If you stopped by our table at the Maker Faire, you got to play around with our big drum demo of the Tactile Metronome. Lots of people had questions about how we drove the solenoid for the drum striker, so we decided to write it up once we got back home.
Solar & astrophysics test engineer Hank Hancock saw a comment on our Mini-Trebuchet post about how to improve the throw distance, and put up his hand to try it out. We sent him a kit, he’ll be building and documenting the before-and-after effects of adding wheels to the design.
Apparently there was some kind of giant rocketship at Maker Faire this year. Did anybody else notice this? I tend to tune everything else out when there’s funnel cake around. We should probably put it in a more prominent location next time.
Anyhoo, if, like me, you were at the Faire and happened to miss the 40-foot-tall gleaming aluminum spaceship in the middle of the grounds, on the program, and on all the posters, don’t fret: There are plenty of groovy photos and videos whooshing around the tubes, and if you find yourself unsatisfied by two-dimensional simulacra you could always purchase one of Raygun Gothic crewman Alan Rorie’s kit models of the craft. He’s got
beautifully-printed pepakura
for $12.50 and laser-cut plywood for $50.
Sylvia’s Super-Awesome Maker Show: Episode 01, Drawdio – outstanding! Super Awesome Sylvia builds the Drawdio by Jay Silver from the kit by Adafruit! This doesn’t include a complete tutorial on bulding the kit, as Ladyada has done such a good tutorial [here]… Drawdio kit, available in the MakerShed.
This looks interesting – Stray Technologies is offering a USB-MIDI controllable kit based on the YM2149 sound generator IC, famed for its use in classic computer and game consoles – The chip is most well known for its use in the Apple II Mockingbird soundcards and Atari ST computers. The YM or the chip from […]
Hannah, aka Plusea, is something of a legend in the soft-circuits community. We have covered her open-source work in soft circuits and sensors many, many times before. She has no fewer than 37 tutorials published on Instructables, 28 of them “featured,” almost al of which cover low-cost soft-circuit devices of her own design. Now she is selling kits for a few of her more popular soft sensor inventions, none of which will set you back more than $15. Shown above is her Neoprene Bend Sensor Kit.
Indie makers RLT Industries of New Braunfels, TX, sell this lovely wooden model kit of the classic “south-pointing chariot” mechanism: Set the chariot down with the vane pointing in an arbitrary direction–south, north, whatever–and a geared differential connected to the wheels will keep it pointing the same direction regardless of which way the chariot turns. […]
