A Sneak Peek from Santiago: Lights, Bikes, and Clouds
Buenos días from Santiago, Chile where preparations are well under way for the second Santiago Mini Maker Faire.
Technology
Reflow Oven That Signals When It’s Done
Ray Wang’s modified his reflow toaster oven with a temperature probe controlled by an Arduino Pro, as well as an automatic door opener and auto-activating fan to reduce cool-down time.
Animatronics Kits for Learning
I just stumbled across the Star★Bot animatronic platform kit out of the community of makers in Florida. It’s designed for kids to “create animatronic robots and learn microcontrollers, mechanics and papercraft.” Its Kickstarter campaign ends in a few hours! Pat Starace developed the kits at FamiLAB “Central Florida’s provider of space, tools, and community for creative technical learning and projects.” (All the organizers for the Orlando Mini Maker Faire met at FamiLAB.)
Han Lee’s Wooden Pixel Display 64
Han Lee’s Wooden Pixel Display 64 is a sweet 8×8 matrix created with wooden blocks manipulated by servos..
Making it in China
Right after the overwhelming experience of Maker Faire Rome I left Europe for a week a quick tour in China. There are a lot of cool things happening there. I’d been to China twice before for a very short time so this time I wanted to spend a few days to meet with people and take part in some cool events going on in Shanghai and Shenzhen.
A New WiFi Board Appears: Introducing the WildFire
Meet WildFire, an Arduino-compatible board for serious network and Internet-connected applications by our friends at Wicked Device, now available in the Maker Shed. Thanks to WildFire’s onboard TI CC3000 Wi-Fi module, the increased memory size of the ATmega1284p processor and a MicroSD Card slot, you can create applications with larger data requirements and greater I/O needs than most internet-connected Arduino projects.
Turn it up to 11 With This License Plate Guitar Weekend Project
Homemade guitars are very popular here at MAKE, and the License Plate Guitar joins a long list of DIY resonator instruments. Build your own version and strum to the beat of a homemade sound with Weekend Projects!