Low-Poly Papercraft Mask
We featured MAKE Flickr pool member kongorilla’s photograph, showing some of the prototypes for this mask, a couple weeks back. As cool as that picture is, it didn’t prepare us for the finished product.
free downloads
The Rockwell International Integrated Space Plan
I first encountered this amazing infographic hanging on a professor’s office wall when I was visiting law schools back in 1999. I’ve been trying, off and on, to run down my own copy ever since. It’s been one of those back-burner projects that I’ll poke at when it comes to mind, every now and again, but until quite recently all my leads have come up dry. All I really knew about the poster was that it had been created in the 80s by analysts at Rockwell International and that it was called the “Integrated Space Plan.”
How-To: Papercraft Enigma Machine
Their wiki page also includes a brief history of paper enigma models that traces the origins of this method back to Alan Turing’s hypothetical “comic strips” model from his 1942 Treatise on the Enigma. To make it, download the PDFs, print them out, cut them out, and apply them to a 75mm diameter cardboard tube.
The South Bend Lathe Library
Founded in 1906 in South Bend, Indiana, South Bend Lathe, at one time, controlled almost half of the U.S. domestic metalworking lathe market. South Bend did a lot of things right, to earn their market share and reputation, and one of the smartest was to produce clear, well-illustrated, low-cost instructional materials describing not just how to set up and run their tools, but how to use them to perform all kinds of basic and advanced machining operations.
Drill Here to Destroy Hard Drive
Free, handy, download-and-print sticker from Randy Sarafan of F.A.T. Lab.
Make: Projects – CD / Suction Cup Status Dial
When I tried Jason’s trick for myself, however, I found that, while the hole in an optical disc does fit nicely over the hub of a hardware-store suction cup, all the cups I could find had this molded-in groove to accommodate a wire hook. This groove prevents the CD from fitting snugly around the hub, and allows it to spin too freely. If you only have two states you want to indicate (e.g. clean or dirty dishes), it’s really not a problem. But if you want better resolution, the fit needs to be snug so the dial can’t “drift.”
So I’ve added a bit of craft foam that fits down in the groove and secures the CD in place, and doubles as a pointer. This design adds just enough friction: The CD is easy enough to turn, but not so easy that it won’t stay where you put it.
I’ve included a printable version of the label I made for my own “returning at” sign, which can accurately indicate 96 separate states (any 15 minute interval in the 24 hours of a day), but the design could easily be adapted to other purposes.
Top 10: Free Downloads
Woohoo! Free stuff! Not counting software, here (except a coupla fonts), because almost without exception, all the software we’ve covered on Make: Online is free, and we’ve covered a lot of it. Free software’s a whole series of round-ups. Here you’ll find templates, calendars, posters, plans, papercraft models, and other cool stuff you can download and use completely gratis. Enjoy!
