This week on Maker Update, an octo-bouncer, what’s up with Maker Faire Bay Area, a Lego robot rickshaw, Diresta’s bandsaw bot, a 3D printed snorkel, nibblers and nunchucks.

++Show Notes++

Donald’s Cocktail Robot FB Page
https://www.facebook.com/vk01robot/

-=Project of the Week=-

The Octo-Bouncer by Tobias Kuhn of Electron Dust
https://electrondust.com/2020/03/01/the-octo-bouncer/
https://hackaday.com/2020/03/05/robotic-ball-bouncer-uses-machine-vision-to-stay-on-target/

See also: Ball Balancing PID System By Johan Link
https://www.instructables.com/id/Ball-Balancing-PID-System

-=News=-

What’s Up With Maker Faire Bay Area This Year?
https://makezine.com/2020/03/06/whats-up-with-maker-faire-bay-area-this-year-heres-the-latest-update/

-=More Projects=-

LEGO Adam Savage Robot Rickshaw by JK Brickworks
https://jkbrickworks.com/adam-savage-robot-rickshaw/#more-1732

DiResta Bandsaw Bot [In 1 Take]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3VhsZYDktXk

3D Printed Snorkel By rabbitcreek
https://www.instructables.com/id/3D-Printed-Snorkel/

-=Tools/Tips=-

Introducing Raspberry Pi Imager, our new imaging utility
https://www.raspberrypi.org/blog/raspberry-pi-imager-imaging-utility/

Nickel Plated Nibbling Tool
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c03STjTM6wo

Adam Savage’s Favorite Tools: Jewelry Clamps
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HrYrcJTv4H4

Ninja Your Old Wii Nunchuck into Your Next Project!
https://blog.tindie.com/2020/03/ninja-old-wii-nunchuck-next-project/

SparkFun Launches “a Better Uno” with the Arduino-Compatible SparkX BlackBoard C
https://www.sparkfun.com/products/16282
https://www.hackster.io/news/sparkfun-launches-a-better-uno-with-the-arduino-compatible-sparkx-blackboard-c-437124dcb90e

-=Digi-Key Spotlight=-

Gesture Recognition – Tech Basics
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E6F22WXP5e0

Transcript

This week on Maker Update, an octo-bouncer, what’s up with Maker Faire Bay Area, a Lego robot rickshaw, Diresta’s bandsaw bot, a 3D printed snorkel, nibblers and nunchucks.

Hey, I’m Donald Bell and welcome back to another Maker Update. It’s great to be back. I got some quality time in last week working on a keypad interface for my cocktail robot, which may be the best and nerdiest thing I’ve ever said in my entire life. 

I’ve also made a Facebook page if you want to learn more about the design and see my progress. You can find that in the show notes. But now, let’s get started with the project of the week.

Tobias Kuhn has been on a five year mission of building machines that can reliably juggle a ping pong ball. His latest, and perhaps final build of these ball bouncing robots is called the Octo-Bouncer. 

It’s mesmerizing to watch this thing, but you’re probably not going to build one for yourself. It’s a unique obsession. But that shouldn’t stop you from appreciating the lengths Tobias went to in creating this design.

You can boil down the robot to four stepper motors and drivers and a single Teensy 4.0 microcontroller running Arduino code. The Teensy was chosen for its maximum clock speed of 600MHz, compared to a more common 16MHz Arduino speed. This is what allows it to read and react to the ball so quickly. 

A 120 frame per second camera feed of the ball is taken from under the platform, which is then processed by OpenCV and a custom application he created in Unity. This gives him the position and velocity of the ball, and allows him to create a simulation of the machine.

And on top of all that, he machined the over 150 aluminum parts for the robot using a small, $500 Benbox CNC mill he bought off Amazon. It took him around 160 hours just to make all the parts. The poor guy had to make a sound-proof enclosure for it just to not go crazy from the constant grinding sound. 

But the end result looks beautiful. And again, you have to appreciate that he got to this after five years and multiple variations on this idea. 

If you do want to make one for yourself, you can find a link in the show notes to his project page. I’ve also included a similar project by Johan Link that uses servos and three arms.

Now for some news. On Makezine, Dale Dougherty shares an official announcement that Maker Faire Bay Area will not be held this year — at least, not at it’s usual time in May. There’s a mention of a possibility it could be held sometime, somewhere in the Fall, but it’s all sort of up in the air. 

It would seem that there’s a good chance that it’s just not happening. But given the wave of events that have been cancelled this year due to fears of Coronavirus, at least it’s in good company.

But while Maker Faire Bay Area is the longest running Maker Faire, it’s not the only one. At makerfaire.com you can browse hundreds of global faires and find one that may be happening near you.

Back to more projects. Check out this wonderful maker mash-up. It’s a Lego automaton by JK Brickworks showing Adam Savage being pulled in his robot rickshaw. 

If you haven’t seen the video, about a month ago, Adam Savage built a rickshaw cart that could be pulled by the Spot robot he has on loan from Boston Dynamics. 

It’s a great video, and Jason Allemann from JK Brickworks was so inspired by it that he created this motorized Lego tribute. 

The Lego design uses a single motor to create the motion of both the wheels and the robot legs. Jason was nice enough to narrate the video and really break down how everything fits together and works. It’s fun to watch and offers some great insights on how to gear little kinetic sculptures like this.

Another video project that’s pure fun is this Bandsaw bot by Jimmy DiResta. In one 10 minute take, you get to see Jimmy sculpt a rock ‘em-sock ‘em style robot from a few blocks of wood just using a bandsaw and CA glue. 

It’s like a step up from whittling, and a step down from those guys who carve tikis with chainsaws.

For a bit of practical making, on Instructables, Robert Werner (aka Rabbitcreek) has a guide on making your own valved snorkel using parts that are 3D printed. 

This is obviously a project you undertake at your own risk, but Robert has put a lot of research into it and has several projects on Instructables that point to his interest in diver safety and oxygen and CO2 measurement in snorkeling. 

In his valved snorkel design, the air you exhale leaves to one side, and doesn’t get remixed with the fresh air you’re breathing in. I think it’s a cool idea, and if you ever wanted to roll your own snorkel and look like a badass, this is one way to do it.

Now for a few tools and tips. Raspberry Pi now has its own official SD card imaging utility. It’s free and available for Mac, Windows, and Linux. You can find it on their downloads page. 

It’s meant to simplify the process of downloading a Raspberry Pi OS and imaging it to a card, because it’s all handled in one application. You open up the app, choose your OS, download it through the app, locate your card, and write the image to your card. 

It’s kind of a small thing, but I think it’s a good idea.

On the Cool Tools blog, Sean Michael Ragan has a video up showing how to use a manual nibbling tool for cutting shapes out of metal. It’s an inexpensive tool you can get for under $20 that allows you to carefully chew out custom shapes in a variety of metals. For mounting components in metal enclosures or on metal panels, it’s very handy. Check out the video.

Ada Savage has a new favorite tool video out that goes over a few different types of jewelry clamps. When you need to get a tight grip on something small or round, like a ring, these look like a great option.

On the Tindie blog, I learned about this $7 breakout board sold by Brian Lough that can turn a Wii nunchuck remote into a wireless, Arduino compatible controller. You do have to plug in your own Wemos D1 Mini ESP8266 board, which are only a few dollars. For the right project, I think it’s a great hack.

Sparkfun has launched their own updated spin on the Arduino Uno called the SparkX BlackBoard C. There are a lot of Uno clones on the market, but this one looks really good and only costs $15. 

You get a reversible USB-C connection, a Qwic connector, little through holes next to the headers for making more permanent connections, and a tiny switch that allows you to change the GPIO voltage between 5 volts and 3.3 volts, depending on what your project needs.

For this week’s Digi-Key spotlight, check out their latest video on working with gesture recognition. They go over some basic concepts but also show off a Capacitive Near Field Sensor Evaluation Kit by Microchip that can interpret hand movement and touches into different actions. Check it out.

And that does it for this week’s show. Be sure to subscribe, leave a comment, or leave a thumbs up. You can also get on the Maker Update email list so you never miss an episode and can see the links for each week’s show with photos. A big thanks to my patrons on Patreon and to Digi-Key electronics for making this show possible. Thanks for watching, and I’ll see you next week.