This week on Maker Update, a wordy clock, walking in VR, a motivational scrap bot, and 3D printed foot fashion.

++Show Notes [Maker Update Ep.276]++

-=Project of the Week=-

Servo Wordclock V2 by Moritz Sivers
https://www.instructables.com/Servo-Wordclock-V2/

-=More Projects=-

Free Standing VR Support Rig by finallyfunctional
https://hackaday.io/project/184516-free-standing-vr-support-rig

Homemade Dancing Robot for Cheering by Handy Geng
https://youtu.be/2f4Ie6A3L40

3D Printed Heel Clips by Ruiz Brothers
https://learn.adafruit.com/3d-printed-heel-clips

-=Tips & Tools=-

Tips, Tools, and Shop Tales 2 – Book Giveaway
https://www.makershed.com/products/make-tips-and-tales-from-the-workshop-volume-2-print

Breakbeat Breadboard by John Park
https://learn.adafruit.com/breakbeat-breadboard

Controlling Devices with RFID Wiz by Smooth Technology
https://learn.adafruit.com/controlling-devices-with-rfid-wiz

-=Digi-Key Spotlight=-

How to Work with Aluminum Extrusions
https://youtu.be/pwPWX0janz0

-=Transcript=-

This week on Maker Update, a wordy clock, walking in VR, a motivational scrap bot, and 3D printed foot fashion.

Hey, I’m Donald Bell, and welcome back to another Maker Update. I hope you’re all doing well and finding ways to stay creative. Right now I’m wrestling with trying to get a project together for Maker Music Festival. Honestly, I’m not sure if I’ll pull it off, but I’m grateful to have a problem to wrestle with and a deadline.

Hopefully you’re having better luck with things. Let’s get started with the project of the week.

Three years ago, Moritz Sivers published an Instructable on how he made this unique word clock using 114 servos and a white PVC film to diffuse the illuminated letters.

It was a stunning project, but also extremely intimidating in terms of the number of 3D printed parts and hardware and wiring.

Well, he’s back with version two. And not only does it look even more amazing – it’s also been dramatically simplified.

The enclosure is now all made from laser cut acrylic, with some screws and standoffs to fit it all together.

The front screen is made from a single piece of grey, frosted, translucent acrylic.

There are custom PCBs now for the LEDs and electronics, which cuts down on a lot of the messy cable cutting and gluing.

And you can access the whole thing over WI-Fi now, to change the time, the LED color palette, brightness, transitions, and activate a sleep mode.

Personally, I just love it when projects like this come along that you can’t shake, and you keep refining over time. For the most part, I lose interest in my projects once I get it to a “good enough” state. But, there are a few that I will probably be refining and obsessing over forever. It’s funny how projects are like that.

More projects. Here’s another one that probably qualifies as a long-term obsession project. On Hackaday, Finally Functional shows off his latest version of this DIY VR support rig.

This version is a freestanding rig you could put anywhere, but he also has details on a rig he built that attaches to you from a ceiling mount.

What good is the limitless expanse of virtual reality, if you can’t walk around? With a rig like this, you get fixed into place with a harness, but you can turn around in any direction and experience the illusion of walking with some special roller shoes he designed.

The guide itself is light on details, but you can find a series of build logs on his YouTube channel that reveal most of what’s going on.

Or, for a project that takes about the same amount of space, HandyGeng shows how he made this robot cheerleader sculpture to encourage his brother’s new exercise regimen.

For some reason, his brother is exercising on a caged treadmill. Seems a little drastic, but to each their own.

For the animated sculpture, Geng is using an old drum barrel, bits of ductwork, and a cone of sheet metal to form the megaphone head.

The barrel body sits on a giant bearing, and inside he’s placed a linear actuator that twists the body back and forth. He’s also using the barrel to conceal some of the electronics, like the speaker amplifier.

Unless you’re sitting on a pile of scrap metal, I can’t imagine anyone would make this thing the way he does, but it’s worth paying attention to the underlying mechanics of how he’s brought this thing to life with just one motor, bearing, and a hinge for the arm. This same combo could be fun for a halloween decoration.

For something more down to earth, literally, check out this sneaker modification project by the Ruiz brothers.

It turns out that Nike has a new shoe out called the Acronym Blazer Low, that includes threaded mounts for adding your own customizations.

I love the idea. I wish the shoes didn’t look like they went through a wood chipper, but how cool to have a wearable platform for 3D printed customizations.

The Ruiz brothers show how they created and coded these LED rocket boosters that light up when you stomp down. Each booster uses a Circuit Playground express board, with two additional LEDs.

It seems like a fun project for kids and teens, not just because it’s fashion, but because the MakeCode compatible Circuit Playground boards make it easy to code and customize.

Now for some tips and tools. First off, a giveaway announcement. Friend of the show Gareth Branwyn has a new book out, Tips and Tales from the Workshop, volume 2. It’s beautifully done and packed with tips he’s collected from Bob Clagett, Becky Stern, Adam Savage, John Park, Kevin Kelly, Star Simpson, Sophy Wong, and dozens of other makers.

You’ll love this book. We’re giving away five by selecting people from the comments on this video. Share a tip of your own, or a hack, or piece of advice that has served you well as a maker. Gareth will select his favorites and get in touch for shipping details. If it’s a tip that needs an image to explain it, you can email me at donald@makerprojectlab.com.

On top of that, one of you, with a standout, mind-blowing bit of maker wisdom or a handy tip will get a deluxe package including both volumes of Tips and Tales from the Workshop, plus the Maker’s Notebook Gift Box which is awesome.

So leave a comment, and be sure to check out Gareth’s new book either way.

More tips. On Adafruit, John Park shows how to trigger and layer multiple sound loops using Adafruit’s $9 RP2040 board, the KeeBoar driver.

It’s a great example of how the RP2040 can not only handle audio playback, but it can also play multiple files at once, at different volumes, by way of a python-based software mixer that you define in the code.

It’s all self-contained – no connected computers – just drag and drop the WAV audio files to the board when you first set it up.

In John’s demo, he’s layering and switching breakbeat audio loops. I think there’s a ton of potential here for cool audio projects.

Also on Adafruit, I spotted this guide to a product called RFID Whiz. It’s a standalone module that you can use to build RFID tag interaction into your projects without a single line of code.

Using the button, you can pair it to one or more tags, and even define what type of interaction you want it to trigger on the included relay switch.

You’d certainly save some money and have more flexibility using an Arduino and a few components – but the MakeyMakey-like simplicity here is certainly attractive for rapid prototyping and anyone turned off by code.

For this week’s Digi-Key spotlight, I was reminded again of this great video showing the basics of working with aluminum extrusion.

We saw some large scale projects today that used welding, or pieced together pipe fittings, but one of the best materials for fabricating great-looking, precise, rust-proof, large-scale projects and enclosures, is aluminum extrusion.

Check out the video for some ideas on how to get started.

And that does it for this week’s show. Be sure to subscribe, leave a thumbs up, or leave a comment. Get on the email list if you’d like weekly reminders in your inbox for each week’s show, along with all the show notes. A big thanks to Digi-Key for making this show possible. Thanks for watching, and I’ll see you soon.