Yearly Archives: 2013

Erector Rocket Launcher Set

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Erector-Rocket 2

We recently acquired this beautiful Erector Rocket Launcher Set from 1958. While not quite complete, it is still tantalizing with its girders, nuts, bolts and motor. The printing on the metal box is beautiful.

Erector-Rocket 4

The motor is labeled “Erector Electric Engine” and features a clever mechanical gear shifter.

While our set did not come with instructions, there are online resources for vintage building sets, and Girders & Gears has a thorough description and pictures of a more complete set. They also have instructions available for download, which include the following practical warning:

CAUTION: Be sure there is no one in front of the launcher when the rocket is fired.

This entry was posted in Education, Engineering, Vintage Technology and tagged . Bookmark the Permalink.

Two New Menorah Kits

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Breadboard LED Menorah Kit

Hanukkah comes remarkably early this year, starting on Thanksgiving day, November 28.

Today, just in the nick of time, we are releasing two new LED menorah kits for 2013 that complement our consistently popular Deluxe LED Menorah Soldering Kit.

Breadboard LED Menorah Kit - Parts

The first kit, the Deluxe Electronic Breadboard Menorah Kit, is a response to two requests that we frequently receive: (1) for an LED menorah kit that doesn’t require soldering and (2) for a menorah kit with assorted multicolor LEDs— for that assorted-color candle look. (Nailed it!)

The kit includes a 6″ transparent breadboard, 10 mm LEDs in red, orange, yellow, green, blue and warm white, a control button, battery holder, and a pre-programmed microcontroller.

Breadboard LED Menorah Kit
Breadboard LED Menorah Kit

While the electronic components— the microcontroller, resistors, control switch, and LEDs —are essentially the same as in the Deluxe LED Menorah Kit, we’ve had to make quite a few changes to the layout and firmware to redesign the circuit to lay out so neatly on a breadboard. Additionally, as the perceived brightness of different LED colors can vary quite a bit, we’ve included a specific set of per-color resistors to even out the overall brightness levels.

The Deluxe Electronic Breadboard Menorah Kit is in stock now, and ready to make happy campers on some night(s) of Hanukkah this year.

Special Edition LED Menorah Kit

For the second new kit, the multicolor Special Edition Deluxe LED Menorah Kit, we’ve brought the assorted multicolor LEDs back to our original Deluxe LED Menorah Soldering Kit. Because, why should breadboarders have all the fun?

Special Edition LED Menorah Kit

And it even looks good with the lights off! The new Special Edition LED Menorah Kit is in stock and shipping now.

This entry was posted in Electronics, EMSL Projects, Engineering, Evil Mad Scientist Shop, Microcontrollers, Open Hardware and tagged . Bookmark the Permalink.

Peek-O-Book

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Peek-O-Book

The Peek-O-Book is a close relative of the Snap-O-Lantern. The book occasionally opens and peeks out with its LED eyes before snapping shut again to look like a normal book on a shelf.

Peeking

A compartment is cut into the pages of the book and the circuitry is hidden inside.

What's inside

The orange LED eyes are affixed to a small piece of wood which is then glued to the cover of the book so that they just fit inside the compartment. The rest of the electronics are nestled inside the compartment.

Exploratorium Art of Tinkering

We made the Peek-O-Book for The Art of Tinkering book release party at the Exploratorium Afterdark event last week. Many of the tinkerers featured in the book were invited to hack a copy of the book. The cabinets in the Tinkering studio were packed full of hacked books and projects from the book. You can see pictures of some of the other hacked books in our photo set.

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Cylon-approved

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Red Eye

Andrew Probert, the designer of the Cylons for the original Battlestar Galactica TV series, wrote to say:

Years later, now, I just was made aware of this great pumpkin idea of yours and wanted to thank you personally for keeping my toaster ‘alive’ in a fun new way… this is SO cool.

Our Cylon Jack-O-Lantern project and Larson Scanner kits are carrying on the tradition!

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Call for Reimagined Science Kits

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The SPARK (Science Play and Research Kit) Competition is requesting submissions for what they are calling “Reimagining the Chemistry Set of the 21st Century.”

To be clear, we’re interested in science beyond chemistry. We borrow this term to capture the spirit and magic of what the classic chemistry set spawned in the 1940s – 60s. We’re looking for ideas that can engage kids as young as 8 and inspire people who are 88. We’re looking for ideas that encourage kids to explore, create, build and question. We’re looking for ideas that honor kids’ curiosity about how things work.

We’ve delved into that spirit with our posts on Vintage Chemistry Manuals and Vintage Chemistry Sets. We also see it in our community in groups like Public Lab, with projects like Thermal Photography. It is exciting to see this contest trying to promote that spark of curiosity. Submissions are due in January, and we’re looking forward to seeing the winners when they’re announced in February. In the meantime, we would like to hear what you want to see in science kits for the future.

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Proximity activated Snap-o-Lantern

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Gabe Hoffmann wrote in:

I heard you on Science Friday talking about halloween, went home and looked on your website at Snap-O-Lanterns, and was inspired.  I added a phototransistor and infrared LEDs to make a motion sensing small pumpkin that can try to bite you.

Thanks for sharing your project, Gabe!

If you built a Snap-O-Lantern or were inspired by any of our Halloween projects, we’d love to see your photos in our flickr group.

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