Pat sent in this holiday treat, how cars are made! “…a video of the making of a very important (and common) mode of transportation: cars. Thanks to the good people at Toyota Motor Manufacturing in Georgetown, Kentucky for supplying the 5-minute narrated video of the manufacturing process. It goes from stamping through painting and powertrain through the end of the assembly process. At the end, you see the car being driven off the line.” Link.
Here’s a great how to on Instructables on making a pedal powered air compressor, Aaron writes – “replace the electric motor of an air compressor with modified bicycle drivetrain. pedal. keep pedalling…use the existing motor mount to install an axle with one fixed cog and a belt pulley. You’ll need bearings. try a 1/2″ axle with radial ball bearing cartridges. make the bearing housing out of a slotted tube that has a drilled out nut and a regular nut to allow a bolt to tighten the tube around the bearing….” Link.
There’s a new google-maps-style API for the virtual world Second Life. It’s in beta, but we made an example of what’s possible – you can click the arrows and see snap shots of the virtual edition of MAKE, our theater and the tree house. Click the navigation arrows as well as the zoom in/zoom out controls to see the rest of the virtual world. The cool thing about this is that it’s a “real” view into another world. Link.
Lilmuckers details his installation of a Mac mini in a kitchen “My father wished to install a computer in the kitchen, hidden, and with few to no visible cables. Encorperating a TV into the setup somehow. The kitchen had been recently overhauled, tiled, plastered, and cleaned up. So I had a blank canvas to work from.” [via] Link.
Great (old) project from Rocketboom’s Andrew – “This project was designed to create an isolated box which can be placed inside of an elevator to play dramatic sound designs based on the direction and altitude of an elevator. A microprocessor chip is stamped with conditionals to determine the location of the elevator based on barometric pressure and then pulses are sent to trigger an mp3 player which, when amplified, plays out from a complex set of musical relationships to create a dramatic and playful experience for the unassuming passengers.” Link.
Pretty good list of some starter circuits for many projects…“a list of the top ten most needed circuits that are a must know for anyone interested in DIY projects. These are the basics that can all be interchanged and used in conjunction with each other to make many of the projects that we all love so much.” Link.
Great how to on detecting a laser pointer “break” using a serial port – Chard writes “Ever wanted to make your own laser beam security system. You know the kind they have in the movies, with dozens of lasers and the thief has to limbo through them. Well, I just made a simple laser beam break detector. My computer can now tell when the beam is broken. The parts I used are: 5.6k resistor, photo diode, Digikey part #PDB-V107-ND, serial port from my PC…” Link.
