Paper-mache, candy, and human cells have all been seen flowing through 3D printers for custom fabrication work, but students and faculty at Canada’s McGill University have a cheaper prototyping material: plain ol’ H2O. They recently modified this Fab@Home Model 1 by replacing the soft goo extruders with a temperature-controlled water delivery system, and set about making decorative ice sculptures and a large beer mug for good measure. While the academic project is officially supposed to explore “economic alternatives to intricate 3D models of architectural objects,” we’re not sure architects will want much to do with prototypes that drip… but tourism might well get a boost from liquor sold in frosty custom containers. We’re thirsty just looking at them.
Let’s face it — if you had a never-ending stack of cash and a computer room with no particular size constraints, you too would own a Thermaltake Level 10 enclosure. Regrettably, both financial and square footage constraints do indeed play major roles in most of our lives, including one Jeffrey Stephenson. This fine gentleman is quickly becoming the Ben Heck of wood-grained mods, this time cranking out a lovingly crafted iteration of the aforesaid chassis, but with that special wooden flair. The Level Eleven gets its inspiration from the gargantuan Level 10, but rather than taking things even bigger, Jeff decided to scale things down a notch; in fact, he constructed a fully functional PC within the handmade enclosure, all based around a VIA Pico-ITX mainboard and a 1.2GHz VIA Nano CPU. Thanks to the onboard VX855 media processor, this (comparatively) diminutive machine boasts an HDMI output and enough horsepower to pump out 1080p sans lag — but it doesn’t seem as if this bad boy is officially for sale. Not that he’d reject a five-figure offer or anything…
Unlike some photo DIY projects, I can see no reason why you would ever have to buy a commercial version of Derrick Story’s Rear Lens Cap Pad. It is as simple a project as you could imagine, but also solves a real problem: bag space.
The Rear Lens Cap Pad is simply a circle cut from a sheet of adhesive, padded material, and stuck to the existing rear-cap of your lens. What does it do? It allows you to stack lenses inside a bag or pouch without a bulky lens cover. And while it doesn’t offer the dust or bump-protection of a proper lens bag, it looks protective enough for day trips, stopping lenses from bashing and scratching each other as they jostle.
Derrick uses the caps so he can perch smaller lenses atop a zoom lying flat in his bag. A 50mm prime is small enough for a pocket, but put it inside a padded case and it immediately becomes unwieldy. I often leave lenses at home because of the size problem, and this hack gives me an even better idea: With a single foam tube and a few cap-padded lenses, you could easily make a minimal case into which any number of small objectives could be slid. A weekend project? I think so.
If you’re a DIY music hardware developer, there’s a pretty good chance you’re familiar with the charms of the Arduino. In this space alone we’ve seen it used for everything from controlling Max/MSP effects to an entire robot band. The above jumble of parts, however, might be our fave yet. Part of an ongoing project by a certain Daniel McAnulty, the Floppy Audio website details the use of the magnetic media inside a floppy disk for looping analog audio. The most ambitious of the lot even combines three floppy disk drives and the aforementioned Arduino to create a continuous tape delay effect! Things are still really rough, but he does have working prototypes, and he’s not at all shy about sharing his methods and results with the rest of the world — so feel free to hit the source link to get started yourself! If you’re not the type to get your hands dirty, at least peep the videos after the break.
For panorama-obsessed French photographer Steven Monteau, every photo is better if lengthened or widened with others. For him, even exposing a single, elongated image spanning a good six inches of 35mm film and spilling out across the sprocket holes is not enough. No, Steven would only be happy stretching three lengths of film out in parallel, and shooting onto all of them simultaneously. Still not crazy enough for you? Then why not make it a pinhole camera?
Above you see the result of Steven’s crazed concept, dubbed the Battlefield because it looks like, um, a battleship. It is constructed of cardboard, tape, aluminum foil (for the pinholes), plastic tubes, nails and bottle-tops. The three reels of film run along the length of the box, and its odd shaped ends are due to the three 35mm cartridges being offset to get the film strips close enough together. The results are stunning:
Inside, the mechanics are complex, as you’ll see if you follow the step-by-step tutorial Steven has written for DIY Photography. While one crank winds all three reels forward, and a neat rubber-band-and-nail assembly keeps the film in tension, there are three separate knobs to rewind the film.
I’m not sure what I like most here. The meticulously-made camera, the crude and beautiful images complete with sprocket holes and the mix of different films stocks, or the intricate and detailed illustrations accompanying the how-to. One thing I do know: I want one.
Still looking for that perfect iPhone dock? Struggling to convince ma and pa that ditching the landline really is the best thing to do? Freeland Studios is up for helping with both quandaries, as the handmade iRetrofone Base provides both a perfect resting place for your iPhone (or any phone, really) and a pinch of vintage to boot. Cast from resin with the utmost care, this here adornment can be ordered in both black and clear, though you’ll have to wait around a fortnight for one of the $195 devices to actually ship. Up next? A resin-based bag phone holster for those who constantly lose their smartphone between the seat and center console. Thanks for repeating yourself, history.
The Emotive EPOC “mind-control” headset may not be quite as advanced as some of the brain-reading devices unavailable to the general public, but it looks like it’s at least accurate enough for some basic tasks — like controlling a WowWee Rovio robot via Skype. That impressive feat was accomplished by the folks at ExtremeTech, who paired the headset with the Robodance 5 software program and Skype (not to mention plenty of custom code), which allows the Rovio to be controlled from afar using both facial and mental commands. Needless to say, that’s a lot easier said than done, but you can check out the results in the video after the break, and find the complete details on the project at the source link below.
The quest to build the perfect portable Nintendo 64 continues, but we imagine we’ll stop seeing somanydisparatedesigns soon. That’s not because Bacteria’s latest bulboushandheld has achieved perfection — far from it — but rather because he’s provided a 2.5-hour, step-by-step video guide to help you build it from the ground up. And hey, the system isn’t too shabby, either. The “iNto64” portable features integrated Controller, Rumble and Expansion Paks for complete N64 functionality, built-in speakers and a headphone jack, rechargeable batteries for up to three hours of play, even a video-out port if you get tired of staring at the ubiquitous 5-inch Sony PSone LCD. The only obvious oversight is controller ports for more inputs — seems our buddy Bacteria wasn’t a big fan of GoldenEye. See it play some of N64’s other best games after the break, while we dust off our gamebit screwdriver. Obvious though it may seem, know what you’re getting into before you do likewise; ripping up classic cart-based consoles isn’t for the faint of heart.
Manufacturers want you to recycle old gear when you upgrade, but Kyle Wiens would prefer that you keep your old gadgets and fix them yourself.
Wiens, CEO of repair company iFixit, has remade his gadget-repair website into a collaborative wiki with the goal of crowdsourcing repair manuals for every type of device imaginable. He calls the movement “Repair 2.0.”
“I don’t think we can continue manufacturing new things, consuming them and throwing them away at the rate that we do,” Wiens told Wired.com. “What we’re doing is we’re allowing people to join together and help each other save money, help the environment and care for those things.”
Previously, iFixit was a repair site that posted step-by-step disassembly instructions for gadgets posted by iFixit staff. The company makes money by selling parts (like replacement iPhone screens) that intrepid fixers can use in their repair projects. Later, iFixit implemented a gallery tool for anybody to post an illustrative teardown manual for their gadgets (which Gadget Lab helped introduce with a Sony teardown contest).
Now, the site has repurposed itself into a full-blown wiki for repair manuals, where contributors can collaborate on repair instructions in real time. For each product, iFixit contributors can create individual manuals with instructions for specific repairs (e.g., a manual for fixing the Wi-Fi module in a MacBook, or a manual for replacing a battery in a Samsung cellphone). All the manuals on iFixit will be free and noncopyrighted.
The DIY-repair concept is derived from a longstanding culture of gadget teardowns. Typically, when manufacturers ship products, they don’t publicly disclose full details about their internal parts. Some hardware geeks disassemble electronics to learn more about their components and the evolution of industrial design. IFixit has been an extremely popular site hosting teardowns immediately after a major gadget is released.
Wiens said the next step was to make teardowns beneficial for the environment and consumer culture by repurposing them into easily digestible repair guides. He added that fixing gadgets only increases their value.
“To some extent things have lost their soul, and I think repairing things yourself re-injects some soul and connects you to the stuff that you own,” Wiens said.
See a video of Wiens’ introduction of iFixit 2.0 below.
When Katie Wilson, media designer with our friends at Make, went to pick up her pup recently, she was greeted not by the dog-sitter. Instead, it was Drozid — part electric wheelchair, part refrigerator, part robot, wielding a laser-scoped air rifle — that arrived with her change (and a cold beer). Technical details are scant, but it appears to have some obstacle avoidance capabilities (it deftly maneuvers around the parking lot, and even engages in a little soccer with a blue ball) and sports a front-mounted camera for POV monitoring from the inventor’s remote compound (garage). Hit the coverage link below to see the thing in action.
Update: Just got a pretty awesome email from Shawn, the man behind the robot. He says it’s currently being controlled remotely (as demonstrated in the video), but he is working on “a micro-controller brain with ultra sonic sensors and all that other stuff (compass, IR proximity, X-Bee, and more cameras).” And the impetus behind this project? “To fetch beer from the store around the corner.” Brilliant!
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