New in the Maker Shed: PowerSwitch Tail
The PowerSwitch Tail allows you to safely control a standard wall outlet (120VAC) device with almost any micro controller. Simply connect 2 wires and your ready to go! It’s perfect for use with an Arduino.
Kits
New in the Maker Shed: Bulbdial Clock kit
The Bulbdial Clock kit works like an indoor sundial, but with three shadows of different length. You tell the time just like you do on a normal clock, by reading the positions of the hour, minute, and second hands.
How-to: Building a compressed air rocket launcher
Summer is here, and I was looking for something to do with the kids. They raved about how much fun the rocket launching was at Maker Faire in San Mateo, and I wanted to bring a little bit of that fun home. All I needed to do was build my kids a kit version of Rick Schertle’s compressed air rocket launcher that was featured in MAKE Volume 15.
DIY server room monitoring
Jared Bouck is the driving force behind Sprout Board, an Arduino breakout board that lets you plug in a Duemilanove and a shield and provides a panel-mount set of screw terminals, all in a rack-mountable form factor. The prototype application for the SproutBoard is a DIY server room monitor that can be configured to provide remote temperature and humidity, motion, liquid water, smoke, room entry, and mains power monitoring. Local monitoring options include an LCD display and an audio alarm module. They’ll sell you the Sprout Board itself, in kit form, for $50, or a complete bare-bones server monitor with a fully assembled and tested Spout Board, an Arduino, an Ethernet Shield, a serial LCD display, a wall mount chassis, and a temperature/humidity sensor board for $250, which is about 1/5th the price of a comparable commercial system.
Coiled extension cord lamp kit
Designer Craighton Berman makes these cool lamps that are mostly formed from their own extension cords. Plus a laser-cut acrylic frame and a basic lamp kit. He’ll see you just the frame and the lamp, so you can roll your own, or a complete lamp pre-wound with a 100′ cord.
Solar system necklace – “Each bead represents 20 million miles”
Laura Cesari, aka Chain of Being, makes beaded models of the solar system that, by the way, can also be worn as necklaces. Her work was recently featured on the blog of Carl Sagan’s Planetary Society:
New in the Maker Shed: Hackable Pixel Qi displays
Well, I finally get to let the cat out of the bag. We’ve got Pixel Qi screens available in the Maker Shed as of today.