This week on Maker Update: a supersized BMO, the return of Maker Faires, a new life for soda cans, wooden robots, gift guides, and a collection of fish friendly filaments.

++Show Notes [Maker Update Ep.159]++

-=Project of the Week=-

Giant 3d Printed BMO by Geeky Faye Art
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6AtAhDMpVto

-=News=-

Maker Faire Rochester
https://rochester.makerfaire.com

-=More Projects=-

A Robot Made from Scrap Lumber by Toglefritz
https://www.instructables.com/Knot-a-Robotic-Offcut-of-Scrap-Lumber/

Embossed Wall Hanging from Aluminum Cans by AnitaH25
https://www.instructables.com/Repurpose-Aluminum-Cans-Into-a-Wall-Hanging/

Blue LED Light in a Mint Tin by evilrooster
https://www.instructables.com/Blue-LED-Light-Box-in-an-Altoids-like-Tin/

The Beacon by Tested
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SswGAImAlls

-=Tips & Tools=-

3d Printed Filaments for the Environmentally Conscious by Voidstar Lab
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pF2akallRiQ

3d Printed Seat Belt Buckle by electrosync
https://thangs.com/electrosync/Seat-Belt-Buckle-Desk-Fidget-Toy-35206?manualModelView=true&fbclid=IwAR0NDsm5oiPLUmwyGNe95wpv4dgGDYU6PoFWS2spIFymvcX7b0ybbir6RCc

Hacking Holiday Animatronics by John Park
https://learn.adafruit.com/hacking-holiday-animatronics/animatronic-anatomy

Holiday Gift Guide by the Make: staff
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KwIW8hEMwms

-=Digi-Key Spotlight=-

Potentially Genius: Airline Fume Monitor
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zaFG1XnsaKI

-=Transcript=-

This week on Maker Update: A supersized BMO, the return of Maker Faires, a new life for soda cans, wooden robots, gift guides, and a collection of fish friendly filaments.

Hello, and welcome back to Maker Update! I’m Tyler Winegarner, and I hope you’re doing well. We’ve finally got some great autumn colors going on around here, and I hope you’re finding some great leaf piles to stomp around in as you think about your next project. We’ve got a fun show for you, so let’s check out the project of the week.

Octoprint is one of the most useful additions you can make to your 3d printer. It allows you to remotely operate your printer, monitor it, record time lapses, and plenty more. But it’s not much fun to use, just functional. Which is why Allie from Geeky faye Art is giving Octoprint the personality it deserves – by giving it a touchscreen, some chunky clicky buttons, some bendy arms, and, oh yeah, it’s all going into the body of BMO from Adventure Time.

Because the design is based around the Raspberry Pi Touchscreen Display, this BMO is… pretty big. But it’s not just supersized for the sake of it – Allie also wanted to use this as an exercise in accessible design. It sounds like a fancy term but accessible design just means that you’ve approached your design with the idea that lots of different people will be able to use it. In this case, they set three design rules for the project: The project would be easy to print, the project would be easy to assemble, and that the project can be completely disassembled.

In an earlier video on this project, they discussed the electronic components they will be using in BMOctoprint, and did some breadboard and python prototyping to make sure everything was talking to each other. This video goes into much more detail about the hardware design, with plenty of engineering considerations like how to make a D-pad so you don’t press all the buttons at once -or how you make a durable, 3d printable and satisfyingly snappy latch for an access door? There’s a lot of iterative design that goes into a project like this, and a lot of successful failures – you can see them all over the table.

This is just the first two parts of what is hopefully a three part video series – with the electronics hardware assembled and the enclosure designed, the last thing to do is all the programming to make sure the touchscreen and the hardware are all working harmoniously with the Octoprint server. In the meantime, its great to see all that they’ve managed to accomplish so far – and I can’t wait to see how it all turns out.

Time for the news, and I apologize since this won’t do you much good if you don’t live in Western NY, but Maker Faire is back! Last weekend we saw the return of Maker Faire Orlando as an in-person event – Make’s senior editor Caleb Kraft shared a number of live streams from the event that you can check out on the Make Magazine facebook page. But this weekend is Maker Faire Rochester! There’s over 80 makers that will be showcasing at the Rochester riverside convention center, and I can’t tell you how excited I am to be seeing makers and projects in person again. Not that I didn’t love putting together all the virtual events last year but, they’re just not the same. If you’re in the area, come check it out!

More Projects! Chances are, if you’ve ever built a project out of 2×4’s, you had a handful of scrap pieces left over. But you probably didn’t build a robot out of them, like Toglefritz did. On instructables I found this guide for making a super simple robot out of a piece of lumber. The center part has been hollowed out to create a space for the Sparkfun Redboard Artemis, a pair of quiic stepper motor drivers, and two nema 11 stepper motors. The two motors each drive their own smaller offcut of wood that act like flippers or wheels.

But I haven’t even gotten to the best part, which is how the robot is controlled. Instead of a radio or a bluetooth app from your phone, the redboard uses a piezo sensor to detect knocks from a mallet. You control the robot by bonking it on the head. It’s a clever use of scrap wood, and a fun expression of out of the box thinking.

Also on instructables I found this guide to making this wall ornament out of aluminum cans from AnitaH25. Its a simple enough idea with clever execution. After removing the top and bottom of the cans she rolled the sides into a flat sheet. And then used an embossing roller to impress a pattern into the thin metal. You don’t necessarily need the roller, you can just use your own body weight to make the impression, but the depth of the embossing will be a lot less consistent. After the addition of some rub’n’buff and a wooden frame, it’s ready for wall hanging.

Also check out this steampunk mannequin she made using the same process. It’s always great to see more uses come out of materials we probably throw out far too often.

From evilrooster I found this guide for turning a classic altoids tin into a portable LED light. How long has it been since you saw a project made from an altoids tin? In addition to this being a refreshing throwback, its’s also a beautiful expression in minimalist design. The LED strip are attached to a piece of cardboard and small pieces of jumper wire continue the circuit around the back. Some bottlecaps act as spacers to keep the circuit off the back of the tin. Evilrooster opted for blue lights to use the light as a therapy lamp for Seasonal Affective Disorder, and so far, it seems to be working for them.

And finally, if you haven’t already, be sure to check out The Beacon, a short film produced by the team over at Tested. Starring Adam Savage and Kevin Pereira, and with Joey Fameli as Director of photography, this is a great little film celebrating the relaunch of the G4 network. But its chock full of references to classic sci-fi films, and with all the talents packed into the team there, it’s hard not to imagine all the work that went into making all the props, costumes and sets.

Good thing you won’t have to imagine – because in true tested fashion, they’ll be releasing video builds from throughout the production of the film – so look for that coming soon.

Time for some tips and tools – there’s no getting around the fact that plastics are pretty terrible for the environment – and as makers, not only do we consume our fair share, but also make plenty of our own – which is why Zack Freedman from Voidstar Labs published this addendum to his lengthy filament guide to shed some light on five filaments that might ease your carbon footprint a little. There’s PolyTerra which is made of 100% bioplastic, so it should break down a little easier than your standard PLA, Greengate PETG which is made entirely from post-consumer PETG, and Porthcurno, a nylon filament made from recovered nylon fishing nets. There’s a few more and its an informative video, go check it out.

I’ve heard of makers using classic seat belt buckles to craft everything from bag straps to tool hangers. Maybe you’ve wanted to play around with them as a design element, but didn’t feel like salvaging them from a junkyard. On Thangs I found this printable seat belt buckle from electrosync – it doesn’t require any additional hardware, and it all snap fits together. Its a great mechanical design, and should be fun to use in a few projects.

Over on the Adafruit blog I found this guide from John Park on hacking holiday props to add sound, lights or interactivity to store-bought electromechanical decorations. This is an open-ended guide that leaves the creativity up to you. I know we just got done with halloween, but there’s plenty of similar props for the winter holiday season. What if that inflatable santa could greet people coming to your door? Or those light up reindeer could pivot their heads to track people who walk by? Like I said, the guide is just here to spark your creativity – the rest is up to you.

Speaking of holidays, the Make: Magazine staff just released their holiday gift guide video, and there’s a ton of great ideas in here – everything from pizza ovens to weather stations, battery powered chainsaws, sanding blocks, and pocket knives. You’ll hear from a ton of different kinds of makers on the staff, and with gifts at just about every budget. Personally speaking, I think I need some of those leaf claws – they look really useful.

For this week’s Digikey Spotlight we’re checking in again on the Potentially Genius crew, who this week are exploring the air quality of commercial airline cabins. Apparently commercial airliners can have a tendency to draw oil and hydraulic fluid into the cabin, which can make folks really sick. And since the airlines aren’t already monitoring for this, the potentially genius crew are developing personalized editions to allow flyers to do their own reporting. They’re using CO2 sensors for the early alert, and then trigger deeper sampling for external testing. It’s a cool project, but hopefully hasn’t made you too worried to do any traveling for the holidays.

Alright and that is gonna do it for this week’s show. I didn’t really plan on it, but this show ended up exploring how to be more mindful of our consumption and waste. Hopefully its helped inspire you to think of how you could use that last little bit of scrap instead of tossing it out – I’d love to hear about it if it did. Otherwise I hope you enjoyed the show and if you did, give us a thumbs up, hit subscribe, and sign up for the Maker Update email list so you don’t miss a show. Big thanks to our pals at Digikey for making this all possible. Take care, and I’ll see you soon.