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July 2, 2009

Brand new antique humanoids

According to a piece on BotJunkie (translating a piece on Japan's Robot Watch), a small army of vacuum tube robots from the 50s and 60s, built by Aizawa Zirou, have been unearthed in a warehouse, many of them apparently brand new. I love the Google translation:

"Were sleeping in a warehouse until it's released by the packaging. We look at the state and restore the dynamics at the time."

Got it.

Awesome Retro Robots Revealed In Japan

July 1, 2009

Lost Knowledge: Timbrel vaulting

The twice-monthly Lost Knowledge column explores the possible technology of the future in the forgotten ideas of the past (and those just slightly off to the side). Every other Wednesday, we look at retro-tech, "lost" technology, and the make-do, improvised "street tech" of village artisans and tradespeople from around the globe. "Lost Knowledge" was also the theme of MAKE, Volume 17

This week, we look at the largely-lost Medieval art of timbrel vaulting structures and the related, more modern (late 19th century) system of interlocking terracotta tiles which create what are known as Guastavino domes, after their inventor, Rafael Guastavino.

Low-Tech magazine has an excellent introduction to timbrel vaulting and Guastavino domes, called "Tiles as a substitute for steel: the art of the timbrel vault." Here's an excerpt:

The method of timbrel vaulting was developed in the 14th century around the Mediterranean, although its precise origins are unknown. The timbrel vault is also known as a "masonry vault", "Catalan vault", "tiled vault", "laminated vault", "flat vault" and "layered vault" (derived from Spanish, French, Italian and Catalonian descriptions).

A roof of tiles

Timbrel vaulting differs substantially from the Roman method of arch building, which relies on gravity. A Roman vault consists of a single layer of thick, wedge-shaped stones (see below).

The timbrel vault does not rely on gravity but on the adhesion of several layers of overlapping tiles which are woven together with fast-setting mortar. If just one layer of thin tiles was used, the structure would collapse, but adding two or three layers makes the resulting laminated shell almost as strong as reinforced concrete.

The result defies common sense, because a timbrel vault is very thin compared to a Roman vault, while at the same time it is capable of bearing much higher loads. This of course enables wider spans and gentler curves.

Read full story

June 24, 2009

Making Ignatius the Fire Pig

Here's a short documentary about three Boston-area makers, David Dowling, Dennis Svoronos, and Brady Scott, shot by Patrick Johnson, as they fabricate a steam boiler dubbed Ignatius the Fire Pig.

Modern Alchemy [via Steampunk Workshop]

Adam and Jamie's giant coding cryptex

Those inspired crazies at Mythbusters, Adam Savage and Jamie Hyneman, built a giant, working coding cryptex. The device was built for a demo at the RSA Conference, held at the Mascone Center in SF, in April. Now the pair is auctioning it off on eBay. Proceeds from the sale will go to the EFF.

You can watch a video of the demonstration at the conference here.
The auction page is here (auction ends Jul-03-09 10:14:40 PDT).

June 23, 2009

Antique bottle collecting

Antique bottles have always fascinated me. Here's an amazing site with pretty much everything you need to know about identifying and dating "historic bottles." The site is maintained by the Bureau of Land Management.

Historic Glass Bottle Identification & Information Website

More:

More sea glass hunting
The sea glass of summer
HOW TO - Make a Sea Glass Necklace (Craft: Blog)
Beach glass

June 21, 2009

My grandfather's home built car

[Photo from Uncle Ray]

Long before my time, my grandfather Raymond Albert Sheffield, was messing about with cars. When I was about 10 or 11, we sat on a beach on Martha's Vineyard watching the ferries come and go exchanging cars and passengers while he told me of the car that he had built in his younger days.

Apparently, not having enough money for a vehicle was not going to stop him, so he built his own version of what I recall was a Model A. Where the model name would have been embossed, he put his own name. During the winters, he needed to get his ride off the street, so he and his mates dismantled the vehicle so that it could be carried down the stairs to the basement of the house he and my grandmother lived in. I imagine that he spent the winter modding and tuning the components for a better vehicle in the following year's driving season. In several of the pictures here, you can see the gleeful pride he had in owning and driving the vehicle that he made with his own hands. In this one you can see the excitement he had of driving his project.

My uncle Ray inherited the task of dealing with the room full of photos (no kidding!) after my grandfather passed on. He has since scanned and archived the decades of black and white photos that my grandfather shot, developed and printed in a darkroom located in his office.

My grandfather went on to become something of an inventor, tinkerer, and maker. Some time in the 1970's, I recall being at his Cambridge workshop, Air Conditioning Engineering, and seeing all the metallic creations he was cooking up with the help of his staff. One that I recall was a tubed fireplace contraption that drew the cool air from below the fire and expelled warm air out the top of the tubes, increasing the efficiency of the average wood burning fireplace.

Much of my grandfather's life's work seemed to track back to the creation of his car, the RayBiltIt, and the practical joy of a useful project. We should all do what we can to cultivate this kind of competent pursuit of dreams in the young people around us. Who knows what can come of such interests? New inventions, new technologies, new solutions to the world's problems, or maybe just some good wholesome fun with innovation?

If you have a father in your life who has nurtured your making spirit, you can share some stories with us in the comments, and if you are still hunting for the perfect gift, he may enjoy a discounted subscription to MAKE magazine.

June 19, 2009

Lo-tek coffee vacuum siphon brewer

Inspired by John Park's Florence Siphon Brewer article in MAKE, Volume 17, Boris Legradic of Switzerland made this "cruder" version, mostly out of scrounged parts. In email, he says: "...it adds a certain je ne sais quoi with the potential for burning your flat down."

Bare-bones Vacuum Coffee

June 18, 2009

Interactive ping-pong table / virtual aquarium

Ah, the gay (19)90s: before Y2K, 9/11, Gitmo, CDOs, and all kinds of other depressing modern acronyms. Venture capital fell from the sky like manna, and everyone was getting rich on the Internet, even though nobody knew exactly how. Enter, into that milieu, the following brilliant idea, courtesy of the wunderkinder at MIT's then-ascendant Media Lab: Ping-pong tables ought to contain schools of virtual fish that react to the impact of the ball. The rave toy to end all rave toys!

Pre-coffee sarcasm aside, this really is pretty cool. PingPongPlus is the work of Craig Wisneski, Julian Orbanes, Ben Chun and Professor Hiroshi Ishii. The "fish" mode is only one of several possible interactions, and they all include sound effects. Check out the vid:

June 14, 2009

Literary gold mine for CNC millers

From 1976 to 1983, Popular Science magazine, along with the American Plywood Association, ran an annual plywood panel project design contest for its readership. Often the winning projects were items of furniture, but that was not a requirement. A potter's kick wheel and a folding plywood boat are notable exceptions. The rules were simple: Apart from common fasteners, the entire project had to be constructed from one or more panels of plywood, cut to make most efficient use of the material. In 1984, these projects were collected, by original contest editor Alfred W. Lees, into a book called 67 Prizewinning Plywood Projects.

1984, of course, was decades prior to the advent of accessible home CNC milling, so all those carefully shaped and slotted parts, at the time, had to be laboriously hand-cut using a jigsaw or similar tool. Today, the book is a rich, untapped resource for CNC enthusiasts. I scored a used copy on Amazon, and besides the projects themselves, the book yields a bumper crop of ideas for clever tricks to incorporate into your own designs.

Early olive oil factory

This reconstruction of the earliest known olive oil factory demonstrates a simple yet ingenious process to extract olive oil from olives using pulleys, levers, and gravity decanting. This was much more effective than using mortar and pestle to make olive oil, typically used for small scale production. Dating back to the 6th century BC, this factory was located in the Ionian city of Clazomenae, on what is now the coast of western Turkey. This photo shows the press used to squeeze the olive oil out from burlap sacks filled with a paste of ground up olives.

Read full story

June 11, 2009

How-To: Knap an arrowhead from a beer bottle

(Image courtesy of Kevin Dunn, whose book Caveman Chemistry, along with a bunch of other cool hands-on projects, contains a chapter on knapping in bottle glass. Thanks Kevin!)

Anybody else read Snow Crash? Remember the big scary Aleut who likes to steal warheads from nuclear submarines using only his canoe and handmade glass knife? Remember how, when you first read that book, you kinda wanted to be that guy? Well, I'm here telling you: It's not too late to become the baddest mango-farmer in the world. After all, even Raven had to start somewhere, and apparently chipping an arrowhead out of bottle glass is the "hello world" of the flintknapping user community. Mike Melbourne and Tim Rast's venerable tutorial shows you how.

Sci-fi-chic eyeshades use ancient design

From the MAKE Flickr pool

Behold Igaaks' CNC plasma torch-cut sunglasses, as demoed at a recent TechShop Durham monthly meeting -

Material is copper, bent by hand, then heat treated, then coated with acrylic.
[...]
The only thing it might need is some kind of padding for the nose, and after talking with folks at the Meet-up, I think a small piece of molded silicone would work.

Though they look decidedly retro-future, the original Inuit design dates back about 2,000 years -

Before the introduction of tinted sunglasses, the Inuit wore slitted snow goggles to prevent snow blindness when travelling in the brilliant sunlight of spring.

Read more on The Winnipeg Art Gallery's site

June 9, 2009

Difference Engine maintenance manual

[Image: Creative Commons Attribution photo from Adactio's Flickr stream]

Do you have a Babbage Difference Engine in dire need of servicing? Fret no more! Reg Crick of the London Science Museum has put together this handy "INSTRUCTION MANUAL to Operate and Maintain Charles Babbage's 2nd Difference Engine," written in 1991 to help keep the Engine built at the museum (to mark the bicentennial of Babbage's birth) in tip-top calculating condition.

INSTRUCTION MANUAL to Operate and Maintain Charles Babbage's 2nd Difference Engine [via Boing Boing]

June 7, 2009

Derinkuyu: lost city found

Derinkuyu is situated on Nevsehir-Nigde roadway at 30 km in south region of Nevsehir. The history of the district of Derinkuyu named as Melagobia (Malakopi) which was meaning in the period of Eti the hard living is very old. In the district there are many underground cities and churches. As all of the underground cities from region of Cappadoccia it was the first place where the Christians have hidden. It has been used as hiding and refuge place at the time of wars occurred in the zone in the different periods of the history. The Derinkuyu Underground City with seven floors and depth of 85 mt has the dimensions of a city able to shelter thousands of persons. Inside there are found food stores, kitchens, stalls, churches, wine production places, ventilation chimneys, water wells and a missionary school.

Pretty amazing stuff!
[Thanks Sandy!]

May 27, 2009

New Nemo Gould piece at Maker Faire

One of my fave found-object artists/kinetic sculptors, Nemo Gould, is going to be at Maker Faire again this year. He'll be there as part of the Applied Kinetic Arts group which also includes Benjamin Cowden, Jonathan Foote, Carl Pisaturo, Kal Spelletich, Greg Brotherton, Christopher T Palmer, Alan Rorie, Mark Galt, and Reuben Margolin. This is an astounding opportunity to see the current work of some of the most impressive people working in kinetic art. Nemo will also be on a panel I'm hosting on Saturday (4pm on the Make: television stage) which will include a number of the artists involved in Device Gallery in San Diego.

Above is a piece Nemo will be premiering at Maker Faire, a little magical box where you can peer into the world of Captain Nemo from 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea.

Under the Sea 2009

May 26, 2009

Power Glove controls new video games

Matt Mechtley is gearing up for Maker Faire, where he'll be showing his updated Nintendo Power Glove (with Arduino and Bluetooth, or course). He writes:

Over the past few weeks I’ve been working on some improvements and extensions to my Power Glove 20th Anniversary Edition. On the tech side of things, I replaced the ugly 9V battery I was using with a low-profile, rechargeable Lithium-Polymer battery. I’ve updated the steps in the Instructable with new pictures and instructions.

As a bonus for Maker Faire attendees, I’ve finished adding Power Glove support to our most popular Blurst game, Off-Road Velociraptor Safari! I recorded a demo video to show it off.

More:

Updated Power Glove with Bluetooth and Arduino

May 22, 2009

The OTHER Jake strikes back!

We hear a lot about the dapper and prolific Jake von Slatt, but what about his arch-nemesis, Jake (of-all-Trades) Hildebrandt? He's apparently been locked away in his castle laboratory, hard at work on this amazing PC casemod, built as a promotional giveaway for CodeMaster's just-released Damnation PC/console game. Gorgeous work. I love the access ports hidden beneath the logo, the "saloon-door" style drive bays, and the plunger pull-start power-on, the construction of which he describes in the video).

Herr von Slatt must have steam blasting from cherry-red ears on the news. The gauntlet is down, von Slatt, the gauntlet is down.

Telecalculograph, Mk. II

May 21, 2009

The Von Slatt guitar amp

At last year's Maker Faire Bay Area, Nathan Johnstone of Abney Park debuted a violin at the Saturday night show modded by artisan (and MAKE contributor) Molly Friedrich. Later in the year, at the Steampowered convention, Nathan debuted the Von Slatt Strat, a guitar modded by MAKE, Volume 17 cover maker Jake von Slatt. This year, Nathan returns to the Faire with a free-form group of amazing Seattle musicians, as part of Carnivale Mechanique, a steampunk encampment (with a lot of the folks who created last year's Contraptors' Lounge and some exciting new additions). At this year's event, the Von Slatt Strat will be joined by a worthy amplifier, this radio-cabinet special, again crafted by Von Slatt.

Nathan's New Amp

Nathan's violin by Molly Friedrich

The Von Slatt Strat

May 14, 2009

Lost Knowledge: Online resources

The weekly Lost Knowledge column explores the possible technology of the future in the forgotten ideas of the past (and those slightly off to the side). Each Tuesday, we look at retro-tech, "lost" technology, and the make-do, improvised "street tech" of village artisans and tradespeople from around the globe. "Lost Knowledge" was also the theme of MAKE, Volume 17

This week's Lost Knowledge column is something of a link dump of resources I've collected in my research on Lost Knowledge, for MAKE Volume 17, and for this column. I want to grow it with additional resources, so if you know of decent repositories of information related to these subjects, please post them in the comments.

The New York Public Library maintains an online gallery of 700 years worth of scientific drawings. They can be viewed here. [via Brass Goggles]

John Jenkins is a private collector of radios and antique scientific apparatus who's been collecting for some 35 years. His amazing collection, called the SparkMuseum, is available for viewing online. Absolutely incredible stuff here, from the dawn of electrical experimentation up to the vacuum tube.

You'll need a robot translator to tell you what you're looking at, but there are all sorts of cool steam-powered machinery on display. Lots of steampunky inspiration to be had at Stoommachine!

Early Technology is a Scottish firm that provides antique technology to collectors, museums, film sets, and others. From miner's lanterns to adding machines.

Read full story

Maker's Wimshurst build

Over in the Steampunk Workshop, Jake von Slatt has posted pics of a Wimshurst Influence Machine built by a MAKE reader, following Jake's project piece in Volume 17. Nice job, Scott! He built his with more sectors on the disks, to make it even more zaptastic.

Scott's Wimshurst Machine!

From MAKE magazine:

Check out MAKE, Volume 17: The Lost Knowledge issue!

Buy your copy in the Maker Shed
Subscribe to MAKE
Access the Digital Edition (if you're already a subscriber)

In Volume 17, MAKE goes really old school with the Lost Knowledge issue, featuring projects and articles covering the steampunk scene -- makers creating their own alternative Victorian world through modified computers, phones, cars, costumes, and other fantastic creations. Projects include an elegant Wimshurst Influence Machine (an electrostatic generator built entirely from Home Depot parts), a Florence Siphon coffee brewer, and a teacup-powered Stirling engine. This special section also covers watchmaking, letterpress printing, the early multimedia art of William Blake, and other wondrous and lost (or fading) pre-20th-century technologies.

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Brand new antique humanoids

Lost Knowledge: Timbrel vaulting

Making Ignatius the Fire Pig

Adam and Jamie's giant coding cryptex

Antique bottle collecting

My grandfather's home built car

Lo-tek coffee vacuum siphon brewer

Interactive ping-pong table / virtual aquarium

Literary gold mine for CNC millers

Early olive oil factory

How-To: Knap an arrowhead from a beer bottle

Sci-fi-chic eyeshades use ancient design

Difference Engine maintenance manual

Derinkuyu: lost city found

New Nemo Gould piece at Maker Faire

Power Glove controls new video games

The OTHER Jake strikes back!

The Von Slatt guitar amp

Lost Knowledge: Online resources

Maker's Wimshurst build

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