A set of brass safety glasses sit on a marred black workbench. The top and earpiece sections of the frames are in squarish brass plate and have ruler marks on them.

Combination Safety Glasses And Measurement Tool

While rulers and tape measures are ubiquitous, they always seem to disappear when you need them. We know you’d never forget your safety glasses (safety first!), so what if they were also a measuring tool?

Starting by snapping pieces from a folding yardstick, [Simone Giertz] and [Laura Kampf] worked out a rough prototype before letting [Giertz] complete the project in brass. Some initial issues with the weight of the frames were alleviated by switching to a lighter weight plate material and using thinner frames and weight-saving holes near the ear pieces.

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, so we’ll let somebody else decide whether or not these will be the newest fashion craze. But it’s hard to argue with the timelessness of brass unless you have a copper allergy. We could definitely see a less expensive plastic version catching on in makerspaces for the PPE bin.

Want some other cool wearable gear? How about [Giertz]’s grocery bag hat, an evening gown with servo-driven flowers, or a shirt that reflects heat out the atmospheric window?

Continue reading “Combination Safety Glasses And Measurement Tool”

An image of a desert with dramatically cloudy skies. In the middle of the image is a series of clay doorways with vertically-oriented wooden slats surrounding a central pole. These form the basis of a panemone windmill.

Help Wanted: Keep The World’s Oldest Windmills Turning

While the Netherlands is the country most known for its windmills, they were originally invented by the Persians. More surprisingly, some of them are still turning after 1,000 years.

The ancient world holds many wonders of technology, and some are only now coming back to the surface like the Antikythera Mechanism. Milling grain with wind power probably started around the 8th Century in Persia, but in Nashtifan, Iran they’ve been keeping the mills running generation-to-generation for over 1000 years. [Mohammed Etebari], the last windmill keeper is in need of an apprentice to keep them running though.

In a world where vertical axis wind turbines seem like a new-fangled fad, it’s interesting to see these panemone windmills are actually the original recipe. The high winds of the region mean that the timber and clay structure of the asbad structure housing the turbine is sufficient for their task without all the fabric or man-made composites of more modern designs. While drag-type turbines aren’t particularly efficient, we do wonder how some of the lessons of repairability might be used to enhance the longevity of modern wind turbines. Getting even 100 years out of a turbine would be some wicked ROI.

Wooden towers aren’t just a thing of the past either, with new wooden wind turbines soaring 100 m into the sky. Since you’ll probably be wanting to generate electricity and not mill grain if you made your own, how does that work anyway?

Continue reading “Help Wanted: Keep The World’s Oldest Windmills Turning”

An image of a dark mode Linux desktop environment. A white iTunes window stands out in a virtualized Windows 10 environment. Two iPod games, "Phase" and "Texas Hold 'Em" are visible in the "iPod Games" section of the library.

IPod Clickwheel Games Preservation Project

The iPod once reigned supreme in the realm of portable music. Hackers are now working on preserving one of its less lauded functions — gaming. [via Ars Technica]

The run of 54 titles from 2006-2009 may not have made the iPod a handheld gaming success, but many still have fond memories of playing games on the devices. Unfortunately, Apple’s Fairplay DRM has made it nearly impossible to get those games back unless you happened to backup your library since those games can’t be downloaded again and are tied to both the account and iTunes installation that originally purchased the game.

Continue reading “IPod Clickwheel Games Preservation Project”

A side view of an Asian woman with brown hair. She has a faint smile and is wearing an earring that looks somewhat like a large copper snowflake. Near the ear hole is a small PCB with a blinking LED. To the right of the image is the text "LED Earring, Recieved power 50 µW"

Power-Over-Skin Makes Powering Wearables Easier

The ever-shrinking size of electronics and sensors has allowed wearables to help us quantify more and more about ourselves in smaller and smaller packages, but one major constraint is the size of the battery you can fit inside. What if you could remotely power a wearable device instead?

Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University were able to develop a power transmitter that lets power flow over human skin to remote devices over distances as far a head-to-toe. The human body can efficiently transmit 40 MHz RF energy along the skin and keeps this energy confined around the body and through clothing, as the effect is capacitive.

The researchers were able to develop several proof-of-concept devices including “a Bluetooth
ring with a joystick, a stick-and-forget medical patch which logs data, and a sun-exposure patch with a screen — demonstrating user input, displays, sensing, and wireless communication.” As the researchers state in the paper, this could open up some really interesting new wearable applications that weren’t possible previously because of power constraints.

If you’re ready to dive into the world of wearables, how about this hackable smart ring or a wearable that rides rails?

Continue reading “Power-Over-Skin Makes Powering Wearables Easier”

Three 3D printed, spring loaded contraptions sit on a wooden shield. There are arrow shafts connected to the end and a piece of monofilament fishing line extending away from them and through a small eyelet at the edge of. the shield.

How To Shoot Actors With Arrows Sans CGI

Today, movie effects are mostly done in CGI, especially if they’re of the death-defying type. [Tyler Bell] shows us how they shot actors with arrows before CGI.

Almost every medieval movie has someone getting shot with an arrow, but how do you do that non-destructively? [Bell] shows us two primary methods that were used, the pop up rig and steel pronged arrows. The pop up rig is a spring loaded device with one end of an arrow attached that pops up when a mechanism is triggered. [Bell] 3D printed his own version of the mechanism and shows us how it can be used to great effect on shots from the side or rear of the victim.

But what about straight on shots where the rig would be blatantly obvious? That’s when you get to actually shoot the actor (or their stunt double anyway). To do this safely, actors would wear wooden body armor under their costumes and arrows with two small prongs would be shot along a wire into the desired impact site. We appreciate [Bell] using a mannequin for testing before letting his brother shoot him with an arrow. That’s definitely the next level above a trust fall.

We even get a look at using air cannons to launch arrow storms at the end which is particularly epic. Looking for more movie magic? How about the effects from King Kong or Flight of the Navigator?

Thanks to [Xerxes3rd] on Discord for the tip!

Continue reading “How To Shoot Actors With Arrows Sans CGI”

A white handheld with a centered screen and Xbox-style controllers flanking an 8" screen. Speaker grilles are visible below the controllers in the face of the device.

Beth Deck Is A Framework-Powered Gaming Handheld

DIY gaming handhelds have long been the purview of the advanced hacker, with custom enclosures and fiddly soldering making it a project not for the faint of heart. [Beth Le] now brings us a custom handheld for the beginner that can be assembled in 15 minutes and doesn’t require any soldering.

Three 3D printed panels sit on a black surface. The white back has cooling holes in it (top), a green center plate holds a Framework laptop battery (middle), and the front frame holds the speakers, controllers, and screen (bottom)

These claims might seem suspicious at first, but the fact that the build is powered by a Framework mainboard makes the dream seem attainable. Using an 8″ touchscreen and a rehoused mobile device controller, the 3D printed enclosure turns the PCB and battery into an interesting alternative to a Steam Deck.

[Beth] recommends waiting for the forthcoming revision 2 to make your own as she is working on refining the model. She also suggests printing in PC or PETG since PLA is too brittle and ABS warping can be an issue for tolerances with the pogo pins. In any case, this is definitely a project to keep your eye on if you enjoy gaming on the go.

As you know, we love Framework around here and the Cambrian Explosion of high-powered custom builds it’s enabled. This isn’t the first time we’ve seen a Framework-Powered handheld either. If you’re looking for a different form factor, we’ve also seen portable all-in-ones, keyboard PCs, and slabtops too.

White pieces on a teal and white chess board. The line of pawns shows three segmented queens in the foreground, one piece being pressed by a man's hand from above in a state between queen and pawn, and the remainder of the pawns in the background in the pawn state.

Transforming Pawn Changes The Game

3D printing has allowed the hobbyist to turn out all sorts of interesting chess sets with either intricate details or things that are too specialized to warrant a full scale injection molded production run. Now, the magic of 3D printing has allowed [Works By Design] to change the game by making pawns that can automatically transform themselves into queens.

Inspired by a CGI transforming chess piece designed by [Polyfjord], [Works By Design] wanted to make a pawn that could transform itself exist in the real world. What started as a chonky setup with multiple springs and a manually-actuated mechanism eventually was whittled down to a single spring, some pins, and four magnets as vitamins for the 3D printed piece.

We always love getting a peek into the trial-and-error process of a project, especially for something with such a slick-looking final product. Paired with a special chess board with steel in the ends, the magnets in the base activate the transformation sequence when they reach the opposite end.

After you print your own, how about playing chess against the printer? We’d love to see a version machined from metal too.

Thanks to [DjBiohazard] on Discord for the tip!

Continue reading “Transforming Pawn Changes The Game”