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July 26, 2009

Soldering Dale Wheat's creations

At this year's Maker Faire, I met Dale Wheat. He was at a counter in the Maker Shed demonstrating his kits. I was impressed at how clever they were, and how inexpensive. We talked for a few minutes, and then I went off to explore. Before the weekend was over, I dropped a few of Dale's kits into my shopping bag. They seemed like they'd be fun to work with. This week, I finally got around to assembling the three kits I got.

The Wee Blinky is the simplest and easiest of the kits. With two transistors, two LEDs, two capacitors, and four resistors, it makes for a very quick build. Since the parts for stuffing the board are labeled on the silkscreen mask, you don't even need documentation. He does have some docs for the build, and they are worth reading through. They're written in a conversational tone with some of his personal perspective on choices you might make.

Lux Spectralis is a little more complex, but again, the mask on the board tells you where to put everything, and the online documentation steps you through it perfectly. This kit has two clever part features: a preprogrammed Atmel AVR ATtiny13, and a red-green-blue tricolor LED. The chip comes with a bunch of color combinations loaded which show some uses for each of the colors on the LED. If you pick up a programming cord and want to get into learning to program with it (or already know about programming AVRs), then have at it. Otherwise, the program on the chip should keep you happy. The RGB LED is a neat thing in itself. With the three colors, you can make it glow or blink in each of them, or it can cycle through the colors.

Tiny Cylon is the third kit I tried. It sports a row of five red LEDs that are controlled by an ATtiny chip. Already on the chip are a cycle of blink and glow patterns that make it useful as soon as you're done with a quick solder. HAL, KITT, and Cylons are a few of the cultural references in the lighting patterns.

These kits are great for beginnings. Why? Because they're inexpensive, have instructions embedded onto their physical surfaces (and easily located online), and because once you see how they work, you can customize them to suit your own purposes. The programmed ones use momentary buttons for selecting the settings. The button could be mounted off of the board to help fit it into another project. If you want to make a plushy doll with blinky eyes, you could add wires to the Wee Blinky's LED pads and move the illumination further away from the board. If you want to make a model car into KITT from Knight Rider, you could Dremel out the hood of a remote control car and pop the LEDs into the hole.

Once you start to see that you can solder a kit, and that it's fun to build and use, you'll want to see what else you can do with soldering and kits. Once you see how easy it is to make one, you'll feel confident in making chances on the next one. These kits have a low cost of entry and a high probability of success for the beginner. Once built, they can lead you into customizing your own circuits and programming for light and sensor control.

You can check out Dale's site for more information, downloads, build instructions and more.

In the Maker Shed:

The MAKEcation learn to solder bundle is a fun collection of all things blinky. All the kits are easy to solder and each one makes a fun little blinky piece of hardware. The bundle also includes our Maker's Notebook and MAKE Volume 01, which features a great learn to solder tutorial. Have fun this summer, learn to solder, and blink some LEDs!

Features:
MAKE Volume 01 $14.99 value
tinyCylon $10 value
Wee Blinky $8 value
Lux Spectralis $10 value
Maker's Notebook $19.99 value

More about The MAKEcation learn to solder bundle

July 20, 2009

Gakken mag and 4-bit computer rollout party in Tokyo

Above is a table with some GMC-4s on it and some Gakken analog synth kits. Below that is Francesco Fondi (right) talking to Kaneko San, the editor of the Gakken's Otona no Kagaku magazine. (More pics of the evening, including several of the NEC TK-80, after the jump.)

Our pal Francesco Fondi, of Modellismo Hobby Media, was in Tokyo a few weeks ago. On July 5, he attended Tokyo Culture Club's Mycon Night. The event was organized to celebrate the recent release of the 24th volume of Gakken's Otona no Kagaku magazine, which features the very first 4-bit microcomputer kit to be produced in the last 25 years: the GMC-4.

Fra writes:

The GMC4 has a 16-key keyboard, a build-in speaker, a 7-segment LED display, and a 6 LED display. A tennis game, music software, and two other 4-bit games come pre-installed in the GMC-4.

While drinking some great Kirin beer with friends from Sansai Books and Gizmodo Japan, I listened to the introduction speech by the Gakken editors. The inspiration for the GMC-4 comes from the TK-80, released by NEC in 1976, and partially, from the FX MYCON R-165, which Gakken released in 1983.

Several people in the room had the GMC-4 with them, so the speaker started to read some code and help everyone with a GMC-4 to program it "live." Then they introduced the Arduino, and being Italian, I was really happy to see how a board "Made in Italy" is so well received by Japanese engineers and toy hackers!

With the presentation finished, it was time for my friends Polymoog and Gan to play live with a special setup of three GMC-4s patched into Gakken SX150 analog synths. Gan is the guy who designed the SX150, and once in a year, with Abe, he organizes the Analog Synthesizer Builders' Summit Party in Tokyo.

The event concluded around 9:30 pm with another live act, but by then, I'd had too many beers and too much deep discussions about Gakken gadgets with Musahsi from Gizmodo.jp to remember the artists' names who sat in with Polymoog.

In the end, it was by far the geekiest event held in Tokyo in the last few months, even geekier than Danny Choo's CGM nights (sorry Danny)!!

Read full story

How-To: Sequence a Weird Sound Generator

Ray Wilson of MFOS demonstrates the use of his WSG project under the control of a basic sequencer. Skip ahead to the 4m20s mark for a straightforward explanation of how this simple mod does its thing. Though Ray uses an MFOS 10-step sequencer with above, this would likely work with any basic 4017-based sequencer (or any other 0-9V output for that matter). Detailed instructions available on the WSG mods page.

July 10, 2009

PICnome and pad kit

Here' a lovely stand (pad) for the PICnome OSC (open source controller). The maker (in Japan), of both the PICnome controller and the pad, is selling a limited number of kits.

tkrworks

July 8, 2009

Citizen Engineer zine/comic/kit

It's a good thing that Limor and Phil of adafruit industries only use their powers for good. Otherwise, we'd all be in trouble. The dynamic hacking duo has just released a new comic book version of their awesome Citizen Engineer video, episode 1, on SIM card hacking. They're printing the books on-demand at adafruit, limited edition, 32-page, full-color. It also comes with an adafruit SIM Reader Kit v1.0. Can't wait to get mine. I haven't fed my zine/ homebrewed comics habit in a while. Great job, guys!

SIM reader & Comic book - Citizen Engineer Volume 01

July 2, 2009

LED Light Brick kits

Alden Hart, who wrote the LED Light Bricks project for MAKE, Volume 18, has put together a lovely little kit to make building the project much easier. And we're now offering them in the Maker Shed! The kit includes a printed circuit board, 20 bright LEDs, in red, green, blue, and yellow, a programmed PIC16F916 (which you can reprogram, if you like), a tilt switch, power supply, and everything else you need to complete the project (except the molding and casting components). The kit sells for $27.

Here's a link to the Digital Edition of the article in MAKE, Volume 18.
Here's a link to the Web Extras page with the full mold-making and casting article.
Here's a link to the Make: Online how-to on different ways you can construct molds.

In the Maker Shed:

LED Light Brick Electronics Kit
Our Price: $27.00
All the components you need to make the LED Light Brick circuit featured in MAKE, Volume 18. When assembled, the circuit board is ready to cast to make your finished glowing nightlight.

DIY HD home theater projector

Assemble your very own HD home theater projector using these DIY kits from G&P; Optoelectronics. Combine the optics, housing, lighting, and electronics bundles and with luck you'll be watching your favorite episodes of Make: Television in glorious 1280x720 HD in no time.

DIY HD projector for under €499 [via slashgear]

July 1, 2009

Sparkfun open-sources hardware kits

Our friends over at Sparkfun have announced their decision to officially make some of their kits open source. Nathan and company have always been supporters of OSH, but now they're going to be putting links to the engineering files up to at least some of their kits. The first is the ClockIt kit, an alarm clock kit built around the ATMega168. The listing for the kit ends with links to the Eagle files (licensed under CC v3.0 Share-Alike), the schematic, the source code, and a link to an "Improve Source Code" forum posting. Nice. "One of the great things about open source is the ability to say 'Hey, I'm pretty sure this works, but it may not be the best way to do it. Can you help me out?,'" says Nathan Seidle.

ClockIt

June 25, 2009

64 synchronizing fireflies

64 synchronizing fireflies. It sounds like a line from some overly-clever children's book or a Christmas carol. But it was instead a little week-long project for Alex at Tinkerlog. He writes:

Last week, I invested some time to solder 64 Firefly boards. Only 2.432 solder joints later, I was ready for some videos.

Every firefly acts completely autonomously, it has its own tiny controller, eye and luminary. They are all connected for power supply only.

And a partridge in a pear tree.

64 Synchronizing Fireflies

June 22, 2009

SX-150 in the studio

After adding MIDI control via Arduino + DAC, MrBook cased up the added circuitry, creating a much needed wooden back panel in the process. The upgraded kit can be seen above getting along nicely with Ableton Live - good to see the lil' Gakken synth get the pro-style treatment. Check out his blog entry for info.

In the Maker Shed:

Mkgk8-2
SX-150 Analog Synthesizer Kit

June 15, 2009

How-To: Mini-Theremin kit mods

Randy shares steps for adding two key upgrades to the Mini-Theremin kit -

True, there are already directions to do both of these things in the accompanying magazine, but what sets this how-to apart is that it is in English. If like me you can't read Japanese and unlike me, you couldn't figure out what to do from the pictures alone, this should help. Basically, what I am doing is adding an audio out jack and also a bigger, sturdier telescoping antenna. This is a great improvement on the original.

I've added an 1/8" jack to mine as well, definitely a great idea for those who also own the Gakken SX-150 synth. Once 'jacked' the mini can act as a handsfree controller for the SX by way of its control input. Hmmm ... think I'll be adding one of theses sturdier antennae as well. Read the full instructable for much mini modding infos.

More:

Gakken Mini-Theremin

June 7, 2009

Sound Lab Ultimate project from MFOS

Ray Wilson of MusicFromOuterSpace gives a very in-depth review of the new Sound Lab Ultimate's features (skip to the 7min mark for sound samples). The Ultimate is an expanded sequel to the popular Sound Lab analog synth project, which adds a bunch of new features and makes the project fully patchable -

Three Musically Accurate VCOs (sawtooth and variable width rectangular wave forms, pulse width modulation, hard-sync, log and linear CV inputs)

VCOs provide plenty of tracking range. Listen to the samples below.

White Noise Generator

Active Mixer (for VCOs, noise and external input)

Voltage Controlled LP Filter (12db/Oct doubles as a sine wave oscillator)

Voltage Controlled Amplifier (log response)

Attack Release Envelope Generator

Two Low Frequency Oscillators (square, ramp, tri and sawtooth waveforms)

Repeat Gate Generator (doubles as another square wave LFO)

Sample & Hold (with variable sample rate and glide)

Attenuator Bank (for an infinite variety of modulation patches)

Patch Panel Design (provides infinitely variable combinations of sounds)

Professionally machined panels and PC Boards available from MFOS

Sound Lab ULTIMATE "Expander" already on the drawing board.

Looks like an awesome project for advanced synth DIYers out there. PCB + panel kits are available from the MFOS site.

June 1, 2009

NunChucky I2C breakout board

One of the nifty little techno-trinkets Solarbotics was handing out to lucky folks at the Faire was their new NunChucky. This tiny PCB allows you to utilize the Wii Nunchunk as a project controller on a microcontroller module without having to cut the connector off the Nunchuck (so you can still use it with your console). The thoughtful design on the NunChucky board features two sets of interface pads, lock notches so it securely "clicks" into place when plugged into the controller, and tie-down holes for securing ribbon-cable extensions. The board comes with both 4-pin male and 4-pin female headers. It retails for US$3.

NunChucky Wii Nunchuck I2C Breakout

May 27, 2009

Here come wings for your Arduino

When not working on Make: television, writing for Make: Online, and working as a character mechanic for Disney, our bud John Edgar Park, along with fellow MAKE contributors Brian Jepson and Tod Kurt, have been burning the midnight solder on some new peripherals for the Arduino world that they've dubbed WingShields. The first kit in the "wing-format" is the ScrewShield, a header pins-to-screw terminal blocks board. The kit includes 1 Analog-side PCB, 1 Digital-side PCB, 2 sets of 6-pin stacky female header pins, 2 sets of 8-pin stacky female header pins, enough terminal blocks to fill 34 holes on the board (these come in 2- and 3-terminal units, which slot together). The pins on the headers are extra-long to allow for stacking over or under other shields.

The ScrewShield is "premiering" at Maker Faire this weekend and will be available in the Maker Shed at the Faire. After that, it'll be available for Maker Shed mail order (as well as at other online kit retailers).

Congrats on the new venture, guys!

WingShield Industries

May 25, 2009

Light-to-sound converter kit

From the MAKE Flickr pool

Eric's new LITE2SOUND kit sounds like a lot of fun. He reports on some early experimentation using the board's photodiode sensor -

pointing it at a computer CRT yields a strange humming tone that varies depending on what the screen is displaying. The LED in an optical computer mouse plays strange chirping whistles. Infrared remote controls make wild bursts of noisy data. You're hearing frequencies from lines of code executing in a microprocessor... stuff that was never intended to be heard. When you combine LITE2SOUND with a laser pointer, things get really interesting. There is bizarre audio from a vinyl record as it spins on the turntable, using a laser instead of the needle. Listening to reflected laser light as you move it over the surface texture of objects is often a surprise; it plays the texture like a phonograph needle. You can even pick up unusual sounds from a guitar string as the laser reflects off of it. There are still many things to try...

Further explanation, ordering info and a bunch of interesting sound samples can be found over on ericarcher.net.

Laser-cut drumkit

Flickr member Segwaymonkey got the new Spikenzielabs' SpikenzieLabs Drum Kit-Kit and was inspired to create a set of laser-cut pads for it. Sweet. I love the engineering of the vibration-dampening "springs."

The Drum Kit Kit Laser Cut Rig

May 15, 2009

Playing the theremin room

MAKE subscriber Gregg Horton used a Thingamakit along with a hacked karaoke machine to create a rather large area of theremin-esque sound control. Cool - at around 2m30s in it does start working quite nicely! Check out more of Greg's projects on the Groovy Pancakes blog.

In the Maker Shed:

Thing-a-ma KIT

May 8, 2009

Mutant Thingamakit grows extra tentacles

From the MAKE Flickr pool

JoeLMutantE lives up to his name with this monster sound & light machine born from two Thingamakit boards and a whole lotta wiring -

This is a little MutanT based on the Thingamakit noise-synth. It has trhee diferent led-acles (led tentacles) and a pair of sense-acles (photo-sensor tentacles) that react to the amount of light. It's a very unpredictable noise-synth, by the way you can control the rate of the LFO, the range, the shape...really very fun!!
I decided to make a little reproduction of me and my audio studio for the front panel, so here it is, plenty of lights that goes on and off, so much cables wiring all the ways buttons and knobs, that's my audio-studio.

Dig that unusual panel design! More photos of said specimen available in Joel's photoset.

In the Maker Shed:

Thing-a-ma KIT

May 6, 2009

Peggy 2 RGB!

The folks over at Evil Mad Scientist Labs outfitted a Peggy 2 with 2x2 super-pixels consisting of red, green, blue, and white 10mm LEDs. The result is a super low-res, but still extremely cool, programmable LED matrix. Windell also shows how you can put a diffusing plastic over the display to create a continuous-tone animated color display. Trippy, man.

Peggy 2 RGB

From the pages of MAKE:

MAKE, Volume 18, ReMake America
Peggy is our lovely spokeslight on the cover of MAKE, Volume 18, the ReMake America issue. The Table of Contents for Volume 18 is now available for perusing here.

Hello Kitty boost

I love this Hello Kitty bubblegum tin housing a Minty Boost. There's even extra space to carry two additional AA batteries, for even more boost. And notice the Maker's Notebook as the backdrop. The builder named it the Minou Boost, after her cat.

Minou boost

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