Designing ATOMS: How Do We Enable Young Makers, Without Hiding the Details of How Things Really Work?
Tools that help users extend their capabilities almost always abstract away the true nature of how things work.
Tools
Tool Review: Great Innovations Ultimate Engineering Screw Chart
The slide rule may be a quaint anachronism in this age of ubiquitous computing, but there’s still a place for the slide chart, the volvelle, the nomogram, and other hand-held “paper computers.” These are still published by a few companies, and are a handy source of on-the-spot reference data, particularly in field or workshop environments that may be inhospitable to or inconvenient for electronic devices. Slide charts containing key screw, bolt, and nut data have been around for decades, and the folks at Great Innovations identify TAD’s Universal Reference Calculator, discontinued in the mid 1990s, as inspiration for their chart.
Toolsday Hangout on Air, Live and Online Today at 2pm PST/5pm EST
Today is Toolsday here at MAKE, so you know what that means – a live Google+ hangout where we will be discussing our favorite tools and workspace essentials. Tune at 2pm PST/5pm EST on the +MAKE page, or if you’re busy you can catch it later on the MAKE YouTube page.
Holiday Gift Guide 2012: 12 Awesome Craft Kits
If you’re a kit connoisseur, this gift guide is for you! Here are 12 awesome craft kits that are sure to knock a few names off your holiday to-buy list!
Give Something Useless this Christmas
How much time and effort do you put in to choosing the perfect Christmas gift? If you’re like my wife and I, it’s far too much. It is practical? Will they use it? It’s a never ending guessing game that typically ends up with a polite “thank you” card. This year why not forget practicality and give them something completely and utterly useless?
DiResta: Hatchet
In each bi-monthly episode of DiResta (every other Wednesday at 2pm PT), artist and master builder Jimmy DiResta (Dirty Money, Hammered, Against the Grain, Trash for Cash) lets us into his workshop, to look over his shoulder while he builds whatever strikes his fancy. In this episode of DiResta, Jimmy has his way with an old hatchet and transforms it into a sweet little showpiece tool.
For supplies and materials lists, notebook sketches, and Jimmy’s Notes, check out this page on MAKE: http://blog.makezine.com/2012/12/12/diresta-hatchet/
Tool Review: QU-BD Silicone Heater
QU-BD (pronounced “cubed”) is a recent startup that sells parts for 3D printers. They sent us a few of their silicone heaters to review. The heaters were designed for use in a heated build platform (which is required for warp-free ABS prints) and come in three different-sized square pads of 150 × 150mm, 200 × 200mm, and a giant 300 × 300mm. They are about 3mm thick and a 100k thermistor is built into each pad for measuring their temperatures. The build quality of the heaters is quite robust. The pads are made of a flexible fiberglass-reinforced silicone…