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August 3, 2009

Home science projects from Exploratorium

Julie Yu, a post-doc at San Francisco's Exploratorium, has a really good collection of unusual home lab activities on her page, including a home column chromatography experiment using common materials, which is the first of its kind I've seen.

July 31, 2009

Student-made equipment in the Pratt metal shop

My pal Ross Connard is a Junior at the Pratt Institute and has a student job as a technician in the school's Fine Arts Metal Shop. The shop has a cool tradition of students building their own equipment and leaving it behind for subsequent generations of students to use. Shown above is a custom stencil Ross made to mark the positions of fire extinguishers on the concrete shop floors. Below is a custom tool rack he designed and fabricated from bulk steel and plywood. I can only imagine how great it must be to work in a space where every piece of equipment was built with love and respect by users like myself.

Some MAKEcation soldering suggestions

We hope you and your family are having fun learning how to solder. If you are, take some pictures and load them to the MAKE Flickr pool. The first five people who load family soldering pics and tag them "MAKEcation" will get a free Maker's Notebook.

To help give you some ideas for projects you can do, we've put together some of our favorites from the site. We tried to pick ones that are easy enough that a beginner can handle, but where you also get something useful (and/or fun) for your effort. If you are working on some soldering projects with the family, please tell us what they are in the comments.

Make a pocket LED cube - Weekend Projects Podcast
Make a pocket LED cube - Weekend Project PDFcast

Tiny Cylon Kit (one of the three kits in the Teach Your Family to Solder bundle)

MintyBoost USB Charger Kit v2.0

Read full story

July 27, 2009

How-To: Take Schlieren photographs at home

My post last week about shadowgraphy and Schlieren photography generated a lot of enthusiastic responses and not a few requests for a more detailed tutorial. Among the comments was one by Ian Smith, who has a great page here describing his own Schlieren photography set-up. (While you're there, take a moment to appreciate the fact that Ian's URL is "www.ian.org"....think he's been around the 'net awhile?) Thanks again, Ian!

July 25, 2009

Drawing techniques for making

In engineering, fabricating, and all-around making, it is very useful to know basic drawing styles. This will help you get your ideas out of your head and onto that napkin, or into your notebook so that you can bring them into the world. Architects, planners, designers, engineers, and others use drawing to help communicate their ideas clearly and accurately to the people who will carry out their designs. Drawing is also a great way to communicate with yourself, since you can draw a picture of it to help clear up the parts of the idea before moving to the next steps of your design.

Here are a few drawing techniques that will help you speak in a common visual language:

Orthographic
If you're thinking in terms of a floor plan, or a straight-on view to an object's face, that's an orthographic view. In this technique, you are showing the details of the face, where the edges are, if there are holes or visible cuts in the surface, you would show them as solid lines. If those holes or cuts are in another face and not visible from your viewpoint, they would be shown with dashed lines.

An object could have six Orthographic views, top, bottom, right, left, front and back. One way to help visualize the six sides is to take a cardboard box and cut windows in each of the sides. Label the sides and place an object inside the box. When you look straight at the object on one side, that is the view you would draw. You wouldn't try to include any information from another side.

Multiview Orthographic
Sometimes, you will have a complex object that has information on more than one side. You will want to show the relationship between the sides in a mutltiview orthographic drawing. Here, what you want to do is line up usually two or three corresponding views. Normally, you would show the top view above the front view. The features of the object visible in the top view would line up with the features in the front in a two view drawing. If the side also has details, you would draw the side so that it lines up with the front view.

Isometric
So, you want to show several faces of the object, but don't want to make a whole bunch of individual drawings. You want to know about Isometric projection! This technique has you placing the object at an imagined 30-degree angle and drawing the three faces that are visible. In isometric, all the sides have parallel edges, just as they would in the real object. The object can be drawn accurately enough to pull measurements. Since three sides are visible at once, you can get a real sense of the object by looking at the drawing.

Scale
If you hope to build directly from these drawings, you'd want to do them accurately and with a scale in mind. There are many different scales, or ratios of drawing to object available to you. Some are pretty simple, like 1:1, full size, 1:2 or 1/ 2 size or 1/4 size. There are lots more, and rather than figure out how far apart to draw the marks to accurately show 3 inches in 1/4 scale, you can use an architects' or engineers' scale, which translates feet and inches down to the smaller scale. When you are drawing to scale, a person could put the corresponding scale right down on your drawing and pull out the measurements, which should match your notations.

Sketching
If you just want to get your idea out of your head, sketching is the way to start. Here, what you do is take your paper in hand and draw out your idea using one of the techniques above. With sketching, it is more about the speed of showing your imagined or observed shape than precision and accuracy. Usually, with sketching you would only use a pen or pencil on the paper. The straightness of the line comes from your hand, not from using guides. Get the idea out. You can refine it through revisions, bring it into a drawing program, draft it accurately with drafting tools, but all that comes later, after you have put it on the page. Sketching is quick and helps you see the relationships of the shapes and parts.

Looking for more? Try out the simulation at the bottom of the Teacher Support page of the Engineering the Future curriculum from Boston's Museum of Science. In Sketchup and other Computer Aided Design programs, you can go to the view menu to see each of these views. But really, the best way to build this into your head is to pick up a pencil or pen and start drawing. Draw the objects on the table in front of you, one at a time. Show them in orthographic, multiview and isometric. There are drawing papers available with square and isometric grids printed on them to help guide your drawings.

In the Maker Shed:

Pick up The Maker's Notebook ($19.99) for all your big ideas, diagrams, patterns, etc. Exclusive to the Maker Shed: Sticker sheets and a band closure to customize your book.

July 22, 2009

Rolamite videos

Back in 2007, Mark hit on Don Wilkes' 1960s invention (U.S. patent #3,452,175) of the so-called "rolamite"over at boing-boing, quoting a description of it as "the only 'basic mechanism' invented in the 20th century." Basically, a rolamite is a very-low-friction bearing. Rex Research has posted the entirety of a 1966 Popular Science article covering their invention, but the easiest way to understand what a rolamite is and how it works is to see one in motion. The above YouTube video, by user AutogenicMotor, shows the action of a simple linear rolamite, and the one below, by ErikBrinkman1, of a more complex rotary model.

July 18, 2009

Bikes Not Bombs - Creating opportunities

The other night I checked out the volunteer night at Bikes Not Bombs in Jamaica Plain Boston. At the end of the night, there were about a dozen volunteers working together to "flatten bikes" so they could be efficiently shipped to Ghana in West Africa. The crowd was mostly young adults with a balance of men and women.

Get your hands dirty with a wrench, flattening bikes to prepare them for international shipment, stripping bikes for parts, or sorting used parts.

Another great opportunity they offer is the Earn A Bike program, where young people can choose a bicycle they'd like to own, and then set out to learn their way to ownership. The youth attend a series of classes to raise their awareness of safety and bicycles and also learn how to disassemble, repair, and tune bikes, using their chosen bike as the focus of much of their work.

On Saturday, Bikes Not Bombs is packing up a shipping container headed to Ghana. They expect to pack about 450 bikes and a load of tires, inner tubes, parts, and other sundries for the Village Bicycle Project, which uses the bikes to help develop income-generating activities. The VBP also has an initiative based on a similar model to the Earn A Bike program.

Check out some of these other Make: Online pieces on similar topics:

Amy Smith and the low-tech solution
Pedaling forward with Maya Pedal
Maker Faire Africa, August 14-16, in Accra, Ghana
12 steps with Paul Polak
Creating solutions - Worldbike

July 15, 2009

Musée des arts et métiers--a maker's museum in Paris

My colleague Julie Steele, editor of The Geek Atlas, suggested I check out the Musée des arts et métiers on my recent trip to Paris. It's a true Maker's museum; I really don't know where to begin. It's got so much stuff a maker could love:

A remake of Lavoisier's laboratory
Léon Foucault's apparatus for measuring the speed of light
Punchcard-driven looms
Pascal's adding machine
and of course, bikes!

There's a lot more (computers, engines, planes, it keeps going on and on). Check out the museum's web site and this Flickr set.

Read full story

Solar racing in Texas - go Knights!

Vincent Mariano, of the SPHS Solar Knights solar race car team out of South Plantation High School in Plantation, Florida, wrote in to ask us why we haven't written anything about the Dell-Winston solar car challenge currently underway at the Texas Motor Speedway. Because we hadn't heard from you yet, Vincent! Thanks, and good luck in the race.

The top-most picture is of the racing teams at the event. The other pictures are of the Solar Knights' vehicle. The first day of racing was yesterday, with races running through Friday. The Solar Knights placed third in last year's competition.

Vincent: make sure to write back and tell us how you guy's did.

Solar Knights Racing home page
Dell-Winston School Solar Car Challenge

July 8, 2009

How-To: Simple metal-air battery

Here's a nice demonstration of an aluminum-air battery which produces 1.0 V and 100 mA from the oxidation of aluminum foil. Metal-air cells such as this find common application in hearing aid batteries, for instance, which are driven by the oxidation of zinc.

More:

How-To: Backyard battery
The Supercap battery

July 7, 2009

How-To Tuesday: Arduino 101 & the PING))) ultrasonic sensor

The PING))) ultrasonic sensor is a really easy way to measure distance with a micro-controller. All you have to do is hook up 3 wires and upload some code. These sensors are great for robots, alarm systems, or any other application that requires some type of measurement or obstacle avoidance. Don't forget to check out our other Arduino 101 videos!

Subscribe to the MAKE podcast | Download for iTunes

In the Maker Shed:

More about the PING))) Ultrasonic Sensor

July 6, 2009

New in the Maker Shed: Desktop Trebuchet

What do you do when someone at work has a Desktop Onager? Maybe it's time to get your own desktop Desktop Trebuchet and start a mini war. Or maybe you want to build one so you can hurl mini cows at any invading knights? Then again, that might not be a good idea since both of these weapons can really fire their projectiles quite fast!

More about the Desktop Trebuchet

July 3, 2009

New in the Maker Shed: Fire Piston Kit

The Fire Piston Kit is a neat physics experiment based on the heat created when air is rapidly compressed. Bill Gurstelle, author of Backyard Ballistics and Barrage Garage, created this kit for us. If you were at Maker Faire you might have seen him demonstrating his kit in the Maker Shed. [Thanks Bill!]

More about the Fire Piston Kit

July 2, 2009

Tilt sensor tutorial on adafruit

Limor has posted another installment of her exceedingly excellent sensor tutorials, this one on that most marvelous of switches, the tilt sensor. When you just have to know which end is up, you need to strap on one of these puppies. Here's how.

Sensor tutorials - Tilt sensors!

More:
Force Sensitive Resistor (FSR) tutorial
Ladyada's temp sensor tutorial
Adafruit's CdS tutorial

Explaining voltage on FMCG

In this clip from FMCG, Ken responds to Jeri's capacitor deconstruction with his own very visual (and very mechanical) demonstration of how voltage is generated and how you can build a simple capacitor, with aluminum foil and plastic, to generate charge mechanically and dump it into the cap (analogous to how a Wimshurst machine works).

I love how this was inspired by Jeri's demo and how the two of them are having a Net-carried, seemingly casual conversation, marveling over the miracles of science. I don't know about you, but this sort of thing makes me strangely happy.

BTW: Jeri's capacitor demo is cool too, but unfortunately, the sound craps out at the end.

FMCG

July 1, 2009

Some recent FMCG vids

Our pal Jeri Ellsworth and her crew of restless USTREAM-ing hackers are at it again, exploring light polarization, sparking ions, and reversing time.

The Fat Man and Circuit Girl

June 30, 2009

Motors and microcontrollers 101

Continuing with their fine series of tutorial videos, Humberto from NerdKits shows a number of basic experiments you can do with a DC motor, how EMF, resistance, and inductance influence the design of a motor control circuit, and finally, how to use toggled digital output and pulse-width modulation in driving the motor via a microcontroller.

NerdKits video tutorials [via Hack a Day]

How-To: Make pyrophoric iron

A former chemistry teacher of mine provided a great definition of "pyrophoric:"

[It] means that if you playfully squirt some at your lab mates, they will burst into flame.

In other (less amusing) words, a "pyrophoric" substance is one that ignites spontaneously on exposure to air.
Pyrophoric iron, however, isn't as dangerous as that makes it sound, especially in small quantities.

Basically, the oxidation of iron is so vigorous that it can cause very finely divided iron metal to become incandescent. Amazing Rust has a great tutorial on how to prepare finely divided iron by thermolyzing iron oxalate, a yellow powder that can, in turn, be prepared by a simple reaction between two common chemicals.

Book Review: Wayne Goddard's $50 Knife Shop

I've wanted to get into knifemaking since I was a teenager, but for years had been deterred by the belief that I first needed to buy a bunch of expensive equipment, like a 3-wheel belt grinder and an annealing oven. Then I found Wayne Goddard's $50 Knife Shop, which is a compilation of material originally prepared for Goddard's eponymous column in BLADE magazine. It kind of does for knifemaking what Dave Gingery's books did for foundrywork, going back to the historical fundamentals of the technology to get at what you really need to do good work. Goodies include homemade forges and anvils, homemade disc and belt grinders, scavenging steel for blades (including forging wire rope to make Damascus steel), finishing techniques, backyard heat treating, and a whole chapter on "tribal knifemaking," which is the modern art of making knives without using electricity. Fascinating stuff.

June 29, 2009

In the Maker Shed: Fiber Optics Kit

Learn the basics of fiber optics communications while you build this exciting kit. Transmit your voice or 1kHz signal through the fiber optic cable to a fiber optic receiver. Comes complete with all of the necessary components including the PC boards, microphone, speaker and fiber optic cable. Requires (2) 9-volt batteries.

More about the Fiber Optics Kit

Education Home | Next >

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