
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5h. Use epoxy to permanently attach the feet to the body. Youre done. Congratulations!
This is not a simple project, and doing it mostly with hand tools is especially challenging, but the sleek
look and smooth mechanical action of the finished product should be very satisfying. I hope this piece will
not only provide a fun project for the home but also be a catalyst for more experimentation in mechanics.
For additional information and photos, go to twentysevengears.com/gearedcandleholder.
FINISH X
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NOW GO USE IT
USE IT.
CRANK UP
THE ATMOSPHERE
This candleholder makes an excellent centerpiece
at the dinner table; being transformable means it
can change to fit the occasion. Lots of big serving
bowls on the table? Lift the candles up high so they
shine down on all the delicious food!
Given the time and craftsmanship that goes into
its creation, this project also makes a wonderful
gift. I gave a similar candleholder to friends of mine
at their wedding, and they told me it was the most
beautiful object they own.
VARIATIONS
The dimensions and materials for this project are
quite variable. You can use steel, plywood, or acrylic
for the parts without a problem, except for tapping
threaded holes. For plastic or wood, try threaded
inserts such as McMaster-Carr part #99362A500.
The body shape and arm length can change to
suit your desires. Just make sure the candle cups
dont collide and the connecting arms dont hit the
axle. If youre not sure whether your adaptation will
work, make a cardboard mock-up and try it out.
The design is also expandable: imagine a whole
row of candles, each rising and falling at different
speeds!
BECOME A GEARHEAD
Once you understand the way this type of mechanism works, you can adapt it to an infinite number
of projects. Being able to make your own gears
and levers allows you to create exactly the movement you want, whether its for a walking robot or
a machine that brushes your teeth and ties your
shoes!
Check out the resources to the right to add to
your mechanical vocabulary and inspire your inner
kinetic sculptor.
RESOURCES
Flash animations showing how different movements
and mechanisms work: flying-pig.co.uk/mechanisms
Useful animations and explanations of mechanisms:
technologystudent.com/cams/camdex.htm
My website, with images and video of many
mechanical sculptures, as well as links to
other kinetic sculptors and resources:
twentysevengears.com
507 Mechanical Movements: Mechanisms and
Devices by Henry T. Brown (Dover, 2005) is a
classic book of ideas for creating movements.
Illustrated Sourcebook of Mechanical Components
by Robert O. Parmley (McGraw-Hill, 2000) is a
compendium of ideas for mechanical inventors.
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Reaction Timer
By Charles Platt
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START
Step 1: Display
You can use three separate LED numerals for this
project, but I suggest that you buy the Kingbright
BC56-11EWA, which contains three numerals in one
big package.
You should be able to plug it into your breadboard, straddling the center channel. Put it all the
way down at the bottom of the breadboard, as
shown in Figure A. Dont put any other components
on the breadboard yet.
Now set your power supply to 9 volts (or use a
9-volt battery), and apply the negative side of it to
the row of holes running up the breadboard on the
right-hand side. Insert a 1K resistor between that
negative supply and each of pins 18, 19, and 26 of the
Kingbright display, which are the common cathode,
meaning the negative connection shared by each set
of LED segments in the display. (The pin numbers
of the chip are shown in Figure C on the following
page. If youre using another model of display, youll
have to consult a data sheet to find which pin(s) are
designed to receive negative voltage.)
Switch on the power supply and touch the free
end of the positive wire to each row of holes serving
the display on its left and right sides. You should see
each segment light up, as shown in Figure A.
Each numeral from 0 to 9 is represented by
a group of these segments. The segments are
always identified with lowercase letters a through
g, as shown in Figure B. In addition, there is often
MATERIALS
Good sources for some or
all of these components
include RadioShack (retail
locations and radioshack.
com), Mouser Electronics
(mouser.com), Digi-Key
(digikey.com), Newark
Online (newark.com), and
AllElectronics Corporation
(allelectronics.com).
Multimeter
Resistors: 1K (6), 10K,
330K, 2.2K or higher
Capacitors: 0.1F (3), 1F,
10F (2), 68F, 100F
9V DC power supply
or 9V battery
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D
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F
G
Step 2: Counting
I
D
H
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D
F
K
H
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E
F
K
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9V
DC
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&RXQWHU
Grounding
Yourself
To avoid the frustration that occurs
when you power up a circuit and
nothing happens, be sure to take
these precautions when you use
the older generation of CMOS chips
(which often have part numbers
from 4000 upward, such as 4002,
4020, and so on):
Chips are often shipped with their
legs embedded in black foam. This is
electrically conductive foam, and you
should keep the chips embedded in it
until you are ready to use them.
If the chips are supplied to you in
plastic tubes, you can take them
out and poke their legs into pieces
of conductive foam or, if you dont
have any, use aluminum foil. The
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Pulse Generation
A 555 timer is ideal for creating a stream of pulses
that drive a counter chip. Figure H, page 103, shows
how to connect these chips to the positive and
negative rails on your breadboard. Also Im showing
the connection between pins 2 and 6 in the way that
youre most likely to make it, via a wire that loops
over the top of the chip.
For the current experiment, Im suggesting initial
component values that will generate only four
pulses per second. Any faster than that, and you
wont be able to verify that your counters are counting properly.
Install IC5 and its associated components on your
FUNDAMENTALS
Counters and SevenSegment Displays
Most counters accept a stream
of pulses and distribute them to
a series of pins in sequence. The
4026 decade counter is unusual in
that it applies power to its output
pins in a pattern that is just right
to illuminate the segments of a
7-segment numeric display.
Some counters create positive
outputs (they source current)
while others create negative
outputs (they sink current).
Some 7-segment displays require
positive input to light up the numbers. These are known as common
cathode displays. Others require
negative input and are known as
common anode displays. The
4026 delivers positive outputs and
requires a common cathode display.
Check the data sheet for any
counter chip to find out how much
power it requires, and how much
it can deliver. CMOS chips are
becoming dated, but they are very
useful to hobbyists, because they
tolerate a wide range of supply
voltage from 5 to 15 volts in the
case of the 4026. Other types of
chips are much more limited.
Most counters can source or sink
only a few milliamps of output
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Renements
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The Delay
Suppose we set up yet another 555 in mono-stable
mode. Trigger its pin 2 with a negative pulse, and the
timer delivers a positive output that lasts for, say,
4 seconds. At the end of that time, its output goes
back to being negative. Maybe we can hook that
positive-to-negative transition to pin 4 of IC6. We
can use this instead of switch S5, which you were
pressing previously to start the count.
Check the new schematic in Figure K, which adds
another 555 timer, IC7 above IC6. When the output
from IC7 goes from positive to negative, it will trigger the reset of IC6, flipping its output negative,
which allows the count to begin. So IC7 has taken
the place of the start switch, S4. You can get rid of
S4, but keep the pull-up resistor, R9, so that the
reset of IC6 remains positive the rest of the time.
This arrangement works because I have used a
capacitor, C4, to connect the output of IC7 to the
reset of IC6. The capacitor communicates the
sudden change from positive to negative, but the
rest of the time it blocks the steady voltage from
IC7 so that it wont interfere with IC6.
The final schematic in Figure K shows the three
555 timers all linked together, as you should insert
them above the topmost counter, IC1. I also added
an LED to signal the user. Figure L (on page 107) is
a photograph of my working model of the circuit.
Because this circuit is complicated, Ill summarize
the sequence of events when its working. Refer to
Figure K while following these steps:
1. User presses Start Delay button S4, which triggers IC7.
2. IC7 output goes high for a few seconds while C5
charges.
3. IC7 output drops back low.
4. IC7 communicates a pulse of low voltage through
C4 to IC6, pin 4.
5. IC6 output flips to low and flops there.
6. Low output from IC6 sinks current through an
LED and lights it.
,&
Fig. H: A basic astable circuit to drive the decade counter
in the previous schematic. Output is approximately 4
pulses per second.
Component values:
R7: 1K
R8: 2K2
C2: 68 F
C3: 0.1 F
IC5: 555 timer
FUNDAMENTALS
Switch Bounce
When you hit S3, I think
youll find that the count
sometimes increases by
more than 1. This does
not mean that theres
something wrong with
your circuit or your
components; youre just
observing a phenomenon known as switch
bounce.
On a microscopic level,
the contacts inside a
pushbutton switch do
not close smoothly,
firmly, and decisively.
They vibrate for a few
microseconds before
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No Floating
Pins!
A CMOS chip is hypersensitive. Any pin thats not
wired either to the supply voltage or to ground is said
to be floating and may act like an antenna, sensitive
to the smallest fluctuations in the world around it.
The 4026 counter chip has a pin labeled clock disable. The manufacturers data sheet helpfully tells
you that if you give this pin a positive voltage, the chip
stops counting and freezes its display. As you dont
want to do that, you might just ignore that pin and
leave it unconnected, at least while you test the chip.
This is a very bad idea!
What the data sheet doesnt bother to tell you (presumably because everyone knows such things) is
that if you want the clock to run normally, the clockdisable feature itself has to be disabled, by wiring it to
negative (ground) voltage. If you leave the pin floating
(and I speak from experience), the chip will behave
erratically and uselessly.
All input pins must be either positively or negatively
wired, unless otherwise specified.
FUNDAMENTALS
The Bistable
555 Timer
Figure I shows the internal layout
of a 555 timer, but the external
components on the right-hand
side have been eliminated. Instead,
Im applying a constant negative
voltage to pin 6. Can you see the
consequences?
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2
7
104
1
3
4
))
6
5
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Enhancements
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Summing Up
This project demonstrated how a counter chip can
be controlled, how counter chips can be chained
together, and three different functions for 555
timers. It also showed you how chips can communicate with each other, and introduced you to
the business of calibrating a circuit after youve
finished building it.
Naturally, if you want to get some practical use
from the circuit, you should build it into an enclosure with heavier-duty pushbuttons especially
the button that stops the count. Youll find that
when peoples reflexes are being tested, they are
liable to hit the Stop button quite hard.
Start
Switch
555
in
Delay
Mode
End-of-Delay
Start
Signal
Stop
Switch
555
in
Flip-Flop
Mode
Prompt
LED
Counter
!
Enable
"
or
"
Disable
Numeric
Display
Reset
Switch
Pulse
!
Counter
555
Pulse
Generator
FINISH X
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BUILD
NOTES
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Photography by Russ Byrer (Fig. A); and courtesy of Russ Byrer (Fig. B)
MATERIALS
Razor Electric Punk (aka
E-Punk) mini bike This
has been discontinued
by Razor; check flea
markets and eBay
(ebay.com).
Right-angle gearbox, 1:1
ratio part #RAB-1 from
Torque Transmission
(torquetrans.com), $89
Photograph by Ed Troxell
High-powered cordless
drill Make sure the chuck
opens enough to accept
the shaft of the gearbox.
I used a Bosch 36-volt
Litheon.
Rear wheel assembly
(wheel and sprocket)
for Razor Mini Chopper
part #W15125090048
from Razorama
(razorama.com), $26
18-tooth sprocket
for #25 chain, 2"
bore part #2737T121
from McMaster-Carr
(mcmaster.com), $6
TOOLS
Milling machine I used
my Smithy (smithy.com)
combination milling
machine and lathe.
Tap and die set, plus
tapping oil
Marker
Drill Use the one that
will power the bike later!
Motorcycle twist
grip throttle, to fit
"-diameter handlebars
I bought mine on eBay
for $20.
Motorcycle throttle
cable
Bicycle seat
Ruler
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BUILD
NOTES
Wheel circumference
= wheel diameter *
= 9" * = 30.73"
Speed
= wheel rpm * wheel
circumference
= 14,245" per minute
/ (63,360"/mile)
* (60 minutes/hour)
= 13.49mph
This speed is the absolute best
case with no weight. With an adult
rider, the bikes speed is closer
to 10mph. You can use a bigger
gearbox sprocket to make it faster,
but 10mph is plenty fast for me on
something this small.
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123
+ +
2. Wrap it in foam.
Squeeze the foam around the pole, leaving about
12" uncovered for the handle. Allow the foam to
extend 1"2" beyond the other end of the pole
so the tip is padded.
3.
Use It.
We battle using Monty Pythons Black Knight
rules: a chop to your opponents arm or leg disables
it; keep fighting until one of you has no limbs left. In
the photo below, Sir Christopher has lost both legs
and King Toma has lost an arm.
Its great, silly fun to fight while hopping on one
leg or gripping the sword between your knees
because youve lost both arms. Plus, the low mass
of the poles and the thick padding make sparring
fairly safe.
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DIY
SCIENCE
115
SCIENCE
MATERIALS
All parts (materials) are available as a kit from my
company, Images SI, at imagesco.com/esp.html. I also
sell separately the Geiger tube, PCB, case, step-up
transformer, and a preprogrammed microcontroller.
Mini Geiger-Mller tube
PIC 16F84 microcontroller, 20MHz
Circuit boards The kit has custom PCBs, or you
can use 2 plain 2"6" breadboards and insulated
hookup wire.
Plastic case The kit includes a transparent cylinder
case that fits the PCBs.
Mini step-up transformer
16MHz crystal oscillator
4049 hex inverter chip
Chip sockets: 16-pin and 18-pin for PIC and
inverter chips
SPST (on/off) switch
Capacitors: 22pF (2), 0.0047f, 100330F (2)
High-voltage capacitors, 1kV, 0.01f (4)
Diodes: 1N914, 1N4007 (3), 1N5281B 200V Zener (2),
5.1V Zener
Bridge rectifier, 1 amp
LEDs: red, green, blue, yellow (1 each)
Resistors, watt: 33 (4), 1k, 4.3k, 4.7k, 5.6k,
10k, 15k, 330k, 3.3M
Transistors: 2N3904 (5), IRF830 power MOSFET
7805 voltage regulator
" copper foil tape, about 2" length
1" 2-conductor jack for data out
6V9V DC wall wart transformer and 2.5mm power
jack, and/or 9V battery and battery snap
TOOLS
Clear silicone adhesive
Soldering equipment and solder
Vise
Small saw
Drill press or drill and bits: ", 2"
Sandpaper and wire brush (optional)
for decorative texturing
PIC programmer and PC (optional) if you dont buy
the preprogrammed microcontroller
Circuit Overview
The circuit draws power from a 6V9V DC transformer or a 9V battery. See makezine.com/21/
diyscience_esp for a schematic. On the logic side
of the circuit, a voltage regulator produces 5V DC
to supply the chips and LEDs. The other part of the
circuit, the detector side, steps the voltage up to the
400V DC needed to power the Geiger tube. A 4049
hex inverter chip is set up to generate a square wave,
which drives an IRF830 power MOSFET to switch
the current on and off to a mini step-up transformer.
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The transformers AC output then feeds into a voltage doubler, consisting of 2 high-voltage diodes and
2 high-voltage capacitors, which produces the 400V
DC that connects to the anode of the Geiger tube.
The Geiger tubes cathode connects to ground
through a 330k resistor, and a 5.1V Zener diode
spans the resistor to limit the tubes pulse output.
The output feeds into the base of a 2N3904 transistor, which boosts it and routes it through 2 inverting
gates. The inverters momentarily buffer the signal
without reversing its polarity, before it continues
to the microcontrollers interrupt pin and halts the
spinning carnival wheel.
I built my lamp to run off a wall-wart, but you
can also make a portable version that takes a 9V
battery, or a lamp that runs both ways. See the
schematic notes for details.
Fig. A: The ESP Lamp project kit PCBs for the display
board and main board. Fig. B: Main board for a plain
breadboard circuit. Fig. C: Small display board for a plain
breadboard circuit.
main PCB. Mark positions and drill 2" holes for the
power plug and data port, if used, leading to their
locations on the PCB. You can insert dummy plugs
into the jacks to conrm that the holes t (Figure E).
Use a small saw to cut 3 arcs, about 60 each,
out of the medium-sized ring. Arrange these arcs
as curved spacers around the perimeter of the
main board (Figure F, following page), and stack the
display board on top.
Solder the nal connections between the 2
boards if you havent already, making them short
and exible enough to t.
Drill each cube halfway through with a " bit, for
an LED to t into. The kit case pieces are made from
clear plastic and you can leave them transparent,
but I created a frosted effect by texturing the cubes
and the surfaces below them with sandpaper and
a wire brush (Figure G).
The lamp is ready to be glued together. Using
clear silicone adhesive, glue the cubes over the
LEDs on the display board (Figure H). Glue the main
board platform into the main tube and then glue
in the board. Glue the spacers to the inside of the
tube, and the display board on top. Finally, t the
clear plastic top disk over the cubes, nishing off
the lamp.
Applications Radioactivity
and Party Games
True random numbers are useful for data encryption,
statistical mechanics, probability, gaming, neural
networks, and disorder systems, to name a few. Here
are some specic applications for the ESP Lamp.
Mood Lamp The lamps output is unpredictable
in both time and color. You can see it as a sophisticated mood lamp, a window into the ramblings of
the universe at large, or maybe an example of God
talking (if anyone is listening).
Radioactive Fallout Detector Excessive radiation,
such as from radioactive fallout, would make the
LEDs blink rapidly. Using this same principle, if you
wanted to generate random numbers more rapidly
than the lamp typically outputs, you could hold a
small piece of uranium ore close to the Geiger tube.
This will also cause the lamp to blink rapidly and
output random numbers.
Precognition Testing Predict the color of the next
LED that will light, and track the results. For example,
write down what you think the next 60 LED colors
will be. Chance alone will average 15 correct hits out
of 60 calls, but any number of hits between 9 and
21 hits (2 standard deviations from chance) is not
considered signicant. Hit counts above (or below)
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SCIENCE
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Resources
Here are 3 research sites that use statistical tools
and random events to assess possible ESP/psi
abilities of the human mind:
Psi Arcade: An online intuition game from the
Institute of Noetic Sciences (IONS) psiarcade.com
Global Consciousness Project: Featured in MAKE,
Volume 09, page 62 noosphere.princeton.edu
International Consciousness Research
Laboratories (ICRL): Extending the discontinued
Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research
(PEAR) program icrl.org
DIY
IMAGING
A smart, cheap setup for shooting longduration time-lapse movies. By Ken Murphy
Weve all seen time-lapse movies that seem to
speed up the world around us. The effect is very
compelling, making processes that normally occur
at a rate too slow to perceive unfold before our
eyes, such as the blooming of a ower.
Im working on a time-lapse movie that captures
the dynamics of weather and clouds, and the
patterns of sunrise and sunset for an entire year.
I need a setup to capture a large number of
images. I need to collect these images without
interrupting the image-capture process, and to
access the system remotely. I want to do it on the
cheap, without sacricing quality.
Heres the solution I came up with: Im putting a
dusty old PC back into service, installing Linux and
gPhoto image capture software, and connecting
it to my old 4-megapixel Canon A520 camera via
USB. The camera will be mounted in an improvised
1. Install Linux.
Note that installing Linux will wipe out any data on
your PC. You can download the Ubuntu installer for
free (ubuntu.com), or buy the DVD from Amazon.
The installation tools will walk you through the entire
process, asking you to select various application
packages.
Youll likely want an OpenSSH server so you
can remotely and securely log in, a web server such
as Apache so you can view your images remotely,
and any scripting languages you may nd useful,
such as Python or Perl.
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IMAGING
MATERIALS AND TOOLS
Digital camera Free gPhoto software supports
hundreds of cameras; check their website
(gphoto.org) to see if yours is on the list. Even
older digital cameras can take high-quality
pictures, and a 4-megapixel camera exceeds
the resolution required to make an HD movie.
Wide-angle conversion lens (optional) I want to
capture as much of the sky as possible, so
I bought a wide-angle conversion lens online
for about $30. It fits right over the cameras
existing lens and doubles the angle of view.
AC adapter Dont expect the USB connection from
your computer to supply power to your compact
digital camera! I found a cheap off-brand power
supply online thats compatible with my camera.
PC A minimal installation of Linux, along with the
gPhoto software, will not place great demands
on your system; an old 600MHz Pentium III, for
example, has more than enough horsepower.
USB active extension cables (optional) I picked up
a couple for about $16 each. These can be daisychained together to reach distances of 6080
feet (according to manufacturers claims).
Enclosure I used a 6"6"6" steel enclosure made by
Hoffman (hoffmanonline.com), part #A6R66NK.
Picture frame glass for the enclosure window. My
local frame shop cut a 5"5" piece for a few bucks.
Slotted angle (optional) for mounting the enclosure.
I used two 6' lengths. The mounting hardware you
require may vary.
Miscellaneous hardware Youll need a handful of
-20 machine screws or hex bolts, washers, nuts,
and/or wing nuts, for putting it all together. If you
need to fit your camera with a power-on setscrew
(see Step 4), youll also need a 3" aluminum
mending brace, a 1" #8 machine screw, and a
couple of matching nuts.
Dremel or your favorite metal cutting tool to modify
the enclosure. There are many ways to cut sheet
metal, but I used a rotary tool with a tungsten
carbide cutting bit.
Silicone caulk
5-minute epoxy (optional) for attaching the setscrew
bracket (again, see Step 4)
Uninterruptible power supply, aka UPS (optional)
I want my system to survive short-term power
outages, so I purchased an inexpensive UPS
designed for desktop computers.
Software I used open source gPhoto software
(gphoto.org), which runs on Unix-Linux operating
systems. My flavor of choice is Ubuntu (ubuntu.
com), which is about as easy to install as Linux
gets. If youre not quite ready to jump into the
Linux universe, there are great image capture and
time-lapse programs for other operating systems.
For Windows, theres GBTimelapse shareware
(granitebaysoftware.com); it works only with
Canon cameras.
Pliers and vise-grips
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gphoto2 --list-cong
GPhoto will attempt to auto-detect your camera.
If successful, it will output a list of conguration
parameters. For many supported cameras, you can
manipulate all the cameras settings just as if you
were operating it by hand. For example, to set the
image capture size to the lowest resolution:
gphoto2 -F 3 -I 10 --capture-image-and-download
This will capture and download 3 image les into
your current directory: capt0000.jpg, capt0001.jpg,
and capt0002.jpg. If you have problems, the gPhoto
site has good documentation.
121
IMAGING
possibilities are endless for creating beautiful timelapse movies that span days, months, or even years.
Resources
CHDK Replacement rmware for some Canon
cameras: chdk.wikia.com
gPhoto Library and applications for Unix-like
operating systems: gphoto.org
GBTimelapse Windows shareware, for Canon
cameras only: granitebaysoftware.com
iStopMotion Mac shareware:
boinx.com/istopmotion
FFmpeg Versatile image, audio, and video
processing software: ffmpeg.org
For additional online resources, go to makezine.
com/21/diyimaging_timelapse.
vlc FirstMovie.mpg
At the default 24 frames per second, this gives you
a whopping 15 seconds! Of course with this setup
youll be able to make movies much longer than that.
To tell gPhoto to run indenitely until you interrupt
it (using control-C), simply set the -F ag to 0:
gphoto2 -F 0 -I 10 --capture-image
This just scratches the surface. The gPhoto and
FFmpeg programs are extremely powerful, and the
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DIY
OUTDOORS
ELEMENTAL KNOWLEDGE
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DIY
OUTDOORS
Nozzle Knowledge
Nozzles are the most important purchase for
your snow gun. To make an effective snow gun you
have to match the bulk nozzles to the nucleation
nozzles, and match both to the characteristics of
your compressor and pressure washer.
A good brand is TeeJet; they make spray nozzles
for agricultural use and these work great for snow
guns. TeeJet nozzles are numbered by their output;
on their face is a 4 or 5 digit number whose rst
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OUTDOORS
MATERIALS
TOOLS
Pipe wrench
Teflon tape
Outdoor thermometer and humidity gauge
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1
2
Photograph by Ed Troxell
Snowmaking 101
To make snow, you dont necessarily need
temperatures below 32F you just need them
below freezing on the wet bulb temperature chart
(makezine.com/go/wetbulb), which takes into
account the relative humidity of your location. For
example, at 95% humidity you need temperatures
27F or colder, but at 10% humidity you can start
making snow at just 39F.
First, close the ball valve, so you dont ood your
compressor. Turn on the water supply but not
the pressure washer yet and make sure waters
coming out of the bulk nozzles. Make sure theres
no ice in your pressure washer ice could destroy
the unit or hurt someone then turn on the pressure washer. Turn on the air compressor, letting the
pressure reach 40psi or more. Now start to open
the ball valve just a little, so you get a superne mist
from the nucleation nozzle. Check the compressor
and make sure the air pressure is above 60psi.
You should be making snow!
To check your snows quality, put your coat sleeve
in front of the spray; the snow should bounce right
off. Check the gun periodically, making sure your
nucleation nozzle isnt freezing up; if it is, open the
ball valve a bit more.
Elevating the gun gives the snow more time to
freeze before hitting the ground; you can use a
ladder or make a stand out of wood or PVC pipe.
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DIY
HOME
GOURD LANTERNS
Drill patterns into hard-shell gourds and
let the light shine through. By Diane Gilleland
MATERIALS
Hard-shell gourd A good source online is
welburngourdfarm.com.
Bucket of water
Scrubbing sponge
Newspaper
Surgical mask (optional)
Pencil
Small paring knife
Pumpkin-carving tool kit yankeeharvest.com
Handheld drill with various drill bits
Large spoon
Mineral oil (optional)
String of Christmas lights (2550)
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HOME
8. Light it up.
First and foremost, never place a lit candle inside a
gourd lantern! The inside walls are highly ammable.
Instead, stuff a string of tiny Christmas lights
inside the gourd they wont fall out or use a
small LED lantern.
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DIY
HOME
BETTER LEATHER
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HOME
2. Draw inspiration.
Whether its doodled line art or shaded dimensional
shapes, draw whatever suits your style and the item
youll be woodburning. Fluid, organic forms tend to
work best, rather than precise lines and geometrics.
When youve settled on a design, sketch it onto a
piece of tracing paper. Overlay the paper onto your
leather to nd the best placement of your design.
3. Plan ahead.
A dimensional item like a bag or purse should be
stuffed with paper or fabric to give you a stable
surface to work on.
Now, roughly sketch your design onto the item.
With leather, you can lightly sketch by scratching the
surface with a straight pin (Figure A). If youre working
with suede, try using a chalk wheel used for marking
on fabric. Making a few indications of your design will
help keep you on track once you start burning.
MATERIALS
Leather item such as a purse or belt; not pleather
Woodburning tool available at craft stores and
woodworking shops (woodcraft.com, rockler.com)
in a range of types and prices. For under $20,
I bought a basic model with interchangeable tips.
Fancier versions with heat regulators can cost
upward of $40. Kits at tandyleatherfactory.com.
Tracing paper
Paper or fabric to stuff the purse for stability
Straight pin or pen-type chalk wheel for doing a
rough sketch of your design on the leather
Leather scraps for practicing (brettunsvillage.com)
Moisture-resistant leather finish (optional) for sealing
Design Sketch out a few design ideas on paper,
or use my floral motifs (below), provided at
makezine.com/21/diyhome_leather.
4. Practice plenty.
Plug in the woodburning tool and let it heat up. Get a
feel for the tool by practicing on some scrap leather
or suede (Figure B). If you dont have any scraps, do
a trial on an old pair of leather shoes youre planning
to donate to charity. Top-grain leather reacts differently than suede leather, and light colors differently
than dark. Experiment with an assortment of tips to
gure out which is best suited for your design.
After youve practiced, try out the woodburning
tool on your selected item by making a small mark
in an inconspicuous area such as a seam allowance or underside of a strap. If you like how it looks,
proceed to the next step.
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DIY
KIDS
INTRO TO SCRATCH
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KIDS
Visual programming environment means that
blocks on the screen represent basic programming
elements, and you assemble a series of instructions
by dragging-and-dropping the blocks together into
stacks. The blocks are color-coded and shaped
so they only t together in ways that make sense
programmatically: the triggering events look like
folder tabs, and the subsequent steps t together
like jigsaw puzzle pieces. Numbers t into round
holes, text strings t into rectangular text boxes,
and conditionals t into diamond-sided holes that
look like decision points in a owchart.
Make: Volume 21
Adding Complexity
This program is very simple, but complex programs
can be difcult to follow. To help with this, Scratch
has a Single Stepping mode that lights up each
block as it evaluates during runtime. To turn it on, go
to the Edit menu and select Start Single Stepping.
To expand your program, you can add blocks to
your current scripts or start new scripts. To create
a new script, go to the Control category and drag
over a new when block. This technique of creating
different scripts that run in parallel allows you to
separate the movement functionality, for example,
from that of any weapons or jumping.
There are other types of code blocks besides
Control, Sensing, and Motion: Variables blocks let
you use global variables to store things like speeds
or the number of lives or bullets left; Operators
blocks perform simple arithmetical, logical, and text
string functions; Pen blocks let sprites draw lines;
and Looks blocks control a sprites costumes, speech
balloons, and other aspects of its appearance.
You can use costumes to create the illusion that
a sprite is moving. Click the Costumes tab, and you
see that the orange cat has 2 different costumes.
Use Looks blocks in a script to alternate between
these, and the cat will appear to walk. Timing is
important here; to avoid a too-fast blur, put a wait
B
1
The Scratch community lets you share your projects and comment on others. To join, go to scratch.
mit.edu/signup. Sharing your project is as easy as
clicking Share at the top of the Scratch window and
then choosing Share this program online. If you
like someone elses project, you can download and
change it yourself, which is a great way to learn. But
if you gain inspiration (or code) from other peoples
projects, make sure you credit them.
For people to play your Scratch games directly,
they need to have Scratch installed on their own
machines. But there are also ways of converting
Scratch projects into .exe executable les that will
run on any Windows machine.
Visit makezine.com/21/diykids_scratch for links
to Scratch resources.
Jeremy Kerfs is a high school student who likes programming
and computers. In his spare time he also enjoys reading and
running.
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DIY
OFFICE
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MATERIALS
Cubic wooden blocks (8) about 15 each; I had 40
made for $6.
Clear packing tape free; always around somewhere
Photos fresh off the computer printer free,
using my daughters photo paper
Glue stick
TOTAL PRICE: $1.20
Photography by Nattanan
form the hinges. Use clear tape (black tape was used
here to make it easier to see where the tape goes).
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OFFICE
Make: Volume 21
MATERIALS
1"-diameter brass balls, tapped blind with -20
thread (2) part #BAL154 from Liberty Brass
(libertybrass.com), $13
Setscrews, -20 threaded (2) part #91318A410
from McMaster-Carr (mcmaster.com)
3mm nylon satin cord, 2' length Try your local craft
store or part #SCN3Y-N2 from The Satin Cord
Store (satincord.com).
Epoxy or threadlocker (optional)
Glengarry Glen Ross image compliments New Line Cinema/ Artisan Entertainment; photograph by Paul Spinrad
DIY
WORKSHOP
Assembly
I mounted all the hardware onto a scrap of board.
I screwed an outlet box onto one corner for the
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WORKSHOP
MATERIALS AND TOOLS
Temperature sensor with serial interface I used a Hot
Little Therm from Spiderplant (spiderplant.com)
thats unfortunately no longer being sold. You can
also wire an LM35 temperature sensor chip directly
to the MAKE Controller (and tweak my Perl code
to read the temperature from the controller, rather
than executing the term program).
Electronic variable-speed fan control Broan model
#72W (broan.com)
MAKE Controller Kit v2.0 with Application Board
product #MKMT3 from Maker Shed
(makershed.com), $120
Stepper motor such as All Electronics part #SMT-116,
#SMT-113, or #SMT-119 (allelectronics.com)
Wall-wart power supplies (2) to power the MAKE
Controller and stepper motor separately
Lego Technic parts sets: beams, bushes, cross axles,
and gear wheels Lego sets #10072-1, #10073-1,
#10074-1, and #10076-1 (peeron.com)
Deep electrical outlet box such as Wiremold/
Legrand #B3
Host computer with Ethernet adapter The computer
will need to be on all the time, but if youre cooling a server room (like me) there should be no
shortage of computers.
Ethernet cable
Scrap of board or plywood, about 1' square
Metal bracket for the end of a 24 such as Simpson
Strong-Tie #FB24
Screws and standoffs (4) for mounting the controller
board to wood; I salvaged some from various ATX
computer cases.
Small weight tied to a string
Wire strippers
Drill and drill bits
Screwdriver
Glue gun and hot glue
Make: Volume 21
Software
I wrote the fan speed control code in Perl using the
OpenSoundControl (OSC) module, which lets Perl
talk to the MAKE Controller over either Ethernet or
USB. If your computer runs BSD, Linux, or Mac OS
X, you probably have Perl installed. Download the
OSC module from opensoundcontrol.org. You can
download my project code at makezine.com/21/
diyworkshop_fan.
I congured OSC to use Ethernet rather than
USB because it doesnt require any special drivers.
The MAKE Controller gets an IP address for the
computer via DHCP and listens for OSC commands
to move the motor on port 10000.
The stepper motor is controlled by 4 digital output
pins that correspond to the motors 4 coils. To nudge
the motor a step in either direction, the controller
changes the outputs to energize different coils.
For continuous motion, the code needs a delay
between steps to give the motor shaft time to nd
its new position. Welcome to the world of stepper
motors, which behave very differently from servos.
Fig. A: Hardware mounted to board, powered by wallwarts. Fig. B: Lego gear connection to stepper motor.
Fig. C: Lego gear glued around fan speed control knob.
The program will then periodically log the temperature and stepper commands in the terminal window.
I use the open source data logging and graphing
system RRDtool (oss.oetiker.ch/rrdtool) to track
air temperatures inside and outside my server
room. Figure E shows the month I placed the speed
controller into service. Note how the red line air
coming out of the room went nice and at.
Conclusion
I had a lot of fun with this project. It taught me
about microcontrollers and stepper motors, and
even gave me an excuse to play with Lego. This was
my rst project using the MAKE Controller, which
I was eager to try, and Im already looking forward
to my next MAKE Controlled project. Meanwhile,
the fan control system has been very reliable during
its 20-plus months of service.
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ELECTROLUMINESCENT WIRE
makezine.com/21/primer
ELECTROLUMINESCENT
(EL) WIRE
Its easy to work
with exible strands
of light.
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ELECTROLUMINESCENT WIRE
makezine.com/21/primer
ANATOMY OF LIGHTWIRE
Lightwire consists of a copper conductor or core
wire coated with a layer of electroluminescent
phosphor material and wrapped with a coil or mesh
of fine outer or wrap wires thats thin enough to let
light through (Figure A). When you connect high-voltage, high-frequency AC power between the core and
outer wires, the phosphor layer in between glows.
Covering this coaxial sandwich are one or two
vinyl sheaths that protect the outer wires and filter
the light to create different colors.
ANATOMY OF LIGHTWIRE
Inner sheath
Outer sheath
Center
conductor wire
Phosphor coating
Wrap wires
Make: Volume 21
Pluses
Creates smooth, clear contours; off-theshelf drivers and sequencers run many
effects (strobes, blinks, sequences);
flexible to apply, and easy to remove
LEDs
Less complicated to achieve fading, blinking color,
and color-mixing effects; less expensive, lower
energy consumption, more illumination per area;
can project light over a distance (with a lens)
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ELECTROLUMINESCENT WIRE
makezine.com/21/primer
Heres a project that illustrates the steps and considerations for using lightwire to create a successful
animated image: in this case, a large, blinking eye.
Eyebrow
Upper eye fold
Upper
eyelash
Upper eyelid
Outer iris
Inner iris
Lower eyelash
Lower eyelid
Lower eye fold
Make: Volume 21
LIGHTWIRE
a.
Strip wire
b.
Apply copper tape
c.
LEAD WIRES
e.
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ELECTROLUMINESCENT WIRE
makezine.com/21/primer
Make: Volume 21
7. Final assembly.
The sequencer and driver both run off the same 12V
battery brick. Each has a battery snap that plugs
into the bricks 9V-style terminals, so you need to
solder an additional 9V battery snap to connect it to
both boxes. Then mount the brick, sequencer, and
driver together on the back of the board near the lead
bundles. We just stuck them on with cardboard, metal
fasteners, and zip ties, and then neatened up the
RESOURCES
Animated image of Annies Blinking Eye: makezine.
com/go/blink
Elam EL Industries LyTec lightwire manufacturers
site, with product datasheets: elam.co.il
Instructables How to add EL wire to a coat or other
garment: makezine.com/go/elwirecoat
ePlaya Burning Man Community Discussion Board:
eplaya.burningman.com
Light 'N Wire Productions for lightwire, drivers,
sequencers, and more: lightnwire.com
Louis M. Brill (Louie Lights) and Steve Boverie (Dr. Glowire) are co-founders of Light N Wire Productions, (lightnwire.com),
an art-technology resource center dedicated to EL wire. They teach classes on EL wire at The Crucible in Oakland, Calif., and
via touring Tupperwire seminars.
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MakeShift
By Lee D. Zlotoff
Water Landing!
The Scenario: Youve had a long and crappy day at work. Whats more, its raining. Hard.
You pile into the front seat of your car with your umbrella, waterproof storm coat, and briefcase,
comforted only by the sight of a zip-lock plastic bag with homemade cookies. You plug in your
cellphone, secure it to the hands-free mount on the dashboard, start the engine, and hit the road.
Traffic sucks, so you decide to get off the highway onto a winding, back-road shortcut that runs
along the nearby river. Which wouldve been fine, until a deer suddenly darts across the road,
causing you to swerve, skid, and go bounding down the embankment to crash-land in the river.
The Challenge: When you recover from the initial shock enough to utter a few choice
expletives, you notice the airbag has deployed protecting your upper body from the crash
but your legs and ankles really hurt, and might very well be broken. Whats more, the river water
is rapidly rising into the passenger compartment from below. Fortunately, the door latch seems
to work, the rivers current isnt too swift, and youre a pretty strong swimmer. But its dark,
raining, and youre miles off the beaten track. What are you going to do now?
What Youve Got: In addition to the aforementioned items, theres a small flashlight and
a Swiss Army knife or Leatherman tool in the glove box, plus the typical work-related items
in your briefcase. Talk about needing a bailout good luck!
Send a detailed description of your MakeShift solution with sketches and/or photos to
[email protected] by May 28, 2010. If duplicate solutions are submitted, the winner
will be determined by the quality of the explanation and presentation. The most plausible
and most creative solutions will each win a MAKE T-shirt and a MAKE Pocket Ref. Think positive
and include your shirt size and contact information with your solution. Good luck! For readers
solutions to previous MakeShift challenges, visit makezine.com/makeshift.
Lee David Zlotoff is a writer/producer/director among whose numerous credits is creator of MacGyver. He is also
president of Custom Image Concepts (customimageconcepts.com).
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TOOLBOX
Want more? Check out our searchable online database of tips and tools at makezine.com/tnt.
Have a tool worth keeping in your toolbox? Let us know at [email protected].
OpenIt
$12 enjoyzibra.com/openit
I was skeptical at first glance, thinking the OpenIt tool from Zibra was
just a fancy pair of scissors and not
the wunderkind packaging Houdini
it claimed to be. But when I saw the
way it handled our kids packaged
Christmas presents with ease, the
OpenIt earned a permanent place in
our utility drawer.
The tool is heavy-duty enough
to cut through the most stubborn
plastic. The right-angled blades slip
easily under tie wraps and provide
better access for cutting through
those annoying clamshell packages.
The OpenIt also has a retractable
utility knife in one handle and a tiny
screwdriver in the other, perfect for
opening those little battery doors on
toys. And, as if they read this Santas
mind, theres even a bottle opener.
Bruce Stewart
Fujifilm 3D Camera
$600 fujifilm.com/products/3d
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Getting Started
with Arduino Kit
$70 Maker Shed #MSGSA
Electronics
Workshop 1 Kit
$110 Maker Shed #MKTK15
154
Make: Volume 21
Larson
Scanner Kit
$13 Maker Shed #MKEMS7
MotorShield for
Arduino Kit
$20 Maker Shed #MKAD7
The MotorShield kit is a full-featured
motor board that can power many
simple to medium-complexity projects
for your Arduino. Power up and control
your servos, bidirectional DC motors,
and stepper motors in all kinds of
combinations. Kit comes with all parts
necessary. Soldering required. Arduino
not included.
tinyCylon
$10 Maker Shed #MKDW1
The tinyCylon kit is a great first project
for anyone wanting to learn to solder.
It comes preprogrammed with several
different light displays, or you can hack
it to create any pattern that you want!
Available assembled or as a kit. Batteries not included.
155
When I first saw this synth program, I thought it would be an interesting game. I was way off: it turned out to be a complete synthesizer with
surprisingly good sound quality. It holds up to 21 different sessions,
and each session has up to 16 patterns of 16 steps. It has two oscillators, each with its own virtual Keyboard, KAOSS Pad, Sequencer, Patch
screen, and Edit screen. It comes with sound presets, but you can
modify them or make your own. It also has four customizable drums.
You can either write a song using the sequencer or you can record
yourself playing it on the Keyboard, KAOSS Pad, or Drum Pad.
After you record your song, the DS-10 will turn it into a pattern on
the Sequencer screen. You can even use the wireless connectivity to
create a shared session. It isnt a Moog, but for $20, its an excellent
portable music machine.
Adam Zeloof
Transform
Analog
to Digital
<N
M@
I<
;
B@
CD recorders
$35 used, $200+ new
Boss RC-20XL
Loop Station
$260 makezine.com/go/loopstation
Make: Volume 21
DIY on Demand
Gonzo Wisdom
Reaching Escape Velocity by Steven K. Roberts
$14 microship.com
Steve Roberts was also an early hardware hacking pioneer, writing his
first self-published book, Computing Across America (in the late 80s),
literally from the seat of his tricked-out, gadget-laden, internet-connected
bike. This new, deceptively slim volume contains 25 years of Roberts
trade secrets on how to capitalize, publicize, and find support for your
own gonzo engineering projects. Its meta-hack project wisdom from
the original high-tech nomad (see MAKE, Volume 06, page 28, TechNomading from Shore to Ship).
Patent Genius
Drawing on Brilliance by Randy Rabin and Jackie Bassett
$40 drawingonbrilliance.ning.com
After the U.S. Patent Office digitally scanned its 200-year-old collection
of some 6 million patents, they decided to trash the originals. A horrified
Randy Rabin spirited away as many of these patents as he could before
they met the shredder. This book collects some of these gorgeous
documents and offers some historical context for each, plus a takeaway
thought for would-be inventors.
Crystal Clear
The Voice of the Crystal by H. Peter Friedrichs
Instruments of Amplification by H. Peter Friedrichs
$15 and $20 hpfriedrichs.com
157
TOOLBOX
Electric Spin Dryer
$135 laundry-alternative.com
I love drying my clothes on the line, both for environmental and aesthetic
reasons (not much beats the smell of clothes dried in the sunshine), but my
shady San Francisco courtyard is only practical at the height of summer the
rest of the year, I can hang a towel out from dawn to dusk and it just wont dry.
Enter Laundry Alternatives cool electric spin dryer. A small portable electric
device, it spins up to 12lbs of wet clothes at 3,200rpm for about 4 minutes,
leaving your clothes just a touch damp. I was amazed at how much water came
dripping out of the little spigot (almost a quart), and when I hung the clothes
out on the line, they dried in less than an hour, even in the late afternoon.
While that wont help me on foggy winter days, it will significantly extend my
clothesline season, and cut down on the length of time I use the dryer on rainy
days. Next up: testing out their hand-cranked washing machine!
Arwen OReilly Griffith
Movie Madness
$1$5 rifftrax.com
Have you ever seen a really bad movie
that you really wish would be ripped
to shreds? The people at RiffTrax have,
and they continuously rip lame movies
to pieces in the form of humorous
commentary. Comedic genius Michael
Nelson of Mystery Science Theater
3000 fame and his cohorts from the
same show, Bill Corbett and Kevin
Murphy, take famous movies such as
Twilight, Casablanca, Transformers,
Jurassic Park, and Oceans Eleven and
add some of the funniest observations
on the internet. Each riffing costs only
a few bucks, and then you sync the
commentary to the movie using audio
cues, and youre set.
If you think youre funny enough, you
can even upload your own commentary
for profit. Ive tried, and its given me
a renewed respect for what these guys
do. RiffTrax is the best and funniest
website you arent visiting.
Eric Ponvelle
158
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An Ancient Wonder
Though legend has this chariot invented as early
as 2,634 B.C. by the Yellow Emperor Huang-di, the
first historically confirmed version was created by
Ma Jun (c. A.D. 200265).
Its secret was a geared mechanism inside the
enclosed body of the chariot. The differential
motion of the wheels drove the gears, which in turn
caused the statue to rotate the same angle as the
carriage turned, but in the opposite direction.
Simple to say, but not so simple to invent. In fact,
history tells us this closely guarded secret was lost
several times and reinvented, and in each case the
inventors received much acclaim.
When the chariot was shown in public ceremonies,
the mechanism was hidden in an enclosed chamber
underneath the statue. Some people supposed that
the chamber concealed a person with a magnetic
160
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FOR FUN OR
FUNCTION?
A Chinese
south-pointing
chariot, model
by George H.
Lanchester
on display at
the Science
Museum of
London.
CLASSIC CHARIOT REDUX Fig. A: Meccano model, Lanchester design, from Meccano Magazine, Jan. 1957.
Fig. B: Differential, from instruction book of Meccano Standard Mechanisms, 1934, U.K. edition.
Fig. C: Differentials, using Eitech parts with bevel gears (left) and Meccano parts with crown and pinion
gears (right). The gears grub screws will be removed, since all these gears must rotate freely on their shafts.
Fig. D: My open version of the south-pointing chariot. Mechanism and housing mostly of Erector parts.
Fig. E. The differential. Fig. F: Erector model, modified Lanchester design. Fig. G: Meccano model, Nuttal design.
161
Alternative Designs
The first model I built was the Lanchester design,
out of Erector parts (Figure F, previous page). The
perpendicular axles are solidly fixed to each other.
All of the wheels and gears must turn freely on their
axles. Short pieces of plastic tubing connect the
large gears to the crown gears of the differential.
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Make: Volume 21
Resources
South Pointing Chariots Harry Sieberts great
website with many different models, and plans
and instructions for some of them, including Lego
models. odts.de/southptr
Wikipedia History, legends, and a brief
explanation of the SPC. makezine.com/go/chariot
Girders and Gears A fabulous place to get parts
for hobbyist projects. girdersandgears.com
Exacto parts Erector and Meccano compatible,
with " hole spacing. Every English-standard
construction set part ever made, and more.
exactosystem.com
Donald Simanek is an emeritus professor of physics at Lock
Haven University of Pennsylvania. He writes about science,
pseudoscience, and humor at www.lhup.edu/~dsimanek.
Jan
Feb
Mar
Apr
May
Jun
MAKERS CALENDAR
July
Aug
Sept
Oct
Nov
Dec
Bent Festival
April 2224, New York City
An annual art and music festival celebrating DIY electronics,
hardware hacking, and circuit bending. Each year artists come
to perform music with their homemade or circuit-bent instruments, teach workshops, and showcase the state of the art in
DIY electronics and circuit bending culture. bentfestival.org
SparkFun Autonomous
Vehicle Competition
April 17, Boulder, Colo.
Electronics wizards, roboticists,
and just plain geeks compete
to create a vehicle that can
autonomously navigate a course
around the SparkFun building.
A cash prize is awarded to the
winner. sparkfun.com
FEBRUARY
>> Family Science Days
Feb. 1822, San Diego, Calif.
Browse interactive exhibits, learn
about cool science jobs, and
have your questions answered
by experts at the annual convention of the American Association
for the Advancement of Science.
aaas.org/meetings/2010/
program/fsd
MARCH
>> National Science
and Engineering Week
March 1221, United Kingdom
This years theme is Earth.
Expect nearly a million people
to participate in the ten-day
program of science, engineering,
and technology events and
activities all around the U.K.
britishscienceassociation.org
APRIL
>> Breakpoint
April 24, Bingen am Rhein, Germany
What happens at Breakpoint?
The concept is simple: organizers set up a stage, invite
programmers, artists, and musicians from around the world to
enter competitions, and then
audiences watch in amazement
at the audiovisual demo
presentations that come out.
breakpoint.untergrund.net
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HEIRLOOM TECHNOLOGY
By Tim Anderson
Instant Paddle
Heres a better, quicker, inexpensive way to make a paddle.
Make: Volume 21
165
NICARAGUAN STYLE
Heres a Nicaraguan dugout with a pair of
instant oars on Isla Ometepe in the middle of
Lake Nicaragua. The blades are nailed to the
shafts and the nails clinched (bent over). I saw
others with lashed blades. Notice the simple
rope-and-saddle oarlocks. Sudden winds of
30mph spring up on the lake. The fishermen
need oars to make any headway against it.
Make: Volume 21
MAKE MONEY
Wind Chimes
By Tom Parker
Sometimes it costs more to buy it than to make it from the money itself.
$34.99
$4.20
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REMAKING HISTORY
By William Gurstelle
Benjamin Franklins
Electrical Experiments
There are two stories every American elementary school students knows: George Washington
chopping down the cherry tree and Ben Franklin flying his kite in a thunderstorm to prove the electrical
nature of lightning bolts. Both are good stories, but
theres a difference: Ben actually did fly his kite in
the thunderstorm.
Few people have made as large an impact on daily
life as Benjamin Franklin. Aside from his political
and literary contributions, he was colonial Americas
greatest scientist. It seems that nearly half the
words we commonly use to describe our daily interactions with electricity positive, negative, charge,
discharge, battery, conductor, condenser were
coined by Franklin.
The kite story was first related by the famous
English chemist Joseph Priestley in his 1767 book
The History and Present State of Electricity. Priestley
may have embellished the event, but even if some
of the details are hazy, the overall import is unquestionable: in his legendary experiment with the key,
the kite, and the thunderstorm, Franklin proved
what many educated people suspected: lightning is
indeed electrical in nature.
One day in June 1752, the skies darkened as
clouds rolled into Philadelphia. Franklin and his son
William headed north to an open field with a small
shed. They carried a kite framed from cedar sticks,
covered with silk cloth, and topped with a sharppointed wire to attract the electrical fire.
The wind blew and soon the kite strained against
the kite string. Franklin and son waited inside the
shed, no doubt impatiently, until the storm began.
Then Franklin noticed the kite strings thin strands
of hemp moving. Seemingly of their own volition,
they stood as erect as soldiers at attention.
Attached to the kite string was a metal key. Franklin moved his knuckle toward the key. Suddenly, he
felt a small shock as the electricity jumped from the
storm-electrified key to the grounded Franklin.
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Make: Volume 21
FOUNDING
MAKER: Franklin
(17061790) not
only sparked
the American
Revolution, he
was a prodigious
inventor and the
leading scientist
of his day in
electricity.
LIGHTNING IN A
BOTTLE: You can recreate Ben Franklins
electrical experiments by building this
simple static electricity generator and a
Leyden jar, similar to
the one Franklin used
to capture electricity
from thunderclouds in
his famous kite-flying
experiment.
MATERIALS
For the Ramsden-style static electricity generator:
210 board, 2' long
2" PVC pipe, 16" lengths (2) for the uprights
2" PVC tee fittings (2) for upright supports
2" lag screws with washers (4)
" PVC pipe: 20" length, and 5" lengths (2)
for the roller support and 2 crank pieces
" PVC elbow fittings (2) for crank
" PVC cap fitting for crank
3" PVC pipe, 10" length for the roller
3" PVC cap fittings (2) for roller caps
" OD copper pipe
" copper pipe cap fitting
Round brass knob with mounting screw
#61" brass screws (8) You could also cut aluminum flashing into a comb with 8 or more points.
Fur such as rabbit
For the Leyden jar:
HPDE plastic tub or jar with lid Recycling number 2.
You can also use cardboard for a lid.
Aluminum tape
A few inches of copper pipe, with cap fitting
Brass knob with mounting screw
Beaded lamp chain
Ramsden-Style Static
Electricity Generator
You can make the generator just about any size you
want. Refer to the corresponding photographs to
see the relationship of the parts.
1. Cut down the 2" tee fittings and attach them to
the frame with lag screws and washers.
2. Drill q" holes in the center of each 3" PVC cap.
Make:
169
Leyden Jar
Brass knob
Copper cap
Copper pipe
Plastic jar
Lid
Aluminum foil
Beaded
metal lamp
chain
9
William Gurstelle is a contributing editor of MAKE magazine.
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Make: Volume 21
AHA!
By Tom Parker
MAKEs favorite puzzles. (When youre ready to check your answers, visit makezine.com/21/aha.)
Cake Competition
The top chefs of the world, along with their assistants, met for a competition to see who could create the
most beautiful and innovative cake flower decorations. They used their fabbers to print 5 different types
of flowers for the top of the cake: rose, violet, lily, daisy, and tulip.
The chefs (Wylie, Rocco, Wolfgang, Jamie, and Ming) had their assistants (Jacque, Jasper, Cathal, Julian,
and Laurent) fill the fabbers with cheese, cookie dough, chocolate, peanut butter, and caramel. Each group
took a different amount of time to perfect their creation (30 minutes, 35, 45, 50, and 55), and only 2 of the
chefs received the coveted 3-star rating from the panel of judges. Two of the other chefs got 2 stars, and
1 chef only managed to get 1 star.
Name the chefs, their assistants, how long it took them, the ingredients they used, and the type of flower
they created, along with their final star rating!
1. Ming did not create the cookie dough tulip.
2. Laurent finished in 35 minutes but got only 2 stars.
3. The 2 flowers that received 3 stars were the daisy
and the one made of peanut butter.
4. The rose (not made of cheese) was created by
Jamie (who was not Cathals chef).
5. Jasper did not make the tulip, but his flower was
made of chocolate.
6. The 1-star flower took 50 minutes to make, and
was not made by Wylie.
7. The violet was made of caramel.
Michael Pryor is the co-founder and president of Fog Creek Software. He runs a technical interview site at techinterview.org.
Make:
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Make: Volume 21
HOMEBREW