Time And Tide Are One Thing

September 19, 2023 by 3 Comments

The rise of 3D printing has given us incredible things, from awesome tchotchkes to intricate chocolates to useful things like spare body parts. But none has been so vital to comedy as say, printing hats for sea urchins. That’s right, sea urchins like to cover up with various things and will happily don, say, a 3D printed hat if presented the opportunity.

So anyway, this is a tide clock that uses a printed sea urchin and various hats to tell the time until/between low and high tide. How? It uses the position of a given hat relative to a couple nOOds LED strands, one for high tide and another for low.

Inside the large bamboo enclosure is an TTGO that fetches cheaply-obtained tide information and displays it on the screen. The TTGO also controls a servo that moves the sea urchin around. As it moves, a magnet in the urchin’s head (?) attracts the next hat.

Before settling on the current design, [rabbitcreek] experimented with both a sand dollar and a sea urchin skeleton. All the files are available if you want to whip up your own.

This isn’t [rabbitcreek]’s first foray into tide clocks. Here’s a solar number that should last for years.

Scientists Call Out Apollo 17 After Investigating Moonquakes Past

September 19, 2023 by 35 Comments

In the vast realm of space exploration, new discoveries often emerge from old data. Thanks to advanced algorithms and keen observers, the seismic activities of our closest celestial neighbor, the Moon, have recently been thrust back into the limelight.

Thanks to the effort of the NASA crew involved in the Apollo 17 mission, it’s possible investigate these phenomena today with datasets from the past. Recently, researchers working with this data turned up some intriguing findings, and published them in a new paper. It reveals that one unexpected source of moonquakes could be the very equipment that Earth’s astronauts left behind. Continue reading “Scientists Call Out Apollo 17 After Investigating Moonquakes Past” →

Normal Users Don’t Code On Their Mac, But Apple Keeps Trying

September 19, 2023 by 92 Comments

Most people use their computer to run pre-packaged programs: usually a web browser, games, or office applications. Whether the machine is a PC or a Mac, they don’t generally write their own software. For them, the computer is an appliance, and they do what their computer allows them to do.

It shouldn’t have to be that way, if only programming were easier. The Eclectic Light Company has a fascinating article looking at the various attempts that Apple has made to lure their users into creative programming.

Probably the most familiar of them all is AppleScript, with its origins in late 1993. Or maybe you’re thinking of Hypertalk, the scripting component of 1987’s Hypercard. That would go on to be a mainstay of mid-1990s multimedia software, but while it’s fallen by the wayside it’s AppleScript which still has support in the latest MacOS.

The biggest surprise for us lies in the forgotten products. 1989’s Prograph graphical language looks amazing. Was it simply before its time? In the modern era, Apple describes the reach of Shortcuts diplomatically: “its impact has so far been limited”.

Maybe the most forward-thinking line on programming from Apple came in 2007, even if it wasn’t recognized as such. The original iPhone didn’t have any third-party apps, and instead developers were supposed to write web apps to take advantage of the always-connected device. Would that be such a bad piece of advice to give a non-developer writing software for their Mac today?

Printed Upgrades Improve Cheap Digital Microscope

September 19, 2023 by 7 Comments

Digital microscopes used to be something that only labs or universities might have, but as image sensor technology has progressed, the prices have fallen to the point that any classroom or hobbyist can easily obtain a usable device. The only problem is that a lot of features and quality have been lost to make some of these digital microscopes more affordable. In an effort to add some of these creature comforts back into more inexpensive devices, [Marb’s lab] has created a special carriage for one of these microscopes.

The first addition to the microscope is improved lighting. To accomplish this, three LEDs were built into custom housings and wired to a purpose-built LED driver board coupled with a voltage regulator. Two of the LED housings were attached to the end of adjustable arms, allowing them to be pointed in whichever direction is needed. The third is situated directly below the microscope underneath the stage. These are all mounted to a large, sturdy PVC base which also holds an adjustable carriage for the microscope itself. This allows much more fine-tuning of the distance between the sample and the microscope than it otherwise would have had.

For just a few dollars and a little bit of effort, the usability of a device like this is greatly improved. If you want to take the opposite approach and really go all-out for your microscope, though, take a look at these microscopes used for PCB circuit construction and troubleshooting or even this electron microscope for viewing things at a much higher magnification than any optical system would allow.

Continue reading “Printed Upgrades Improve Cheap Digital Microscope” →

A Fossil Wrist PDA running the Overbite Gopher browser

Mobile Gopher Client Brings Fossil Wrist PDA Online

September 18, 2023 by 7 Comments

Like many new technologies, smartwatches needed a few iterations before they became useful enough for the average person. Early examples were too clunky and limited to be of use to anyone but geeks who wanted to show off their “next big thing”. The 2005 Fossil Wrist PDA was a prime example: although impressively compact for its time, its limited battery life and poor feature set made it obsolete as soon as it was released. But since it ran on Palm OS, it offered plenty of opportunity for hacking: Palm expert [Cameron Kaiser] has upgraded his Wrist with internet access.

While Palm OS 4 natively supports TCP/IP networking, this component was deleted from the Wrist version to save memory. In any case, the only viable network interface would have been the USB port, which isn’t too convenient for a watch. Not to be deterred, [Cameron] worked out a way to add network support back into the Wrist: he used the IR port on a Palm m505 to send a copy of its own network drivers to the watch. This works because both devices run the same basic OS version on the same CPU type; the only drawback is that the network setup dialog doesn’t respond correctly to the Wrist’s different set of buttons. Continue reading “Mobile Gopher Client Brings Fossil Wrist PDA Online” →

Multispectral Imaging Shows Erased Evidence Of Ancient Star Catalogue

September 18, 2023 by 43 Comments

Ancient Greek astronomer Hipparchus worked to accurately catalog and record the coordinates of celestial objects. But while Hipparchus’ Star Catalogue is known to have existed, the document itself is lost to history. Even so, new evidence has come to light thanks to patient work and multispectral imaging.

Hipparchus’ Star Catalogue is the earliest known attempt to record the positions of celestial bodies (predating Claudius Ptolemy’s work in the second century, which scholars believe was probably substantially based on Hipparchus) but direct evidence of the document is slim. Continue reading “Multispectral Imaging Shows Erased Evidence Of Ancient Star Catalogue” →

A brass-and-wood replica of Faraday's motor

Replicating Faraday’s 200-Year-Old Electric Motor

September 18, 2023 by 13 Comments

Although new electric motor types are still being invented, the basic principle of an electric motor has changed little in the past century-and-a-half: a stator and a rotor built of magnetic materials plus a bunch of strategically-placed loops of wire. But getting even those basic ingredients right took a lot of experimentation by some of the greatest names in physics. Michael Faraday was one of them, and in the process became the first person to turn electricity into motion. [Markus Bindhammer] has recreated Faraday’s experiment in proper 19th century style.

Back in 1821, the very nature of electricity and its relation to magnetism were active areas of research. Tasked with writing an article about the new science of eletromagnetics, Faraday decided to test out the interaction between a current-carrying wire and a permanent magnet, in a setup very similar to [Markus]’s design. A brass wire is hanging freely from a horizontal rod and makes contact with a conductive liquid, inside of which a magnet is standing vertically. As an electric current is passed through the wire, it begins to rotate around the magnet, as if to stir the liquid.

[Markus]’s video, embedded after the break, shows the entire construction process. Starting from rods and sheet metal, [Markus] uses mostly hand tools to create all basic parts that implement the motor, including a neat knife switch. Where Faraday used mercury as the conductive liquid, [Markus] uses salt water – cheaper and less toxic, although it does eventually eat up the brass wire through electrolysis.

While not particularly useful in itself, Faraday’s motor proved for the first time that electric energy could be converted into motion through magnetism, leading to a whole class of ultra-simple motors called homopolar motors. It would be a while before experiments by the likes of Tesla and Ferraris led to modern AC motors. If you don’t like your motors magnetic, you can use electrostatics instead.

Continue reading “Replicating Faraday’s 200-Year-Old Electric Motor” →