This week on Maker Update, a beating heart, robot dreams, giant numbers, real-time object tracking, puffy bricks, and HackSpace goes half-price.

Show Notes

Project of the Week

Animatronic Plush Heart With 3D Printing by Will Cogley
https://www.instructables.com/id/Animatronic-Plush-Heart-With-3D-Printing/

News

Raspbian Update
https://www.raspberrypi.org/blog/a-new-raspbian-update/

-=More Projects=-

LEGO GBC Module – Robot Dreams by JK Brickworks
https://youtu.be/4dwXtT21rbw

The Numbers Project by Make Anything
https://youtu.be/fbbf3PqmCP0

Real-time Object Tracking by Leigh Johnson
https://towardsdatascience.com/real-time-object-tracking-with-tensorflow-raspberry-pi-and-pan-tilt-hat-2aeaef47e134

Tools/Tips

HackSpace U.S. Subscription half-off (67% off Newsstand prices)
https://hsmag.cc/mpl

I lost my voice but check out MuggyWeld! by TheCrafsMan SteadyCraftin
https://youtu.be/1y17ycCmvUU

Adam Savage’s Favorite Tools: Handheld Sheet Metal Brake
https://youtu.be/m_AB7RnD_FQ

Soft Baroque’s “Puffy Brick” Concrete Casting Technique
https://www.core77.com/posts/93782/Cool-Production-Method-Soft-Baroques-Puffy-Brick-Concrete-Casting-Technique

Impact Driver Vs. Drill Driver by Essential Craftsman
https://youtu.be/SJGfl54oegQ

Colored Gels on LEDs by John Park
https://learn.adafruit.com/circuitpython-ble-heart-rate-monitor-gizmo/overview

Flat Measuring Tape
https://youtu.be/1ciysHiqgEI

Digi-Key Spotlight

LoRA Digital Communication – Tech Basics
https://youtu.be/zJVxcOpuzRs

Transcript

This week on Maker Update, a beating heart, robot dreams, giant numbers, real-time object tracking, puffy bricks, and a great deal on Hackspace.

Hey, I’m Donald Bell and welcome back to another Maker Update. How are you doing? I’m doing pretty great. I’m off on vacation soon and I’m looking forward to that, but it also means there’s no Maker Update next week. Bummer. But I have a great show for you today, so let’s get started with the project of the week.

My animatronic guru, Will Cogley, has an Instructable up on how to create this motorized beating heart, covered in a cute, fuzzy fabric sleeve.

Inside you have a toy, dual-shaft gearmotor, connected to an ingenious system of 3D printed hinges that push and pull against each other to create the pumping heart motion.

You’ll need a bunch of M2 screws to fasten everything together. You’ll also need this cool little cheap speed controller Will found that allows you to dial the speed of the heart beat up and down.

Without a cover on it, you have this weird plastic robot heart. But as soon as you wrap it in some stretchy jersey fabric, it’s kind of adorable.

Not only does Will’s Instructable include the bill of materials and all the 3D printed design files you need to build this, but he also includes some fabric templates to copy his plush cover design.

Probably too late to get this made for Valentine’s day, but keep it in mind for next year.

Time for some news. The Raspberry Pi Foundation have published a new update to their Raspbian operating system. The update includes changes to the file manager, Orca screen reader compatibility, new Scratch programming blocks, an improved audio mixer, and more. You can find a link to read more about it down in the show notes.

Now for more projects. JK Brickworks posted this hypnotic new Lego automata called Robot Dreams. He calls these a GBC module, which is a new term for me that means Great Ball Contraption. It turns out that it’s a whole genre of Lego automata that you can find all kinds of mind-blowing examples of online.

For this one, he has a series of four slightly different robot figures passing a ball from one side to the other. It’s an incredible design, the sorting, the gearing, the little elevator that introduces the ball. It’s beautiful.

On the Make Anything channel, Devin Montes shows off the entirety of his giant numbers project.

He’s been working on this one for awhile, creating a series of large numbers for a client, all created with a distinct, different style, often using different techniques and materials.

Most of them involve a CNC router to cut or add texture to wood. But there are also a lot of ideas and techniques in here that anyone could repurpose to bring some visual appeal to bigger or smaller projects.

I also just have to say that it’s a real treat to see projects like this where art and design play as much of a role as the technique. It’s a real testament to Devin’s talent.

For a few months now, I’ve been looking at ways to play with real-time object detection and tracking on the Raspberry Pi. There are plenty of guides out there, but I’ve stumbled though enough of them to know when a great one comes along.

This one by Leigh Johnson uses TensorFlow software and works with a Raspberry Pi 4, a Pimoroni Pan-Tilt hat, and a Raspberry Pi camera. Just by copying and pasting a handful of commands, I was able to get it running in under an hour, and the results were just what I wanted.

Now for some tools and tips. Hackspace magazine has announced a new U.S. subscription price, coming down from around $115 for a year subscription to just $60. It’s a great magazine, but the price always scared me away. So now’s the time to jump on it.

On the CrafsMan SteadyCraftin channel, I was introduced to MuggyWeld silver solder. This is an interesting alternative to welding that allows you to bond metal together using a map gas torch and a soldering stick.

It works on brass, copper, steel, cast iron, stainless steel. It’s not going to be as strong as a welded connection, but if you’re doing a small repair, it will probably get you close enough.

On Tested, Adam Savage shows off another favorite tool. This time it’s a handheld sheet metal brake from Irwin. For under $20, it opens up all kinds of new possibilities for shaping sheet metal.

On the Core77 blog I saw this interesting piece on how a design group called Soft Baroque created a concrete casting technique they call Puffy Brick.

The process involves filling balloons with concrete, forming them around an object (like this reception desk) and then squishing the sides flat with an outer plywood form.

The result are these custom, interlocking concrete bricks that look like some kind of alien expanding foam. I’m curious to give this technique a try.

The Essential Craftsman has a new video up going over the essential differences between drills and impact drivers, the best use cases for each and why ultimately you want both in your workshop.

On Adafruit, John Park’s recent guide on creating a Bluetooth heart rate trainer has a great tip included on using purple lighting gels to add some extra contrast to your 7-segment displays. It just gives it a more professional look.

And on the Cool Tools channel, I’ve got an interview with woodworker Palo Coleman on the advantages of using a flat-back tape measure on projects where precision counts. I didn’t know these things existed.

For this week’s Digi-Key spotlight, they’ve got a new video up covering LoRA, or long-range digital communication. When you need a project or an IoT device to be able to communicate at distances of up to 30 miles under low-power, LoRA is the way to do that.

Think agriculture, smart cities, scientific data collection. It’s a cool idea to wrap your head around and also something you can affordably play with right now using an Arduino and a LoRA breakout board. This video walks you through all the basics.

And that does it for this week’s show. Be sure to subscribe, leave a thumbs up, or leave a comment. Get on the Maker Update email list so you can stay up to date on each week’s show. Remember, no show next week, but I’ll be back. Thanks for watching and I’ll see you soon.