There are lots of ways to make homebrew pressure sensors, but this method from Instructables user hiskeyd is the easiest I’ve seen: Jam two stripped wires into a piece of static dissipative foam and bend the ends over to keep them from pulling out. Then coat the whole thing in Plasti-Dip. And you’re done.
Have you built a straw tower as a student, or have you used the project as a teacher? How well does a project like this work in homeschooling? What techniques work well, and what resources are really helpful?
MacArthur fellow and MIT Media Lab alumnus Karl Sims brings us this great tutorial on how to build your own complex harmonograph (Wikipedia) for making cool…um…”geometric figures?” I’m looking for a 50-cent mathematician’s word (which may or may not exist) for these periodic spirally figures. Can anybody help me out? [Thanks, David!]
The mysterious Jack Crossfire’s open source autonomous VTOL UAVs are amazing to watch. For around a hundred dollars you, too, can build your own.
This music visualizer project combines two of my favorite things, Arduino’s & BlinkM’s, with another one of my favorite things, music! In the video above, all the BlinkM’s are mapped to display the same value, but they can be controlled individually with some code modifications. Check out the link for complete build instructions and the Arduino code.
Its eyes blink with data transfer. Spotted first on my Sunday scroll through the CRAFT Flickr pool. Image/video after the jump to protect delicate sensibilities. As Mark Frauenfelder, Editor-in-chief of MAKE, wrote in 2006 about a similar project: Taxidermy is an ancient craft but contemporary concerns about using animals to make things are worthy of […]
From the MAKE Flickr pool Rob Cruickshank shares this tip for easily creating an evenly spaced jeweling pattern on metal – Inspired by the article in MAKE: #19, and needing to make an ugly piece of brass pretty in a hurry, I hit upon the idea of using perfboard as a jig for jewelling. (Also […]
