A shelf for my drives! Take a peek behind my computer, and you’ll find a stack of external hard drives and a mess of cables. I keep a piece of fabric in front of this area to help keep dust out, but it’s far from perfect and takes up a lot of horizontal desk space.
My goal with this project is to free up this space while creating a new safe home for my drives, where they could get fresh air without clogging up their fans with sawdust or anything else.
Kevin Kelly and Mark Frauenfelder interviewed me for their Cool Tools podcast.
I made a simple wobbling robot inside a loaf of bread. It’s based on Randy Sarafan’s wobbler bot design.
This and more bread bots will be exhibited at NYC Resistor’s Interactive Show Saturday 6/16/2018, come check it out!
Brandon interviewed me for his Make (Break) podcast.
Here’s how I created a leather wallet with solar-etched detailing. The simple four-piece design is one of my first leatherworking projects, and took a few afternoons to complete. I learned all the techniques for this project from the free Instructables Leatherworking classes (beginner & intermediate).
For this project, you will need:
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(more…)Create a fun light-up flower using 3D printing and Tinkercad! Optionally add some needle felting to diffuse the light from the LED at the center of the flower. The special Glow circuit assembly in Tinkercad makes it easy to put an LED and battery circuit into your 3D prints.
If you’d like to make the exact flower shown, you can download the attached STL files and get printing. You can modify theย base modelย by clicking the “edit in 3D” button on the embedded Tinkercad model above (freeย Tinkercadย account/login required). Or model your own unique flower in a new Tinkercad workplane using the tips in this tutorial.
You’ll need a 3D printer and filament to build this project. If you’re new to 3D printing, check out Jonathan Odom’s excellent free Instructablesย Easy 3D Printing Classย to get you up to speed.
Supplies and tools list:
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IMPORTANT: Coin cell batteries can cause serious injury if swallowed. Keep coin cell batteries out of reach of small children!
(more…)Let’s make glowing gummy candies that look like LEDs! The recipe for gummy candy is simple, the legs are 3D printed, and the special ingredient to make the candies glow under blacklight is vitamin B2 powder.
For this project, you will need:
As an additional experiment, we’ll add real surface mount LEDs to the inside of some of the candies.
Warning! Coin cell batteries can cause serious injury if swallowed. Keep coin cell batteries out of reach of small children!
(more…)in collaboration with Alex French Guy Cooking!
Precision sharpening skills aren’t developed overnight! Here’s a high-tech way to monitor your knife angle during sharpening, with the help of an absolute orientation sensor and bluetooth microcontroller.
This is an intermediate level Arduino project, so if you’re an ultra-beginner or a bit rusty, brush up with my free Arduino Class.
Pick up the following components (find them in an Adafruit wishlist or from Amazon affiliate links below):
Tools you’ll need:
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(more…)I do a lot of tabletop overhead photography featuring both of my hands, and a foot pedal shutter remote is an absolute must-have! Although it’sย possible to modify the commercially available GH series remoteย to add a foot pedal, I wanted to create a more streamlined solution. The GH5 remote has a few resistors in it, which makes it a bit more involved to DIY than, aย Canon shutter remote, for example. Iย looked it up, and sure enough, the switch contact is held high at about 41.1K ohms, and the shutter triggers when the switch brings it down to about 2.2K ohms. Resistor values add up when put in series, and some experimentation shows you can successfully deviate a bit on the resistor values (try what you have that’s close).
For this project, you will need:
To keep up with what I’m working on, follow me onย YouTube,ย Instagram,ย Twitter,ย Pinterest, andย subscribe to my newsletter. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases you make using my affiliate links.
(more…)In this easy 3D printing project, we’ll build glowing mason jar lanterns containing a simple LED and battery circuit. Download my file or build your own custom lid using theย Glow Circuit Assembly in Tinkercad, which is designed to hold the battery and LED together perfectly. I’ll show you four different ways to style your lanterns using materials you probably already have around.
This is a beginner project that’s great for students/educators. Let’s begin!
For this project, you will need:
Make a copy of myย Tinkercad fileย (free account/login required). The two sizes match the common mason jar lid sizes. Export the one(s) that match your jar(s) and send them to your 3D printer. I usedย Autodesk Print Studioย to prepare the printer file and set it to 20% infill with no raft or supports. If you prefer to design your own lid, skip ahead to the design step.
To keep up with what I’m working on, follow me onย YouTube,ย Instagram,ย Twitter,ย Pinterest, andย subscribe to my newsletter. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases you make using my affiliate links.
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