Maker Project Lab
December 7, 2023 AUTHOR: Donald Bell CATEGORIES: News Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

The Ceiling’s the Limit [Maker Update]

This week on Maker Update: a dorm room drone show, a tiny volumetric display, a new look at screen printing, and bullying robots.

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May 11, 2023 AUTHOR: Donald Bell CATEGORIES: News Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Tread Gently [Maker Update]

This week on Maker Update: bringing your own baby Wall-E to life, Hackaday’s Op Amp challenge, a new twist on the video synthesizer, and adding animations to backlit panels.

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January 28, 2021 AUTHOR: Christine Cain CATEGORIES: News Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Surfing with the Bern [Maker Update]

This week on Maker Update, the most expensive rip surf ever made, some huge news from Raspberry Pi, thin floating shelves, clever mechanisms, making cut lists and foaming TPU.

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July 25, 2020 AUTHOR: Donald Bell CATEGORIES: News, Project Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Making the VK-01 Cocktail Machine

There’s an Instructables page up now, collecting all of the work on my cocktail machine for the 2020 Cocktail Robotics Grand Challenge.

I call it the VK-01 Off-World Bartender. It’s a Blade Runner-inspired machine that’s a mix of sci-fi and retro. Every detail I can think of is collected in the Instructable — every line of code, wiring diagram, and 3D design.

I hope it can inspire you to build your own cocktail machine. It’s been a challenging project, but one of my most rewarding yet. It was also a great motivation for becoming more comfortable with coding, 3D design, and exploring the possibilities of working with other makers and artists. I wouldn’t take back a minute of it.

August 30, 2019 AUTHOR: Donald Bell CATEGORIES: News, Project Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

Jon-A-Tron’s 3D Printed Animatronic Puppet

Occasionally there are projects that hang at the top of my “someday” list and refuse to budge, nagging me until I tackle them. Jonathan (Jon-A-Tron) Odom’s 3D Printed Animatronic Puppet project on Instructables is one of these projects.

When I started Maker Project Lab, the whole idea was that I was going to be rebuilding, evaluating, and elevating awesome projects that makers have shared online. It’s a process that was part of my job as a Projects Editor at Make: magazine, and it seemed like a cool thing I could continue doing. I mean, isn’t that part of what the Maker Movement is all about — sharing what you’ve done and inspiring people to build their own version and take it someplace new?

Needless to say, if you’ve been following this blog, you know that I got wonderfully sidetracked by making my own weekly show and reviewing tools. What little spare time I have left for actually making my own projects is typically sucked in to paid original project content, or personal projects for which a lot of the appeal is selfishly chipping away at something that’s just for me.

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August 8, 2018 AUTHOR: Donald Bell CATEGORIES: News Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Spider Clock [Maker Update #89]

This week on Maker Update, an LED filament clock, a pool noodle robot rover, a scream that screams back at you, a motorized Flippy crawler, 7 vintage toy robot designs you can 3D print, a project packaging generator, and a mini metal chop saw.

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August 3, 2018 AUTHOR: Donald Bell CATEGORIES: Tools Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Wearable LED-lit magnifying glasses

Tools: LED Light Weight Magnifier with 5 Lenses
http://amzn.to/2uDdG90

Transcript

For this week’s Cool Tools review, I’m going to show off these wearable magnifying glasses. These run around $14 on Amazon, and by using the link in the video description you help to support my videos and the Cool Tools blog.

I bought these a year ago looking for a way to get a better look at soldering up small stuff. They really are perfect for those times when you’re wiring or painting or glueing up something tiny and delicate. Plus there’s a little LED on the front that helps put a little extra light on things.

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July 6, 2018 AUTHOR: Donald Bell CATEGORIES: Tools Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Kreg Rip-Cut Circular Saw Guide Review

The Kreg Rip-Cut Circular Saw Guide (Amazon link) is a $32 guide for a circular saw. It’s great if you have a small workshop, or no workshop.

If you have a table saw, there’s probably no reason to buy this. But if you have a small garage like mine and you don’t want to surrender the space and money to have a table saw, this and a circular saw are an effective way to accurately break down sheets of wood.

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