makers market

Soft sensor kits from Hannah Perner-Wilson

Soft sensor kits from Hannah Perner-Wilson

Hannah, aka Plusea, is something of a legend in the soft-circuits community. We have covered her open-source work in soft circuits and sensors many, many times before. She has no fewer than 37 tutorials published on Instructables, 28 of them “featured,” almost al of which cover low-cost soft-circuit devices of her own design. Now she is selling kits for a few of her more popular soft sensor inventions, none of which will set you back more than $15. Shown above is her Neoprene Bend Sensor Kit.

Beautiful south-pointing chariot kit

Beautiful south-pointing chariot kit

Indie makers RLT Industries of New Braunfels, TX, sell this lovely wooden model kit of the classic “south-pointing chariot” mechanism: Set the chariot down with the vane pointing in an arbitrary direction–south, north, whatever–and a geared differential connected to the wheels will keep it pointing the same direction regardless of which way the chariot turns. […]

Featured Maker: Michele Banks

Featured Maker: Michele Banks

Washington, DC artist Michele Banks, aka Artologica, is a painter who, in her own words, “uses an old and often-disrespected medium, watercolor, to create pieces that are anything but old-fashioned.” Her works in Makers Market focus on biological and medical themes, particularly the microscopy of living cells. Shown above is Cell Division Blue 1, a 12 x 9″ canvas executing using a special “wet-on-wet” painting technique.

Petri dish culture soaps

Petri dish culture soaps

We covered these clever Petri dish soaps from Cleaner Science back in March. Now, we’re very pleased to have her on board as a Makers Market seller. Her soaps are available in many colors and varieties, including some with glow-in-the-dark “colonies,” and none of them will set you back more than $10.

My favorite laser-cutter offering 3D printer parts kit deal

My favorite laser-cutter offering 3D printer parts kit deal

I’ve been hiring Angus Hines of Carrolton, VA, for a couple of months now for all my contract laser-cutting, and I can’t say enough good things about him. But, heck, I’ve never met him, so let’s focus on the empirical: Angus consistently quotes me about half what the big-laser cutters want to charge on the same jobs. (Hopefully he knows that, and I haven’t just shot myself in the foot by pointing it out.) Seriously, Angus himself says, “one of my goals is to help bring the price of DIY tech down to a more reasonable level.”

Now Angus is offering a kit of all the acrylic parts for the open-source Fab@Home Model 2 3D printer at about 75% of what the Fab@Home preferred vendors are charging. [Thanks, Angus!]