Building a Remote Controlled Tricycle-Riding Puppet
I’ve published an Instructables guide showing how I made this remote controlled tricycle-riding puppet.
It was such a fun project that I’m already hard at work on an updated version and a more manageable project guide. The bill of materials alone is simply ridiculous. It’s what happens when you’re prototying and just ordering random bits and grabbing things out of your stash of whatever boards you have on hand.
But until the next version is finished, I hope this guide can offer some inspiration.
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.
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.
Best Electronic Soldering Badge Kits For Classrooms
Learning how to solder is a right of passage for any maker. Personally, I remember holding out for the longest time, relying on alligator clips and breadboard jumpers to complete beginner projects and simple circuits. Soldering is intimidating, and the prospect of mangling a project while you learn the basics technique can compound the anxiety.
The best way I’ve found to dip your toe in to learning to solder is with a fun, inexpensive soldering badge kit. These come in dozens of varieties, with a wide range of cost, which I’ve outlined here.
Boil them down, they’re essentially a simple LED circuit, powered by a coin cell battery. For both students and instructors, they offer a quick project with a high payoff. Plus, you literally get to wear your new skill as a badge of accomplishment. How cool is that?
For a look at ore advanced kits for beginning makers, check out our current list of the Top 5 Best Kits for Makers.
3D Printed DeWALT Battery Adapter for Ryobi Tools
Project Notes
Original project by Jay Rugland:
https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:1248463
Blue Spade Terminals (Amazon Associate link):
https://amzn.to/2MJLz0C
Similar Dewalt 18 volt to Dewalt Lithium Ion 20 Volt Adapter, but w/ Battery Monitor
https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:1270617
$20 Surebonder Dewalt-to-Ryobi adapter:
https://surebonder.com/products/dew-20v-ryobi%C2%AE-to-dewalt%C2%AE-battery-adapter
They also make a Milwaukee-to-Ryobi adapter (Amazon Associate link):
https://amzn.to/2tinJB7
More project reviews:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLHvctKwAXIO_ewpuKb1RXqez5NCSbeANj
Too $hort Cat
The following is adapted from an Instructable I wrote, with a few added photos here.
The Party Animal dancing speaker is a hilarious but awful product. For this project, I’m going to show you how to make it twice as funny and half as crappy by integrating a music player, connecting it to a real speaker and rewiring it for push-button play. I have mine dancing to Too $hort, but you can have yours dance to whatever you want.
Making the Kitty Grabs Back Electric Go Kart
If you’ve never seen or heard of Power Racing Series, start here and come back. It looks like crazy fun, right? People take a second-hand kid’s ride-on car (or build one from scratch), turn them into full-on electric go karts, and race each other for fun and glory.
And every year at Maker Faire Bay Area, I’ve watched these racers from the sidelines, laughing and cheering and thinking to myself that someday I might just build and race a car of my own.
Season 8 Power Racing Series Trailer from Power Racing Series on Vimeo.
At the 2016 Maker Faire, freshly unemployed from my year as Make magazine’s Project Editor, I decided there was never going to be a better time to try building my own car.
Raspberry Pi Home Network Music System
What is this?
In this project I’m going to show you how to turn a inexpensive Raspberry Pi computer into a home for your MP3 music collection that you can browse and control from your phone or computer. This same setup can weave together online music services like Spotify and Google Music, as well as internet radio, and also act as an Airplay or DLNA receiver for streaming music from other devices.
Review: Light Paintbrush for Circuit Playground
I love when a DIY project gives you something that feels almost like a magic trick. The TV-B-Gone project is one such project, but so is this LED paintbrush project published by John Park on Adafruit.
John Park has an embarrassing number of great projects, but I ordered up the parts for this one specifically because I’ve been looking for an approachable project with a fun payoff to use for a beginner electronics workshop I’m teaching in April. I love the idea of students walking away with a unique gadget to show off, rather than just a blinking LED.
Getting Started With Raspberry Pi and WD Labs PiDrive
Right off the bat, let me acknowledge that I am by no means an expert on Raspberry Pi. If anything, I’m a beginner with Pi who was fortunate enough to find a sponsor for this video who valued a beginner’s perspective on things.
WD Labs is the sponsor for this video. They sent me their full Raspberry Pi kit which they call the Compute Centre, which includes a Pi 3, keyboard, case, mouse, power supply, a microSD card that plugs into the Pi preinstalled with software, and a hard drive.
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