Just like the garage computer explosion of the 70’s through the 80’s, which brought us such things as Apple, pong, Bill Gate’s hair, and the proliferation of personal computers, the maker movement is the new garage hardware explosion. Today, 135 million adults in the United States alone are involved in the maker movement.
Enthusiasts who want to build the products they want, from shortwave radios to personal computers, and to tweak products they’ve bought to make them even better, have long been a part of the electronics industry. By all measures, garage-style innovation remains alive and well today, as “makers” as they are called continue to turn out contemporary gadgets, including 3D printers, drones, and embedded electronics devices.
Making is about individual Do-It-Yourselfers being able to design and create with tools that were, as of a decade or two ago, only available to large, cash-rich corporations: CAD tools, CNC mills, 3D printers, low-quantity PCB manufacturing, open hardware such as Arduinos and similar inexpensive development boards – all items that have made it easier and relatively cheap to make whatever we imagine. For individuals, maker tools can change how someone views their home or their hobbies. The world is ours to make. Humans are genetically wired to be makers. The maker movement is simply the result of making powerful building and communication tools accessible to the masses. There are plenty of projects from makers that show good engineering: Take this Arduino board with tremendous potential, developed by a young maker, as example.
The maker movement is a catalyst to democratize entrepreneurship as these do-it-yourself electronics are proving to be hot sellers: In the past year, unit sales for 3D printing related products; Arduino units, parts and supplies; Raspberry Pi boards; drones and quadcopters; and robotics goods are all on a growth curve in terms of eBay sales. There are many Kickstarter maker projects going on. The Pebble E-Paper Watch raises $10 million. The LIFX smartphone-controlled LED bulb raises $1.3 million. What do these products have in common? They both secured funding through Kickstarter, a crowd-funding website that is changing the game for entrepreneurs. Both products were created by makers who seek to commercialize their inventions. These “startup makers” iterate on prototypes with high-end tools at professional makerspaces.
For companies to remain competitive, they need to embrace the maker movement or leave themselves open for disruption. Researchers found that 96 percent of business leaders believe new technologies have forever changed the rules of business by democratizing information and rewiring customer expectations. - You’ve got to figure out agile innovation. Maybe history is repeating itself as the types of products being sold reminded us of the computer tinkering that used to be happening in the 1970s to 1990s – similar in terms of demographics, tending to be young people, and low budget. Now the do-it-yourself category is deeply intertwined with the electronics industry. Open hardware is in the center in maker movement – we need open hardware designs! How can you publish your designs and still do business with it? Open source ecosystem markets behave differently and therefore require a very different playbook than traditional tech company: the differentiation is not in the technology you build; it is in the process and expertise that you slowly amass over an extended period of time.
By democratizing the product development process, helping these developments get to market, and transforming the way we educate the next generation of innovators, we will usher in the next industrial revolution. The world is ours to make. Earlier the PC created a new generation of software developers who could innovate in the digital world without the limitations of the physical world (virtually no marginal cost, software has become the great equalizer for innovation. Now advances in 3D printing and low-cost microcontrollers as well as the ubiquity of advanced sensors are enabling makers to bridge software with the physical world. Furthermore, the proliferation of wireless connectivity and cloud computing is helping makers contribute to the Internet of Things (IoT). We’re even beginning to see maker designs and devices entering those markets once thought to be off-limits, like medical.
Image source: The world is ours to make: The impact of the maker movement – EDN Magazine
In fact, many parents have engaged in the maker movement with their kids because they know that the education system is not adequately preparing their children for the 21st century. There is a strong movement to spread this DIY idea widely. The Maker Faire, which launched in the Bay Area in California in 2006, underlined the popularity of the movement by drawing a record 215,000 people combined in the Bay Area and New York events in 2014. There’s Maker Media, MakerCon, MakerShed, Make: magazine and 131 Maker Faire events that take place throughout the world. Now the founders of all these Makers want a way to connect what they refer to as the “maker movement” online. So Maker Media created a social network called MakerSpace, a Facebook-like social network that connects participants of Maker Faire in one online community. The new site will allow participants of the event to display their work online. There are many other similar sites that allow yout to present yout work fron Hackaday to your own blog. Today, 135 million adults in the United States alone are involved in the maker movement—although makers can be found everywhere in the world.
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Tomi Engdahl says:
The Hacker’s Notebook: a Mission Log for Every Project
http://hackaday.com/2016/03/21/the-hackers-notebook-a-mission-log-for-every-project/
While “writing it down” might seem like common sense, it wasn’t always the case.
To some, the notebook was a dangerous device, a thief that would rob us of our memories [2]. Fortunately, these days, there’s plenty of evidence from our Psych texts that say we humans are pretty shabby at keeping the facts straight. In fact, each time we recall a memory, we change it! Here lies the beauty of the notebook. Have an idea for a new project? Why not log it somewhere for future reference? With diligence, the notebook can become our own personal hub for spurring on new project ideas.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Hactivate: Lead a Hackaday Meetup in Your City
http://hackaday.com/2016/03/23/hactivate-lead-a-hackaday-meetup-in-your-city/
If you love Hackaday and want to meet your community you should lead a Hackaday meetup in your city. This is fun and easy. Get ready, we’ll help you do it!
Hactivate lays down a design challenge. The people at your meetup will pick a technology challenge and brainstorm a solution for it. Leverage the skills of everyone involved to come up with mechanical, electrical, and design solutions. This is what the Hackaday Prize is all about and what you come up with at Hactivate should be entered in the first challenge.
Tomi Engdahl says:
An Affordable Panasonic Grid-EYE Thermal Imaging Camera
http://hackaday.com/2016/03/24/an-affordable-panasonic-grid-eye-thermal-imaging-camera/
Thermal imaging cameras are objects of desire for hackers and makers everywhere, but sadly for us they can be rather expensive. When your sensor costs more than a laptop it puts a brake on hacking.
Thankfully help is at hand, in the form of an affordable evaluation board for the Panasonic Grid-EYE thermal imaging camera sensor. This sensor has sparked the interest of the Hackaday community before, featuring in a project that made the 2014 Hackaday Prize semifinals, but has proved extremely difficult to obtain.
All that has now changed though with this board. It features the Grid-EYE sensor itself, an Atmel ATSAM-D21G18A microcontroller, and onboard Bluetooth, but has an interesting feature that, as well as being a standalone device, can be used as an Arduino shield. A full range of APIs are provided, and the code is BSD licensed.
it has a resolution of only 64 pixels in an 8×8 grid. But its affordability and easy availability
GRID-EYE BLE-capable thermal camera
A tiny, sub-$100 8×8 pixel thermal camera with BLE connectivity
https://hackaday.io/project/1389-grid-eye-ble-capable-thermal-camera
Grid-Eye Evaluation Kit
Grid-EYE sensor Evaluation Kit enables fast prototyping of IoT and many other applications
https://eu.industrial.panasonic.com/grideye-evalkit
Thermal camera projects have featured quite a few times here on Hackaday. Some have been based on the FLIR Lepton module, like this one that combines its image with a 640×480 visible camera
http://hackaday.com/2015/12/25/build-your-own-thermal-camera/
http://hackaday.com/2014/09/07/building-the-worlds-smallest-thermal-camera/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Turning a Keyboard into a Pedal Board
http://hackaday.com/2016/03/27/turning-a-keyboard-into-a-pedal-board/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Open source OBD-II Adapter
http://hackaday.com/2016/03/27/open-source-obd-ii-adapter/
Automotive diagnostics have come a long way since the “idiot lights” of the 1980s. The current version of the on-board diagnostics (OBD) protocol provides real time data as well as fault diagnostics, thanks to the numerous sensors connected to the data network in the modern vehicle. While the hardware interface is fairly standardized now, manufacturers use one of several different standards to encode the data. [Alex Sidorenko] has built an open source OBD-II Adapter which provides a serial interface using the ELM327 command set and supports all OBD-II standards.
The hardware is built around the LPC1517 Cortex-M3 microprocessor
The software is written in C++ for the LPCXpresso IDE – a GNU tool chain for ARM Cortex-M processors, but can also be compiled using a couple of other toolchains.
Open-source OBD adapter
http://www.obddiag.net/allpro.html
Tomi Engdahl says:
Bootstrapped Tools, Live Stopped Motion, and a Dekatron Computer
http://hackaday.com/2016/03/27/bootstrapped-tools-live-stopped-motion-and-a-dekatron-computer/
Tomi Engdahl says:
lil all-in-one power chip
https://hackaday.io/project/10561-lil-all-in-one-power-chip
Voltage regulator, capacitors and all, on a DIP-8 size board. Select 3.3v or 5v built in, or add a single resistor for 1.25v-37v.
No more messing around with power supply parts. This is a complete 1.2A adjustable switching power supply on a chip, with 2 preset voltages. Up to 95% efficient switching voltage regulator, capacitors and all, on a DIP-8 size board. Select 3.3v or 5v built in, or add a single resistor for 0.8v-26v.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Nanocounter: Frequency Counter with an Android UI
http://hackaday.com/2016/03/29/nanocounter-frequency-counter-with-an-android-ui/
The Nanocounter is an accurate, open source frequency counter that uses an Android phone as its display. It’s based on a high accuracy temperature compensated crystal oscillator (TCXO) fed into a phase locked loop (PLL) to create a high frequency, accurate reference clock.
http://andybrown.me.uk/2016/02/21/nanocounter/
My frequency counter design
After studying the above counting methods I decided on the following goals for my frequency counter, which I’m going to call Nanocounter.
Very accurate measurement over a range of 1 to 50MHz. This would cover the range of MCU crystals that I’d want to measure.
Onboard accurate, but cost effective reference with the option to feed in an external reference clock source.
Advanced options including data logging, charting and calibration of the onboard reference.
That should do for starters, let’s see how I get on. This project will call upon a large number of engineering disciplines including circuit design, PCB layout, SMD reflow, FPGA design, C++ programming and java android programming so I should be in for a fun time.
The onboard reference clock will be a 10MHz oscillator and the external reference input, if connected, is expected to be of the same frequency.
Here’s the business end of the system. An FPGA is capable of counting extremely quickly, in parallel, and on a cycle-accurate basis. While even the most basic MCUs have edge-triggered interrupts they cannot react quickly enough to count at the speed that an FPGA can achieve.
The MCU marshalls all the other components in the system.
Power is supplied through a USB mini B socket.
The MCU exists to program the FPGA and PLL and then continually service requests arriving over bluetooth from the app.
Tomi Engdahl says:
You Speak, Your Scope Obeys
http://hackaday.com/2016/03/29/you-speak-your-scope-obeys/
[Patrick Sébastien Coulombe] clearly has both of his hands on his oscilloscope probes. That’s why he developed Speech2SCPI, a quick mash-up of voice recognition and an oscilloscope control protocol. It combines the Julius open-source speech recognizer project with the Standard Commands for Programmable Instruments (SCPI) syntax to make his scope obey his every command. You’ve got to watch the video below the break to believe how well it works. It even handles his French accent.
Better still, it does it all on his computer without sending stuff off into the cloud, so he can tailor the system to fit his needs. (The Julius system takes advantage of a known grammar and a limited set of words to increase its accuracy.) [Patrick]’s setup does use an Amazon service for optional text-to-speech responses, but that could be easily replaced with Festival or any other open text-to-speech engine if you wanted. Everything is in Python and decently documented on [Patrick]’s GitHub.
http://www.workinprogress.ca/software/speech2scpi/
Tomi Engdahl says:
An Excellent Primer for Sketching Mechanical Drawings
http://hackaday.com/2016/03/30/an-excellent-primer-for-sketching-mechanical-drawings/
Tomi Engdahl says:
TinyHackerHouse
https://hackaday.io/project/10635-tinyhackerhouse
A 3D model that can be sliced through a process called ‘nesting’, sent to a CNC Machine and constructed like a 3D Jigsaw puzzle.
Tomi Engdahl says:
A Ridiculous Way to Light an LED: Candle-power
http://hackaday.com/2016/03/30/a-ridiculous-way-to-light-an-led-candle-power/
If you have ever entertained yourself by reading comprehensive electronic-theory textbooks you’ll have seen references to technologies that sound really interesting but which you will rarely hold in your hand. They may be dead-ends that have been superseded by more recent innovations, or they may be technologies that have found uses but in other fields from those in which they originally showed promise. What if you could take these crazy parts and actually build something?
[Fedetft] has an interesting project that combines two of those intriguing textbook references, he’s created a thermopile that lights an LED through an inverter whose oscillator is a tunnel diode. Dig out the textbook.
Thermopiles and tunnel diodes: a candle powered LED
https://fedetft.wordpress.com/2016/03/25/thermopiles-and-tunnel-diodes-a-candle-powered-led/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Electronic Rule-Breakers That Crept into Everything We Use
http://hackaday.com/2016/03/28/electronic-rule-breakers-that-crept-into-everything-we-use/
Students in grade school are usually taught square roots before or during junior high, and with these lessons comes one immutable fact: It’s forbidden to take the square root of a negative number. Not too much longer after that, however, the students all learn that this is a big fat lie and that taking square roots of negative numbers is critically important in many fields of study.
There’s a similar “lie” in existence for anyone studying electricity, whether they’re physicists, engineers, or electronics enthusiasts: it’s only possible to raise and lower voltage levels on alternating current (AC) circuits using a transformer.
Of course we all know that DC-DC conversion, like taking square roots of negative numbers, is not only possible but fundamental to most modern electronics. After all, there are certain integrated circuits that we can drop into our projects to magically transform one DC voltage to another DC voltage without thinking too much about the problem.
What Goes Up Also Goes Down
By changing the circuit around slightly we can decrease the output voltage rather than increasing it. Such a circuit is called the buck converter. You might be wondering why anyone would do such a thing, though, when we could just throw a LM317 or similar linear regulator in to drop the voltage down. While linear regulators are much simpler and cheaper, buck converters are much more efficient and don’t dissipate as much heat. And, to take this a step further, we can make another change that allows us to get virtually any output voltage for a given input voltage, whether it’s higher or lower.
Since engineers are terrible at naming things, this type of circuit is called a buck-boost converter. They’ve become really easy to use thanks to Integrated Circuit designs that require just an external inductor and some capacitors.
While any power supply topology has its downsides, the upsides of switch mode power supplies are incredible. Besides the efficiency gains over linear regulators, and being able to achieve an otherwise impossible step-up DC-DC transformer, we can do other things that are otherwise very difficult to do. One of the biggest advantages are the ease at which we can do impedance matching, which is finding the precise voltage and current that will transfer the most power to the load in the most efficient way possible.
Tomi Engdahl says:
The ATtiny MIDI Plug Synth
http://hackaday.com/2016/03/30/the-attiny-midi-plug-synth/
MIDI was created over thirty years ago to connect electronic instruments, synths, sequencers, and computers together. Of course, this means MIDI was meant to be used with computers that are now thirty years old, and now even the tiniest microcontrollers have enough processing power to take a MIDI signal and create digital audio. [mitxela]’s polyphonic synth for the ATtiny 2313 does just that, using only two kilobytes of Flash and fitting inside a MIDI jack.
Putting a MIDI synth into a MIDI plug is something we’ve seen a few times before. In fact, [mitxela] did the same thing a few months ago with an ATtiny85, and [Jan Ostman]’s DSP-G1 does the same thing with a tiny ARM chip. Building one of these with an ATtiny2313 is really pushing the envelope, though.
Is it a good synth? No, not really. By [mitxela]’s own assertion, it’s not a practical solution to anything, the dead bug construction takes an hour to put together
Polyphonic Synth Cable
http://mitxela.com/projects/polyphonic_synth_cable
Tomi Engdahl says:
Think Globally, Build Locally With These Open-Source Recycling Machines
http://hackaday.com/2016/04/03/think-globally-build-locally-with-these-open-source-recycling-machines/
Walk on almost any beach or look on the side of most roads and you’ll see the bottles, bags, and cast-off scraps of a polymeric alphabet soup – HDPE, PET, ABS, PP, PS. Municipal recycling programs might help, but what would really solve the problem would be decentralized recycling, and these open-source plastics recycling machines might just jump-start that effort.
We looked at [Precious Plastic] two years back, and their open-source plans for small-scale plastic recycling machines have come a long way since then. They currently include a shredder, a compression molder, an injection molder, and a filament extruder. The plans specify some parts that need to be custom fabricated
http://preciousplastic.com/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Recycled Factory Recycles Soda Bottles
https://hackaday.com/2015/09/02/recycled-factory-recycles-soda-bottles/
All over the world, mountains of polyethylene terephthalate (PET) plastics are available for recycling in the form of soda bottles. And wherever there is enough cheap raw material, a market is sure to emerge for it. One brilliant inventor in Brazil has decided to capitalize on this market by building a magnificent factory to turn PET bottles into threads, rope, and other products.
Jaru: Inventor fabrica maquina que transforma garrafa pet em barbantes e vassoura
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DwqhNIryohk
Tomi Engdahl says:
Smartphone and IR Line Laser Measure Distance
http://hackaday.com/2016/04/04/smartphone-and-ir-line-laser-measure-distance/
Measuring the distance using lasers is a mainstay of self-driving vehicles and ambitious robotics projects. The fine folks at MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) decided to tackle the problem in an innovative way. [Jason H. Gao] and [Li-Shiuan Peh] used an infra-red (IR) line laser and the camera on a smartphone. Their prototype cost only $49 since they used a smartphone that was on hand. The article reports good results using the device outdoors in direct sunlight which is often a challenge for inexpensive lidars.
The line laser creates a horizontal line that is reflected back to the camera on the phone. The vertical position of the laser on the camera image lets the phone calculate the distance by parallax. To bring out a faint laser reflection, the algorithm compares four images – two with the laser on and two with it off – and subtracts the background.
https://projects.csail.mit.edu/wiki/pub/LSPgroup/PublicationList/PhoneLidarICRA2016.pdf
Tomi Engdahl says:
Developing an Accessible Arduino
Blind Arduino project enables makers
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1329330&
Development platforms such as Raspberry Pi and Arduino have given access to many makers and entrepreneurs, providing a low-cost method to tinker and prototype. Yet such platforms lack accessibility for at least one group of people who need access to specialized devices.
Members of the blind community are developing an accessible Arduino platform with the hopes that kids and blind makers can join in on the fun. Borne of LightHouse Labs, a group where visually impaired techies advise developers on accessible products, the blind Ardunio project aims to overcome issues in building hardware and reading/writing code.
“Many devices that blind people would want to have—’accessibility devices’—aren’t necessarily available on the market and could be built from these components,”
Research Institute, who is spearheading the Arduino project. “The main point is to give blind and visually impaired people the experience of making this work and…creating a more integrated community of makers.”
There are several challenges the blind Arduino project will tackle, the first of which involves documenting Arduino’s integrated development environment (IDE) software. The IDE is completely inaccessible to screenreaders, which many blind people use daily, and documentation for Arduino projects on Github is largely image-based.
“There are workarounds, which we are documenting, but we’re hoping to get an accessible IDE that people don’t have to jump through hoops in order to use it,” Miele said. “Most of the information about where pin labels are and what they do are all images. We specifically need to document how these boards work, and that goes for pretty much every shield or other component you need to use.”
The time-intensive documentation process will eventually lead to screenreader-capable wording, which could also be translated into Braille.
The accessibility project also resonates with sighted people, particularly makers.
“On the face of it, [Arduino for the blind is] something that sighted people assume wouldn’t actually work. It’s a curiosity, it makes people think about assumptions that they’ve had,” he said. “Having those blind makers in the community, in the mix, will automatically lead to more relevant tools being made by those groups. I think the broader maker community has not yet engaged with accessibility and disability.”
“Blind kids are not offered equal opportunity to participate [robotics-focused] classes because of the accessibility issues around being able to build and program these devices,” Miele told EE Times.
http://lighthouse-sf.org/lighthouse-labs/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Teardown: Behind the ESC collector’s badge
http://www.edn.com/design/systems-design/4441771/Teardown–Behind-the-ESC-collector-s-badge?_mc=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_designideas_20160405&cid=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_designideas_20160405&elqTrackId=e0b1a85be8dd44c9b3c10d554041f421&elq=ecfaff83981945cba1d560d357c2b400&elqaid=31656&elqat=1&elqCampaignId=27640
In the lead up to this year’s Embedded Systems Conference, Boston, there is a lot of buzz about the limited-edition, mesh-networked attendee badge that will be available to a lucky hundred or so attendees. This clever item comes from the same minds that created the networked CapNet propeller beanies a few years back, but with a twist. The badge was made to be hacked and its full design is available as open-source so those unable to get their hands on an original can replicate one. At EDN we’ve dug into the design to give you insights into the design thinking behind the ESC 2016 Collectable Badge as well as a head start on building or modifying your own.
The high-level concept for the badge called for it to address several requirements. It needed to support business networking among badge wearers by using wireless networking to draw together those with similar interests. It also needed to provide an educational opportunity for wearers to learn more about mesh networking and embedded development. Finally, because all work and no play makes everything dull, it needed to provide opportunities for just plain fun. And, as always, cost was a consideration – especially as these were to be given away.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Machines That Build Other Machines
http://hackaday.com/2016/04/06/machines-that-build-other-machines/
When the RepRap project was founded in 2005, it promised something spectacular: a machine that could build copies of itself. RepRaps were supposed to be somewhere between a grey goo and a device that could lift billions of people out of poverty by giving them self-sufficiency and the tools to make their lives better.
While the RepRap project was hugely successful in creating an open source ecosystem around 3D printers, a decade of development hasn’t produced a machine that can truly build itself. Either way, it’s usually easier and cheaper to buy a 3D printer than to build your own.
[castvee8]’s entry into the 2016 Hackaday Prize does just what the RepRap project promised ten years ago. It’s all about building machines with the ability to reproduce, creating an ecosystem of machines to build household goods. The best part? You can 3D print most of the machines. It’s the RepRap project, but for mills, lathes, microscopes, and routers. It’s an entire shop produced entirely in a 3D printer.
Building Simplified Machinery
Using 3D printing and inexpensive components to make machines that make!
https://hackaday.io/project/10150-building-simplified-machinery
Tomi Engdahl says:
Quick-Turn PCB shop review project: Summary
http://www.edn.com/electronics-blogs/all-aboard-/4441747/Quick-Turn-PCB-shop-review-project–Summary?_mc=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_today_20160407&cid=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_today_20160407&elqTrackId=0b95f65727a14564b0e827b676906ba7&elq=e91eb49413a54074a6bd57f514c14c81&elqaid=31705&elqat=1&elqCampaignId=27694
Admittedly, “Quick-Turn” is a bit of a misnomer, though I think it communicates the basic idea. What I’m really referring to are PCB shops with an automated Website that lets you get instant quotes on relatively simple (2-4 layer) designs, then upload your files and place an order. That’s the “quick” part. Delivery can be quick or slow, depending on how much you’re willing to pay.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Hackaday World Create Day: April 23rd
http://hackaday.com/2016/04/07/hackaday-world-create-day-april-23rd/
It’s time to get out and have some fun with other Hackaday people in your area and we have the perfect opportunity. Be part of Hackaday World Create Day on Saturday, April 23rd. This is all about meeting others for an afternoon of creativity. You might even find your engineering dream team! As part of World Create Day you’ll and brainstorm an amazing creation and connect with the people in your area that round out your own skills (electrical, mechanical, design, etc.).
This is the first ever worldwide event Hackaday has organized
Tomi Engdahl says:
“The walls between art and engineering exist only in our minds” – Theo Jansen
Source: https://learn.adafruit.com/assets/25445
Tomi Engdahl says:
Home> Community > Blogs > Measure of Things
You can’t think out of a box built of TLAs
http://www.edn.com/electronics-blogs/measure-of-things/4441760/You-can-t-think-out-of-a-box-built-of-TLAs?_mc=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_weekly_20160407&cid=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_weekly_20160407&elqTrackId=14d8ffb329a14c9295a44c100cb1c47e&elq=9d6dd7061f1a46d5a4535eb93af1da75&elqaid=31714&elqat=1&elqCampaignId=27703
You’re in a meeting and the presenter uses as TLA that you don’t recognize. Do you:
Stay quiet, pretend that you know the TLA because everyone else seems to.
Risk being called out as the ignorant novice by asking the speaker to define the TLA.
Recognize that if you don’t know the TLA, at least 20% of the others don’t either, so you ask the speaker to define the TLA so the meeting isn’t a waste of time.
Ask for a definition of the TLA and tell the speaker to avoid industry jargon and other NIH symptoms so that the company geniuses, like you, can unleash their creativity.
Since it happens so often, most of the time we go with (a) Just ride it out and hope that you decipher what the TLA means before you’re called out.
Jargon is a necessary evil that is too often mistaken for the language of experts. Speaking in jargon specific to a company or an industry can give the illusion of speeding things along.
But do the extra two syllables spent saying “printed circuit board” instead of PCB or “analog-to-digital converter” instead of ADC really waste that much time and energy?
In the 21st century, every profession and nearly every vocation relies on the ability to innovate. If we know one thing about creativity and innovation, it’s that innovation emerges when concepts from one field are introduced to a disparate field; when established methods from one discipline are modified for a different discipline. Here’s how Marc Tucker, CEO of the National Center on Education and the Economy put it:
One thing we know about creativity is that it typically occurs when people who have mastered two or more quite different fields use the framework in one to think afresh about the other. Intuitively, you know this is true. Leonardo da Vinci was a great artist, scientist and inventor, and each specialty nourished the other. He was a great lateral thinker. But if you spend your whole life in one silo, you will never have either the knowledge or mental agility to do the synthesis, connect the dots, which is usually where the next great breakthrough is found.
In other words, lateral thought is the birthplace of innovation and creativity and it tends to happen when people switch fields.
Unfortunately, it’s hard to switch fields, especially if your new field has a particular affection for TLAs—of course, every field likes its own jargon. Job descriptions for every profession end with a litany of TLAs. The beautiful irony is that human resources software filters resumes that contain the desired TLAs and HR officials might know what the TLAs stand for but rarely know what they mean.
Tomi Engdahl says:
DIY VR: Notculus Rift
Home brew head mounted display/virtual reality hacking project.
https://hackaday.io/project/6442-diy-vr-notculus-rift
Tomi Engdahl says:
Vapeix Shield 1.0 – Arduino Vapor & IoT
An Open-Source Cloud-Connected Vaporizer Platform
https://hackaday.io/project/10793-vapeix-shield-10-arduino-vapor-iot
Vapeix is a platform technology that encompasses everything necessary to make it possible to continually enhance a next generation vaporizer product, and a foundation of hardware design innovations to further extend the capabilities.
With API’s & Open-Source hardware, Vapeix makes it possible for brands or enthusiasts to create and extend the capabilities of their own Vapeix Powered product.
Vapeix
A Cloud & Community Powered Vaporizer Platform
http://www.vapeix.io/
The features of a Vapeix Powered circuit are encapsulated into the Open-Source hardware in the form of “shields” and rely on the microcontroller from an Arduino Board, such as the ATmega328P found on the Arduino Uno. With Arduino compatibility, developers can benefit from the familiar Arduino IDE, and the vast amount of accessories or modules readily available to extend or add to the Vapeix Powered developer edition shields.
Tomi Engdahl says:
An Open Source Two Stroke Diesel
http://hackaday.com/2016/04/08/an-open-source-two-stroke-diesel/
With a welder and a bunch of scrap, you can build just about anything that moves. Want a dune buggy? That’s just some tube and a pipe bender. Need a water pump? You might need a grinder. A small tractor? Just find some big knobby tires in a junkyard. Of course, the one thing left out of all these builds is a small motor, preferably one that can run on everything from kerosene to used cooking oil. This is the problem [Shane] is tackling for his entry to the 2016 Hackaday Prize. It’s an Open Source Two-Stroke Diesel Engine that’s easy for anyone to build and has minimal moving parts.
Open Source Two-Stroke Diesel Engine
https://hackaday.io/project/10670-open-source-two-stroke-diesel-engine
The goal is to develop a 50cc motor with a variable compression ratio & timing, this will allow the motor to run on a multitude of fuels.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Five people who used the internet as their teacher, the results are amazing
http://fusion.net/story/256617/learn-from-internet/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Make a BLDC Motor From Scraps You Can Find In The Garage
http://hackaday.com/2016/04/10/make-a-bldc-motor-from-scraps-you-can-find-in-the-garage/
Think you’ve got what it takes to build a homebrew brushless motor? As [JaycubL] shows us, it turns out that a bldc motor may be living in pieces right under your nose, in scraps that so many of us would otherwise toss aside. To get our heads turning, [JaycubL] takes us into the theory of brushless DC motors operate. He then builds a homebrew brushless motor using screws, a plastic container, a few bearings, a metal rod, some magnets, and a dab of epoxy. Finally, he gives it a whirl with an off-the-shelf motor controller.
How to Make a Brushless DC Motor Inrunner
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vnjCrLTMGxQ&feature=share
Tomi Engdahl says:
Say Hello to an Engineer of the Future
http://www.eetimes.com/author.asp?section_id=216&doc_id=1329402&
Some things that mark Ashton Richards as a potential future electronics and computer engineer are his boundless enthusiasm and his willingness to experiment.
I tell you, it does my old heart good to see someone like Ashton — bright eyed and bushy tailed and bubbling over with enthusiasm — setting off on a path that may well lead to him becoming an outstanding engineer. And when he’s standing on the stage receiving awards for some feat of engineering ingenuity that is set to change the world, I’ll be there at the back of the room (sporting an incredibly cool Hawaiian shirt, it goes without saying) cheering him on.
Tomi Engdahl says:
The future of American innovation
http://www.edn.com/electronics-blogs/now-hear-this/4441610/The-future-of-American-innovation?_mc=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_funfriday_20160408&cid=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_funfriday_20160408&&elqTrackId=17c843db1b684ff2833b3addd72da301&elq=cc5aff950393460584255be0c8fe7a6f&elqaid=31738&elqat=1&elqCampaignId=27723
Those were the days when everyone seemed to be making things. In addition to the sheer fun of it, it was possible to buy a kit and build anything from a high-end audio amplifier to a color television for substantially less than you could purchase the equivalent product in a store.
Over time, things began to change. Before long, it became possible to buy an electronic product for less than it cost to build your own. Even stranger (to me), it became cheaper to throw a broken product away and buy a new one than it would be to repair the original.
By the time we reached the beginning of the new millennium, I was beginning to fear that making things in general, and hobby electronics in particular, were heading for extinction. Then, seemingly as if from nowhere, the Maker Movement appeared on the scene. No longer was I plodding along in the shadows on my ownsome. Suddenly (amazingly), it was cool to make things again.
And, speaking of cool, one of the Maker Movement’s coolest and most passionate proponents is entrepreneur, technology consultant, and educator Kipp Bradford.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Scanning Tunneling Microscope
A low-cost STM achieving atomic resolution with a piezo buzzer scanner
https://hackaday.io/project/4986-scanning-tunneling-microscope
Tomi Engdahl says:
Low-Cost Touchscreen Anywhere
An acoustic ‘touchscreen’ interface that can be easily attached to a variety of surfaces.
https://hackaday.io/project/1990-low-cost-touchscreen-anywhere
Tomi Engdahl says:
Continuing The Dialog: “It’s Time Software People and Mechanical People Had a Talk”
http://hackaday.com/2016/04/11/continuing-the-dialog-its-time-the-software-people-and-mechanical-people-sat-down-and-had-a-talk/
A while back I wrote a piece titled, “It’s Time the Software People and Mechanical People Sat Down and Had a Talk“. It was mostly a reaction to what I believe to be a growing problem in the hacker community. Bad mechanical designs get passed on by what is essentially digital word of mouth. A sort of mythology grows around these bad designs, and they start to separate from science. Rather than combat this, people tend to defend them much like one would defend a favorite band or a painting. This comes out of various ignorance, which were covered in more detail in the original article.
There was an excellent discussion in the comments, which reaffirmed why I like writing for Hackaday so much. You guys seriously rock. After reading through the comments and thinking about it, some of my views have changed. Some have stayed the same.
It has nothing to do with software guys.
Though, the part about hardware costs still applies.
And, the part about time cost still applies.
If you’re an amateur designer you HAVE to learn a little physics before you can make assumptions.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Hackaday Belgrade was Hardware Center of Universe on Saturday
http://hackaday.com/2016/04/11/hackaday-belgrade-was-hardware-center-of-universe-on-saturday/
Badge hacking was once again spectacular. This was our first electronic badge — a PIC-driven creation of Voja Antonic which included an 8×16 LED display, five user buttons, and IR TX/RX. The badge came pre-loaded with Voja’s assembly-coded demo with scrolling messages, and Tetris. The messages could be customized using the IR station he built for the event.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Fourier Machine Mimics Michelson Original in Plywood
http://hackaday.com/2016/04/11/fourier-machine-mimics-michelson-original-in-plywood/
It’s funny how creation and understanding interact. Sometimes the urge to create something comes from a new-found deep understanding of a concept, and sometimes the act of creation leads to that understanding. And sometimes creation and understanding are linked together in such a way as to lead in an entirely new direction, which is the story behind this plywood recreation of the Michelson Fourier analysis machine.
Working with plywood and a CNC router, [nopvelthuizen]’s creation is faithful to the original if a bit limited by the smaller number of sinusoids that can be summed.
Plywood Math Machine
http://www.instructables.com/id/Plywood-Math-Machine/
Tomi Engdahl says:
iPhone Microscopy and Other Adventures
http://hackaday.com/2016/04/11/iphone-microscopy-and-other-adventures/
CMOS imaging chips have been steadily improving, their cost and performance being driven by the highly competitive smartphone industry. As CMOS sensors get better and cheaper, they get more interesting for hacker lab projects. In this post I’m going to demonstrate a few applications of the high-resolution sensor that you’ve already got in your pocket — or wherever you store your cell phone.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Lasercut Optics Bench
Use your lasercutter to make an optics bench.
https://hackaday.io/project/10707-lasercut-optics-bench
If you want to do optics experiments, you’ll need a system to hold and aim the various components.
This project describes a set of simple optics holders that can be made from common hardware and pieces cut using a laser cutter.
To do optics experiments you need a way to hold the components (lenses, lasers, gratings, and whatnot) at a particular height and particular orientation. For example, a laser holder will need a way to adjust the “aim” of the laser up/down and left/right so that the beam lines up with the optical axis of the other components.
Existing holders are usually complex, and therefore expensive.
This project describes a set of aim-able optical holders that can be constructed from commonly available hardware and pieces cut using a laser cutter.
It’s meant as a low-cost teaching tool for high-schools and home experimenters.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Tales of Garage Design: Achieving Precision from Imprecise Parts
http://hackaday.com/2016/04/12/tales-of-garage-design-achieving-precision-from-imprecise-parts/
Designing parts to fit perfectly together is hard. Whether it’s the coarseness of our fabrication tools or the procedures of the vendor who makes our parts, parts are rarely the exact dimension that we wish they were. Sadly, this is the penalty that we pay by living in a real world: none of our procedures (or even our measurement tools!) are perfect. In a world of imperfect parts, imperfect procedures, and imperfect measurement techniques, how on earth are we supposed to build anything that works? Fortunately, we’re in luck! From the brooding minds of past engineers, comes a suite of design techniques that can combat the imperfections of living in an erroneous world.
A Case Study in Cutting Corners Where It Doesn’t Count
Precision Over Accuracy Where It Counts
Sometimes nailing down the exact dimension of a component matters less than the difference in dimensions between components.
Accounting for Imperfect Stock Parts
Designing parts to fit perfectly together is hard, but a truly perfect fit is impractical. In fact, engineers don’t even design systems assuming their parts will need a perfect fit. Rather, they’ll design their parts to accommodate a range of dimensions. Engineering has cute word for it: tolerances. Sometimes it’s me: “I can drill that hole to 8 [mm] plus-or-minus 0.1[mm].” Sometimes it’s the datasheet: “Thicknesses are plus-or-minus 0.05[in].” Either way, tolerances give a range to our dimensions. If we keep these tolerances in mind, we can design to accommodate these ranges such that our parts will fit together even if their dimensions are slightly off.
Designing for Calibration — and Then Calibrating
In the real world, nothing’s perfect. Guitar strings must be tuned. Bike brakes must be tensioned. Despite these errors, if we design our parts with calibration in mind, focusing only on the dimensions that matter, we can still tune our system into a working state.
Tomi Engdahl says:
A Developer’s Kit for Medical Ultrasound
http://hackaday.com/2016/04/12/a-developers-kit-for-medical-ultrasound/
From watching a heart valve in operation to meeting your baby before she’s born, ultrasound is one of the most valuable and least invasive imaging tools of modern medicine. You pay for the value, of course, with ultrasound machines that cost upwards of $100k, and this can put them out of reach in many developing countries. Sounds like a problem for hackers to solve, and to help that happen, this 2016 Hackaday prize entry aims to create a development kit to enable low-cost medical ultrasounds
Developed as an off-shoot from the open-source echOpen project, [kelu124]’s Murgen project aims to enable hackers to create an ultrasound stethoscope in the $500 price range.
Murgen
An open-source ultrasound imaging dev kit side project
https://hackaday.io/project/9281-murgen
echOpen
http://echopen.org/index.php?title=Main_Page
Echopen aims at developing the first low-cost Open Source Hardware ultrasound stethoscope which can be connected to a smartphone or a tablet. It is intended for health professionnals and will be developed thanks to a multidisplinary community that shares the same vision.
Echopen is working towards a low-cost, open-source ultrasound stethoscope for healthcare professionals, that connects to a smartphone or tablet. We’re an open-source, collaborative community, led by a core of multidisciplinary specialists and top level professionals.
Many specialists claim the ultrasound scanner is the stethoscope of the twenty-first century. So why isn’t an ultrasound device in every clinician’s pocket? Moving from stethoscope to ultrasound scanner, we move from sound to imaging, from hearing to seeing. An image of the inside of the body is created by the reflection of ultrasound waves as they pass through the various tissues. It’s a popular and almost harmless diagnostic tool, but it’s currently owned by large medical equipment manufacturers.
To implement everything possible to
Create a multidisciplinary community with a common shared vision
Create the first low-cost, open-hardware, open-science and open-source ultrasound stethoscope that connects to a smartphone or tablet, by 2016 (bicentenary of the invention of the stethoscope by Laennec)
Document all work completed by the community, making it available to anyone wishing to lead a free, open and collaborative project in healthcare and technology
Educate about the free and open-source culture.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Arduino’s IoT Manifesto
http://www.edn.com/electronics-blogs/eye-on-iot-/4441804/Arduino-s-IoT-Manifesto?_mc=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_today_20160413&cid=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_today_20160413&elqTrackId=99a526b50a2e44b7bce12f50e9e4836b&elq=41acf75e50dd48238e3ec1028bae73b9&elqaid=31810&elqat=1&elqCampaignId=27771
Arduino, the folks behind the low cost microcontroller board designed to teach the world about embedded development, is now eyeing the Internet of Things (IoT). In addition to creating a new development board, a new cloud service, and a new forum dedicated to IoT projects, Arduino has established an IoT philosophy it hopes will help stimulate growth of the IoT. Arduino’s IoT Manifesto, in brief, is: Open, Sustainable, and Fair.
Speaking at the Arduino Day event in Berkeley, CA, on April 2, Arduino founder Massimo Banzi announced several new products and services supporting Arduino in the IoT. One was the release of the MKR1000, a $35 development board that combines the functions of the Arduino Zero and a WiFi shield. The board provides a platform for developers with little or no networking experience to create an IoT device. Another item announced was create.arduino.cc, an online platform for Arduino development that will soon include a web-based IDE for developers. Within that platform is the targeted Arduino IoT zone.
With what looks to be everybody jumping on the IoT bandwagon, this announcement from Arduino is not to surprising.
Arduino wants IoT development to be open, sustainable, and fair.
By open, the manifesto means two things. One, of course, is that new connected products should be built using open source hardware, software, and communications protocols. The ideal is to give users the ability to share their work openly to share challenges and jointly solve problems. But the manifesto also uses open to mean accessible to a wide audience. Arduino’s goal is to build tools and products useable by as many people as possible, people coming from diverse backgrounds and with varying levels of starting knowledge.
The sustainable element of the manifesto has an environmental aspect to it. Arduino believes that connected products should be designed for disassembly and recycling or re-use. But sustainability in the manifesto goes beyond the environment to encompass the product’s life history. Rather than allowing products to become obsolete and require replacement, the goal is to have products that can be revitalized or repurposed. Otherwise, scenarios such as the recent Revolv shutdown will work to counter user interest in the IoT.
Connected products need to have a useful life longer than a few years in order for people to accept them and embed them into their daily lives. To that end, the Arduino manifesto’s sustainability element calls for developers to design with the product’s long-term user experience in mind. It asks that developers make sure the product can easily be given a new life, become upgraded, or be able to move to other cloud service providers.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Don’t look at me … The robot did it
http://www.edn.com/electronics-blogs/anablog/4441831/-Don-t-look-at-me–The-robot-did-it-?_mc=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_analog_20160414&cid=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_analog_20160414&elqTrackId=dc714687201347eeb355fba2f9186bc0&elq=f0a3e314ade64561a3755e702122c08d&elqaid=31845&elqat=1&elqCampaignId=27784
Teams will design a product from start to finish as well as building a business model/marketing strategy around the product. At the end of the event, (Sunday afternoon) teams will have an opportunity to pitch their 48-hour ideas in front of judges and investors for a chance at winning funding and prizes! The event is open to the public; however, there is an entrance fee of $10 for public participants, $5 for ASU students.
The hackathon challenge is to create a full embedded system, both hardware and software.
experience these young, enterprising engineers, techs, hackers and DIYers at work. This will be an exciting, educational and fun-filled event where you can witness some great creativity and innovative concepts by a diverse field of entrepreneurs, techies, DIYers and students.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Materials to Know: Medium Density Fiberboard
http://hackaday.com/2016/04/14/materials-to-know-medium-density-fiberboard/
MDF is the cheapest and flattest wood you can buy at local hardware stores. It’s uniform in thickness, and easy to work with. It’s no wonder that it shows up in a lot of projects. MDF stands for Medium Density Fiberboard. It’s made by pressing materials together along with some steam, typically wood, fibers and glue. This bonds the fibers very tightly.
MDF is great, but it has a few properties to watch for. First, MDF is very weak in bending and tension. It has a Modulus of Elasticity that’s about half of plywood. Due to its structure, short interlocking fibers bound together by glue and pressure, it doesn’t take a lot to cause a crack, and then, quickly, a break.
Because of the way MDF is constructed, fasteners tend to pull out of it easily. This means that you must always make sure a fastener that sees dynamic loads (say a bearing mount) goes through the MDF to the other side into a washer and bolt. MDF also tends to compress locally after a time
Moisture and Glue
The biggest issue with MDF is its tendency to absorb any and all moisture. Unless it is kept perfectly dry, it will expand and eventually disintegrate. MDF, can and will mold if left damp as well, so keep that in mind. Don’t use it in constructions that stay near food or animals.
This tendency to absorb moisture makes it difficult to glue MDF.
Mechanical Joiners
If you are using a joint such as a biscuit joint or dowel, make sure to get the kind that expand when they come into contact with the moisture from the glue. These work fairly well in MDF constructions because both the dowel and the MDF expand when wetted. This forms a fairly good friction fit plus some glue bonding.
Coating and Covering
If you need to paint MDF, prepare to spend a significant amount of your time fighting MDF’s tendency to absorb the paint. However, if you must, the most effective way with the least loss, is an oil based primer sprayed on in very light layers. This lets the paint dry and cure with minimal absorption. After a few layers the wood will be sealed and a regular water based latex paint will be very effective.
MDF and similar particulate boards are used in industry. The typical way to finish these boards are to surround them with a layer of a completely different material. In speaker construction you’ll often find MDF wrapped with carpeting, vinyl, or leather. In cabinetry and shelving MDF is usually covered in big sheets of adhesive backed melamine.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Design like a maker
http://www.edn.com/electronics-blogs/now-hear-this/4441833/Design-like-a-maker?_mc=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_weekly_20160414&cid=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_weekly_20160414&elqTrackId=aaac462dcb134f8ca87cf07f7bff9970&elq=54acfccfc7a6415a80e303d9fc650d8a&elqaid=31854&elqat=1&elqCampaignId=27793
In his career as a toy designer, inventor, educator, and research scientist at the MIT Media Lab, Kipp Bradford has watched the evolution of the Maker Movement and in his ESC Boston keynote Wednesday, he shared his vision for its future.
According to Bradford, the next best thing to predicting the future is to understand what the future that we want will be, and then trying to create technologies to make that future possible. But it will take more than pushing the limits of science and technology.
“A lot of my work is trying to be predictive about the future—trying to design the future,” said Bradford. “Engineering has to work hand in hand with designers, artists, and society.”
The way forward is to take a lesson from the movement and design like a maker. Bradford’s idea of designing like a maker means validating quickly, building modularly, standardizing, and sharing solutions.
The Maker Movement has connected people to technology and translated technologies into products in a whole new way. With crowdfunding sites like Kickstarter and Indiegogo, and events like Maker Faire, people can present things they’ve made, and get a response that could indicate if there’s a market for it as a product.
Rather than going through a long research process to decide what to build, people build the thing they like and put it out in the world, and that can lead to some impressive things.
A product that has flourished in the maker community is the Arduino platform. Its user-focused design has allowed it to continue to evolve 10 years after its introduction. The drone industry and the 3D printer industry were also built on top of open source platforms.
“Arduino paid deep respect to the humanity of creating technology,” said Bradford. “The thing that was really great about it wasn’t that there was any new technology in it, it was that somebody thought really long and hard about what it means to actually use the technology that we create.”
Design tools are key to minimizing friction and empowering designers, but Bradford emphasized the importance of keeping them accessible.
“If you can’t sit down with a 12-year-old and explain it to them and get them using the tool in 15 minutes, then it’s too complex,” said Bradford.
“If you make my life hard with your technology, I’m going to find somebody else’s technology that makes my life easy,” said Bradford.
Tomi Engdahl says:
128 LEDs, 5 Buttons, IR Comm, and a Few Hours: What Could You Create?
http://hackaday.com/2016/04/15/128-leds-5-buttons-ir-comm-and-a-few-hours-what-could-you-create/
When the second band had played its last encore, before the legendary DJ took the stage, a cadre of hardware hackers climbed three steps with a twinkle in their eyes and glowing electronics in their hands. I’m surprised and relieved that the nugget of excitement that first led me to twiddle a byte in a microcontroller is still alive, and this moment — this crossroads of hacker family — stirred that molten hot center of adventure in everyone.
The badge hacking demoscene is a welcoming one. No blinking pixel is too simple, and no half-implemented idea falls short of impressing everyone because they prove the creativity, effort, and courage of each who got up to share their creation. How could we ever get together as a community and not do this?
Tomi Engdahl says:
Mrs. Penny’s Driving School — Hardware Workshop in Dallas
http://hackaday.com/2016/04/15/mrs-pennys-driving-school-hardware-workshop-in-dallas/
The goal of these classes is to help you overcome the barrier between a hardware idea and having that hardware in your hand. I’m not an expert in PCB design or layout, but I’ve found more ways to do it wrong than I’d probably admit too and this is my way of sharing what I’ve painfully learned through trial and error.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Flappy Bird on an… E-Cigarette?
http://hackaday.com/2016/04/15/flappy-bird-on-an-e-cigarette/
An open source SDK for the Joyetech eVic VTC Mini.
https://github.com/ReservedField/evic-sdk
eVic SDK is a software development kit for writing APROMs for the Joyetech eVic VTC Mini.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Building a Taller Drillpress
http://hackaday.com/2016/04/16/building-a-taller-drillpress/
[BF38] bought a mid-range miniature drill-press, and discovered that it was just too short for some of his applications. “No problem,” he thought, “I’ll just measure the column and swap it out for a longer one.” It sounds foolproof on paper.
He discovered, after having bought a new 48.3 mm steel column, that the original was 48 mm exactly in diameter. He’d have to make it fit.
Drill press tuning
Converting a cheap drill press into state of the art machinery
https://hackaday.io/project/9524-drill-press-tuning
Honing Head
https://hackaday.io/project/9534-honing-head
An improvised honing head.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Using Rapid Prototyping to Make a Clock
http://hackaday.com/2016/04/17/using-rapid-prototyping-to-make-a-clock/
[Markus] is attending the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm. For his Advanced Prototyping class he had to make something using rapid prototyping technology — i.e. 3D printers, laser cutters, and breadboards. He chose to make a fantastic looking clock.
He started by designing the entire thing in CAD. The base is 3D printed on a Ultimaker. The world clock display is a piece of laser engraved acrylic which he heated up and curved to fit. Using an Arduino and a 16×2 LCD matrix he created a simple clock program with the ability to show different time zones. The way you select them is very clever.
Arduino World Clock
http://imgur.com/gallery/uzn5f
Tomi Engdahl says:
Laser-Cut Clock Kicks Your CAD Tools to the Curb and Opts for Python
https://hackaday.com/2015/03/24/laser-cut-clock-kicks-your-cad-tools-to-the-curb-and-opts-for-python/
In a world deprived of stock hardware other than #6-32 bolts and sheets and sheets of acrylic, [Lawrence Kesteloot] took it upon himself to design and build a laser-cut pendulum clock. No Pricey CAD programs? No Problem. In a world where many fancy CAD tools can auto-generate gear models, [Lawrence] went back to first principles and wrote scripts to autogenerate the gear profiles. Furthermore, not only can these scripts export SVG files for the entire model for easy laser cutting, they can also render a 3D model within the browser using Javascript.
Acrylic Pendulum Clock
a pendulum clock, from acrylic parts cut by a laser cutter.
http://www.teamten.com/lawrence/projects/acrylic-pendulum-clock/
The parts are all cut from paths generated by a Python program. The program generates a JSON file with all the part data. This file can both be used to cut parts (by converting them to SVG files that the laser cutter can use) or to visualize the clock in 3D
http://www.teamten.com/lawrence/projects/acrylic-pendulum-clock/visualization.html