Hackerspace Competition: Looks Promising

September 21, 2010 by Jakob Griffith 18 Comments

This is what happens when [Mitch Altman] comes together with hackerspaces nationwide to have a contest. In short, 5 hackerspaces will “take on the machine” and come up with 5 original ideas for existing devices. There are a few more rules, but you can catch them in the video in the link above. There is hinting at a slot machine that mixes drinks, a bike that makes ice cream, and more. What do you guys think is in store?

This is also a great opportunity to mention the hackerspaces wiki, find a community (or start one!) near you today and maybe [Mitch] will call on your hackerspace next competition. For now, we’ll keep you up to date with each hackerspace’s project and progress.

[Thanks Deven]

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Machined Steadicam, Steadier Than The Rest

September 21, 2010 by Jakob Griffith 11 Comments

No, the picture above is not a store made steadicam. Rather, a CNC machined one by [Matt]. Interestingly, unlike most steadicams we’ve seen before the gimbal is not the main focus of the design though an aluminum machined gimbal would make us drool. The central idea is allowing for X and Y axis adjustment to get oddly weighted bulky camera’s exact center of gravity. [Matt’s] steadicam is also designed to handle more weight than commercial versions, and (if you already have a CNC) to be much cheaper. There’s no video, but from the skill of craftsmanship we can safely assume it’s as good and level as some of the best.

New Term For Art: Sculptural Robotics

September 21, 2010 by Jakob Griffith 10 Comments

[Dan Roe] has been working on Sculptural Robotics for quite some time, and most recently presented his newest creation: Solar Flowers 2010. Typically, Sculptural Robotics (coined by [Dan] himself) are stand alone, static art presentations made from electronic components and wire. [Dan] of course has taken it quite a bit further; giving all his sculptures life using solar panels, motors, engine circuits, and more. Making them zero emission, and beautiful at the same time. You can catch four videos after the jump of his moving sculptures. Not that we’re picking favorites, but the dragonfly is pretty amazing if we do say so ourselves.

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As Promised: More Industrial Robot Goodness

September 19, 2010 by Jakob Griffith 7 Comments

Remember [Mattythorne]? He took a BMW industrial arm and re-purposed it to write twitter messages on a white board. You can read a small excerpt here.

Well [Matt] is back, and as promised includes an entire write up for how he got @scribblebot scribbling twitter messages. It’s a little light on details and we wish there was some more in-depth how-to magic, but then we remembered with most of the population not having an industrial arm in the first place the extra time spent incorporating the extra info would be far from worth it. Regardless, it doesn’t surprise that the previous commentators were not far off the mark in how difficult programing one of these machines would be. While such arms do have a few built in libraries it looks like a very exhausting process to override the default axis of motion, incorporate a UI, build a pen holder, and more. And in the end, is it worth it? [Matt] tells us the arm is going to be going back to monotonous car building work soon, giving weeks of prep only a day in the limelight.

Dead Motor? Think Again

September 16, 2010 by Jakob Griffith 28 Comments

While hobby brush motors are pretty cheap now adays, there’s always that feeling of why replace when you can rebuild and reuse. As such [John Carr] presents how to change the brush position in motors to revive a dead motor. So long as the motor dies from natural causes commutator wear, the idea is the brushes can be moved along the axes and fixed to a new portion of commutator that’s not worn at all. [John] also goes through the details of some tricky reassembly, but we think to make this complete a guide on brush replacement and commutator replacement might be in order hint hint.

Quadbike: Bigger Is Better

September 14, 2010 by Jakob Griffith 26 Comments

[Tom Wilson] has finished his latest human powered quadcycle. The BigDog, as its called, seats 4 persons in lawn chairs who pedal to their destination. We say latest, for [Tom] also made a slightly smaller version called The DogSled. Some improvements include being taller (8 feet total), larger (11 feet by 6 feet), and surprisingly lighter (over half the weight, bringing it in to 450 pounds). The build process is just as impressive as the bike itself; using pneumatic disk brakes to golf cart axles to even drainage pipe, its a perfect fit for burning man. Catch a video after the divide.

[Thanks Mowcius]

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5 Tones, 1 Arduino

September 14, 2010 by Jakob Griffith 28 Comments

Because the Arduino is in such high demand for producing multiple musical tones at the same time; [Jeremy Blum] has successfully figured out the math and other necessaries that will take your once previously single tone producing MCU and turn it into a 5 tone producing machine. unsurprisingly its really just some creative use of PWM control but it all works out in the end anyway and helps prevent you from purchasing additional sound generating chips. This truly does open up some new doors, as [Jeremy] shows with his still in production thingamakit like project: ReacXion.