Yearly Archives: 2014

Hershey Text JS

By Windell Oskay on June 7, 2014

James “techninja” Todd has just released Hershey Text JS, a port of the Hershey fonts to JSON, capable of being rendered quickly via JavaScript & SVG.

The Hershey fonts a classic set of “engraving” or “stroke based” (as opposed to outline based) fonts that are excellent for use with all kinds of physical cutting, drawing, and painting machines. Several years ago we introduced the Hershey Text extension for Inkscape, and you can find a more in depth introduction to the Hershey fonts in that article. Hershey Text JS is adapted from our Inkscape extension, and provides easy access to the font data for programmers who prefer to work in javascript.

This entry was posted in CNC, Software and tagged design, fonts, hershey, javascript. Bookmark the Permalink.

Visited by Toymakers TV

By Lenore Edman on June 6, 2014

Addie and Whisker of @tymkrs just posted video from their recent epic road trip including a visit to our shop. The video starts off in Colorado and wends through Arizona before getting to the bay area. After stops including the Internet Archive, the Electronics Flea Market and HSC, they arrive to tour our shop (starting at 11:53) before wrapping up at Tindie. We had a great time talking about the Eggbot, WaterColorBot, Digi-Comp II and miscellaneous vintage mechanical and electronic contraptions.

This entry was posted in Field Trips and tagged digi-comp II, eggbot, road trip, vintage tech, watercolorbot. Bookmark the Permalink.

Walking Teapot walking in a teapot

By Lenore Edman on June 5, 2014

We’re big fans of the Utah Teapot, and when a Walking Teapot arrived from our friend John, we immediately set it going inside our teapot.

For a history of the Walking Teapot, see this video with its creator from its 10th anniversary last year.

This entry was posted in Everything Else and tagged toys. Bookmark the Permalink.

How Egg Crate Foam is Made

By Windell Oskay on June 3, 2014

Ever wonder how they make foam rubber into an “egg crate” shape? You can tell that it isn’t molded that way, because there is not a smooth skin on the surfaces. And it clearly isn’t milled to that shape, since it comes in matched top and bottom pieces that are cut from the same initial block of foam. So how is it done? Amazingly enough, it’s done with a bandsaw.

Egg crate, acoustic, and other shapes of “convoluted foam” are cut with a special machine called a convolutor, which uses powerful rollers to feed flat sheets of foam rubber into a high-tension bandsaw. The rollers are covered with bumps that stretch and distort the foam such that the saw cuts to a variable depth, with extremely little waste.

You can watch the process in this video from Italian Cutting Systems (noting that the bandsaws are hidden behind protective covers):

This entry was posted in Engineering, Everything Else and tagged howitsmade. Bookmark the Permalink.

Lantern Museum Display with Flickering LEDs

By Lenore Edman on June 2, 2014

Graham from the Cotswold Motoring Museum wrote:

Do you remember talking to me about getting one of your flickering LEDs working in a motoring museum in England? Well I thought I’d let you know that I’ve now installed it into an old lantern to mimic a gas flame, and it looks terrific. I thought you might like to see a photo of it in situ as part of the scene.

This entry was posted in Electronics and tagged LEDs. Bookmark the Permalink.

WaterColorBot-style pen holder for DIY Laser

By Lenore Edman on June 1, 2014

Jens added a new tool option to his DIY Laser: a pen holder.

Due to safety concerns I couldn’t run the laser out in public, but to be able to show of the CNC capabilities I built a penholder.

The pen holder design was inspired by the WaterColorBot’s brush holder, with its parallel flexure hinges.

This entry was posted in Art, CNC, Electronics, Engineering, WaterColorBot and tagged cnc, diy. Bookmark the Permalink.

Linkdump: May 2014

By Windell Oskay on May 31, 2014

Electronics shopping on eBay: Is it possible that someone mis-translated “resistor” as “restraint”?
Cool design for a solderless optical theremin kit
New York City through a Game Boy camera in the year 2000
Intelligent 8-bit style “launch graphics” with ATmega328 (using our AVR target boards)
PCBshopper: Up-to-date comparison shopping for printed circuit board manufacturing
Physics: Chain reactions with the domino effect
Now you can actually get that autorouter tee-shirt.
Another in-circuit emulator (pictured) for our discrete 555 kit, by Timothy Brown on twitter

This entry was posted in Everything Else and tagged linkdump. Bookmark the Permalink.

Bulbdial Clock Assembly Timelapse

By Lenore Edman on May 30, 2014

Andreif shared this timelapse of building a Bulbdial Clock Kit on twitter:

Bulbdial from @EMSL completed. Thanks again to @maltman23 & @jprodgers for the terrific solder workshop at @netz39.

This entry was posted in Electronics, EMSL Projects, Open Hardware and tagged bulbdial clock, diy. Bookmark the Permalink.

BAMF 2014: Taktia

By Windell Oskay on May 29, 2014

Part of our continuing coverage of highlights from the 2014 Bay Area Maker Faire.

One of the most exciting new technologies that we saw at Maker Faire was from Taktia, a startup making augmented-reality power tools. They were showing off their semi-automated handheld wood router.

The router sits in a robotic cradle with a computer vision system and a screen. The human guides the router by hand, keeping its center within a 1 inch diameter circle shown on the LCD screen. As the human moves the router, the cradle makes fine corrections to put the router bit exactly where it needs to be, allowing a non-expert to cut precise, complex shapes, while only moving the router along a coarse path.

In the photo above you can see some wooden shapes that visitors were cutting out, by only moving the router freehand, while letting the robotic cradle do the hard work. We can certainly imagine other tools getting the same “robotic upgrade” — this startup will be worth watching.

This entry was posted in CNC, Engineering, Robotics and tagged makerfaire. Bookmark the Permalink.

BAMF 2014: Racing Snail video from Hackaday

By Lenore Edman on May 28, 2014

Part of our continuing coverage of highlights from the 2014 Bay Area Maker Faire.

Mike from hackaday caught up with me at Maker Faire and got a bit of video of my racing snail, which I was showing as an example of soft circuitry alongside various projects of our friend Meredith, including her awesome StarBoard flexible circuit LEDs. Mike’s writeup points to the history and variety of Bristlebot projects. The racing snail is a personal favorite, with the nap of the fabric foot providing the direction to the bot’s motion.

This entry was posted in Engineering, Field Trips and tagged makerfaire, snails. Bookmark the Permalink.