Nixie-tube sudoku board
From Trashbear Labs. Arduino-controlled, incorporating a whopping eighty-one tubes. More details available in a follow-up post here. [via Hack a Day]
Toys and Games
Maker Birthdays: Ernő Rubik
Born on this date in Budapest in 1944, ErnÅ‘ Rubik (Wikipedia) would go on to invent, in 1974, a classic mechanical puzzle, originally known as the “Magic Cube,” that would eventually become an icon to an entire–and pivotal–generation of young geeks. Today Rubik is 66. Boldog szuletesnapot!
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.
Unusual building blocks based on close-packed spheres
Mathematician and artist George Hart (who writes our Math Monday column), created a cool set of six building blocks by slicing up and combining bits of these rhombic dodecahedra. Theoretically, the same set of blocks can be used to build tetrahedra and octahedra of any size. Thingiverse user Lenbok printed a set on a MakerBot. George’s are printed in nylon using selective laser sintering, and, as he points out, look a lot like fancy sugar cubes. I suppose you could print them on a CandyFab and make them actual sugar cubes. Or sugar Voronoi cells, rather.
How-To: Retrofit a Magic 8-Ball with an OLED display
>The steps outlined here will show you how to modify a standard Magic 8 Ball to replace the normal message icosahedron with a OLED screen, and how to add wireless microcontroller, and accelerometer. The screen is submersed in the normal Magic 8 Ball goo so that all the original aesthetics are preserved. The messages can be reprogrammed wirelessly without having to open the 8 Ball. The accelerometer detects when the 8 Ball is in use (e.g. tipped from resting to looking through the Magic Hole) and signals the microcontroller to turn on screen and fade in the messages.
I made one of these Death Star cookies when I was five…
Well, OK, “I” made it in the sense that I watched my mother make it and (I think) she let me poke some of the holes with a fork. But of course she gave me all the credit. A great memory, for both of us, that would have been lost if not for the magic of the internet. The Sith Lord’s original recipe appears in 1979’s Darth Vader Activity Book. [via Boing! Moreover, Boing!]
Holy smokes Iron Man costume
t may look like a CG rendering from a big-budget movie, but it’s really just a photograph of Colorodan Anthony Le wearing his $4,000 homemade costume.
[Le] used thin, high-impact urethane for the armor, cutting it into plates and joining them with some 1,500 rivets and washers. He sculpted a clay helmet mold and then used a liquid resin mix to create the final product…He also added a small servo motor that opens the faceplate, as in the movie, and built a gun out of pipes and a motor. LEDs in the eyes and chest-plate further add to the illusion.
