Rengkuhasa

Relative Measurements

2009-11-22T23:53:00.003+07:00

Relative Measurements
Making good guesses using what's at hand (including your hand)
Donald Haas | Make Vol. 16- 2008 | Pdf | 1 pgs | .3 mb

Having the right tool for the job is important, but
sometimes you have to work with what's available.
Relative measurements can be just as accurate as
standard measurements. Memorize the dimensions
of a few common items that you usually have with
you or readily available, and you're set.

I know that with my arms stretched out to the
sides, my fingertips are 6' apart; great for measuring
rope or a rough estimate of a room size. A dollar bill
is 6 1/8" x 2 1/8", a credit/debit/gift card is 3.370"
x 2 1/8", a business card is 3 1/2" x 2", a quarter
has a 0.955" diameter. Most floortiles are 12" x 12"
while ceiling tiles are 2' x 4'. Remember.
it's all relative.
...

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USB Motion Detector

2009-11-20T23:24:00.000+07:00

USB Motion Detector
Turn your PC into an ambush multimedia
Ken Delahoussaye | Make Vol. 16- 2008 | Pdf | 3 pgs | 1 mb

Gone are the days when people's interest could
be held by simple radio or television. Today we're
bombarded with information and we crave interac-
tive experiences that don't waste a single second
of our time. Advertisers recognize the difficulty of
presenting messages that cut through the clutter,
and they've come up with creative ways to capture
our attention.

One example: the multimedia kiosk, now common
in shopping malls, movie theaters, and airports.
Complete with an internal computer, sound card,
and video graphics monitor, these dazzle stations
can be a powerful advertising tool --- especially
when they have motion detection circuitry that
triggers a video presentation at the precise moment
an unsuspecting patron comes near.

This article explains how to construct a USB
motion detector that will give your computer this
hey-you ability, using a free Windows presentation
applet I wrote, USB Multimedia Presenter, so that you
can start your own kiosk advertising campaign. You
can also use the setup for practical jokes, or just to
amaze or amuse your friends.
...

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Hacking The Glade Wisp

2009-11-20T23:23:00.000+07:00

Hacking The Glade Wisp
Make your own scent output peripheral from a piezo air freshner
Wayne Holder | Make Vol. 16- 2008 | Pdf | 4 pgs | 1 mb

Not long ago, my 11-year-old daughter Belle wanted
to create a gadget that would amuse her dog Panda
by dispensing different scents for him to sniff. I had
no idea how to control the dispensing of fragrances,
so we took a trip to the local pharmacy and checked
out the electric air fresheners.

Most of them diffused fragrances with heat or fans,
but one, the Glade Wisp, claimed to use a microchip
to "automatically puff" scented oils into the air.
Intrigued, I bought one to see what made it tick.

The Glade Wisp runs off a single AA battery, which
powers a vibrating piezoelectric disc that atomizes
and disperses aromatic oil in short, smoke-like puffs.
The Wisp turns out to be easy to hack --- for less than
$10 you can make a computer-controlled aromatic
atomizer for all sorts of practical and artistic projects.

Here's how I modified a Wisp to be controlled by an
Arduino board running just a few lines of code.
...

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The Disembodied Voice of Judy Garland Speaks!

2009-11-20T23:22:00.001+07:00

The Disembodied Voice of Judy Garland Speaks!
How to make a Ghost Phone
Greg MacLaurin | Make Vol. 16- 2008 | Pdf | 3 pgs | 1 mb

Currently, I'm obsessed with analog telephones.
I don't know why. My last obsession was with the
severed hands of mummies, but let's not get into
that. Today it's phones. And these Ghost Phones are
fun. The idea is simple: hide an MP3 player and its
headphone inside an old analog telephone, and you
can listen to someone talking to you!

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Chumby Phone

2009-11-19T01:32:00.000+07:00

Chumby Phone
Daniel Gentleman | Make Vol. 16- 2008 | Pdf | 4 pgs | 2 mb

There's no simple explanation of the Chumby. It's an
alarm clock on steroids, a digital photo album, a tiny
Linux box, an internet radio player, and more. Owners
can set up a queue of personalized software widgets
through which the Chu mby continually cycles. These
widgets, made interactive through the Chumby's
touchscreen and motion sensors, include news,
weather, email notifications. Flickr feeds, Facebook
friend status, and even Netflix queue status.

Above all, Chumby's open design welcomes
hacking and crafting. The creators of Chumby
offer not only their entire base of source code,
but the schematics to their hardware as well, at
chumby.com/developers/hardware (login required).
...

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Paulownia Archery Bows

2009-11-19T01:31:00.000+07:00

Paulownia Archery Bows
Dan Albert | Make Vol. 16- 2008 | Pdf | 3 pgs | 2 mb

When we took possession of our humble London
home, I was shocked to find that all the window
treatments had been removed. So we suffered
the rat-in-a-maze Ikea gantlet to get a good price
on new Venetian blinds. I hung the new blinds
immediately but it took me months to get around
to tailoring them by removing the extra slats.
As soon as I did, I realized that I had a maker's
trifecta win in my hands: easily worked hardwood,
prefinished and free.

First I built a new box for our kitchen plastic wrap,
then my daughter wanted some doll furniture. Next
was a laminated beam to repair our baby stroller,
and a few slats to serve as drawer dividers for the
clothes dresser I'd built ages ago but never quite
finished. But the piece de resistance was a set of
archery bows that I whipped up to the delight of the
neighborhood kids.
...

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Remote Volume Knob

2009-11-19T01:29:00.000+07:00

Remote Volume Knob
Paulo Rebordao | Make Vol. 16- 2008 | Pdf | 2 pgs | 1 mb

There's nothing like hard work to get your mind
running. Having to get up from the couch to adjust
the volume on my old stereo amp several times
each night got me thinking. I didn't want to buy
a new stereo, so I came up with a plug-in remote
volume controller that you can easily adapt to
anything with a reasonable-sized volume knob.

My circuit uses a Picaxe-08M microcontroller,
which is programmable in BASIC, and a TSOP2238
infrared receiver, which sees signals from any
Sony (or compatible) TV remote. The removable
device hangs off the volume knob, attached with
velcro.

At the top, an R/C servomotor turns the knob
through about 180° of travel, which should be
enough range for most environments. At the
bottom, 3 AA batteries act as a "keel," weighing
that end down so that the knob is forced to turn.
...

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Twinkle Toes

2009-11-18T01:40:00.000+07:00

Twinkle Toes
Add a flashing, tricolor UFO to your roller skates
Dan Bassak | Make Vol. 16- 2008 | Pdf | 4 pgs | 2 mb

Skatetown is our local roller rink in Bloomsburg, Pa.
For years, it's also been my artistic LED experiment
laboratory. I started by taping single-color LEDs to
skates. They were so popular that one session on
the floor looked like a swarm of fireflies.

My latest LED invention is the UFO Toe Stop. It
uses a disk-shaped "flying saucer" unit that con-
tains a red, green, and blue (RGB) LED. I wanted to
blend the colors in interesting ways, so I wired it to
a PIC-controlled RGB microcontroller that comes
with programmed routines such as fixed colors,
fast-changing rainbows, or dazzling strobe effects.

I also used some translucent jam plugs (small
bolt covers used in skate dancing) that I bought in
the rink's pro shop as light diffusers.
...

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G-Meter and Altimeter

2009-11-18T01:39:00.000+07:00

G-Meter and Altimeter
Double-duty aerospace instrument on a shoestring budget
David Simpson | Make Vol. 16- 2008 | Pdf | 4 pgs | 2 mb

Here's an aerospace instrument you can build for
$5 that will measure the crushing forces that a
model rocket withstands and the rarified strata it
attains. It isn't exactly six-sigma technology in
terms of accuracy, but it's darn fun.

The device, which you install in the rocket's
payload compartment, uses 2 small bands of
heat-shrink tubing that slide over a dowel to record
the maximum G-force and altitude attained. As
the rocket accelerates, the G-force band is pushed
down by washers on a spring, and as the rocket
rises, the altitude band is pushed down the rod by
the expansion of a pressure chamber made from a
pill bottle and a rubber-balloon membrane.
...

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Pole's-Eye View

2009-11-18T01:38:00.002+07:00

Pole's-Eye View
William Gurstelle | Make Vol. 16- 2008 | Pdf | 9 pgs | 3 mb

A POLE-MOUNTED
AERIAL PHOTOGRAPHY RIG

Sometimes nothing is as important
as perspective. My goal in photography
is often to find a view no one else has
found, to be able to see things from
unusual and insightful vantage points.

The most practical way to obtain the
elusive aerial perspective is by attaching
a camera to a pole. While not trivial, it's
not complicated, either. Making a pole-
mounted camera rig like the Sky Eye
takes about a day, not including trips to
the store. You can make the rig and
use it the same day.
...

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Chatter Telephone

2009-11-17T00:20:00.002+07:00

Chatter Telephone
Surprise! A classic pull-toy phone that realy works
Frank E. Yost | Make Vol. 16- 2008 | Pdf | 3 pgs | 2 mb

I remember making pretend phone calls on my
Fisher-Price Chatter Telephone when I was 7 or 8,
and wondering if it was possible to turn it into a
real phone. That question stayed with me, and when
I saw a Chatter Telephone and a Crosley Princess
Telephone recently at Target, I knew the answer was
yes. I brought them home and made it work, and it
was easier than I expected.

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Chladni Plate

2009-11-17T00:19:00.003+07:00

Chladni Plate
Edwin Wise | Make Vol. 16- 2008 | Pdf | 11 pgs | 3 mb

BEATIFUL ACOUSTICS
Use a broken speaker, bits of wire, and
tape to prepare a coneless voice coil
driver, then use it to generate standing
waves on a sheet of metal, making
sound visible. Magic!

My knowledgeable friend Robin once
said that you don't need to worry about
having too big an audio amplifier,
because speakers are usually damaged
by under-powered amps working too hard
and clipping the signal, creating rough
square waves with too much power.
I learned that this is true when I melted
a speaker's coil by running a strong
20Hz signal through it, to drive a vortex
cannon (MAKE, Volume 15, page 114).

On the bright side, I now had a nice
speaker magnet to use as the foundation
for something else I wanted to try,
a Chladni plate!
...

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5-Minute Foam Factory

2009-11-17T00:17:00.003+07:00

5-Minute Foam Factory
Bob Knetzger | Make Vol. 16- 2008 | Pdf | 9 pgs | 3 mb

FRY BY WIRE
What keeps your coffee warm but also
rides the cold Pacific surf? What's in the
Rock and Roll Hall of Fame but makes an
annoying, squeaky sound? Even though
it's banned in over 100 cities, you can
find it just about everywhere. What is it?
It's expanded polystyrene (EPS) foam.

Styrofoam is a great insulator (for hot drink
cups and wall insulation), lightweight and
stiff, and impervious to water (great for
surfboards). Unfortunately, it's also
impractical to recycle and can be an
unsightly part of the waste stream. Our
landfills and waterways are filling up with
discarded coffee cups, store meat trays,
and take-out packaging.

With this easy hot-wire foam cutter, you
can reuse this leftover EPS foam to create
treasures from trash!
...

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DIY-brary

2009-11-15T10:58:00.000+07:00

DIY-brary
Rick and Megan Prelinger couldn't find a library
with what they wanted, so they made their own
R.U. Sirius | Make Vol. 16- 2008 | Pdf | pgs | mb

It's an overcast Monday afternoon as I arrive at
8th and Folsom in San Francisco's seedy, bohe-
mian SOMA district. I find 3018th Street and then
buzz Room 215. A voice says hello. I tell him who
I am and he buzzes me in. I take an elevator to the
second floor, walk past several closed offices, and
enter a small room packed to the rafters with four
rows of shelves filled with books stacked 15 feet
high. This is not your typical 21st-century urbane.
haute-culture library.

The Prelinger Library (prelingerlibrary.org) is
the brainchild of Megan Shaw Prelinger and Rick
Prelinger. Founded in 2004, it's a DIY, appropriation-
friendly, intuitive, and highly personalized context for
organizing and sharing this couple's books, periodi-
cals, printed ephemera (like obscure government
documents from the Department of Indian Affairs),
and - most of all - their obsessions. In addition to
its physical presence in San Francisco. it has an on-
line presence of more than 3.000 scanned volumes
at the Internet Archive (archive.org).
...

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Wheelchair Safety System

2009-11-15T10:57:00.000+07:00

Wheelchair Safety System
Bryant Underwood | Make Vol. 16- 2008 | Pdf | 1 pgs | .4 mb

My daughter Katy uses an electric wheelchair
and last year she went off to college. Her mom and
I were concerned about Katy's safety in navigating
the campus -- she might get her chair stuck or have
some other type of trouble and not be able to get to
her cellphone.

So I used a Parallax microcontroller to control
a GSM cellphone as a "telematics" system for her
wheelchair. Inside the gray box mounted on the
back of her chair. I use the phone in speakerphone
mode with an external microphone and speaker.
...

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Alien Projector

2009-11-15T10:56:00.000+07:00

Alien Projector
Brian McNamara | Make Vol. 16- 2008 | Pdf | 1 pgs | .2 mb

This simple projector shines an image of an alien
on the wall. It uses an LED as the light source and
projects an image varying in size from a few inches
to several feet.The simple circuit consists of only a
battery, resistor, switch, and LED.

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24 Hours of Make: Television

2009-11-14T07:54:00.000+07:00

24 Hours of Make: Television
Building a TV show is a project in itself

Dale Dougherty | Make Vol. 16- 2008 | Pdf | 4 pgs | 1 mb
It's already late on a Sunday in September in
St. Paul, Minn. In the studios of Twin Cities Public
Television (TPT), there are ten people working
on Make: television, a new PBS show that will be
a companion to this magazine.

The set is a workshop, within a larger workshop
normally used for set construction. The team is
shooting a build for Maker Workshop, the segment
that shows viewers how to make something in each
episode. It's important to get this segment right. It's
like demonstrating a recipe on a cooking show, but
the ingredients and the process are more technical.
...

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The Spinning Cylinder Illusion

2009-11-14T07:53:00.000+07:00

The Spinning Cylinder Illusion
Donald Simanek | Make Vol. 16- 2008 | Pdf | 3 pgs | 1 mb

I've not been able to track down the origin of
this homemade toy, but it isn't very well known
outside the community of physics teachers. It's
a kinetic illusion, one that depends on physical
motion to make you see something that isn't there.

A familiar example of a kinetic illusion is the
strobe effect sometimes seen in old movies, causing
the spokes of a carriage wheel to seem to be turning
in the wrong direction.

In its simplest form, this toy consists of a hollow
cylinder of rigid plastic. The version in these photos
is 4cm long and 1cm in diameter, with 2mm wall
thickness. It was cut from a piece of polyethylene
plastic tubing that happened to be lying on my
workbench. Whatever tubing you use, be sure to
choose a very straight piece.
...

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Shadowless Closeups

2009-11-14T07:46:00.004+07:00

Shadowless Closeups
A simple setup for better auction photos
Charles Platt | Make Vol. 16- 2008 | Pdf | 2 pgs | .3 mb

A friend of mine used to take the photographs for the sales catalogs printed by Sotheby's, the old-school auction house. Since many of the items up for sale were worth tens of thousands of dollars, they had to look good.

When I'm selling little items on eBay, I think it's still worth taking a little trouble to enhance their appearance instead of just using a flash photo of something sitting on a kitchen table. The main thing I learned from my friend is that if you place an object on an elevated glass plate and use a large, diffuse light source, your object will seem to float in space instead of sitting on its own shadow.
...

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Create an Insect Eye

2009-11-12T15:51:00.002+07:00

Create an Insect Eye
Make a multifaceted image from any portrait photo
Charles Platt | Make Vol. 16- 2008 | Pdf | 2 pgs | .4 mb

I wanted an insect-eye effect in Photoshop, but I wasn't satisfied with the ones that I found as plugins. So I made my own. This procedure works with Photoshop 6 or later.

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Flipping Faces

2009-11-12T15:50:00.002+07:00

Flipping Faces
Reveal the assymetry in familiar features--- including your own
Erico Narita | Make Vol. 16- 2008 | Pdf | 2 pgs | .3 mb

None of us is perfectly symmetrical, but our eyes tend not to notice irregularities in faces we see many times. Anyone watching national TV news, for instance, had eight years to get familiar with Dick Cheney's lopsided grin, and a previous generation had an equal amount of time to get used to Ronald Reagan's crooked smile.

To see these features more clearly, select one half of the face and reflect it, so that the 2 sides become identical. Then select the other half and reflect that, and compare the 2 versions. The results will be surprising.

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Warholize!

2009-11-12T15:48:00.003+07:00

Warholize!
Turn your favorite blonde into a silk-screened glamour queen
James Grant | Make Vol. 16- 2008 | Pdf | 2 pgs | .3 mb

When Andy Warhol made his famous silk-screened prints of Marilyn Monroe, he started with a simple idea: use a high-contrast black-and-white photo, and overprint it with bold swatches of color. Is that idea simple enough for us to emulate it with modern image-editing software? Let's find out. This will work in Photoshop 6 or later versions.

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Surface Mount Soldering

2009-11-11T07:13:00.002+07:00

Surface Mount Soldering
Techniques for making modern circuits
Scott Driscoll | Make Vol. 16- 2008 | Pdf | 8 pgs | 2 mb

When cellphones were housed in briefcases,
manufactured electronics had easy-to-solder
leads. Now phones fit in pockets, and the smaller
surface-mount devices (SMDs) inside are driving
through-hole components into extinction.

SMDs can cost less than their old-school equiva-
lents, and many newer devices, including most
accelerometers, are only available in SMD format.

If you design printed circuit boards, using
SMT (surface-mount technology) and putting
components on both sides makes them cheaper
and smaller. This may not matter on a robot, but it
helps a project fit into a mint tin or hang off a kite.

SMDs are designed for precise machinery to
mass-assemble onto densely packed PCBs. Their
tiny leads may look impossible for human hands
to work with, but there are several good, relatively
inexpensive methods that don't require a $1,000-
and-up professional SMT soldering station.

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Sparky 2: No Sellout

2009-11-11T07:11:00.001+07:00

Sparky 2: No Sellout
My robotic alter ego steps out -- open source
Marque Cornblatt | Make Vol. 16- 2008 | Pdf | 4 pgs | 2 mb

I spent much of my childhood dismantling toys
and gadgets and cobbling them back together in
interesting ways. One proud example combined
a slot car, a one-function wireless remote, a 9-volt
battery, and a few fabricated gears and bits to
create (in my mind, in the early 80s) the world's
smallest remote control car.

The 2-inch vehicle was top-heavy and had too
much torque, but it accelerated violently to the
right every time I pressed the remote button -- it
worked! - until it finally tore itself apart, like a tiny
top-fuel dragster. In my mind it was a success, and
it sparked my lifelong interest in interactive, kinetic
projects.
...

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Great Balls of Fire!

2009-11-11T07:10:00.003+07:00

Great Balls of Fire!
Keith Hammond | Make Vol. 16- 2008 | Pdf | 5 pgs | 2 mb

It's true: chemistry sets today don't measure up
to the classic kits that once scorched Formica
kitchen tables across the nation. But you can
still find respectable kits if you know where to look.
More importantly, anyone can make their own flam-
ing, fuming, booming DIY chemistry set as good as
those from the golden age - or better.

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The Penetrating Magnets Illusion

2009-11-06T01:00:00.001+07:00

The Penetrating Magnets Illusion

"Magnets are fascinating things, and they behave in
unexpected ways. I will show you a little-known
property of magnets, which actually allows them to
pass through one another."
Donald Simanek | Make Vol. 15- 2008 | Pdf | 2 pgs | 1 mb

Back in 2004, I invented a physics toy using
magnets, one I hadn't seen described elsewhere.
So I called it Simanek's Penetrating Magnet Illusion.
It obeys Newton's laws, like the others, but why
should Newton get all the credit?

This toy is inexpensive and absurdly easy to build.
Find a dozen small, flat ceramic magnets, 1" diameter,
1/4" thick, with a 3/8" hole in the center. You can get
them at RadioShack or hardware stores. You don't
need a full dozen, but extras are good to have.
...

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VoIPing the iPod Touch

2009-11-06T00:58:00.003+07:00

VoIPing the iPod Touch
How makers gave you the feature that Apple held back
Erica Sadun | Make Vol. 15- 2008 | Pdf | 2 pgs | 1 mb

It's a maker's dream: turn your homebrew ideas
into a concrete reality and then ship that product.
This dream came true for iPod hackers Dr. Marian
Kepesi, "Eok," and Samuel Vinson. They designed,
built, and shipped an iPod touch microphone and
developed VolP(voice over internet protocol) soft-
ware to place phone calls using that mic.

Last November, Kepesi was poking around on his
iPod Touch. A postdoc at Austria's Graz University
of Technology, he had previously worked with third-
generation iPods and was interested in the new
Touch line.

During his explorations, he discovered an impor-
tant fact about the iPod Touch's bottom connector
port: its line-in audio was active. Live pins meant
that the iPod Touch could connect to an external
audio source. It was compatible with recording or,
better yet, with VolP for talking over the internet.
VoIP compatibility was a long-standing goal of the
iPhone and iPod Touch hacker community.
...

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My Daughter's DNA

2009-11-04T18:12:00.003+07:00

My Daughter's DNA
One father's search for the scientific answers
that no one seemed to have
Hugh Young Rienhoff Jr. | Make Vol. 15- 2008 | Pdf | 4 pgs | 2 mb

If you scrape the inside of your cheek
with a pop-sicle stick and mix it with a few homely
salts and a shot of grain alcohol, you'll see a
fluffy cloud of material floating in the glass.
It looks like cotton, but it's really the code of
you. DNA is deceptively ordinary-looking.

The human genome - the totality of each person's
genes within their body - is a vast chemical space
with 6.6 billion bits of DNA information that con-
stitutes genetically what we are as Homo sapiens.
In that vastness, it's easy for a single deviant bit of
DNA to hide. I suspected that. like many of those
with genetic conditions, my daughter also had a
single DNA base that was awry. Finding that variant
is like looking for a single person in a world of 6 billion
people. It's a near-impossible task unlessyou have
clues for where to look, for which genes might be
altered. Clues like this always begin with the patient.
...

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Evil Mouse Prank

2009-11-04T18:11:00.000+07:00

Evil Mouse Prank
Control your co-worker's cursor!
John Edgar Park | Make Vol. 15- 2008 | Pdf | 2 pgs | 1 mb

Joe Bowers is sneaky, resourceful, and rotten to
the core. Whatever you do, don't get in a prank war
with him.

Returning to my desk from a coffee break. I sat
down, grabbed my mouse. and ... nothing. The
cursor was stuck to the left wall of my monitor.
I shook my mouse wildly. The cursor moved up
and down just fine. But when I jerked my mouse
viciously to the right, the cursor nudged a little,
then slammed back to its new favorite position,
clinging maddeningly to the leftmost pixel.

Blowing on the mouse's nether regions didn't help,
so my officemate, Hide Yosumi, took pity on me. "Do
you hear something?" he asked knowingly. There
was a high-pitched whine coming from behind my
workstation. I looked and saw that a strange mouse
was plugged in. Not just any mouse. A prank mouse.
...

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Make Vol. 15- 2008: Workshop

2009-11-04T18:10:00.000+07:00

Make Vol. 15- 2008: Workshop
Pdf | 6 pgs | 2 mb

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Make Vol. 15- 2008: Imaging

2009-11-04T18:09:00.000+07:00

Make Vol. 15- 2008: Imaging
Pdf | 14 pgs | 5 mb

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Make Vol. 15- 2008: Home

2009-11-04T18:08:00.000+07:00

Make Vol. 15- 2008: Home
Pdf | 6 pgs | 2 mb

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The Amazing Seebeck Generator

2009-11-03T13:58:00.003+07:00

The Amazing Seebeck Generator
Andrew Lewis | Make Vol. 15- 2008 | Pdf | 9 pgs | 3 mb

FLAME ON
With no moving parts, this simple energy-recycling
generator scavenges waste heat from a candle and turns
it into usable electricity.

Peltier cells are flat devices that draw heat from one side
to the other through a thermoelectric principle called the
Peltier effect. The cells are commonly used to pump heat
away from CPUs or graphics cards, and are also found
in camping coolers and heaters. The Amazing Seebeck
Generator uses one of these devices in reverse, to turn a
heat differential into electricity, rather than using electricity to produce a heat differential.
...

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Vortex Cannons

2009-11-03T13:56:00.000+07:00

Vortex Cannons
Edwin Wise | Make Vol. 15- 2008 | Pdf | 9 pgs | 3 mb

DOING DONUTS
A smoke ring, or vortex, is a beguiling thing to watch:
a coherent, moving structure made out of thin air. Here
are 3 cannons that can throw these "chunks of air"
across a room.

I'd been aware of vortex cannons for quite some time,
mostly as an interesting toy, and after I kept stumbling on
the concept while touring the web, I decided I had to build
my own. There's something fascinating about taking a
substance as ubiquitous and amorphous as air and trans-
forming it into a coherent and persistent structure, almost
like a crystal. I also hoped to find some use for my cannon,
perhaps to propel scents or give the touch of a ghost in
a haunted house.
...

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Bend It Like Bach

2009-11-03T13:54:00.001+07:00

Bend It Like Bach
Tim Kaiser's fabulously weird world of music
Karen K. Hanseb| Make Vol. 15- 2008 | Pdf | 5 pgs | 2 mb

When English soccer star David Beckham bends the
ball, the international sports world watches in awe. When
American musician Tim Kaiser bends a circuit, the audi-
ence listens just as intently, be it in an art or performance
space, or a bar, bookstore, or library.

MAKE, Volume 12 (page 14) introduced readers
to Tim Kaiser, but even people who've never
heard of him have probably heard his sounds.
These may emanate from the instruments
Kaiser himself creates and plays, such as
Bungee Drums made from concrete post forms
or the New Metal Violin made out of the battery
compartment of a minesweeper. Or they may
issue forth as distorted or modulated samples
from one of Kaiser's Atomic SonicFX Boxes in the
hands of other artists.

Among those emitting Kaiser sounds are
Duran Duran and film score producer BT (Brian
Transeau), who recently featured some of
Kaiser's instruments in his recording This
Binary Universe.

Download | Mirror

Compressed Air Rocket

2009-11-03T13:52:00.001+07:00

Compressed Air Rocket
Rick Schertle | Make Vol. 15- 2008 | Pdf | 13 pgs | 4 mb

PAPER, TAPE, COMPRESSED AIR... LIFT-OFF!
Blow your friends away as you send this 25-cent
rocket hundreds of feet in the air. You can build this
easy launcher and rocket with common hardware store
items in an afternoon.

All the parts for this simple but impressive air rocket and
launcher are cheap and easy to find. Building it is a breeze
and the modifications are endless. It's legal in a big city,
reusable, clean, and can be launched even in high winds
on a small field.

Believe me, folks are quite taken by the 200- to 300-foot
flights fueled by 18 or so bicycle pumps of compressed air.
Whether you're launching on your own or with a whole
group of rocketeers, watch the crowds gather ... 3,2,1,
and away!

Download | Mirror

The iConveyor

2009-11-03T13:51:00.000+07:00

The iConveyor
John Edgar Park | Make Vol. 15- 2008 | Pdf | 6 pgs | 2 mb

The iConveyor is a simple motorized conveyer
belt with an RFID (radio frequency identification)
reader under the belt. It lets you visit websites
or load applications on your computer by simply
dropping a chip in the belt. Each wooden chip
has an RFID tag attached to it. The reader picks
up the unique ID number of the tag and sends
the number to your personal computer, through
a cable. A computer program written for the
iConveyor looks up the name of the website or
application assigned to the ID number and loads it.

Download | Mirror

Make Vol. 15- 2008: Music

2009-11-02T01:26:00.001+07:00

Make Vol. 15- 2008: Music
Pdf | 40 pgs | 13 mb

Download | Mirror

Make Vol. 15- 2008: Upload

2009-11-02T01:25:00.001+07:00

Make Vol. 15- 2008: Upload
Pdf | 8 pgs | 3 mb

Download | Mirror

Mister Jalopy's Urban Guerrilla Movie House

2009-11-02T01:23:00.002+07:00

Mister Jalopy's Urban Guerrilla Movie House
Your own DIY drive-in
Mister Jalopy | Make Vol. 11- 2007 | Pdf | 11 pgs | 3 mb

Rather than lamenting the slow death of
drive-in theaters, I decided to build my
own, mount it on an adult tricycle, and
take the movies anywhere there's an AC
outlet. Vibrant online communities of DIY
projector enthusiasts have ironed out the
kinks and built the focal calculator soft-
ware tools, and they're building homebrew
machines with jaw-dropping results.
...

Download | Mirror

U-G-L-Y Your Bike

2009-11-02T01:22:00.002+07:00

U-G-L-Y Your Bike
To deter thieves, camouflage your bicycle as a piece of
crap while keeping it a first-class ride
Rick Polito | Make Vol. 11- 2007 | Pdf | pgs | mb

Nature is the master of disguise. The tiger swallowtail caterpillar starts out camouflaged as a bird dropping to discourage hungry birds. Take a tip from the crawling turd and keep your bike from getting swiped: dress it down as a pile of rolling junk.

Having an ugly bike doesn't mean having a junky bike. Looks and performance have no exclusive relationship. A savvy bike thief may see the gem under the Krylon, but he also knows he can't sell it as quickly as the tricked-out speedster at the other end of the bike rack.
...

Download | Mirror

Swiveling Balcony Hoist

2009-11-02T01:21:00.001+07:00

Swiveling Balcony Hoist
Take the sting out of a walk-up apartment by installing your own lifter
Matthew Russell | Make Vol. 11- 2007 | Pdf | 4 pgs | 1 mb

Apartment-style living has its
advantages, but getting a bicycle
off the balcony, through your
living area, and down several
flights of stairs just to go get
some exercise isn't one of them.

Carrying groceries up and taking
trash down several flights of stairs
isn't so much fun either, but you
can mitigate these pains by building
a swiveling hoist on your balcony.

The whole setup costs right
around $50, and takes only a
few hours from start to finish.

Download | Mirror

Stonemonkey Makes It Easier

2009-11-02T01:20:00.001+07:00

Stonemonkey Makes It Easier
An electric motor linked to existing bicycle gears turns
any bike into a sell-your-car-already vehicle
Rick Polito | Make Vol. 11- 2007 | Pdf | 3 pgs | 1 mb

TODD FAHRNER DOESN'T WANT TO MAKE IT
easy for you. But he does want to make it easier.

A bike-centric, car-less existence has always been
possible for strong people with strong feelings. but
with Fahmer's Stokemonkey kit, it gets easier. With
an electric motor linked to existing gears and an
Xtracycle hitchless trailer to extend the wheelbase
and cargospace, the Stokemonkey scenario turns
any bike into a sell-your-car-already electric vehicle.
...

Download | Mirror

Spin the Birdie

2009-11-01T01:38:00.001+07:00

Spin the Birdie
Larry Cotton| Make Vol. 11- 2007 | Pdf | 11 pgs | 4 mb

BIRD SHOT
Birds make lousy subjects for digital
photographs. They're fearful, fidgety,
and, well, flighty. But you can improve
your odds of getting awesome avian
photos by moving your camera closer
to the birds --- and you farther away.
And while you're at it, why not get
them to pose for you?

Download | Mirror

Rock the Bike

2009-11-01T01:36:00.001+07:00

Rock the Bike
Social biking with Fossil Fool and the Juice Pedale
Paul Spinrad | Make Vol. 11- 2007 | Pdf | 4 pgs | 1 mb

IF YOU'VE NEVER BEEN ON A BICYCLE
cruiser ride before, here's what happens. You and
your party gather someplace in town and maybe
have some beers and/or dinner. Then you ride. The
city and the night are yours. If you're lucky, one of
you is on a Soul Cycle, supplying the soundtrack.
...

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Retro R/C Racer

2009-11-01T01:35:00.000+07:00

Retro R/C Racer
Frank E. Yost | Make Vol. 11- 2007 | Pdf | 13 pgs | 4 mb

RIVETING TALE
Using scrap sheet metal and pop rivets,
you can construct a model 1930s British
Midget racer that combines vintage "tether
car" styling with modern R/C capabilities.

Radio control (R/C) toys are fun, but their plastic bodies
are so obviously mass-produced. To create something
more interesting, I wanted to find a metal toy racer 10
inches or longer that I could transplant some R/C insides
into. I soon discovered that the best candidates were all
precious collectibles.
...

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The Year People Learned to Fly

2009-11-01T01:34:00.002+07:00

The Year People Learned to Fly
Celebrating the 30th anniversary of the flight of the Gossamer Condor
Ben Shedd | Make Vol. 11- 2007 | Pdf | 3 pgs | 1 mb

One of the great home-built family maker projects
celebrated its 30th anniversary on Aug. 23, 2007:
the flight of the world's first truly successful
human-powered airplane, the Gossamer Condor.

The plane was designed and built by Dr. Paul B.
MacCready, along with his family and friends, on
weekends over a year's time in 1976-77. The goal
was to win the first Kremer Prize, a $100.000
reward for the first human-powered airplane that
could take off using human power, fly over a 10-foot
marker, make a complete left turn and right turn
around two pylons spaced half a mile apart, and
then fly over the 10-foot marker again at the end
of the mile-long flight.
...

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The Little Cart That Couldn't

2009-11-01T01:31:00.003+07:00

The Little Cart That Couldn't
Wind-powered vehicle claims look like hot air.
Charles Platt | Make Vol. 11- 2007 | Pdf | 7 pgs | 2 mb

Can a wind-driven vehicle outrun a tailwind?
A Florida tinkerer named Jack Goodman claims it can,
and he put a video on YouTube to prove it. Some sailing
enthusiasts became convinced that he was on to something,
while others were equally sure it was a hoax - and
I decided to put it to the test.

Download | Mirror

Kitchen Floor Vacuum Former

2009-10-31T01:19:00.002+07:00

Kitchen Floor Vacuum Former
Bob Knetzger | Make Vol. 11- 2007 | Pdf | 11 pgs | 3 mb

FORMING LASTING IMPRESSIONS
From take-out coffee lids to airplane
interior panels, vacuum-formed plastic
is everywhere. And for good reason:
vacuum forming makes light, durable,
and cool-looking 3D parts. Here's how
to cook some up in your kitchen.

Download | Mirror

Granny's Nightmare Chopper Bike

2009-10-31T01:18:00.003+07:00

Granny's Nightmare Chopper Bike
Chop an old ladies' bicycle into something evil
Brad Graham | Make Vol. 11- 2007 | Pdf | 6 pgs | 2 mb

You know what irritates me? I drive out to the dump, pay my five bucks to get in, and the only bikes laying around are those goofy granny bikes from the late 1970s. OK - enough whining - a real chopper artist can chop any bike, even a crusty old codger cruiser.

Here's how I hacked and welded a granny bike into something evil. Normally, I wouldn't even bother with a bike like this because it has a lugged frame. This means that the head tube and bottom bracket are just press-fit and brazed into place, rather than welded. You can't salvage lugged joints for most projects because they have holes where the tubing fits together, and brazing filler metal interferes with arc welding. But this project was doable as long as I kept most of the frame intact.
...

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Bicycle iPod Charger

2009-10-31T01:16:00.006+07:00

Bicycle iPod Charger
A sidewall dynamo powers both lights and tuneage
Mark Hoekstra | Make Vol. 11- 2007 | Pdf | 3 pgs | 1 mb

After buying an Pod mini a couple of years ago, I started experimenting with ways of extending its battery life. First I tried the Perfectmate hand-cranked flashlight/charger, only to find out that it takes up to 20 minutes of cranking to generate just enough power to boot the device. As well as making me appreciate how much power today's lithium-ion batteries can hold, this got me thinking about otherways to human-power my Pod.
...

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Plush Irradiated Sirloin

2009-10-31T01:15:00.002+07:00

Plush Irradiated Sirloin
Microcontroller night light illuminates meaty issues
Rebecca Stern | Make Vol. 11- 2007 | Pdf | 2 pgs | 1 mb

Faced with an assignment to make a plush night
light. I thought, "Why light?" and brainstormed
reasons for a stuffed toy to light up. In a glowworm
toy, for instance, the light mimics nature. I'd been
reading Michael Pollan's The Omnivore's Dilemma,
and this got me thinking about the chain of refrig-
eration, labor, and irradiation involved in American
beef production. So I thought. glowing irradiated
meat! I know that irradiated meat doesn't glow, and
neither does toxic waste unless it's in a cartoon, but
plush toys typically represent cartoon characters
anyway, so it made sense: Plush Irradiated Sirloin.
...

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On Batteries

2009-10-31T01:13:00.002+07:00

On Batteries
How to decide which batteries will run your project best
Limor Fried | Make Vol. 11- 2007 | Pdf | 3 pgs | 1 mb

If knowledge is power, then knowledge of batteries
is power squared! Here's what I know about dispos-
able and rechargeable batteries and their tradeoffs.

Download | Mirror

Net Data Meter

2009-10-30T11:27:00.002+07:00

Net Data Meter
Tom Igoe | Make Vol. 11- 2007 | Pdf | 5 pgs | 1 mb

One thing that disappoints me about computers is
how little character they possess. Antique instruments
of information display, like Victorian pendulum
clocks, barometers, and compasses, and Babbage's
calculating engines, have a presence that modern
computers lack.

I dig the look of the iPod as much the next guy, but
even the best manufacturing design today doesn't
match that old brass-and-hardwood handcrafted
love. Desktop widgets replace the need for clocks,
barometers and stock tickers, and multipurpose
display hardware like the Ambient Orb also per-
form these functions. But because these things have
little presence and are so easily reconfigured, it's
easy to forget what information they're displaying.
Does the meter's sudden plunge mean my Gocgle
stock tanked, or that it's going to rain tomorrow?
...

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Free VoIP

2009-10-30T11:26:00.003+07:00

Free VoIP
Got broadband? Add phone service for $0/month
Dave Mathews | Make Vol. 11- 2007 | Pdf | 4 pgs | 1 mb

These days, many people don't even have landline-
based telephone service; they get all their calls on
their mobile and office phones. But once I settle in
at home, I want people to be able to call me on a
nice, comfortable cordless phone, even if it's Iost in
the couch. At home, the cordless battery is always
charged, and it doesn't matter if I'm in a fringe
mobile service area.

If you already have a broadband connection, you
can get a home phone without paying for POTS
(plain old telephone service) cra Vonage style
digital phone service. Here's now to do it the easier
way, without having to run your own private branch
exchange (PBX) Asterisk server.
...

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Fetch the Weather with the Make Controller

2009-10-30T11:24:00.001+07:00

Fetch the Weather with the Make Controller
This easy starter project displays your local forecast
Brian Jepson | Make Vol. 11- 2007 | Pdf | 3 pgs | 1 mb

In the expanding universe of microcontroller boards,
the MAKE Controller Kit fills the space between
the easy, cheap Arduino and the more complex,
powerful Gumstix devices.The low-powerArduino
runs 8-bit machine code and can only do one thing
at a time. The Linux-based Gumstix can do what a
Linux-powered PC can do.

The MAKE Controller has the advantages of both,
thanks to its FreeRTOS operating system; it can
run multiple tasks simultaneously but also lets you
allocate processor time more explicitly than you
could under Linux. Because you need to know C, it's
a little more complicated to program than Arduino,
but still easier to use than the Linux-based Gumstix.
...

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Electronic Crickets

2009-10-30T01:22:00.002+07:00

Electronic Crickets
Create a nighttime chorus by modifying solar yard lamps
Michael F. Zbyszynski | Make Vol. 11- 2007 | Pdf | 3 pgs | 1 mb

For this project. I wanted to make something
that reminded me of many beautiful phenomena
of summer nights: crickets, chirping frogs. and
fireflies. By day, the lamps seem ordinary; they sit
and charge their batteries like all their unaltered
cousins. But as the sun goes down, each one
starts blinking and chirping. The sound and rate
of their song are determined by the temperature,
the amount of sun they receive, and the natural
variance of their components. The emergent quality
of dozens together can be fascinating. This project
has a certain affinity to BEAM robotics (see MAKE,
Volume 06, page 76).

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Big Kid Night Light

2009-10-30T01:21:00.002+07:00

Big Kid Night Light
Dan Weiss | Make Vol. 11- 2007 | Pdf | 2 pgs | 1 mb

Kids want night lights, they just don't want them
to look like night lights because that makes them
"babies." Here's a shining star made from things you
can pick up at a dollar store. Call it a "mood light,"
and no one has to admit that they use a night light.

Download | Mirror

Breadboard Rack

2009-10-30T01:19:00.001+07:00

Breadboard Rack
Tom Zimmerman | Make Vol. 11- 2007 | Pdf | 4 pgs | 2 mb

Solderless protoboards are a convenient way to
build electronic circuits, but interconnecting several
boards gets messy. Adding input and output (I/O)
components such as switches, potentiometers,
jacks, and LEDs requires drilling, wiring, and stuffing
it all into a box, where it's hard to debug and modify.

A nicer approach, which I borrowed from early
analog synthesizers, is to build handy modules that
carry one protoboard each and plug into a rack.
Each module carries its protoboard underneath,
and the circuit's I/O components are on a visible
and easily reachable front panel, just like any other
device that hides its complex circuitry inside and
exposes only the controls and connectors.
...

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Ball of Sound

2009-10-30T01:18:00.002+07:00

Ball of Sound
Michael F. Zbyszynski | Make Vol. 11- 2007 | Pdf | 4 pgs | 2 mb

Acoustic instruments radiate sound in a wonder-
fully complex, 360° fashion, while conventional
loudspeakers project a boring spotlight of sound.
You can spend a ton of money on a fancy spherical
audio array, or you can build one for cheap out of
2 IKEA salad bowls and 8 surplus car speakers.

Download | Mirror

Big Blowhards

2009-10-29T12:44:00.002+07:00

Big Blowhards
William Gurstelle | Make Vol. 11- 2007 | Pdf | 4 pgs | 2 mb

...
Punkin Chunkin (punkinchunkin.com) began
officially 21 years earlier, when its three founders
met informally to build hurling machines capable
of flinging leftover Halloween pumpkins. Little by
little, the hurlers improved their machines, and
every year the pumpkins flew a bit farther. Things
changed radically in 1995 when Trey Melson, one
of the co-founders of the event, upped the ante.
...
This competition isn't about money or trophies or
even the teardrop-shaped mass of gooey pumpkin
flesh a mile away in the middle of a Delaware farmer's
field. It's about pride. It's about being the best, about
setting a goal and achieving it. When told of the time
and money invested in making these guns, a lot of
people simply smile and shake their heads. But not
real makers. Real makers understand.

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Tabletop Biosphere

2009-10-29T12:42:00.003+07:00

Tabletop Biosphere
Martin John Brown | Make Vol. 10- 2007 | Pdf | 9 pgs | 4 mb

ECOSYSTEMS ENGINEERING
The Tabletop Shrimp Support Module
(TSSM) is a fun demonstration of the
ecological cycles that keep us alive - and
an enticement to muse on everything
from godhood to space colonization.

Download | Mirror

Make06_2006: DIY - Circuits

2009-10-29T12:41:00.002+07:00

Make06_2006: DIY - Circuits
Pdf | 6 pgs | 1 mb

Download | Mirror

Make04_2005: DIY - Mobile

2009-10-29T12:40:00.002+07:00

Make04_2005: DIY - Mobile
Daniel Jolliffe | Pdf | 2 pgs | 1 mb

Throw your voice. Build your own anonymous megaphone.

Download | Mirror

Make03_2005: DIY - Home

2009-10-29T12:38:00.002+07:00

Make03_2005: DIY - Home
Pdf | 5 pgs | 1 mb

- Retrovision 2000 AV Cabinet
- VOIP Phone Wiring
- Record Cloning

Download | Mirror

Make03_2005: DIY - Design

2009-10-29T12:36:00.000+07:00

Make03_2005: DIY - Design
Pdf | 6 pgs | 2 mb

- Squeezable Nightligt
-Barebones Led Flasher

Download | Mirror

A Fusion Reactor for the Rest of Us

2009-10-16T12:13:00.003+07:00

A Fusion Reactor for the Rest of Us
Charles Platt | Make Vol. 03 - 2005 | Pdf | 11 pgs | 3 mb

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Making Biodiesel

2009-10-16T12:08:00.004+07:00

Making Biodiesel
Rob Elam | Make Vol. 03 - 2005 | Pdf | 9 pgs | 2 mb

It's easy to make a small batch of biodiesel that will work in any diesel engine. You don't need any special equipment - an old juice bottle wilI serve as the "reactor" vessel - and on such a small scale you can quickly refine your technique and perform further experiments. After a few liters' worth of experience, you'll know if you've been bitten by the biodiesel bug.

The principle behind biodieseling is to take vegetable oil (either new or used), and process it into a fuel that's thin enough to spray from a regular diesel engine's fuel-injection system. This is done chemically, by converting the oil into two types of compounds: biodiesel, which shares the original oil's combustibility, and glycerin, which retains the oil's thick, viscous properties. Drain away the glycerin, and you're left with a fuel that you can pour into any diesel vehicle with no further modification.

Once you get to the far side of the learning curve, making biodiesel is very much like cooking. In fact, a commercial biodiesel production plant shares more in common with a large-scale bakery than a petroleum refinery. There's organic chemistry involved in baking a cake, but most bakers wouIdn't consider themselves organic chemists.
...

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Spirits Guy

2009-10-15T22:23:00.006+07:00

Spirits Guy
How Lance Winters went from basement moonshiner to celebrity vodka distiller
Benjamin Tice Smith | Make Vol. 11- 2007 | Pdf | 6 pgs | 2 mb

When most of us want some tequila, we run to the liquor
store on the way home from work. Lance Winters prefers
heading to Mexico to find the best agave cactus and
bringing it back to his laboratory in a 65,000-square-foot
aircraft hangar on a dormant naval base on the edge
of San Francisco Bay. Winters is a craft distiller at St.
George Spirits, whose vast workspace has three large
stills, numerous tanks, a bottling line, and many cases of
high-octane, high-priced hooch, including the top-selling
Hangar One Vodka.
...

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Orange Crate Racer Project

2009-10-15T22:22:00.004+07:00

Orange Crate Racer Project
Mister Jalopy | Make Vol. 11- 2007 | Pdf | 2 pgs | 2 mb

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Easy Motor

2009-10-15T22:21:00.004+07:00

Easy Motor
Make a spinning motor with a minimum of parts
Cy Tymony | Make Vol. 11- 2007 | Pdf | 1 pgs | 1 mb

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Purely Platonic

2009-10-15T22:20:00.006+07:00

Purely Platonic
A dodecahedron table lamp
Charles Platt | Make Vol. 11- 2007 | Pdf | pgs | mb

People appear symmetrical, but even the most
perfect human face shows irregularities if we
compare the left side with the right. Perhaps this
is why the absolute, rigid symmetry of crystals
seems beautiful yet alien to us. Unlike DNA's
soft spiral, a crystal's molecular bonds align
themselves to form regular three-dimensional
structures.,which the Greeks considered math-
ematically pure. The most fundamental of these
shapes are known as the five Platonic solids.

If you assemble equal-sided triangles -- all the
same size, with the same angles to each other --
you can create three possible solids: a tetrahedron
(with 4 faces), an octahedron (8 faces), and an
icosahedron (20 faces). If you use squares instead
of triangles, you can create only a hexahedron,
commonly known as a cube. Pentagons create a
dodecahedron (12 faces), and that's as far as we
can go. No other solid objects can be built with all-
identical. equal-sided, equal-angled polygons.

The Platonic solids have always fascinated me.
My favorite is the dodecahedron. which is why
I used it in this project as the basis for a table lamp.
By extending its edges to form points, we make
something that looks not only mathematically
perfect, but perhaps a little magical.

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Hammer Time

2009-10-15T22:19:00.005+07:00

Hammer Time
Making the antiques of the future at Black Dog Forge
Kirsten Anderson | Make Vol. 11- 2007 | Pdf | 4 pgs | 2 mb

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DIY ECGs

2009-10-15T22:18:00.005+07:00

DIY ECGs
Dr. Shawn | Make Vol. 11- 2007 | Pdf | 3 pgs | 1 mb

THE HEART'S PUMPING ACTION IS DRIVEN
by powerful waves of electrical activity that
cause weak currents to flow in the body,
changing the electric potential between different
points on the skin by about one thousandth of a
volt (one millivolt,1mV). Hidden within that activity
is an enormous amount of information about what
the heart is doing, and anyone who can detect it
can peer into the workings of this incredible organ.

Fortunately, you don't have to be a cardiologist
with expensive equipment to pick up and decipher
that signal. Anyone can do it with this homemade
electrocardiogram (ECG) device. an analog-to-digital
converter (ADC) to digitize the signal and send it to
a computer, and a remarkable book that I'll tell you
about later.

You can assemble the circuit itself in an after-
noon for about $40. The ADC will cost a bit more.
between $50 and $300. But these devices open a
universe of opportunities to the home-based experi-
menter, and so every citizen scientist should invest
in one. (I've negotiated a great deal on one of these
devices especially for MAKE readers. Read on.)
...

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The Maker State

2009-10-15T22:17:00.002+07:00

The Maker State
William Gurstelle | Make Vol. 11- 2007 | Pdf | 2 pgs | 1 mb

...
In a "nanny state:' somebody else - governments,
insurance companies, education administrators
- decides which projects makers may attempt and
which they may not. In the nanny state. experi-
menters and builders find themselves deprived
of the materials. tools, and information they need
to carry on their interests.

On the opposite end of the spectrum is the "night
watchman state." Here, authorities try to keep thugs
off the street, keep the electricity on, and that's
about it. You're pretty much on your own.

Most of us prefer to live. work, and play some-
where in the middle. Let's call it the "Maker State."
In the Maker State, everyone takes reasonable
precautions and wears protective equipment. Safe
working practices, if thoughtfully incorporated into
the act of making things, can become a performance-
improving feature, just as athletes wear better
equipment to enhance their performance.

The Maker State provides freedom to attempt
projects on the edge. Still, laws of chance and sta-
tistics ensure that sometimes stuff just happens.
There are two fundamental realities of working in
the Maker State: risks can be reduced but not
eliminated, and not everything is somebody's fault.
...

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Wall Eye

2009-10-15T22:16:00.005+07:00

Wall Eye:
Build your own opaque projector
Steve Lodefink | Make Vol. 14- 2008 | Pdf | 5 pgs | 2 mb

What's an opaque projector? You know, one of those contraptions that takes flat, reflective subjects such as printed pages, leaves, or coins, and projects them onto a screen or wall. Opaque projectors were common classroom presentation tools during most of the 20th century.

Although made largely obsolete by the use of video cameras coupled to video displays, opaque projectors are still being made and sold. Marketed today mainly to art students and hobbyists for use as drawing enlargers, entry-level models tend to be dim little plastic toys that can only accommodate puny 3" or 4" originals, and have to be used in a totally darkened room due to their small apertures and weak light sources. If you're lucky enough to find one of the majestic 1,000-watt giants from yesteryear at a swap meet, then consider yourself charmed. I was not so lucky.
...

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Scanner Camera:

2009-10-15T22:15:00.006+07:00

Scanner Camera:
Mod a flatbed scanner to take photos
that deconstruct time and motion
Mike Golembewski | Make Vol. 14- 2008 | Pdf | 9 pgs | 3 mb

Several years ago, I built my first scanner camera. The idea was simple: I would use an ordinary flatbed scanner with a homemade large-format camera. The camera would focus the image onto the scanner bed in place of photo paper or film. I expected this to be a quick little art project made with a cardboard box, the cheapest flatbed scanner I could find, and lots of duct tape.

But when I got it all to work, the results were wonderful. Stationary objects photographed normally, but moving objects appeared twisted and distorted into fascinating shapes. At first I thought there was something wrong with my contraption, but then I realized that the movement of the scan head was meshing with the movement in the recorded scene. The distortion is similar to the effect created by moving an original on a photocopier mid-copy, but extended into the real world.
...

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Recycled Kaleidoscope

2009-10-15T22:14:00.014+07:00

Recycled Kaleidoscope
Make a classic optics toy from an old CD case
Carolyn Bennet | Make Vol. 14- 2008 | Pdf | 4 pgs | 2 mb

The kaleidoscope was invented in 1816 by a Scottish physicist named Sir David Brewster, and it has intrigued people of all ages ever since. Through the years, kaleidoscopes have been made of nearly every possible material. Now it's time to take the kaleidoscope green. Here's a simple one you can create from recycled materials and common household items. For the mirror elements, we'll use pieces of an old "jewel box" CD case backed with black paper or neoprene.

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Print-and Fold Ames Room

2009-10-15T22:14:00.012+07:00

Print-and Fold Ames Room
This classic illusion makes objects -- and hobbits -- seem to change size
Ranjit B. | Make Vol. 14- 2008 | Pdf | 5 pgs | 2 mb

An Ames room is a distorted box that creates an illusion, from one vantage point, of varying depth, distance, and size. Invented by American ophthalmologist Adelbert Ames Jr. in 1934, setups like this were used to make the hobbits look small next to Gandalf in the Lord of the Rings movies.

Here's how I constructed a miniature Ames room out of paper and cardboard. I'll start by explaining how I derived the template that I used, which you can download at makezine.com/14/amesroom. You can make your own template using this explanation or just use my template to make your own room.
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Daniel Sahuleka Live Concert

2009-10-14T21:35:00.006+07:00

Daniel Sahuleka Live Concert
Mp3s | 50mb

01 Don't Sleep Away The Night
02 I Adore You
03 You Make My World So Colourful
04 The Rain
05 If I Didn't
06 The Sunflight
07 Semarang
08 Anak Kecil
09 Imagine
10 Tiada Lagi Cinta
11 Cherish It
12 Autumn
13 Judy
14 Must You Go Away
15 Jakarta

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Lensless Microscope

2009-10-13T00:10:00.006+07:00

Lensless Microscope:
A webcam's image chip is an ultrafine shadow-imaging stage
Tom Zimmerman | Make Vol. 14- 2008 | Pdf | 7 pgs | 3 mb

Behind the lens of a webcam is an imager chip with thousands of tiny light sensors, each about 1/10 the diameter of a human hair. If you replace the lens with an LED light source, and place tiny objects on the imager chip, shadows will project onto the sensor, creating a lensless microscopic image. You can use the webcam's regular software to save pictures and video, or stream live images to the internet. Or use the imager chip from a security camera to see a colony of live plankton on TV.
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Homebrew Digital 3D Movies

2009-10-13T00:09:00.010+07:00

Homebrew Digital 3D Movies:
Build your own stereo vidcam and 3D viewer
Eric Kurland | Make Vol. 14- 2008 | Pdf | 8 pgs | 3 mb

I have two eyes. And because of that simple fact, I also have stereopsis, the ability to perceive depth. When I was about 7 years old, I gazed into a View-Master toy and saw an amazing three-dimensional picture, and I was hooked.

Today, I create 3D videos, using various homebrew camera rigs and displays. I'll introduce you to a few of my devices, but first, a quick history lesson.
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Cosmic Night Light

2009-10-13T00:09:00.009+07:00

Cosmic Night Light
Kris DeGrave | Make Vol. 14- 2008 | Pdf | 9 pgs | 3 mb

I wanted to make a night light with LEDs encased in resin that required no soldering - I can solder but I don't really Iike to. The project turned out to be one of my favorites, and beyond being a little tweaky getting all of the LEDs set, it's simple. The power comes from 2 coin batteries, so there's no risk of shock. And the finished product is a glossy, atmospheric light with a soft glow that looks great between my Martian lunch box and little plastic dudes landing on the moon.

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Wireless Motion Sensing Made Easy

2009-10-13T00:08:00.003+07:00

Wireless Motion Sensing Made Easy
Tom Igoe | Make Vol. 14- 2008 | Pdf | 4 pgs | 2 mb

I was never much of a sports fan until my friend
Mattie introduced me to the Gotham Girls Roller
Derby (gothamgirlsrollerderby.com). Once you've
seen a good blocker send the opposing team's jam-
mer sailing into the sidelines with a solid hip check,
you're hooked. Add all the bad puns in the players'
nicknames, and you've got a sport I just can't resist.

Soon, I had to find a way to hack it. If the skaters
wore motion sensors, I figured, you could make
things react to the action. Sound effects on every
hit! A synchronized soundtrack! Flames shooting up
every time a player gets knocked out of bounds! The
possibilities are endless.
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WII Will Rock You

2009-10-13T00:07:00.003+07:00

WII Will Rock You
Bill Byrne | Make Vol. 14- 2008 | Pdf | 4 pgs | 2 mb

I grew up in the 80s with a Commodore 64, Game
Boy, and Nintendo Entertainment System, and
I feel more comfortable with an NES game pad
than a TV remote.

Many years later, the NES game pad has evolved
into a monster: the Wii Remote wireless game
controller, affectionately known as the Wiimote.
My wife, Suzanne, and I also perform and record
electronic music in a band called the Painful Leg
Injuries. I've played with numerous MIDI controllers,
but despite my years of childhood piano lessons,
nothing feels as natural to me as the Wiimote.
Blame it on all those hours with Tetris and Mario.

Here, I've written up 4 of the setups I'm using
to control music with this thereminesque, ether-
bending joystick.

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Covert Spy Sunglasses

2009-10-13T00:06:00.003+07:00

Covert Spy Sunglasses
Kip Kedersha | Make Vol. 14- 2008 | Pdf | 3 pgs | 1 mb

Ever since I was a kid I've loved spy gadgets. From
Wild Wild West to Get Smart and Mission Impossible,
they have always fascinated me. I can remember
sitting in front of the tube watching the hidden
camera pranks of Candid Camera. Well, now I have
my own pair of sneaky sunglasses that are cheap
and easy to make.
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Safety Spectrometer

2009-10-13T00:05:00.003+07:00

Safety Spectrometer
Eric Rosenthal | Make Vol. 14- 2008 | Pdf | 2 pgs | 1 mb

After air travel security banned bottled water and
baby formula, I began wondering why they didn't
use a device to determine the contents of liquids. If a
liquid was detected to be safe, security could allow it
on the plane. Spectrometers can identify the chemi-
cal makeup of a material by shining light on it and
analyzing the precise mix of colors that bounce back.

These devices are usually very expensive, but
I've designed a simple and inexpensive one that can
identify liquids. You can also adapt it to determine
the color of a swatch of paper or cloth or to identify
a gem or semiprecious stone.

I spent less than $100 on this project and it took
just a few days to design, fabricate, and test the hard-
ware, plus another two days to write and debug the
source code. Collecting the liquids and building the
database took one evening, and it was fun!
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Parabolic Microphone

2009-10-12T08:29:00.003+07:00

Parabolic Microphone
Jim Lee | Make Vol. 14- 2008 | Pdf | 2 pgs | 1 mb

This is a ridiculously easy way to build a parabolic
microphone using dollar store items. You'll attract
lots of attention walking around in public with this
rig. I usually welcome the inquiries, and let people
listen to what I'm doing. Kids especially love it.
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Molecular Gastronomy

2009-10-12T08:27:00.006+07:00

Molecular Gastronomy
Michael Zbyszynski | Make Vol. 14- 2008 | Pdf | 4 pgs | 2 mb

There is a movement in the cooking world called
Molecular Gastronomy. The term was coined by
Nicholas Kurti and Herve This, and it has become
associated with chefs like Ferran Adria at El Bulli
in Spain, Heston Blumenthal at The Fat Duck in
England, Wylie Dufresne at wd~50 in New York,
and Homaru Cantu at Moto in Chicago.

Essentially, it involves applying scientific techniques
to the cooking process. One of the more interest-
ing techniques is the use of common substances to
control the texture of foods, often in surprising ways.

You don't need a chemistry lab to pull off such
effects. With a few inexpensive tools and chemi-
cals. it's possible to use spherification to make
all kinds of "caviar" (and other shapes) in your
own kitchen.
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Mini Bike Light

2009-10-11T01:41:00.008+07:00

Mini Bike Light
Trevor Shannon | Make Vol. 14- 2008 | Pdf | 2 pgs | 1 mb

I wanted to build a small, bright, and durable LED
light for my bike, and I read online that plumbing
parts work well as housings. So I made a 3-LED
headlamp that's enclosed by a 3/a" hose faucet
adapter and powered by an outboard battery pack.
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The Machinist's Phonograph

2009-10-11T01:41:00.007+07:00

The Machinist's Phonograph
Royston Maybery | Make Vol. 14- 2008 | Pdf | 4 pgs | 2 mb

When Edison invented the phonograph in 1877, he
envisioned it as a business dictation machine.
But it soon became a popular medium for music,
recorded onto durable cylinders that are still avail-
able and playable today. Cylinders came in a wide
variety of formats - 21/4", 31/2", or 5" in diameter,
4" or 6" long, 120rpm-160rpm,100 or 200 grooves
per inch --- most of which required different types
of phonographs to play.

Today there's one specialty machine, the
Archeophone, that can handle all formats of cylinder
recordings, but it costs more than $16.000. So
I decided to build my own, and being a licensed
machinist, I call it the Machinist's Phonograph.
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The Gomicycle

2009-10-11T01:40:00.004+07:00

The Gomicycle
Marque Cornblatt | Make Vol. 14- 2008 | Pdf | 3 pgs | 2 mb

While most civilians wait patiently for electric
vehicles (EVs) to arrive at their local showroom,
we makers take matters into our own hands. We've
created a dizzying array of street-legal electric
cars, scooters, and motorcycles, and there's even
a National Electric Drag Racing Association.

I wanted to go electric for my own day-to-day
transportation, but I didn't want to reinvent the
wheel. So I researched the existing art, and pur-
chased plans for the "El Chopper ET", a Honda Rebel
250 project that was developed by motorcycle EV
conversion guru John Bidwell.
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Evasive Beeping Thing

2009-10-11T01:39:00.003+07:00

Evasive Beeping Thing
Brad Graham & kathy McGowan | Make Vol. 14- 2008 | Pdf | 3 pgs | 1 mb

The Evasive Beeping Thing is appropriately named,
since it dutifully does exactly what its name implies:
it sends out a 5-second, high-pitched beep every
few minutes. The source is extremely difficult to
locate because of the way that high frequencies
can penetrate objects and trick our ears.

You've probably encountered something similar in
the real world, such as a failing appliance or a beep-
ing wristwatch buried deep in a couch. As you know,
high-pitched sounds seem like they are coming from
all directions, which makes tracking them to the
source a real chore. Add the fact that the sound only
happens once every several minutes, and it may drive
a person loopy as they spend all day looking for the
source of the sound. Well, that's our goal, anyhow!
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Make Vol. 14- 2008: Upload

2009-10-11T01:38:00.002+07:00

Make Vol. 14- 2008: Upload
Pdf | 8 pgs | 3 mb

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The Pixelmusic 3000

2009-10-11T01:37:00.002+07:00

The Pixelmusic 3000
Tarikh Korula | Make Vol. 14- 2008 | Pdf | 10 pgs | 4 mb

TV PARTY TONIGHT

Re-create a mid-1970s video trip by
plugging this box into any TV and audio
source. Beneath the fake wood paneling,
a Propeller microcontroller simulates
Atari's classic music visualizer.

In 1976, Atari introduced Atari Video Music, a plugged-in
music visualizer designed by Pong creator Bob Brown that
bridged the yawning gap between consumers' stereos and
their TV sets. The quirky, psychedelic pixelation device never
caught on, but watching it in action today (search YouTube),
one is taken back to another time, long before iTunes and
Winamp visualizers. It was a time when vinyl, denim, Foghat,
mood rings, limited color palettes, and RadioShack's
business model all somehow made sense.
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Taffy Pulling Machine

2009-10-11T01:36:00.004+07:00

Taffy Pulling Machine
William Gurstelle | Make Vol. 14- 2008 | Pdf | 8 pgs | 3 mb

TWISTED, TUGGED, AND TASTY

Make a simple mechanism that pulls
delicious candy while it stretches the
limits of multidimensional math.

Sometimes the simplest things have richer histories and
more complex scientific connections than you ever
imagined. Such is the case for the taffy pulling machine.
Taffy pullers manipulate long strands of semisolid, sugary
dough into the delicious, chewy confection called salt water
taffy. After viewing myriad taffy machines in tourist traps
and internet videos, I sought to build one for myself.

Why? Well, when in operation, these devices display
a periodic, repetitive motion so mesmerizing that, when
placed in the front window of a candy shop. they invariably
attract large audiences and pull in customers.
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Living Room Baja Buggies

2009-10-10T00:17:00.002+07:00

Living Room Baja Buggies
John Mouton | Make Vol. 14- 2008 | Pdf | 10 pgs | 3 mb

BUG'S-EYE VIEW

With wireless cameras on board,
these radio-controlled racers give you
virtual reality telepresence.

Do you like radio-controlled (R/C) cars? Do you like the
desert, but hate the heat? Well, sit down and kick back as you
engage in the excitement of Living Room Baja Buggy Racing.
This off-road competition combines the fun of homemade
R/C cars with the air-conditioned convenience of a fake,
indoor desert landscape - without the big dollar price.
There are no rules, no expensive automotive racing equip-
ment, and a total disregard for public safety (because these
cars are only 6" long and 4" tall).
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Art Work: Life Models

2009-10-10T00:16:00.003+07:00

Art Work: Life Models
Douglas Repetto | Make Vol. 14- 2008 | Pdf | 2 pgs | 1 mb

ARTISTS' STUDIOS HAVE TRADITIONALLY
been full of reference materials like botanical
drawings, medical texts, photographs, cata-
logs, and images clipped from magazines. Artists
use these images as direct models for realistic
renderings. but they often provide indirect inspira-
tion as well: patterns in a botanical drawing might
end up as abstract gestures in a painting, or shapes
from a tool catalog might inspire sculptural forms.

Just as often, reference materials simply set the
mood or tone in the studio: being surrounded by
meaningful materials is an inspiration in itself. I
recently visited the reconstruction of Francis Bacon's
home studio at the Hugh Lane Gallery in Dublin, and
was overwhelmed by the density and intensity of
the materials (books, magazines, clothing, painting
supplies, canvases) jumbled across every surface in
the room. Although Bacon didn't often use images
from these sources directly in his paintings, he was
certainly inspired by having them around. He said:
"I feel at home here in this chaos because chaos
suggests images to me." Interestingly, the rest of
his small home was rather tidy and uncluttered; the
chaos of his studio seemed a conscious technique.
a key part of his process as a painter.
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3D Printing Methods

2009-10-10T00:15:00.002+07:00

3D Printing Methods
Tom Owad | Make Vol. 14- 2008 | Pdf | 2 pgs | 1 mb

3D printers print layer on top of layer,
slowly building a three-dimensional
object. A plethora of materials and
methods are used to build these layers.

The Stratasys Dimension is a commercial 3D
printer that uses ABS plastic. The ABS filament
comes in a self-loading cartridge, and is fed into
a heater block by two drive wheels. In the heater
block, the ABS is heated to a semiliquid state and
extruded through the tip, with layers as thin as 0.01".
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Solar Power System Design

2009-10-10T00:14:00.002+07:00

Solar Power System Design
Parker Jardine | Make Vol. 14- 2008 | Pdf | 8 pgs | 3 mb

In the first part of my solar power Primer,
I showed how to make inexpensive photovoltaic
(PV) panels (see MAKE, Volume 12, page 158,
"20-Watt Solar Panel").

Here, I'll explain how I incorporated them into
a complete solar PV power system. While this
article provides installation tips and general
how-to information, it's not a step-by-step guide
to building the complete system. Rather, it's an
introduction to a complex project that could
easily fill a book.
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