- Spiny backed orb weaver making its web (Video by Rachel Barry Hobson).
- Why Your Next iPhone Won’t be Ceramic.
- A Wirebonding Factory Tour.
- How gas station fuel pump nozzles work (YouTube).
- Finalists of the Comedy Wildlife Photography Awards.
- Cardboard CNC Mill (YouTube).
- Steve Jobs apparently hated function keys.
- A programmable Stranger Things wall costume.
Halloween Project Archives
Halloween is one of our favorite holidays, and … we’ve organized dozens of our Halloween projects into categories: costumes, pumpkins, decor and food.
Head over to the Halloween Project Archives for the full list of projects.
Lady Ada Lovelace Day 2016
This year for Lady Ada Lovelace Day, I want to celebrate the many women who shared their projects at Maker Faire New York.
I was thrilled to see the Touch Creature sculpture above by Talya Stein, especially after having seen an earlier version. She and I talked about the approachability of organic materials like wood. It was wonderful to see kids interacting with it.
I had a great conversation with Blythe Serrano, who I had met at a previous Maker Faire, about the material properties she has learned this year from experimenting with silicone casting. She makes light up pet collars, and generously shares her learning processes.
I loved this spatial magnetic field visualization by Inhye Lee. The three tubes in the center contain individually controllable electromagnets. The compasses spin in their spheres in response to the changing magnetic fields.
There are so many more I had the pleasure of connecting with and catching up with, including Becky Stern, Sophi Kravitz, Star Simpson, and Sally Byers. I love Maker Faire for the opportunity to bask in the glow (LED glow in some cases) of so many incredible women.
East Bay Mini Maker Faire 2016
We are excited to be demonstrating the AxiDraw at the East Bay Mini Maker Faire on October 23 at the Park Day School in Oakland.
If you can join us, you can use discount code “MakerRockstar” when purchasing tickets online for 15% off.
Linkdump: September 2016
- The Art of Making a Nixie Tube (video)
- How The World’s Most Beautiful Typeface Was Nearly Lost Forever
- A photographic tour of a Soviet Typhoon class submarine
- The BBC Creates Step-by-Step Instructions for Knitting the Iconic Dr. Who Scarf
- Sonicare toothbrush teardown by Ken Shirriff (complete with an interesting footnote about Bluetooth)
- Insulin pump teardown (video) by Mike’s Electric Stuff
- Repair and restore video of a 1980’s Armatron toy robot arm
- A series of ‘shopped pictures showing the relative scale of things
- Noodlefeet the robot: Progress on the gripping, tasting, and drooling mechanisms
- TED talk: An athlete uses physics to shatter world records in high jumping
- Ghost Minitaur: A quadruped robot that can leap and open a door
AxiDraw at Maker Faire New York
We will be demonstrating the AxiDraw at Maker Faire New York this weekend, October 1-2. We’ll be in the Microchip booth in the Maker Pavilion.
Build it Yourself Science Laboratory at Maker Faire New York
Windell will be giving a talk on Sunday at this year’s Maker Faire in New York.
You can catch the talk on Sunday, October 2, at 2:30 PM, on the Make: Show & Tell Stage.
The Annotated Build-It-Yourself Science Laboratory is available from Amazon.com, O’Reilly, and other sellers of books, as well as from our store.
Drawing with light and AxiDraw
The folks at myDesignLab made long exposure RGB LED drawings using AxiDraw, even going so far as to make multi layer three dimensional drawings.
Lindsay Wilson used a laser in a similar manner, first with long exposure photos, then with a UV laser and phosphorescent vinyl and then with a UV laser and cyanotype paper. The cyano print shown above is an example of his experiments drawing Lorentz attractor patterns.
Linkdump: August 2016
- Reading makes you carsick because your brain thinks that it’s being poisoned.
- “Freshly ground sprinkles“
- High speed footage of past SpaceX missions
- The Moral Machine: Try to think like an (ethical) self-driving car.
- Hot-wheels POV video: As awesome as it sounds.
- The GIF is dead. Long live the GIF.
- Centro de Exposições do Centro Administrativo da Bahia: not a suspension bridge, but a suspension building. Exhibit hall in rising pyramid, auditorium in descending pyramid
- Apollo CPU Core 1, implemented in open FPGA code
- Tiny Caterpillar Robot Powered by Light
- Reverse engineering a real candle
- Teardown: Same Product, Fifty Years Apart by Steve Hoefer
- The center of our solar system (its barycenter) is located outside of the sun for the next few years, thanks to the motion of the planets.
- A Robotic ‘Burger Drop’ Machine to Capture One Slow Motion Shot
AxiDraw Experiments by Hansje van Halem
Hansje van Halem posted this video of clips of AxiDraw plotting a variety of designs using different types of pens and drawing media.
