“MORPH” LED Ball Is A There-Is-No-Spoon, Reality-Bending Art Installation

February 25, 2021 by Mike Szczys 16 Comments

Marvelously conceived and exquisitely executed, this huge ball made up of hexagon tiles combines the best of blinky LEDs and animatronics into one amorphic ball.

The creation of [Nicholas Perillo] of Augmentl along with [MindBuffer], full details of the “morph v2” project have not yet been published. However, some tantilizing build progress is documented on [Nicholas’] Insta — most especially through the snapshots in the story thread spanning the last seven months. The scope of the project is brought into focus with time lapse video of hundreds of heat-set inserts, bundles of twisted wire, a pile of 1500 sliding rails, cases full of custom-order stepper motors, and thick cuts of copper bus bars to feed power up the shaft and out to the panels.

The demo video after the break is mesmerizing, shot by [nburdy] during a demo at MotionLab Berlin where it was built. Each hex tile is backed by numerous LEDs and a stepper motor assembly that lets it move in and out from the center of the ball. Somehow it manages to look as though it’s flowing, as they eye doesn’t pick up spaces opening between tiles as they are extended.

The Twitter thread fills in some of the juicy details: “486 stepper motors, 86,000 LEDs and a 5 channel granular synth engine (written by @_hobson_ no less, in @rustlang of course).” The build also includes speakers mounted in the core of the ball, hidden behind the moving LED hexes. The result is an artistic assault on reality, as the highly coordinated combinations of light, sound, and motion make this feel alive, otherwordly, or simply a glitch in the matrix. Watching the renders of what animations will look like, then seeing it on the real thing drives home the point that practical effects can still snap us out of our 21st-century computer-generated graphics trance.

It’s relatively easy to throw thousands of LEDs into a project these days, as PCBA just applies robots to the manufacturing problem. But motion remains a huge challenge beyond a handful of moving parts. But the Times Square billboard from a few years ago and the Morph ball both show it’s worth it.

As you’ve guessed from the name, this is the second Morph ball the team has collaborated on. Check out details of v1, a beach ball sized moving LED ball.

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Electric Airboat For Getting You Across Thin Ice

February 25, 2021 by Danie Conradie 20 Comments

Even with all the technological progress civilization has made, weather and seasons still have a major impact on our lives. [John de Hosson] owns a cabin on an island in a Swedish lake, and reaching it involves crossing 500 m of water. In summer this is done with a conventional boat, and in winter they can simply walk across the thick ice, but neither of these is an option on thin ice in the spring or fall. To solve this [John] built an electric airboat, and it looks like a ton of fun in the video after the break

The construction is simple but functional. A 3.3 m flat-bottomed aluminum boat has used a base, and an aluminum frame was bolted on for the motor and propeller. The motor is an 18 kW brushless motor, with a 160 cm/63-inch carbon fiber propeller. Power comes via a 1000 A ESC from a 100V 3.7 kWh Lipo pack mounted in a plastic box. Steering is very similar to a normal airboat, with a pair of air rudders behind the propeller, controlled by a steering lever next to the driver’s seat. The throttle is an RC controller with the receiver wired to the ESC.

Performance is excellent, and it accelerates well on ice and slush, even with two people on board. [John] still plans to make several improvements, with a full safety cage around the propeller being at the top of the list. He is also concerned that it will capsize on the water with the narrow hull, so a wider hull is planned. [John] has already bought a large steering servo to allow full remote control for moving cargo, with the addition of an FPV system. We would also add an emergency kill switch and waterproofing for the electronics to the list of upgrades. It looks as though the battery box is already removable, which is perfect for getting it out of the cold when not in use.

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Demonstrating The Mars Rover Pendulum Problem With A Drone On Earth

February 25, 2021 by Danie Conradie 39 Comments

The sky crane system used on the Perseverance and Curiosity Mars rovers is a challenging control system problem that piqued [Nicholas Rehm]’s curiosity. Constrained to Earth, he decided to investigate the problem using a drone and a rock.

The setup and the tests are simple, but clearly illustrate the problem faced by NASA engineers. [Nicholas] attached a winch mechanism to the bottom of a racing-type quadcopter, and tied a mass to the end of the winch line. At first, he built a foam model of the rover, but it proved to be unstable in the wake of the quadcopter’s propellers, so he used a rock instead. The tests start with the quadcopter taking off with the rock completely retracted, which is then slowly lowered in flight until it reaches the end of the line and drops free. As soon as the rock was lowered, it started swinging like a pendulum, which only got worse as the line got longer. [Nicholas] attempted to reduce the oscillations with manual control inputs, but this only made it worse. The quadcopter is also running [Nicholas]’s own dRehmFlight flight controller that handles stabilization, but it does not account for the swinging mass.

[Nicholas] goes into detail on the dynamics of this system, which is basically a two-body pendulum. The challenges of accurately controlling a two-body pendulum are one of the main reasons the sky crane concept was shelved when first proposed in 1999. Any horizontal movement of either the drone or the rock exerts a force on the other body and will cause a pendulum motion to start, which the control system will not be able to recover from if it does not account for it. The real sky crane probably has some sort of angle sensing on the tether which can be used to compensate for any motion of the suspended rover. Continue reading “Demonstrating The Mars Rover Pendulum Problem With A Drone On Earth” →

3D Printering: To Print Stainless, You Do Half The Work

February 25, 2021 by Al Williams 37 Comments

Everyone wants to print using metal. It is possible, but the machines to do the work are usually quite expensive. So it caught our eye when MakerBot announced a printer — armed with an experimental extruder — that can print stainless steel parts. Then we read a bit more and realized that it can only sort of do the job. It needs a lot of help. And with some reasonable, if not trivial, modifications, your printer can probably print metal as well.

The key part of the system is BASF Ultrafuse 316L Stainless Steel filament, something that’s been around for a few years. This is a polymer with metal incorporated into it. This explains the special extruder, since metal-bearing filament is hell on typical 3D printer nozzles. However, what comes out isn’t really steel — not yet. For that, you have to send the part to a post-processing facility where it is baked at 1380 °C in a pure hydrogen atmosphere using special equipment. This debinding and sintering produces a part that the company claims can be up to 96% pure metal.

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Fry’s Electronics Has Fizzled Out Completely

February 25, 2021 by Kristina Panos 119 Comments

2020 and all its ills have claimed another stalwart among PC builders and electronics hobbyists: Fry’s announced yesterday that they have closed up shop for good after nearly 36 years in business both as a brick-and-mortar wonderland and an online mecca for all things electronic.

According to Fry’s website (PDF copy for posterity), all 31 stores across nine states were suddenly and permanently shuttered on Wednesday the 24th, citing changes in the retail industry and the widespread difficulties wrought by the pandemic. Signs of the retailer’s growing challenges were seen back in 2019 when the company began shifting toward a consignment model in an attempt to cut overhead and liability.

Burbank Fry’s electronics [Image source: Bryce Edwards CC-BY 2.0]

Sadly, I never set foot inside of a Fry’s though I hear it was an experience beginning with the themed entrances found at many of the locations. Now it seems I never will. Where I live, Microcenter is king, and it has been truly awesome to watch the hobby electronics section expand from a single four-foot panel in a dark corner to the multi-aisle marketplace it is today. I keep imagining that Microcenter suddenly went out of business instead, and it makes me want to cry.

So where can a person go to pick up some quick components now that Radio Shack and Fry’s are no more? Of course there’s the previously mentioned Microcenter, but you should also look for old-school supply stores in your area. They may not have an Adafruit section and they’re probably not open after 5:00PM or on the weekends, but these stores are still kicking and they need us now more than ever. We’ve previously reported on gems like Tanner’s Electronics which sadly closed its doors almost a year ago. Help spread the word about your favorites that are still open in the comments below.

Thank you [Ryan], [John], and [Jack] for tipping us off.

[Main image source: San Jose Fry’s by Bryce Edwards; CC-BY 2.0]

May (No Longer) Contain Hackers: MCH 2021 Has Been Cancelled

February 25, 2021 by Jenny List 7 Comments

In a sad but unsurprising turn of events, MCH, this summer’s large hacker camp in the Netherlands, has been cancelled. Organising a large event in a pandemic would inevitably carry some risk, and despite optimism that the European vaccine strategy might have delivered a safe environment by the summer that risk was evidently too high for the event organisers IFCAT to take on. Our community’s events come from within the community itself rather than from commercial promoters, and the financial liability of committing to hire the site and infrastructure would have been too high to bear had the event succumbed to the pandemic. Tickets already purchased will be refunded, and they leave us with a crumb of solace by promising that alternatives will be considered. We understand their decision, and thank them for trying.

As with all such events the behind-the-scenes work for MCH has already started. The badge has been revealed in prototype form, the call for participation has been completed, and the various other event team planning will no doubt be well under way. This work is unlikely to be wasted, and we hope that it will bear fruit at the next Dutch event whenever that may be.

It would have been nice to think that by now we could be seeing the light at the end of the pandemic tunnel, but despite the sterling work of scientists, healthcare workers, and epidemiologists, it seems we still have a a way to go before we’ll once more be hanging out together drinking Club-Mate in the company of thousands of others. If the pandemic is weighing upon you, take care of yourselves.

What If I Never Make Version Two?

February 25, 2021 by Kristina Panos 62 Comments

When you make something, what does version one look like? What I mean is, how much thought do you put into the design? Do you try to make it look nice as you go along, or do you just build something that functions and say screw the presentation? Do you try to solve for everything upfront, or just plow through it and promise to fix your mistakes in version two? What if you never make version two?

No matter what you like to make, there’s a first time for everything. And it doesn’t seem to matter if you need the thing you’re making or just want to have it around: it’s a given that version one will probably be a bit rough around the edges. That’s just how it goes. Even if you’re well-versed in a skill, when you try a new type of project or a new pattern, it will be a new experience. For example, I’ve sewn a dozen different purses, but when I took on a new challenge I found I was only somewhat prepared to make my first backpack.

Great is the enemy of good, and perfection is the enemy of progress. Shooting for a pristine prototype on the first go steep and rocky path that never leads to finishing the build. So our goal here is to decide what makes rev1 good enough that we still love it, even if rev2 never happens.

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