From traditional crafts to modern crafts, we’re covering news and interesting projects to educate you and keep you inspired. Design trends and pop culture related projects are here to inspire.
Over in the new MAKE forums John writes “Here’s a how-to I wrote on making spaceships and sci-fi weapons from household items such as aspirin bottles, pvc pipe, toilet bolt covers, some hobby store styrene, and some parts from old models. Make Spaceships from Aspirin Bottles and Toilet Items Part 1 & Make Spaceships from Aspirin Bottles and Toilet Items Part 2.”
Hans writes – “This LED Matrix Clock is a feasability study for a much larger project I am building for my employer, the intention was to prove to myself (and my employer!) that I am able to drive an LED matrix from a PC. This is the first project I have made which is driven by a PC. The clock uses 3 B64CDM8/B48CDM8 8×8 5mm LED Matrix modules from Nexus Machines, each having an onboard MAX7219 display driver chip. These require an SPI serial interface, which I by toggling pins of the host PC’s parallel port (printer port). The small software application which drives the displays is written in Delphi 5 and runs on Windows NT 4.” Link.
Handy how to for getting started with DC motor control – “This article explains the basics of how to get your motor to give feedback to a microcontroller and then control the speed of the motor with a good deal of precision (well… good enough for our robots). You can select any speed you want the ‘bot to go and it will try to go that speed – even if it runs into difficult terrain. It will apply more power when it senses a slow down and the power will continue to be increased until the wheels turn at the selected speed (or until you run out of battery juice). In fact, it is quite interesting to command the robot to turn at a low rpm and then watch it crawl very slowly across the carpet. If you put your hand on it to stop it, it ‘hunkers’ down and starts pushing harder until you let it go. It then quickly settles into its slow and straight crawl.” Link.
Join the creators of MAKE magazine, the MythBusters, and thousands of tech DIY enthusiasts, crafters, educators, tinkerers, hobbyists, science clubs, students, and authors at MAKE’s first ever Maker Faire. All kinds of people who make amazing things in garages, basements, and backyards. Inspiration, Know-How, and Spirited Mischief-Making: Weird Science, Ultimate Garage, Robotics, Digital Entertainment/Gaming,Green Tech & Electronics Recycling, Ultimate Workshop MAKE: Remix Video Film Festival and more… I have a lot more to post about all this, but the site is live go check it out!! Link.
And we’re back! PSPupdates is cranking out the PSP goodness! – “That’s right, the day we’ve all been waiting for has finally arrived! Thanks to the fantastic work by our forum moderator Fanjita and his coding companion Ditlew, it is now possible to play vast amounts of homebrew programs and emulators on every PSP in the world, including those with 2.60 Firmware! Thanks to their monumental achievement, every PSP in the world is capable of playing homebrew!” [via] Link.
Ian’s new Instructable looks great for Nixie tube hackers, but be careful this one requires a lot of care. He writes “This SMPS boosts low voltage (5-20 volts) to the high voltage needed to drive nixie tubes (170-200 volts). Be warned: even though this small circuit can be operated on batteries/low voltage wall-worts, the output is more than enough to kill you!” Link.
DIY live has some good tips on fixing that old NES “I took apart my nintendo, and found the 72 pin connector. I took my smallest flat head screw-driver and pried every pin up a little. Over time, they had lost their springiness (I don’t know if that is a word, but it describes what I am talking about). This is a pretty good fix. It may not be the best, but it works. Another thing to help out is to clean the pins of your old cartridge. You can take a wooden pencil with the red eraser, and rub it on the pins of the cartridge. Make sure you get all of the eraser off of the cartridge.” Thanks Star! Link.
