The EnableTalk system uses a glove-mounted microcontroller to collate information from a passel of onboard sensors—11 flex sensors, 8 touch sensors, 2 accelerometers, a compass, and a gyroscope—and transmit it wirelessly to a nearby computer or smartphone for translation into machine generated speech.
Ask MAKE is a monthly column where we answer your questions. Send your vexing conundrums on any aspect of making to askmake@makezine.com. If we don’t have the answer, we’ll scare up somebody who does.
We have developed several innovative designs for a new kind of robot that uses a continuous wave of peristalsis for locomotion, the same method that earthworms use. Because constant-velocity peristaltic waves form due to accelerating and decelerating segments, it has been often assumed that this motion requires strong anisotropic ground friction. However, our analysis shows […]
Acidithiobacillus ferrooxidans is a gram-negative bacterium that lives, in the natural world, in iron sulfide (aka “pyrite,” aka “fool’s gold) deposits, where it eats iron and sulfur and excretes sulfuric acid. Now, a team of graduates, undergraduates, and post-docs at New York’s Columbia and Cooper Union universities is working to develop a genetically-modified strain of A. ferrooxidans…
Adafruit’s new WebIDE will let you code and run programs for your Raspberry Pi from a web browser on any computer.
NYC Resistor member Holly Hudson built an alarm clock that wakes you up with light instead of sound: I’ve been wanting a sunrise lamp for a long time, but I’ve never found the perfect one. Having a free summer, and the knowledge that I would be starting my first full time job in many years […]
Artist and designer Yuri Suzuki created a working AM/FM radio on a PCB, with the copper tracks and silk screening influenced by the iconic London Underground map, drawn by engineering draftsman Harry Beck in 1931. In fact, Beck specialized in drawing electrical schematics, so his map of the Tube is more of a schematic, since, in […]
