Teaching STEAM With Fidget Spinners

June 23, 2017 by Brian Benchoff 72 Comments

A huge focus of the maker revolution has been a focus on STEAM education, or rather an education in science, technology, engineering, art, and mathematics. We’ve seen innumerable kits and tools designed to introduce children to STEAM apps, ranging from electronic Lego blocks to robotics kits built around interlocking plastic bricks. These are just a passing fad, but finally, we have what looks like a winner: a STEAM education fidget spinner.

Fidget spinners have spun into our hearts like a shuriken over the last few months, and [MakerStorage]’s latest project taps into the popularity of fidget spinners to put an educational — wait for it — spin on the usual STEAM education toolkit. This is exactly what the maker revolution needs.

On board this educational fidget spinner are a few RGB LEDs and an Arduino-compatible microcontroller development board. A coin cell battery powers everything, and in an interesting advancement of fidget spinner science, [MakerStorage] seems to be using a flanged bearing with a PCB. We’re seeing the march of technology right before our eyes, people. Right now there are two versions of the educational fidget spinner, one with an Arduino Pro Micro soldered to the board, and another with an ATMega-derived custom circuit on the board along with a PCB USB connector.

Haven’t gotten enough fidget spinner news? OH BOY does Hackaday have you covered. Here’s the Internet of Fidget Spinners, a fidget spinner with an embedded WiFi microcontroller and a bunch of blinky LEDs. Those LEDs form a Persistence of Vision display. It’s amazing, astonishing, and it’s in fidget spinner format. Bored with your oscilloscope? Turn it into a fidget spinner tachometer. There’s literally nothing that can’t be applied to the world of fidget spinners.

Awesome Illuminated Arcade Spinner

January 23, 2017 by Steven Dufresne 2 Comments

[Tinker_on_Steroids] made some awesome looking spinners that not only light up when spun but are a really professional looking build on their own. Before we’d watched his assembly video we were sure he’d just added on to something he’d bought, but it turned out it’s all custom designed and made.

In case you’ve never played the old arcade games, a spinner is an input device for games such as Tempest or Breakout where you rotate a knob in either direction to tell the game which way and how fast to move something. In Tempest you rotate something around the middle of the screen whereas in Breakout you move a paddle back and forth across the bottom of the playing field.

He even detects rotation with a home-made quadrature encoder. For each spinner, he uses two ITR9608 (PDF) optical switches, or opto-interrupters. Each one is U-shaped with an LED in one leg of the U facing a phototransistor in the other leg. When something passes between the two legs, the light is temporarily blocked and the phototransistor detects it i.e. the switch turns off. When the thing moves away, the light is unblocked and it turns on again. The direction of movement is done by having the thing pass between two ITR9608’s, one after the other. The “things” that pass between are the teeth of a 3D printed encoder wheel. Continue reading “Awesome Illuminated Arcade Spinner” →

Building A Giant Game Of Life Spinner

August 14, 2012 by Mike Szczys No comments

We see a lot of projects related to Conway’s Game of Life, but this one is Hasbro’s Game of Life. The board game company recently commissioned a giant game spinner as part of a museum exhibit. Here’s the build log that shows how it was pulled off.

The first thing to note is that [Jzzsxm] does this for a living. His company was hired to build several exhibits related to board games for a children’s museum in Springfield, MA. But don’t let that stop you from offering to help at your own local museum. We know some hackers love doing that kind of work.

The scale of the project is what makes the build really interesting. It starts with a design which can be cut out with a CNC router. First the spinner frame and numbers are cut out of MDF to verify the code. From there the design is cut in two pieces out of HI-MACS, a durable solid-surface material. Pegs for spinning the dial are milled from more HI-MACS stock. The clicker mechanism uses a steel rod as a pivot point. On the underside of the table it has opposing springs to hold it in place no matter which way the thing is spun. [Jzzsxm] mentions that it sees a lot of abuse from the young patrons, but seems to be holding up just great!

[via Reddit]

Orbita Mouse

December 15, 2008 by Caleb Kraft 30 Comments

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5qCwlw9DO7g]

The Orbita mouse seems to be finally coming to production. After watching that video, it seems that the mouse could be quite nice actually. We’ve seen several people build jog wheels for their computer and others try to make scrolling more ergonomic, and this product seems to add both decently. Well, it could probably be more ergonomic, but it is a start. At less than $100 it isn’t cost prohibitive either. The question is, have any of you built an alternative? Using a puck shaped device seems like it could get bothersome on the hand, how would you improve the design?

[via Engadget]