This Week in Making: Marble Machines, Filament Tips, and More

3D Printing & Imaging Arduino Art & Sculpture Craft & Design
This Week in Making: Marble Machines, Filament Tips, and More

ArduinoDay

Happy Arduino Day!

We got to spend Arduino Day 2016 with a bunch of awesome Makers as well as the founders of Arduino. At the official Berkeley event there were lots of cool projects: underwater robots, trains, drawbots, and more. But even Makers who couldn’t come got a chance to share with #MakeArduino. Here are some of our favorite projects that came to us through social media.

Marble Madness

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Ben Tardif built this amazing 8-foot-tall marble machine over the course of 3 years.

[via Toyland]

To Program, Or Not To Program?

Photo by Lucas Saugan
Photograph by Lucas Saugan

Tom Igoe, co-founder of Arduino, wrote an opinionated piece on how the focus of learning programming should be placed on computational thinking, the logic that goes behind the execution code, rather than the language itself. Since we published it online we’ve gotten a lot of comments from readers offering their perspective on the issue. Even if you’ve read the article already, it’s worth going back to look through the comments. They definitely add new angles to the debate.

Draw, Bot, Draw!

drawBot_1

We shared six of our favorite drawbots this week, but if that’s simply not enough to satisfy your drawbot curiosity, commenter Kongorilla has you covered. Kongorilla shared a lengthy forum thread where enthusiasts have been adding drawbots from around the web as they see them. The thread is pages long and covers all sorts of drawbots. Check it out!

Google Says: “Shut It Down”

Revolv

If you’re into home automation, you’ve probably already heard the controversial news that Google is shutting down Revolv home automation hubs. To clarify, they’re not shutting down support for Revolv, they’re making each and every Revolv — purchased and in homes now — no longer functional. Arlo Gilbert wrote a very good essay on why the implications of this are bad, and not just for Revolv owners. Seems like a good case for DIYing your home automation system. Gee, I wonder how you might do that…

Tip of the Week:

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Use your 3D printer’s filament thread to make rivets. Just heat the ends with a hot glue gun or soldering iron then push the plastic flat to form the head of the rivet. These rivets are fairly durable and use supplies that are already at hand if you’re into 3D printing.

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A typical day for Lisa includes: getting up to see the sunrise, bicycling, interning at Make:, reading and writing short stories, and listening to audiobooks and podcasts for hours while working on projects or chores.

View more articles by Lisa Martin

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