This week on Maker Update, Bluetooth controlled scooter lights, 3D printed neck wounds, chilled fog, a DIY magic 8 ball, an enchanted book of Hocus Pocus, and a tiny instant Pi camera.

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Show Notes

Project of the Week

How to Install LEDs Under a Scooter (with Bluetooth) by bekathwia
https://www.instructables.com/id/How-to-Install-LEDs-Under-a-Scooter-with-Bluetooth/

More Projects

Stitched Neck and Dripping Bloody Neck by Penolopy Bulnick
https://www.instructables.com/id/3D-Print-Halloween-Jewelry/

Ultimate DIY Fog Chiller by WickedMakers
https://www.instructables.com/id/Ultimate-DIY-Fog-Chiller/

HalloWing Magic 9 Ball by John Park
https://learn.adafruit.com/hallowing-magic-9-ball

Hocus Pocus Book – Hallowing Eye by Ruiz Bros.
https://learn.adafruit.com/hocus-pocus-book-eye

PolaPi-Zero by Muth
https://hackaday.io/project/19731-polapi-zero

Tools/Tips

Gareths Tips of the Week
https://makezine.com/2018/09/28/tips-of-the-week-analog-cutting-of-digital-files-cleaning-aged-plastic-friction-welding-and-cough-drops/

Painters tape cutter by Oparie
https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3106118

Worm gearbox 1:60 by daGHIZmo
https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3079719

Build a Custom Front Panel by Jan Goolsbey
https://learn.adafruit.com/build-a-custom-front-panel

Best trauma shears under $10 by Cool Tools
https://youtu.be/PfxT8Fyz0F0

MagPi 74 is out
https://www.raspberrypi.org/magpi/issues/74/

Make: Vol. 65 is out

Maker Faires This Weekend

Maker Faire San Diego San Diego, California
Nashville Mini Maker Faire Nashville, Tennessee
Baton Rouge Mini Maker Faire Baton Rouge, Louisiana
Boston Mini Maker Faire Boston, Massachusetts
Greater Hartford Mini Maker Faire Hartford, Connecticut
Rocklin Mini Maker Faire Rocklin, California
Gerolstein Mini Maker Faire Gerolstein, Germany
Lviv Mini Maker Faire Lviv, Ukraine
Downtown Columbia Mini Maker Faire Columbia, Maryland

Donald’s Tinkercad talk at East Bay Mini Maker Faire coming up on 10/21
https://eastbay.makerfaire.com/maker/entry/794/

Find your local Maker Faire:
http://makerfaire.com/map/

Transcript

This week on Maker Update, Bluetooth controlled scooter lights, 3D printed neck wounds, chilled fog, DIY magic 8 ball, an enchanted book of spells, and a tiny instant Pi camera.

Hey, I’m Donald Bell, and welcome to another Maker Update. I hope everyone’s doing great. Maker Faire New York was a lot of fun, but I am happy to be back. I have a big show for you today, with lots of Halloween projects. But first let’s get started with the Project of the Week.

Becky Stern made this awesome, Bluetooth-controlled ground effect lighting for her Vespa. The project uses an Adafruit Bluefruit Feather board, two strips of addressable LEDs, a small Lithium rechargeable battery pack, and strong magnets to mount the enclosure and lights under the ride. To recharge it, you just pull the whole thing off, and slap it back on when you’re done.

Becky walks you through the soldering and the coding, and an important aspect of this project, which is the weatherproofing. And even if you don’t have a cool scooter like Becky, you can adapt this project for your bike, your go kart, maybe a baby stroller. There’s a lot of ways you can take this.

I have a lot of other projects to share, mostly Halloween stuff. Penolopy Bulnick has been on a roll lately. Her latest is this 3D printed set of chokers and bracelets that look like a bloody cut or a Frankenstein stitch. It’s a quick print. A cheap clasp on the back allows you to take it on and off. Good for a last minute costume idea.

Wicked Makers has a great guide up on making this Fog Chiller. It’s an enclosure that cools down your fog machine fog so that it hugs the ground and looks more spooky. I’ve seen a lot of variations on this, but the guide here is well done, with a nice video and photos. Plus, the addition of the skull on the fog output is a great touch.

There are two new HallowWing projects up on Adafruit. One is this guide by John Park on turning the board into a high-tech magic 8-ball.

The board is mounted in a 3D printed enclosure on top of a globe of food coloring and pearl dust. Shaking the whole thing triggers the accelerometer on the board and randomly pulls up an animated answer on the screen.

John includes a bunch of example answers in the code, but you can also make your own. And unlike a typical 8-ball, you’re not limited to a small set of answers, so you can go wild with options.

For a different take on the HalloWing, the Ruiz brothers made this Necronomicon-looking prop book where the Hallowing is embedded in the cover.

90% of this is creating a believable enchanted book prop from an old cookbook. The guide shows you how to paint it, drill it, and decorate it, leaving space for the Hallowing on the inside flap. The payoff looks fantastic.

Finally, for a neat non-Halloween project that caught my attention this week, check out the Pola-Pi Zero by Muth. This project is on Hackaday, with code hosted on GitHub. It’s a fresh spin on a Polaroid style camera that prints out on a thermal receipt printer.

What’s cool about this one is how compact it is. Part of that is that it’s making use of a Pi Zero instead of a full Pi. It’s also using a Nano-sized thermal printer, which led me to learn that Adafruit’s sizing of thermal printers goes from Mini, to Tiny, to Nano. The case for this has a nice design too.

I have some tips to share with you. Over on Makezine, Gareth Branwyn’s Tips of the Week column includes a great one from John Park, showing off how to restore the color of old plastic with hydrogen peroxide hair cream. He used the technique on an old, grimey Nintendo Gameboy.

Over on Thingiverse I found this 3D printed painters tape cutter from Oparie that you can just loop around your tape roll. It comes in two sizes. I printed both out and they really do make a nice addition to masking tape and keep the end of the tape off the roll. The cutter isn’t sharp enough for duct tape or gaffer tape, though.

Also on Thingiverse, DaGhizMo made this cool, multi-part gearbox that takes a hex key chucked into a power drill, and translates it to a #2 gear shaft with a 60:1 gear reduction.

Over on Adafruit, Jan Goolsbey has a great guide on designing and building a custom panel for your project enclosure.

On Cool Tools, I have a video up comparing different types and sizes of Trauma Shears or Medical Shears. If you work with zip ties, these are one of the safest, most efficient ways to cut them off, in my experience.

Issue 74 of The MagPi magazine is out and available for a free download. The main feature of this issue is building your own Raspberry Pi laptop.

And the new issue of Make: magazine is also out and available on newstands. This issue has a great feature on LittleBits creator Ayah Bdeir and the evolution of LittleBits. Check it out.

Maker Faires! We have a bunch of Maker Faires this weekend, including San Diego, California; Nashville, Tennessee; Baton Rouge, Louisiana; Boston, Massachusetts; Hartford, Connecticut; Rocklin, California; Gerolstein, Germany; Lviv, Ukraine; and Columbia, Maryland.

Also, I’ll be giving a talk on new features in Tinkercad at the East Bay Mini Maker Faire in Oakland CA on Sunday, October 21st. If you’re in the area, come out and say hello.

And that does it for this week’s show. Be sure to subscribe, leave a thumbs up or leave a comment. You can subscribe to the Maker Update email list to get show notes emailed out to you every week. And I volunteer to do this show because I love it and I like to think it’s a valuable resource for makers like you. You can help keep it running by becoming a Patron for as little as 25 cents a show. You can find the Patreon link down in the show notes. Alright? Thanks for watching, and I’ll see you next week.