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April 15 2012
Intern’s Corner: Old Laptop, New Tricks
In this semi-regular column, MAKE’s awesome engineering interns tell us about the projects they’re building in the MAKE Labs, the trouble they’ve gotten themselves into, and what they’ll be making next. – Gareth
Our upcoming MAKE Volume 30 includes some cool home automation projects, from an alert system activated by motion to a thermostat that interfaces with the internet. So, when my laptop decided to give up the ghost last weekend, I wanted some home-integration ideas to use in bringing it back to life. The case had been damaged after five years of regular use, and a crack in the body kept the fan from spinning correctly. Every once in a while, I’d have to remove the body plate around the keyboard, lift out the fan, and tighten the center screw that kept vibrating loose. But this time, I decided to try something different than just a fix. Armed with new-found interest in home automation, I set about cannibalizing it in hopes that a project might pop out!
Before I started, I moved everything to an external hard drive, in case I seriously damaged anything. Then, I painstakingly removed the plastic body, setting the screws aside. Much to my horror, my dog decided to play with the parts tray, sending screws flying off the bench. Luckily, my feet have a way of finding them, especially in the dark! On the bright side, I successfully removed all of the crucial components, and the laptop can still be linked together and powered on.
Next, I fiddled with the different components to determine what could be left out (for space/power savings) and still allow the computer to run.
Among the removable pieces were (left to right): the modem hookup, USB jack, power button, the external display port, the AC converter port, webcam, the WiFi antennae, and the volume up/down/mute button strip. I’ll keep the power button and AC port to turn everything on, but the rest is inconsequential.
Now…what to do with it? A quick online search for possibilities gave me three ideas: use the display as a photo frame, use the hard drive as a jumbo USB, or use the system as a server for a printer. I ruled out the photo frame, because I want something interactive, not just a wall display. I also decided against the USB, because I already have a terabyte external drive for backups.
The server was the best fit for me, but I’m not using it for a printer because mine’s already wireless. So, instead, I decided to use my laptop as a media hub. I’ve deleted programs and whittled system space down to just under 20 gigs of the drive, leaving roughly 230 gigs for music and movies. I’ll keep the WiFi antenna attached, so that four wireless speakers can link to the hub. With no password set and only one operating system loaded, I can boot the computer without the need for a keyboard. So with just a wireless mouse (the trackpad was lost in the cannibalization), I can navigate my libraries!
I need help with the last step-housing the “hub.” I first thought of a fancy acrylic box with appropriate holes for wires, that I could then stash in a drawer and leave on. But the display has limited wire length, so it needs to be in the box as well. I want the screen to be independent from the box, so the hub can remain in a drawer while the screen is out. This led to my current idea: leave the box in the center sliding drawer of a desk, and mount the display in the desk surface. I have a desk at home with a glass pane over the wood top, so I could cut out a square in the wood and fit the display up against the glass. This way, the box is out of sight in the drawer, and the display is always viewable from the desk! Before I start sawing into my desk, though, I wanted to throw it out there to all of you. Any better ideas? I’m happy to hear them! Until next time…
Paul Mundell
MAKE Labs Engineering Intern
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February 23 2012
Intern’s Corner: MAKE Firetruck
So if you didn’t know, here at MAKE, we have an old Mercedes Firetruck (it’s actually a hose/ladder truck) that built in Germany during the 1970s. Some of you may have seen the truck in the past, at various events, but for a long time, the firetruck has just been sitting around, in dire need of maintenance. There were several issues we had to overcome to get the truck running again. For one, it would not start and the wiring was pretty bad, so nothing worked properly. We were able to get it working for the Oakland Mini Maker Faire last year and hope to bring it out for more events in the future.
The first thing we did was to get the truck running, which was an interesting task because of the condition everything was in. We checked all the basic things, such as the starter, made sure power was going where it’s supposed to be go, the fuses and the contactor were still intact (which on this truck is used during starting, since the truck starts at 24 volts). After some further testing and bypassing, we determined the reason it was not starting was that one of the two 12 volt batteries had a bad post and would not allow enough current to flow. After replacing the battery, it starts up every time without any issues.
The next thing we did was to get all the lights working. This included the emergency lights, brake lights, reverse lights, fog lights, dash lights, and the lights that are inside the truck. Most of the issues with lighting were due to old fuses which we are slowly replacing with blade fuses. At first, we thought all the emergency lights were broken, but it turned out that the siren had to be switched on to power the emergency light circuit. (The siren is really loud as you can hear in the video). We bypassed the siren circuit, and now, all the emergency lights work even when the siren is not running.
We are still restoring it back to proper working condition and will soon be adding some awesome mods!
Written by MAKE Engineering Intern Brain Melani
[Photos by Gregory Hayes]
January 28 2012
Intern’s Corner: What’s in Dan’s Jeep?
I’d like to introduce what I hope will be a recurring feature here on Intern’s Corner: a peek at what we interns have in our cars. To kick things off, let’s have a look at Dan’s Jeep, shall we?
Those four metal boxes are transformers of the type you might find on a neon sign. Each one produces thirty milliamps, although the voltages vary from 1,200 to 12,000 volts. He actually has a fifth one installed in his Tesla coil, back at the lab.
Some of you may have recognized the plumbing in the metal frame as a homemade jet engine, fashioned from an automotive turbocharger. This one uses a massive turbocharger from a tow truck’s Diesel engine, so it should produce plenty of thrust when Dan finishes it. He has yet to add oil, fuel, or an ignition systems. He intends to fuel it with propane.
The most interesting item in the truck is Dan’s handmade Civil War replica mortar. He turned the steel barrel on a lathe, giving it a 63 millimeter bore. He then welded trunnions (the metal pegs used as pivot points) to it. Finally, he built a base out of oak and redwood and coated it with urethane. Along with the mortar, there is a cardboard box (labeled “mortar supplies”) stocked with black powder and wadding, just in case his Jeep breaks down in a zombie-infested area.
Dan has most often fired the mortar blank, producing an impressive shockwave and a sharp thump in the chest. However, it is also quite functional as a weapon of war. He once took it to a clearing and fired rocks with it. Needless to say, those rocks were never seen again.
Bio:
Max Eliaser is an Engineering Intern at Make: Labs. His hobbies include programming and scuba diving.
January 19 2012
Intern’s Corner: Tiny Wanderer from MAKE Volume 29
Working at Make: Labs is always fun, especially when you get to test kits before they’re released to the public. As part of MAKE Volume 29 we got to build and test the Tiny Wanderer kit, designed by Doug Paradis and featured in the issue. Inspired by the now-discontinued SERB Robot kit, the Tiny Wanderer uses the ATtiny85 microcontroller for its brain, has two light sensors to detect its environment, and two continuous rotation servos for mobility. Each light sensor consists of an IR (infrared) LED and an IR phototransistor. The main body of the bot is constructed of laser-cut pieces of blue acrylic which are held together with nuts and screws via t-slots. The back of the robot sports a caster wheel made by sandwiching two bearings between pieces of acrylics with bolts running through them and an o-ring acting as the tire. This kit is moderately easy to build and took a total of four hours to put together and program.
To program the Tiny, you plug an Atmel AVRISP programmer into your computer via USB and install the drivers, plug the programmer into the board of the robot, then compile and upload the code using AVR Studio 4. Detailed steps are available on the Tiny Wanderer page of Make: Projects. Doug Paradis also wrote two additional programs for the Tiny Wanderer that allow it to avoid objects and follow a black line. The kit includes brackets for angling the sensors to face forward for object avoidance and he has a bracket design that you can make yourself for line-following. The brains of the bot can be replaced by an Arduino UNO (or older versions) and there are mounting holes for that on the chassis.
We decided to tape a marker on the back of our robot to see what kind of path it would trace when running the edge detection program. After about 10 minutes, the Tiny Wanderer fell off of the table.. Gahh! Wh-where is that time machine?!
Watch the video to see the path it traced. It was quite interesting to see it retracing the same path several times. We suggest running this little bot on a surface that’s closer to the ground (about two inches) to prevent major injuries to it. After replacing the broken parts, we ran Tiny on a lower platform for two hours straight and it never fell. It must have been camera-shy in its first run.
Look for this kit in the Maker Shed soon!
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October 17 2011
Intern’s Corner: Creating the Spectacular Failure Award
For the second year in a row, MAKE got the honor of designing the Spectacular Failure Award for the wonderful Handcar Regatta, held annually in Santa Rosa, CA. Here, Make: Labs intern Tyler Moskowite talks to fellow intern and award designer Dan Spangler about this year’s objet d’castrophe. – Gareth
Dan Spangler is one of our amazing engineering interns at Make: Labs. He was tasked with constructing the award for the annual Handcar Regatta event, held at Railroad Square in Santa Rosa. We at Make: Labs packed our bags and headed out to Bataeff Salvage to assist Dan in finding what he needed, but also to familiarize all of the interns with exactly what a good salvage yard has to offer. Gregory Hayes, our photo intern, came along to document as we worked our way around the yard. There were quite a few items we each found interesting.
What inspired the design of your trophy?
I figured I could get some interesting parts from traintown such as some wheels, track, and other train-related parts. I was just going to use the wheel itself for the trophy. But when I went to Bataeff Salvage, I found a bunch of interesting scrap. I tried to keep an open mind while looking through the scrap. I picked up whatever I could carry and brought it all back to my shop. Then I let the parts essentially put themselves together.
What were some of the challenges in building the trophy?
Everything that needed to be cut had to be cut with a body grinder. It’s very rough on your hands because of the vibration. And it smells terrible because of the particles it throws into the air, and gets into everything, and makes everything black — your shop, your clothes, your face, your boogers….. For the fire system I originally intended to use a copper tubing and fittings system which ended up being far too expensive and obnoxious to use and didn’t work, so I went with a rubber hose setup instead.
What is your favorite moment from the Handcar Regatta?
My favorite part was firing my homemade black powder 64mm cannon into the crowd of spectators at the event, just kidding, well mostly. I packed it with a few pages from last year’s special tool review issue to demonstrate the muzzle flash for the crowd. It was a blast!
[Photos by Gregory Hayes]
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September 07 2011
Farewell MAKE Intern Nick Raymond!
Today we bid farewell to intern/hacker/friend Nick Raymond. Nick has been an intern at MAKE as long as the sands of time, curating such projects as the Wooden Table, or contributing to projects like the PS/2/You LED Sign or Bill Gurstelle’s Flame Tube. He is headed off to UC Davis to pursue a degree in Mechanical Engineering. We think he will do great, and we wish him the best.
One of his favorite projects was building the Fool’s Stool that was in Volume 26. To give the wood to look 5000 years old, it was put in a bag full of cow muck that he dug up with his own hands. (Covered in gloves… We hope!)
You can see Nick’s full profile here on Make Projects. Get in touch with him on Facebook — this guy is amazing at getting projects together and we hope that he doesn’t stay too far away from the Make: Labs.
Photo by Gregory Hayes. For who’s who in the photo above, check out our Facebook page. (Nick is the green plaid shirt.)
June 10 2011
Intern’s Corner: Make Labs Tour
From left to right: Eric Chu, Brian Melani, Tyler Moskowite, Nick Raymond
By Nick Raymond, engineering intern
Photos by Gregory Hayes, photo intern
For this intern’s corner post, we (the MAKE interns) are going to give you a tour of our awesome new lab. It all began in a galaxy far, far away… or at least, in Sebastopol, Calif. (practically the same thing). We had just finished building and testing the Rubens Flame Tube from Volume 26 when the magazine’s managing editor, Keith Hammond, called us all together for a group huddle. In so many words, he said that the entire magazine department would be moving upstairs and that our current lab needed to be packed up and ready to move as soon as Volume 26 was sent off to the printer. Oh – he also mentioned that the location for the new lab was currently unknown.
Over the next two weeks, we managed to pack up the majority of the lab, but no one really knew where to move all the stuff. The old lab was filling up with boxes, and we were running short on room. Tyler, Eric, and Brian’s desks were lost beneath the rubble, and my desk had been disassembled so that we could put the finishing touches on the Drill Kart and take a few last minute photos for the article. And so it remained this way, with most of our tools and equipment boxed up and in piles while we awaited the moving date.
Tyler in the old Make Labs
Late one evening, as we interns toiled in darkness and clutter, Dale Dougherty, the founder of MAKE, poked his head into the chaos of our dilapidated mess and asked, “Have you guys seen the space for the new lab yet? If you all have a minute, lets go and take a look.”
With Dale to guide us, we all marched upstairs to the second floor of the building. (I had heard stories about the second floor, a strange and mysterious area where no intern dared venture alone.) We walked through a dark hallway and past a pair of elevator doors, and then Dale turned around a sharp corner and stopped. He flipped on the lights and the stark white industrial-sized room came into view. The space was four times larger than the old lab and had tall ceilings and a row of windows on the north wall. Dale was the first to speak. “This will be the new Make Labs. What do you think?”
Over the next few weeks, all four of us worked to set up the new lab. We converted three small adjacent offices into mini workshops and a storage room for all of our building materials. The new lab is still a work in progress, but here is an initial tour the new and improved Make Labs.
March 18 2011
Intern’s Corner: Autodesk Inventor Publisher Review
MAKE’s awesome interns tell about the projects they’re building in the Make: Labs, the trouble they’ve gotten into, and what they’ll make next.
By Nick Raymond, engineering intern
Autodesk recently sent Make: Labs a copy of their latest software, Inventor Publisher 2011. Earlier in the week, I had been using their 3D mechanical design program, Inventor 2010, to design a prototype cluster of light bulbs based on the “Spiderlite” to help our photography staff bring more light into our workshop while taking step photos for the magazine’s articles. With my 3D model already complete, this was the perfect opportunity to test the various features of the new software.
Inventor Publisher supports various 3D CAD formats (Autodesk Inventor, CATIA, Pro/Engineer, DWG 3D, DWF, STEP, IGES, and SAT) in case you choose to generate your 3D model using a different program. However, if you’re already familiar with the Inventor program’s layout, then you will have no problem acclimating to the commands. The Autodesk online videos are a great way to pick up tips and tricks if you want to jump right in, while the Help menu is a great resource that provides animations and instructions that explain the general tools and features.
Inventor Publisher gives you complete control over the appearance of your model. My design required six panels to be cut out of 5mm plywood using the laser cutter that we have here at the Lab. I was able to mimic the wood material type in the model by choosing from a list of preset visual wood styles, where I could then increase/decrease the size of the grain, rotate the pattern, and change the overall color and tones of the wood to produce a custom appearance very similar to the actual wood used for the project. Next I wanted to show a completely disassembled view of all the parts. The “Auto Explode” feature allows you to do just that, using the logical progression of how the model was built in the 3D rendering software to dictate how the model comes apart. To capture the images of the exploded view, you take what are called Snapshots, which are essentially digital still frames of the model.
These snapshots are compiled together and represent the 3D model at various stages of the assembly. Within the snapshots, Inventor Publisher allows you to insert callouts and arrows that help to direct attention to specific details, for example the size and dimension of a particular bolt. You can also add labels within each snapshot and magnify a portion of the model to give it emphasis. These images can then be used to create technical manuals, users guides, installation instructions, and any other form of visual documentation using 3D PDF, Microsoft Word, PowerPoint, raster, and even vector files. Inventor Publisher also provides an option for producing videos in either .AVI or Adobe Flash formats. To do this, the software automatically fills in the gaps between each snapshot to simulate fluid motion and generate the entire animated rendering of your instructions.
But the true power and application of the software is realized when you export your document onto the Autodesk Inventor Publisher server. Once online, other people can access your files by downloading Autodesk Inventor Publisher Mobile Viewer, and interact with your model in a 3D environment. As they follow along with the snapshots and instructions that you embedded in the file, others will be able to manipulate and move your model around in space to ensure that they understand exactly how to assemble your design. Try out the free app for your iPad of iPhone to learn more.
Be warned, this program may require a decent amount of processing power from your graphics card. Check out the Inventor Publisher website for more information about system requirements. Overall this is a great product with stunning visual results and intuitive and easy to use controls. Be sure to check out the quick video that I made which demonstrates how my light cluster design is assembled. Then start designing and documenting your builds!
December 03 2010
Intern's Corner: Yagi Antenna
MAKE's awesome interns tell about the projects they're building in the Make: Labs, the trouble they've gotten into, and what they'll make next.
By Tyler Moskowite, engineering intern
One of my all-time favorite projects to build has to be the Yagi Antenna from Make: Volume 24. The Yagi Antenna tunes into satellites orbiting the Earth and listens to their transmissions. I am still fascinated with the simplicity of the project. Besides the UHF FM radio, the materials required for the build are easy to find and inexpensive. In under two hours you will be able to tune in to the signals from space. Anyone who has the slightest interest in space, radio, or even spying should consider building this project. The most time-consuming part of this project is waiting for satellites to appear.
In my opinion the most important part of this entire project is patience. There are only a few operational satellites that radio operators use on a daily basis, and even then transmissions can be scarce or short. I had the most success with the following satellites: AO-ECHO, SAUDISAT 1C, and the HO-68. Make sure you get the latest information available on these satellites by going to their official web page.
For this build I was using the Uniden BC72XLT hand-held scanner, as seen in the materials list from the magazine. I initially had issues listening in on the satellite transmissions due to the Doppler effect. The Doppler effect changed the frequency of the signal just enough to distort the incoming message so that all I heard was static noise. Luckily the Uniden BC72XLT has a wonderful feature which allows you to set it to scan a range of frequencies. This feature compensates for the minimal frequency distortion, so there is less static when listening to the message. Although it may require a bit of tinkering around with the instruction manual to get this to work for you, it's worth the effort and time.
Finding the exact location of satellites and how they rise and fall in the sky can be a bit tricky. The article recommends you start with Heavens-Above site for finding satellite orbital paths, but I have found that the times provided by this website might not always be right. Make sure you know the direction that the satellites orbits when you are aiming your antenna. The first time I tried to listen in on a satellite I had been starting at the wrong side of the horizon, which is why the transmissions were so short. You can reference the direction via Heavens-Above, and move the antenna to track the movement of the satellite and pick up more of the transmitted signal.
Be sure to note the angle that the satellites rise to, and the time that it is expected to pass your location. You will be able to pick up a better signal if the satellites are traveling at higher relative altitudes; however, the majority of the satellites orbit at lower angles and produce mediocre results. At most there are only five high-angle passing satellites per day, so timing will be important. Take some of my failures into account, and go out and have some success in your first amateur satellite listening adventure.
Check out MAKE Volume 24:
MAKE blasts into orbit and beyond with our DIY SPACE issue. Put your own satellite in orbit, launch a stratosphere balloon probe, and analyze galaxies for $20 with an easy spectrograph! We talk to the rocket mavericks reinventing the space industry, and renegade NASA hackers making smartphone robots and Lego satellites. This, plus a full payload of other cool DIY projects, from a helium-balloon camera that's better than Google Earth, to an electromagnetic levitator that shoots aluminum rings, and much more. MAKE Volume 24, on sale now.
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