There are people making amazing things around the world, are you one of them? Join the 52,770 strong! And check out scores of projects they shared this week after the jump!
Don’t miss the chance to catch up with great pieces from the community from this past week! Click the link below!
From the Google+ Community
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Matt Heilman shared: “My IC Ring (yes I did use lead-free solder)” (read more)
Jeremy Cook shared a project: “Arduino + microphone + cigar box + LED strip = this thing!” (read more)
Nikolaus Gradwohl shared his openFrameworks experiments: “I have realized that I haven´t done anything with openframeworks for ages. Which is kind of sad because I really like the framework. So I took my PI and installed openframeworks using this instruction from the openframeWorks-RaspberryPI fork on github. Compiling openFrameworks on a PI took a while but after it finished I was able to compile and run my boid sketch without modifications.” (read more)
Zviad Sulaberidze shared his “printed inmoov robot hand so far, will post rest, when finished. Everything is so great, except it’s soo slow (the printing I mean 🙂 )” (read more)
Edward McLaughlin shared: “Lissajous figure on my Tenma DSO over the USB interface. Pain in the neck getting it setup in Windows 7 64bit but you can remotely control the scope when it is setup.” (read more)
The Jellyfish Act shared: “FLOE, embodies the shape and movement of ice drifting on the surface of the North Atlantic. Made in collaboration by RCA (Royal College of Art) students and professionals from various backgrounds, FLOE combines the use of glass material, engineering, animation and kinetic design (via arduino). Built as a prototype, FLOE searches for support to build up a bigger-better version, to be showcased in festivals worldwide. (read more)
Kurtis Kopf shared: “My first PCB design. Thanks to the maker community, especially Adafruit and SparkFun , I’ve been able to delve into embedded programming, basic electrical engineering, and basic CAD. This PCB is an #Arduino Mega R3 / Due shield for use in one of my larger model rockets.” (read more)
Chris Young shared: “Here is a video of me flying my new toy helicopter. Because of my disability I can’t use the regular remote control that comes with it so I built a custom infrared remote using an Arduino Uno microcontroller, and LCD display, and several micro switches. I tried to demonstrate this on the recent Adafrurit Saturday night Show and Tell however the onboard video did not record and could not see much from my web cam.” (read more)
jon sanford shared a video: “That is not a machine. It is self expression. The marching music of the fog bound” (read more)
Len Sherman shared: “Yay! My first useful 3D-printed device. Designed using Sketchup. It took a few tries to get the fit right, but now I’m really happy with it. It’s uploaded to Shapeways if anyone is interested.” (read more)
Akhil Varma shared: “A sneak-peek into the the first ever game and “video game console” that I built from scratch which runs on Arduino Duemilanove. Since it’s an era of open source, I’m planning to upload the circuit diagrams and the software program that I used for the game, so that you can build and play it too :)” (read more)
Jaidyn Edwards shared: “So I make lots of YouTube videos, and one thing that I really needed was a cameraman, but I don’t expect someone to become my personal slave, so I made one. Arduino – Robot Arm (camera man) DUMMY MK1” (read more)
Kris Kortright shared: “I got the major components 3D printed for all 4 of the RiderScan units, so now it’s down to assembly (which I spent gobs of time on, so many wires!!). I’ll upload a full album in a few days when the completed first unit rolls off the assembly-desk. :)” (read more)
Notes and Volts shared: “Make a professional looking control panel for your next electronics project using Lexan and a photo printer. http://www.notesandvolts.com/2013/05/lexan-control-panel.html” (read more)
Bruce Lowther shared: “Wonderful long weekend of wireless hacking. I finally got an #xbee end device in API mode using cyclic sleep on an analog LM34 temperature IC. The sampling rate is under control, although i’m still working through the details of the SN, SP and SO parameters. Not perfect yet. Hopefully when I get some 3.3v it’ll be ready to box one of them up up and it move outside. I think I can keep the cost of the external sensor under $30. Next step is to get #xbee wired up to my furnace. I want several temperature sensors and detecting on/off of the main fan of my central air.” (read more)
Matthew W shared: “I’ve never had a chance to see a relay in action so I picked one up the other day and added it to my PLC trainer panel. I kind of like that it makes noise so I avoided the solid state ones.” (read more)
baka chan shared a project: “I made this! Go look at it!!!” (read more)
Barbara Tien shared a planting hack: “In tribute to Brian White I came up with a new Tomato Experiment 2013: Proboscis Pallet Terrace. Using what is really old school terracing techniques to pass water from one bed to the next, I’m flowing water from an airlift system through the top reservoir-based pots to the next row using an extended nose or proboscis. Take a look, add your comments using Ponga. Have fun.” (read more)
Amedeo Amato shared a robotics project-in-progress: “Engineering School Project… (not finished yet)” (read more)
Andreas Backx shared: “My first Python and Raspberry Pi project: Comodi. Feel free to help me out or give it a try yourself, everything is on the Github page.” (read more)
Sam Harrison shared a robotics project: “It’s far from pretty, but it works.” (read more)
Jose Pacheco shared: “I have designed a dodecahedron lamp combining laser cut methacrylate and 3D printing for the joining parts. It also serves as a container if turned upside down.” (read more)
Fishman Jack shared: “I make Chemistry Sets. This is a pix of my prototype. This was made for an upcoming KickStarter project. The video was just shot this past Monday morning here at the science store. The box was cut out with a CNC router and the door (on the table) was LASER engraved with the logo for the Heirloom Chemistry Set. This is on display here at HMS Beagle in Parkville, MO. Come in and take a look.” (read more)
Robin Hanhart shared: “A few pictures of a project I’m working on at the moment. A book about time. Final result is a one-of-a-kind Artist’s Book. Up to 10 different layers, a combination of lasercut and manual cutting.” (read more)
Sylvain Leroux shared his experiments with USB<->serial adapter!: “Got many many difficulties interfacing a Raspberry Pi to a 3.3V serial device through FTDI-based USB<->serial adapter! I’m now giving a try to direct access to the board serial port.” (read more)
Liz Quilty originally shared: “Led test on the ball dress i’m working on. This is a project i’ve been working on, converting a short ball dress to something cooler. The Dress has 4 chains of 4 RGB neopixels ( from +Adafruit Industries ) in a diagonal lines, and i used diagonals so i can later do patterns with that (and it looks better & randomized) This video is just the strand test to make sure they are all working and wired ok, and gives an idea on what it looks like. I have more to add to this, including the motion sensor (already wired in but untested), and the colour sensor. Eventually this dress will be able to colour match your accessories or partner, as well as blink in time with your dancing or movements. Most of the hard work is done in regards to sewing things in and circuits, i had a hard time with lines crossing though. Now I just need to add the other sensor, clean up and cover the conductive thread, paint the LED boards white to match the dress, and code code code! and yes, my daughters are in love with it :)” (read more)
Anthony Truss discovered some “vintage” soldering paste: “Nokorode Soldering Paste. Found a case of this today. Never used. Vintage electronics supply collectors?” (read more)
Dave Pentecost shared an update on the East Village Planetarium project: “Riser framing complete. The blue line is the front center of the dome, a test of one section of future cove lighting that will circle the bottom.” (read more)
Jake Robinson shares: “Got into a conversation about how the Raspberry Pi gets kinda hot so I took some pictures. These where taken about 10 minutes into running a pretty intensive python script. CPU max at 100%” (read more)
Steve Spence shared: “This is an older article of mine. Using waterproof sensors now. Multiple DS18B20 Temperature Sensors on an Arduino.”
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Anatoly Verkhovsky shared: “Making custom gears with a laser cutter and some screws. Designed from a template in inkscape. Modeled in Alibre. Cut at a friendly (almost) next door laser cutter.” (read more)
Mark Miller shared a robotics project: “Set out to develop an inexpensive integrated drive steering and wheel system for some robot ideas. I used low cost motors that I had oodles of on the shelf(definition of oodles=more than 100) and settled on a DC motor for the drive wheel through a set of my lexan pulleys and drive belt spinning a Dubro 3.5 inch wheel. The steering is accomplished with a pancake stepper through some Ebay assortment gears, with the final drive through some bevel gears to prevent backlash and hold the drive wheel tight and accurate. The support parts are all small pieces of plastic cut and bonded to form the frame and gearbox. This was the first testing on a stand, but when used the unit provides some killer turning radius on a tricycle geometry base and when used in pairs/4, the thing is a real trickster(more video later). It is a really easy build, the Dubro wheels are by far the most expensive item shown(5$ pair). I am going to make a more compact version for smaller robots.This system is used on cruise ships(with a prop of course) for steering and for scaffolding systems and I wanted to give it a try.”
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Robert Schuh shared a RasPi/RFID project: “Little Project of mine :)”(read more)
james w shared a simple RPi camera board mount using a leftover angle bracket from Home Depot: “The Raspberry Pi Camera Board is cool, but I was annoyed by the lack of a stable way to hold it up so I fashioned this simple stand out of an angle bracket and a tiny metal screw. The weight of the bracket is enough to hold the camera stable. Now its easier to take a picture. You can see the 6th photo in this album is the actual photo taken by the Raspberry Pi (the one of just me).” (read more)
Community Projects from the Adafruit Blog
emnullfuenf created this 3D printed version of Joy Division’s Unknown Pleasures Cover: “After watching Grant Gee’s documentary “Joy Division” i decided i have to print the iconic cover of their first album “Unknown Pleasures” in 3D. Unfortunately i could not find a single vector graphic or 3D model anywhere. There are articles about the history of the graphics, Peter Saville’s artwork and PSR B1919+21. I even tried to visualize PSR B1919+21′s waveforms. But in the end i spend an evening tracing the waves by hand while watching ESC. The Processing sketch didn’t create a manifold 3D model and i couldn’t fix it in time. Thus i rewrote the sketch in order to export DXF layers and extruded them in OpenSCAD. Now there’s a printable STL on Thingiverse: http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:92971.” (read more)
And check out this print by akaziuna as well, below:
Check out this short piece about community member Steve Spence: “Farm Geeks: Learning to Love the Circuit Board”: “Steve Spence, an amateur organic farmer in Andrew, South Carolina, has a smart way of irrigating his vegetables. He uses water from his pond and the fish waste to fertilize his plants, a technique known as aquaponics. But the critical balance between the makeup of the water and soil means Spence has to know exactly what’s going on in both. Real-time information about the pond’s make up is imperative to know he’s giving his veggies the best drink of water. Sensors are commercially available, but Spence found them too expensive and not nearly as flexible as he needed — ”they can only do the function you purchased them for.” So he decided to customize his own. Now he monitors the water’s pH, temperature and ammonia levels, along with soil temperature, moisture levels and barometric pressure, all from a system he built himself — on the cheap. This is what happens when maker culture — specifically, projects made using the popular, flexible Arduino boards — comes to the farm and garden. From aquaponics to weather stations, farmers are starting to embrace the modern trends of DIY tech.” (read more) Congrats, Steve!
Lucy Sansom turned her sister into a theremin with conductive ink. via MAKE (read more)
Check out this great heartbeat pendant project from Super Awesome Sylvia! (read more)
Check out this project from Richard Ritornell: “Ritornell’s business cards are inspired by the project’s live show. The improvised concerts evoke a lively atmosphere by the combination of filigree electronics with playful timbres of diverse acoustic instruments and utensils such as egg whisks, toilet brushes, chopsticks or sewing needles. As an integral part of their set list, Ritornell invites the audience to bring along their private musicboxes. Arranged in a big circle, the players’ speed of turning levers is conducted: the results are as shimmering as you would expect. Katharina Hölzl designed very special business cards to recreate this playful sonic universe. With the aid of laser assisted milling, nine micro compositions consisting of circles, triangles and Ritornell’s contact information were applied onto a long musicbox paper stripe. Before handing out the cards to interested adressees, each individual subdivision is played back via an especially designed musical box – thus providing every business card receiver with a tailor made musical experience.” (read more)
zkarcher shared the The HypnoLamp Project: “Many factors helped birth the HypnoLamp: At Toorcamp 2012, I learned to program microcontrollers. Jeff of Olympia Circuits blessed me with addressable LED strips, at the aforementioned event. Jeff was also at the Portland Mini Maker Faire, showcasing (among other things) glass Ikea lamps with LEDs inside. I decided to build my own version!” (read more)
Steven Hickson writes: “I’ve made some big changes since my last post with voice control with the Raspberry Pi. You can now verify the keyword, change the keyword, change the response, put it in quiet mode to not talk to you, and put it in ignore mode to not try to answer questions not in your config file. The config file format has also been changed from voice=command to voice==command, comments have been allowed in the config file by starting a line with #, and special settings can be done by starting a line with !. I’ve updated the TTS from espeak to Google’s API since it sounds a lot better. Finally, I’ve made an update script in the Install folder, that way you don’t have to reinstall every time new changes get pushed out to github. All of the source code is here:
https://github.com/StevenHickson/PiAUISuite” (read more)
Check out Dominic Wilcox‘s Sound Bulbs: “I’ve created what I call ‘Sound Bulbs’ that combine a light bulb connector with music players so that it’s possible to screw in your music player into any light bulb socket. I was invited to take part in an exhibition during Clerkenwell Design Week called Design Exquis. The idea of the exhibition was a little like the game of Chinese whispers in that a first designer/artist was given an object (a stethoscope), they then had to find inspiration from that to create a new object of their own. That object was then passed to me and I was challenged to create something inspired from that. This continued for 4 people. The object I was given was a ceiling lamp by ‘Plant and Moss’. I started to think about ceiling lights and the question of ‘why do we only plug light bulbs into lamp sockets?’” (read more)
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