This week on Maker Update, a AI laser targeting system for dog poop, watching YouTube on an antique, a spooky phone, and a portable soldering station.

++Show Notes [Maker Update Ep.285]++

-=Project of the Week=-

AI-Based Dog Poop Laser Targeting System by Caleb Olsen
https://youtu.be/rVzwHwN4-V0

-=More Projects=-

YouTube Viewing Terminal Using a Recycled Super-8 Film Viewer by VEEB Projects
https://youtu.be/I5iHMEqll0Q

A Strange Phone by Guy Dupont
https://hackaday.io/project/185413-a-strange-phone

-=Tips & Tools=-

Portable Soldering Station by Becky Stern
https://beckystern.com/2022/05/29/portable-soldering-station/

Adam’s Guide to Sanding Tools
https://www.tested.com/making/how-tos/adams-guide-to-sanding-tools/

Make Anything Easily Rotate By 3DSage
https://www.instructables.com/Make-Anything-Easily-Rotate/

Vacuum Form Upcycled Bubble Wrap By blorgggg
https://www.instructables.com/Vacuum-Form-Upcycled-Bubble-Wrap/

Doris Sung’s Thermobimetal Window Shading System
https://www.core77.com/posts/115704/Architects-Brilliant-Use-of-Materials-Yields-Self-Shading-Windows

-=Digi-Key Spotlight=-

The Great Search – Alternative replacement for our go-to 3.3V regulator
https://blog.adafruit.com/2022/05/24/the-great-search-alternative-replacement-for-our-go-to-3-3v-regulator-thegreatsearch-digikey-adafruit/

-=Transcript=-

This week on Maker Update, a AI laser targeting system for dog poop, watching YouTube on an antique, a spooky phone, and a portable soldering station.

Hey everybody, I’m Donald Bell and welcome back to another Maker Update. I hope you’re doing well and making things happen. If you’re in a creative slump though, I really am finding that letting go of some of the stuff I’ve been holding on to is making everything feel lighter and easier. Worth a try.

Anyway, let’s get to it, starting off with the project of the week.

Caleb Olson is new on the scene with a channel that only has two videos so far. The first is a video on how he created an AI camera system for his back yard that would detect and map the places where his dog has left a little present for him.

It’s a brilliant and hilarious use of computer vision and machine learning technology. However, it turns out that a digital turd map alone is not quite enough to really help with the collection and cleanup.

So, in his latest video, Caleb shows how he added a robotic arm laser targeting system to precisely point out the little piles of fertilizer.

This way, when he goes out for a mine sweep, he can signal the computer vision software with a crossed pair of arms, and the software will compare his location with its database of the nearest turds. The laser targets the spot, and once it sees Caleb’s crouching posture, it considers the object acquired, deletes the entry, and leads him through the rest of the tootsie roll hunt.

Now, I’ve covered a bunch of AI and machine learning projects on this show, but this might be the most practical application I’ve seen yet.

I mean it’s silly because we’re talking about dog poop, but as a dog owner myself, this is a relatable daily daily chore. And sure, humanity has gone this far without needing lasers to locate pet droppings, but I think any chore is made better with lasers.

More projects. On YouTube, Veeb projects show off how they retrofitted this beautiful old 8mm film editing machine with a Raspberry Pi.

They swapped out the old projection screen with an LCD that just perfectly seems to fit the same dimensions. A new speaker was added behind that perforated aluminum, and a yellow USB cable snakes out from the inside to connect to a keyboard. Otherwise, it seems mostly untouched and just has such a cool, retro computer vibe to it.

There’s also a great demonstration of YTFZF, which is a command line script for searching and playing YouTube videos. That seems like a great trick worth knowing about.

On Hackaday, Gary DuPont shares a different kind of retro modification. He was commissioned to build a phone that would ring and play messages to guests at the Stranger Things 4 series premier.

The phone was put in a pizza parlor set and every few minutes it would automatically ring. If someone picked it up while it rang, they’d hear a randomly selected clip. It might be a pizza order, or an audio clip from the show, or spooky sound effects.

If you picked it up while it wasn’t ringing, it would mostly behave how you’d expect. You’d hear a dial tone, the buttons would work and make their touch tones, but instead of dialing out you’d hear a busy signal.

I have always wanted to do a payphone project. Maybe I’m weird. This is now my go-to reference for pulling it off. It seems a lot simpler than other projects I’ve seen in the past, yet still very thorough.

To make it work, Gary is using a Sparkfun Thing Plus RP2040 board as the main microcontroller. Not only does it have enough GPIO to handle all the button input and the cradle switch, but it also has enough storage to handle the audio files and playback.

Gary includes all the code, which is done in Circuit Python. Not only does this make it easy to rapidly modify and test, but it makes it super easy to drag and drop sound files right to the board.

I love this project. I am motivated to do this project. Not sure how hygienic it would be, but I could see this as a haunted phone halloween prop. That would be fun.

Now for some tools and tips. The amazing Becky Stern has a great new guide on creating a portable soldering station.

She cleverly figured out how to make these 3D printed folding doors for the sides of this particular model of soldering iron holder. On one side she includes a spool holder for solder and solder wick.

On the other, she has flexible clamps that hold a TS80P mini soldering iron. These irons can be powered by a USB C battery bank.

When it’s not in use, everything packs up inside the stand and holds together with a rubber band at the top.

It looks like a great little rig, and Becky does a great job showing how she traced the profile of the stand, cleaned it up in illustrator, and brought it into Tinkercad to add all the holders and fold lines. If you’re looking for a portable kit, this looks like a great way to go.

On Tested, Adam Savage shares his guide to sanding tools. But because it’s Adam, it’s not just about the tools. You get his whole philosophy and perspective on sanding. You get to see his favorite, dream machines for sanding, but he also covers fundamentals around sandpaper, and scotchbrite pads.

For the real tool nerds, you also get some of the obscure stuff, tiny belt sanders, air-powered disc sanders – it’s a treat.

On Instructables, 3D Sage has guide on how to make anything rotate. Essentially, it’s a recipe for combining inexpensive DC gearmotors, PWM speed controllers, a battery pack or coin cell, and a 3D printed enclosure.

They offer the list of parts, 3D files for the enclosures, and a video that shows how to assemble everything with no soldering required.

Also on Instructables, Blorgggg demonstrates how to turn bubble wrap into a flexible LDPE plastic sheet perfect for vacuum forming.

This is a neat trick, and oddly enough, for as synthetic as the material is, when it’s all flattened out it has this natural, scaly skin quality that’s pretty rad. I also have to imagine it would work well for light diffusion for LEDs or neopixels.

And this might be yesterday’s news for designers and architects, but this week I got hip to Doris Sung’s innovations in using patterns of thermobimetals as window shading systems.

These precisely cut bits of metal are actually a sandwich of two metals with wildly different reactions to heat and cold. So when they heat up under sunlight, the half of the metal more sensitive to heat expands to the point of warping the material, flipping it into a different position.

For a building facade, this offers a way to passively and automatically activate shading on a window. But I have to think there’s a bunch of other interesting applications for this stuff once amateurs can get their hands on it.

If you have any tips on where to acquire or fabricate your own thermobimetals, let me know in the comments.

For this week’s Digi-Key spotlight, Adafruit’s Lady Ada has a new episode of The Great Search. This time she’s looking for alternatives for her favorite low voltage power regulator.

Having a board or project that can accept battery power or a flexible range of input voltages means having a reliable power regulator as part of the circuit.

You can find everything you need on Digi-Key, but many of the most popular options have long lead times. To hunt down an alternative solution, you need to know what to look for and what you can compromise on. Lady Ada offers some great advice.

And that does it for this week’s show. Be sure to subscribe, leave a thumbs up or leave a comment. Those of you on the Maker Update email list will get a chance to win this Grove Sensor Starter Kit. So check your inbox for details. A big thanks to Digi-Key electronics for making this show possible. Thanks for watching, and I’ll see you soon.