this week on Maker update an interactive geodesic dome wire bending animatronics
and ornament printing ornament motion machines and eye tracking I a unique
wire strainer and a closer look at different types of e6000 hey I'm Donnell
Bell and welcome to another maker update I hope 2019 is treating you well so far
I have a lot of projects to catch you up on so let's get started with the project
of the week on Instructables Amy good child has an outstanding guide on how
she made this geodesic dome covered with over 4,000 LEDs that react to a
Microsoft Kinect this is Amy's final project for her master's at the Bartlett
School of Architecture she's using a build with hubs kit to create a dome
from connectors and wooden beams for the LEDs she had to cover 33 plywood
triangles with a hundred and 70 lights per panel using addressable LED strip a
combination of eleven fade candy LED controllers each with their own power
supply were needed to drive all the lights
then came the programming she used the free program processing to map out and
coordinate all the different lights and take input from a first-generation
connect the Kinect is mapping the distance and movement of people in the
dome to color hues that are fed into the processing animation sketch the whole
thing is awesome and Amy generously includes every detail template and bit
of code go check it out it's time for some news earlier in
December Disney research published a video and PDF of how to use cnc wire
bending joints to create animatronic or robotic skeletons that bend in
predictable ways the team developed a program that could analyze a computer
animated character and then determine the best placement and types of bends to
use in order to recreate the same movement in armature wire the software
isn't something you can play with but the ideas are right for using in your
own project I also think that CNC wire bending machines still haven't made the
jump into desktop maker tools mostly because there isn't a broad demand but
if you could bundle an application like this for making lightweight robotics
that could be something more projects on Christmas Eve Sean Hodgins released a
guide on how he made this 3d printed ornament that 3d prints its own mini
ornaments he pulls off the seemingly impossible trick by creating a little
vat of resin that sits on top of a mini LCD backed by UV light it works like a
tiny SLA printer curing the resin layer at a time and raising the print out of
the liquid I know the ornament season is over but you owe it to yourself to check
out all the little hacks and techniques Sean uses to get this working for
something totally on the other end of the spectrum wonderful idea co-published
a guide on how to use a simple system of 3d printed and laser-cut parts to create
battery-powered motion machines these basic inexpensive robotic platforms are
a great way to introduce kids to kinetic motion and the effect different shapes
of cams have on how the bots move around I saw some of these in action at East
Bay Mini Maker Faire and the kids have a lot of fun playing with them and
rearranging the wheels I also came across this project by homemade garbage
for creating an animated LED eye that you can control from the movement of
your actual eye there are two fun aspects of this project the first is
creating a big eye using strips of addressable LED over a kitchen strainer
the second and more unique challenge is creating a way to track your eye
movements the technique here is surprisingly simple using two
five-dollar reflectance sensors mount it on the inside of some glasses and
pointed towards your eye and Arduino mini reads the sensors and the code
detects the whites of your eye moving and adjust the animation accordingly
this also makes it able to detect blinks it looks like fun and I hope so
many mash this up with the animated I project by Phil Burgess I had some tools
and tips to share on Instructables loan soul surfer has a guide up on using test
tubes and a test tube rack to organize resistors I'm not sure if I have the
patience for it but I love the way it looks by way of Emily Velasco I learned
about a collection of wire straightener designs by Roger Cheng
he has a great post up talking about the process of creating them with the goal
of making it easier to make freeform circuit designs best of all he links to
his CAD design on on shape which has a free maker tier that you can sign up for
to play around with I've been playing with these designs all weekend and I
think they're great the small ones are a quick print and you can size them up or
down a percentage for different gauges and the results look nice
Bob Claggett from I like to make stuff is making his own full-size r2d2 and
posting video updates on his channel if you've ever wondered about diving into
the world of astromech fabrication bob does a great job explaining the options
finally just this week I published a new video on the cool tools channel looking
at 8 different variations of the beloved maker adhesive Yi 6000 for years I've
just been grabbing the standard formula at my local hardware store but if you
love this glue there are options worth knowing about so check that out maker
faire season officially kicks off on the 19th in Bangkok Thailand
in the mean time an interesting event in the San Francisco Bay Area worth
checking out is the first-ever plotter people meetup January 14th at github
Lanois redmond from evil mad scientists will be one of the two speakers talking
about plotter projects and the axial the event is free all right Matt does it for
this week's show be sure to subscribe leave a thumbs up or leave a comment
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alright thanks for watching I'll see you next week
you