This week, on Maker Update, Ian Charnas takes on Mike Tyson,
a bike that's possessed, Janksy and cooking up a Pepper's ghost.
Hey everybody, I'm Donald Bell, and welcome back to another Maker Update.
I hope you're all doing well.
I know for me personally, I get into a bit of a post Halloween funk,
where I'm putting away the skeletons and wondering what's next?
I found that finding ways to stay inspired
and keeping involved in little projects really does help me out a lot.
So I hope this show can do you some good.
Let's get started with the project of the week.
Our friend Ian Charnas has outdone himself again.
This time he's made a version of the classic Nintendo
NES version of Punch Out!! that you can play by actually punching and dodging
by using real time computer vision tracking technology from Google,
all you need is your computer's webcam to make this happen.
It's a lot of fun, and you should definitely try it out.
But to really appreciate all the work that went into this from a maker
perspective, you have to watch his video.
Not only did he hack an original
NES so that he could intercept the machine code from the game,
but then he reverse engineered the source code so that he could slow it down
because it turns out that your arms can't move quite
as fast as your fingers can press buttons. For the cherry on top,
he electrified things, at least for his own personal version.
He made it so that any punches your opponents land will send a painful
but not deadly zap to your arm.
It's an inspiring project and a hilarious video,
and even though I love building stuff, I think it's great that everyone can just
go try it out and get a kick out of what Ian's done here.
Or a punch, I guess.
Now for more projects,
is it too early to start planning for next Halloween?
Because I definitely want
to make this remote controlled, bike riding skeleton by RC Jedi.
It looks like pure magic, but it's actually relatively simple.
By outfitting a regular kid's bike with a sidecar,
you're giving the bike stability and a form of propulsion.
The sidecar, which is decorated to look like a bomb,
includes a motor and a wheel from a junked electric scooter.
Then the rest of the tube is filled with concrete for added weight.
The real trick is getting control of the steering.
For that, they're using a high torque, twelve volt servo that runs around $70.
Not cheap, but when you're pushing around a set of steel handlebars,
you want that extra power.
A basic two channel RC transmitter and receiver
communicate to the speed controller just like you would with an RC car.
As for the skeleton, it looks like it's doing a lot of work,
but really it's just zip tied to the pedals in the handlebars.
You can replace it with a dummy or just ride it around with an empty seat.
For a fun size version of this, they made a tricycle version
for a mini skeleton, which in some ways is actually creepier.
On YouTube, Shane Wighton offers his take on the graffiti bot he calls his Janksy.
But honestly, it's
the most professional quality, large scale CNC plotter I've seen yet.
It's also the most complex.
There's a massive gantry at the top that moves around a smaller gantry
where all the action is.
But because there's still a
lot of play in how precise these gantry systems can be,
Shane is using eight motion tracking cameras to keep an eye
on the location of the print head and adjust it with the gantry
if the location isn't quite where it should be.
It's bonkers, but it's a fun video, and I think what I value most from Shane's
videos is just tuning into his mental frequency
and seeing problems like an engineer.
Now, for some tools and tips, for the past few years, artist
Joshua Ellingson has been creating some amazing Pepper's ghost illusions
and showcasing them on social media.
Recently, though, he's made a YouTube video
that goes behind the scenes and reveals some of the tools and techniques
that he's using from what kinds of plastic work best, to what
shape of container to the perils of using projectors.
If you've ever wanted
to give this illusion a try, there's a lot of practical information here.
He also shares my obsession with old TVs.
If you've ever wondered how to adapt an HDMI signal
to an old antenna input on a TV or coaxial composite or BNC,
Joshua has another video outlining all the different ways he's pulled this off.
While I was looking through older projects from RC Jedi,
the maker behind the RC skeleton bike, I found this other guide of theirs
for creating your own heavy duty servo motor using just a few cheap components.
In this case, they're linking the motion of a high torque DC wiper motor
to the potentiometer of a five dollar servo tester.
Essentially, you're giving a dumb motor, some positional awareness
and remote control.
It's been a while
since I've given a shout out to Gareth Branwyn's excellent tips, tools and shop
tales newsletter, but it's still going strong and keeps getting better.
In his latest issue, he has tips on mixing paints to match color, tips on 3D
printing, a comparison of hole saws, and accessory for your glue bottle.
If you like this tip section of the show, but wish there was more,
sign up for this newsletter.
And over on Adafruit,
Collin Cunningham has a quick and useful explanation
of the difference between Class A and Class D type audio amplifiers.
If you're new to the series or it's been a while since you caught up,
I'll include a link to the Collins Lab Notes collection.
I always look forward to them.
For this week's DigiKey spotlight, Shawn Hymel has a new video introducing and exploring
FPGA chips and the boards you'll find them on.
I'll leave the explanation to him, but this is definitely
a growing technology we're only going to see more of.
It's also the beginning of a multipart video series from Shawn that explores FPGAs
and how to create custom digital logic using hardware description language.
If you're ready to dive in,
keep an eye on the series.
All right, and that does it for this week's show.
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Is there another classic video game that you'd like to be able to play
with your whole body?
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A big thanks to Digikey electronics.
Thank you for watching, and I'll see you soon.