Veteran Thingiverse user Tony Buser has printed a model (intended to be an approximation of the fractal Hilbert curve) using polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) as a support material. Once everything is printed and cooled, the PVA is dissolved away in a glass of water, leaving only the polylactic acid (PLA) model. This technique, when perfected, should allow RepRap-style FFF printers to produce objects with overhanging parts that are currently very difficult, or impossible, for them to print. Tony used two of MakerBot’s Mk7 extruders mounted on a Thing-o-Matic.

Two years ago I wrote about what a delight it was to discover the UT-Austin School of Architecture’s Materials Lab when I was on campus there, and it seems appropriate to resurrect the topic in honor of our theme this month. Kevin Kelly just posted a roundup of major materials libraries around the USA over at Cool Tools, and I was surprised to discover that UT’s, which is decades old, was one of the first in the country.

Publicly accessible materials libraries are usually associated with universities, and there is at least one major subscription-based commercial materials library with branches in eight major cities. I’ve been poking around trying to find a geographic listing of materials libraries with no success, so I thought I’d throw this one out to the readers: Is there a materials library near you? If so, please share in the comments!

More:

• CCA’s Materials Library (Video)
• Library of Strange Compounds

Need a hand? Build your own with the Telerobotic Gripper Kit from the Maker Shed! This kit includes everything you need to make the Teleclaw featured in MAKE: Volume 27, right down to the batteries. Assemble the kit and attach the Teleclaw to your robot, rover, or anywhere else you could use a grip. The pre-programmed Picaxe microcontroller interprets commands from the IR remote to make the gripper open and close. Have a look at the Make: Project build for more information and directions.

Andrew and his brother built this great ping-pong ball launcher out of salvaged and repurposed parts. I especially like the 13-ball hopper made from two paper towel tubes taped together, and the clever K’Nex-controlled release mechanism. The launcher is controlled with an Arduino connected to a computer and activated via a remote desktop app from a phone or iPod Touch. See this video for an explanation on how it works.

I like these hand-forged oyster knives from Kirk Davis and Michael Waller of Carolina Shuckers enough to actually consider eating a raw oyster, so long as I got to use one to open it, first. Reminds me of the work of Tai Goo. [via Dude Craft]

More:
Railroad Spike Rope Dart

Simon Peers and Nicholas Godley teamed up to create materials from the silk produced from Golden Orb Spiders in Madagascar. They collected 1.2 million of these spiders and extracted their silk over the course of three years to create two golden silk capes.

This shawl is the world’s largest piece of spider-silk cloth ever created, which is now on display at the V&A Museum in London. No spiders were harmed in the making of the materials, and once the spider’s silk had been extracted, the spider was released back into the wild where they replenished their silk supplies in about a week. Each spider extracts ~30-50 m of thread each time the silk is extracted.

via Gizmodo

Looking for a great starter robot project? Doug Paradis is an active member of the Dallas Personal Robotics Group, and last year, they were looking for a way to help their beginner members strengthen their robot-building chops. Thus, the Tiny Wanderer was born.

We produced a series of lessons covering 5 topics needed to make a simple, programmable robot: making PCBs with the toner transfer method, programming ATtiny microprocessors, laying out circuit boards using KiCAD, using Inkscape to design robot parts, and programming state machines.

The Tiny Wanderer is the starter DIY robot model we designed to support the series. It uses the unintimidating ATtiny85 chip, which is less complex than larger chips, and the new kit version lets you easily swap in an Arduino. The chassis, inspired by the now-discontinued Oomlout SERB, has benefited from constant modification and tweaks by DPRG members. Its two IR LED/sensor proximity “feelers” were originally designed to let the bot wander around a tabletop without falling off, but they can be repurposed for obstacle avoidance and line-following.

Doug documented the step-by-step Tiny Wanderer build and shared it with us on the pages of the newest issue of MAKE, Volume 29 (on newsstands now). We took it a step further and shared the whole build with you on Make: Projects. And the Maker Shed has put together a complete Tiny Wanderer kit for folks who’d rather get to building than searching for components. And Make: Labs engineering intern Eric Chu shared details and video of their Tiny Wanderer build last week.

Plus, here are two videos from Doug showing Tiny Wanderer’s tabletop and line-following tests:

From the pages of MAKE Volume 29:

We have the technology (to quote The Six Million Dollar Man), but commercial tools for exploring, assisting, and augmenting our bodies really can approach a price tag of $6 million. Medical and assistive tech manufacturers must pay not just for R&D, but for expensive clinical trials, regulatory compliance, and liability — and doesn’t help with low pricing that these devices are typically paid for through insurance, rather than purchased directly. But many gadgets that restore people’s abilities or enable new “superpowers” are surprisingly easy to make, and for tiny fractions of the costs of off-the-shelf equivalents. MAKE Volume 29, the “DIY Superhuman” issue, explains how.

BUY OR SUBSCRIBE!

Looking for a great starter robot project? Doug Paradis is an active member of the Dallas Personal Robotics Group, and last year, they were looking for a way to help their beginner members strengthen their robot-building chops. Thus, the Tiny Wanderer was born.

We produced a series of lessons covering 5 topics needed to make a simple, programmable robot: making PCBs with the toner transfer method, programming ATtiny microprocessors, laying out circuit boards using KiCAD, using Inkscape to design robot parts, and programming state machines.

The Tiny Wanderer is the starter DIY robot model we designed to support the series. It uses the unintimidating ATtiny85 chip, which is less complex than larger chips, and the new kit version lets you easily swap in an Arduino. The chassis, inspired by the now-discontinued Oomlout SERB, has benefited from constant modification and tweaks by DPRG members. Its two IR LED/sensor proximity “feelers” were originally designed to let the bot wander around a tabletop without falling off, but they can be repurposed for obstacle avoidance and line-following.

Doug documented the step-by-step Tiny Wanderer build and shared it with us on the pages of the newest issue of MAKE, Volume 29 (on newsstands now). We took it a step further and shared the whole build with you on Make: Projects. And the Maker Shed has put together a complete Tiny Wanderer kit for folks who’d rather get to building than searching for components. And Make: Labs engineering intern Eric Chu shared details and video of their Tiny Wanderer build last week.

Plus, here are two videos from Doug showing Tiny Wanderer’s tabletop and line-following tests:

From the pages of MAKE Volume 29:

We have the technology (to quote The Six Million Dollar Man), but commercial tools for exploring, assisting, and augmenting our bodies really can approach a price tag of $6 million. Medical and assistive tech manufacturers must pay not just for R&D, but for expensive clinical trials, regulatory compliance, and liability — and doesn’t help with low pricing that these devices are typically paid for through insurance, rather than purchased directly. But many gadgets that restore people’s abilities or enable new “superpowers” are surprisingly easy to make, and for tiny fractions of the costs of off-the-shelf equivalents. MAKE Volume 29, the “DIY Superhuman” issue, explains how.

BUY OR SUBSCRIBE!

Looking for a great starter robot project? Doug Paradis is an active member of the Dallas Personal Robotics Group, and last year, they were looking for a way to help their beginner members strengthen their robot-building chops. Thus, the Tiny Wanderer was born.

We produced a series of lessons covering 5 topics needed to make a simple, programmable robot: making PCBs with the toner transfer method, programming ATtiny microprocessors, laying out circuit boards using KiCAD, using Inkscape to design robot parts, and programming state machines.

The Tiny Wanderer is the starter DIY robot model we designed to support the series. It uses the unintimidating ATtiny85 chip, which is less complex than larger chips, and the new kit version lets you easily swap in an Arduino. The chassis, inspired by the now-discontinued Oomlout SERB, has benefited from constant modification and tweaks by DPRG members. Its two IR LED/sensor proximity “feelers” were originally designed to let the bot wander around a tabletop without falling off, but they can be repurposed for obstacle avoidance and line-following.

Doug documented the step-by-step Tiny Wanderer build and shared it with us on the pages of the newest issue of MAKE, Volume 29 (on newsstands now). We took it a step further and shared the whole build with you on Make: Projects. And the Maker Shed has put together a complete Tiny Wanderer kit for folks who’d rather get to building than searching for components. And Make: Labs engineering intern Eric Chu shared details and video of their Tiny Wanderer build last week.

Plus, here are two videos from Doug showing Tiny Wanderer’s tabletop and line-following tests:

From the pages of MAKE Volume 29:

We have the technology (to quote The Six Million Dollar Man), but commercial tools for exploring, assisting, and augmenting our bodies really can approach a price tag of $6 million. Medical and assistive tech manufacturers must pay not just for R&D, but for expensive clinical trials, regulatory compliance, and liability — and doesn’t help with low pricing that these devices are typically paid for through insurance, rather than purchased directly. But many gadgets that restore people’s abilities or enable new “superpowers” are surprisingly easy to make, and for tiny fractions of the costs of off-the-shelf equivalents. MAKE Volume 29, the “DIY Superhuman” issue, explains how.

BUY OR SUBSCRIBE!

Looking for a great starter robot project? Doug Paradis is an active member of the Dallas Personal Robotics Group, and last year, they were looking for a way to help their beginner members strengthen their robot-building chops. Thus, the Tiny Wanderer was born.

We produced a series of lessons covering 5 topics needed to make a simple, programmable robot: making PCBs with the toner transfer method, programming ATtiny microprocessors, laying out circuit boards using KiCAD, using Inkscape to design robot parts, and programming state machines.

The Tiny Wanderer is the starter DIY robot model we designed to support the series. It uses the unintimidating ATtiny85 chip, which is less complex than larger chips, and the new kit version lets you easily swap in an Arduino. The chassis, inspired by the now-discontinued Oomlout SERB, has benefited from constant modification and tweaks by DPRG members. Its two IR LED/sensor proximity “feelers” were originally designed to let the bot wander around a tabletop without falling off, but they can be repurposed for obstacle avoidance and line-following.

Doug documented the step-by-step Tiny Wanderer build and shared it with us on the pages of the newest issue of MAKE, Volume 29 (on newsstands now). We took it a step further and shared the whole build with you on Make: Projects. And the Maker Shed has put together a complete Tiny Wanderer kit for folks who’d rather get to building than searching for components. And Make: Labs engineering intern Eric Chu shared details and video of their Tiny Wanderer build last week.

Plus, here are two videos from Doug showing Tiny Wanderer’s tabletop and line-following tests:

From the pages of MAKE Volume 29:

We have the technology (to quote The Six Million Dollar Man), but commercial tools for exploring, assisting, and augmenting our bodies really can approach a price tag of $6 million. Medical and assistive tech manufacturers must pay not just for R&D, but for expensive clinical trials, regulatory compliance, and liability — and doesn’t help with low pricing that these devices are typically paid for through insurance, rather than purchased directly. But many gadgets that restore people’s abilities or enable new “superpowers” are surprisingly easy to make, and for tiny fractions of the costs of off-the-shelf equivalents. MAKE Volume 29, the “DIY Superhuman” issue, explains how.

BUY OR SUBSCRIBE!