This week on Maker Update, a cable robot, adhesive wearables, crankies, morality tickets, dueling hummingbirds, and a 3D printer that runs on MDF.

++Show Notes++

-=Project of the Week=-

Cable Robot by Tom
https://hackaday.io/project/166527-cable-robot

-=News=-

Carnegie Mellon Researchers Push Wearable Tech Forward With Smart Patches That Wear Like a Band-Aid
https://www.core77.com/posts/89439/Carnegie-Mellon-Researchers-Push-Wearable-Tech-Forward-With-Smart-Patches-That-Wear-Like-a-Band-Aid
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1kXd2099GfE

Stretchy Wearable Patch Allows Two-Way Communication With Robots
https://spectrum.ieee.org/automaton/robotics/robotics-hardware/stretchy-wearable-patch-allows-twoway-communication-with-robots

-=More Projects=-

Laser Cut Crankie (moving Panorama) By wolfCatWorkshop
https://www.instructables.com/id/Laser-Cut-Crankie-moving-Panorama/

Build Demolition Man’s verbal morality ticketing machine PJ Evans
https://www.raspberrypi.org/blog/build-demolition-mans-verbal-morality-ticketing-machine/

Hummingbirds by Greg Zumwalt
https://www.instructables.com/id/Hummingbirds/

A 3D printer that makes parts from wooden sheets by Shane Wighton
https://shane.engineer/blog/plywood-3d-printer

-=Tools/Tips=-

ZAP Flexy Tips – Jordan Bunker
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4DAMcFeSAxE

Gareth’s Tips, Tools, and Shop Tales – Issue #12
https://www.getrevue.co/profile/garethbranwyn/issues/gareth-s-tips-tools-and-shop-tales-issue-12-190821

3D printed puzzle collection
https://www.thingiverse.com/hopewithus/collections/puzzles

Revealing the Hidden Beauty of Common Components by Eric Schlaepfer
https://spectrum.ieee.org/geek-life/profiles/revealing-the-hidden-beauty-of-common-components

Alameda Mini Maker Faire 8/11
https://alameda.makerfaire.com/

-=Product Spotlight=-

Wi-Fi Connection Using Digi-Key’s IoT Studio
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GxBzAhYYJ8I

Digi-Key IoT Studio
https://www.digikey.com/en/resources/design-tools/dk-iot-studio

Transcript

This week on Maker Update, a cable robot, adhesive wearables, crankies, morality tickets, dueling hummingbirds, and a 3D printer that runs on MDF.

Hey, I’m Donald Bell, and welcome back to another Maker Update! How’s everybody doing? It’s good to be back and I have a great show for you, so let’s get started with the project of the week.

When you think of having a robot helper in your workshop, you probably think of something that rolls on the ground, or maybe a robot arm that mounts to your workbench. But over on Hackaday, Tom shows how he built a robot in his basement that runs through the air, mounted on cables. 

In his demo video he has his robot grip and move beer cans from one platform to another. The system uses three geared stepper motors to spool and unspool the multiple, triangulated cables mounted in the room. 

Using some clever math and Linux based machine controller software called EMC2, Tom is able to get his robot moving smoothly from point to point and grab and move different objects. I’ve never seen anything quite like it. I’ve also never heard anything quite like it. It’s a symphony of stepper motors.

Now for some news. I found a lot of interesting research published this week on experimental wearable electronics. 

The first is from Carnegie Mellon and a report published in collaboration with their Morphing Matter Lab and the Soft Machines Lab. In it, they outline the construction of flexible electronic bandage-like devices, or what they call an ElectroDermis. 

The trick is to create a temporary wearable device with electronics that can stretch and withstand moisture. The fabrication process they show is super cool.

Some use cases they demonstrated were a temperature sensing mask, a pulse sensor for your ear, a neck sensor that detects eating, a motion-tracking knee wrap and a bandage that tracks how a wound is healing. 

A team at the University of Houston released a paper last week on this adhesive flexible electronic patch that reads movements from your hands that can be used to command robotics. 

What’s particularly novel about this approach is that the patch is made from a single type of material called indium zinc oxide, but the way it’s patterned and arranged at a microscopic level allows it to perform different functions.

Now for more projects. Check out this wonderfully analog hand-crank panorama machine from Federico Tobon (ta bon) of wolfcatWorkshop.

This is a small, laser-cut version of what’s called a “crankie”. It moves an illustrated scroll past a window. Because the scroll is wound up in a reel on one side, you can get a wonderfully long moving image that can tell a story or just entertain you. 

Federico is using a 22-inch reel of paper for his designs, but I see no reason you couldn’t scale it up or down to suit your needs. 

I think it’s a perfect little project, great for kids, and a great gift you could make for someone too. 

In the 1993 sci-fi action movie Demolition Man, one quirk of the futuristic world is that there are machines everywhere that will issue you a ticket if they catch you swearing. 

To recreate this idea, PJ Evans made a Raspberry Pi based system running the Google Voice API to detect if you say any forbidden words. If you do, a thermal printer will issue you a morality violation. There’s also a mode that turns the printer into a virtual stenographer, typing up anything you say directly to the thermal printer. 

On Instructables, Greg Zumwalt has a new take on his 3D printed mechanical hummingbird design. This new version animates two birds back and forth in a slow motion nectar free-for-all. 

Like many of Greg’s designs, the only non-3D printed elements involved are a geared DC motor and a power input. All the other pieces, including the threaded bolts, are 3D printed. It’s incredible.

For a completely different approach to 3D printing, check out this prototype 3D printer/CNC router made by Shane Wighton’s team at Formlab during a hackathon, that cuts and stacks sheets of wood.

The three-part system begins by routing out the first layer of a design on a single sheet on fiberboard. Glue is then automatically dispensed on top with a pneumatic glue head, a new sheet is moved into place on top and the process begins all over again. 

It’s kind of a cool idea, and definitely a new spin on what it means to be a 3D printer. 

Time for a few tools and tips. On the Cool Tools channel, I’ve got a video talking with Jordan Bunker about adding ZAP brand flexi-tips to your super glue bottles. They’re cheap and give you better control and precision when you’re applying CA glue.

In the latest Tips, Tools, and Shop Tales newsletter Gareth Branwyn rounds up some great ideas for sealing the edge of painters tape, fixing old tool motors, keeping pencils from rolling off your workbench, and different formulas for restoring old yellowed plastic.

For some fun with new plastic, check out this new Thingiverse collection that rounds-up some of the best 3D-printed puzzles. That puzzle cube by Wild Rose Builds is particularly infuriating and fun. 

IEEE Spectrum has a piece on Eric Schlaepfer’s electronic component cross-sections. The photos are beautiful and provide a fascinating look inside components we use every day. Some of you may remember the interview I did with Eric at this year’s Maker Faire Bay Area, where I got a chance to see his whole collection. It’s incredible.

And if you’d like a chance to come say hi to me at a Maker Faire, I’ll be at my local faire in Alameda CA this Sunday, showing off my two Power Racing Series electric go-karts. Come say hello. I’ll have some Maker Update stickers to give out.

For this week’s Digi-Key Spotlight, there’s a new video up by Robin Mitchell showing how to get IoT boards based on the Huzzah 32 microcontroller connected up to Wi-Fi using the Digi-Key IoT Studio. 

If you haven’t seen it, the IoT Studio is Digi-Key’s web-based platform for programing IoT projects, monitoring data, pushing out updates. There are sample projects to play with. It’s worth checking out.

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 to have each week’s show notes emailed out to you automatically. A big thanks to my Patrons on Patreon and to Digi-Key electronics for sponsoring this show. Thanks for watching, and I’ll see you soon.