This week on Maker Update, motorized drinking, a Raspberry Pi RC tank, a trailer hitch table, a fluorescent hexapod, bouncing pixels, LED album art, and solar blinkenlights.

++Show Notes [Maker Update Ep. 243]++

-=Project of the Week=-

Balanced Glass Design by Masaharu Hiro
https://youtu.be/2oEw5u35wAM
https://blog.siggraph.org/2021/07/how-center-of-gravity-can-change-flavor.html/

Stepper Motor Linear Slider
https://www.amazon.com/Stepper-Linear-Slider-Engraving-Machine/dp/B07H3XC3DD/

-=More Projects=-

Zippy by MellowFire
https://www.mellowfire.com/post/zippy

Very Clever Camping Table (without legs!) by Laura Kampf
https://youtu.be/A4pJnr-GbkA

Cryptid – Animatronic light sculpture by Michael Candy
https://www.creativeapplications.net/environment/cryptid-animatronic-light-sculpture-by-michael-candy/

Neopixel LED Skirt (motion Triggered) By maketvee
https://www.instructables.com/Neopixel-LED-Skirt-motion-Triggered/

64×64 rgb led matrix album art display (pi 3b+) by Kyle Johnson
https://www.reddit.com/r/raspberry_pi/comments/ombwwg/my_64x64_rgb_led_matrix_album_art_display_pi_3b/
https://github.com/kylejohnsonkj/ft-artwork

Solar Blinkenlights by Okubo Heavy Industries
https://www.reddit.com/r/arduino/comments/oofcl9/solar_blickenlights/

-=Tips & Tools=-

 

Engineer PZ-58 Screw Removal Pliers Review
https://youtu.be/CExOTLIv9GM

Adam’s Guide to Drill Bits!
https://www.tested.com/making/tools/adams-guide-to-drill-bits/

Designing with Complex Geometry by James McBennett
https://hackaday.io/course/178584-designing-with-complex-geometry

-=Digi-Key Spotlight=-

The Great Search: Coin Cell Battery Holder
https://blog.adafruit.com/2021/07/13/the-great-search-coin-cell-battery-holder-lead-time-trends-thegreatsearch-digikey-digikey/

-=Transcript=-

This week on Maker Update, motorized drinking, a Raspberry Pi RC tank, a trailer hitch table, a fluorescent hexapod, bouncing pixels, LED album art, and solar blinkenlights.

Hey, I’m Donald Bell and welcome back to another Maker Update. I hope you’re all enjoying your summer. I’ve got a fun show for you, so let’s dive right in with the project of the week.

Masaharu Hirose, a doctoral student at the University of Tokyo, is studying the effect of how weight influences the way we taste liquids. 

And we’re not just talking about whether the glass you’re drinking from is light or heavy, wide or skinny. What he’s made is a mechanical cup holder that can be programmed to shift its weight towards or away from the drinker as they drink.

This little change, apparently confuses your senses, creating the perception that the actual liquid you’re drinking is heavier or lighter. It shifts how you perceive the strength of the flavor, or qualities like viscosity, or stickiness. 

In an interview with SIGGRAPH, Masahari mentions he’s using a Raspberry Pi to handle the interaction, but otherwise we have to guess at what’s going on here. 

It looks to me like a relatively simple 3D printed frame with what I’m guessing is a stepper motor linear slider acting as the shifting weight. There’s got to be an accelerometer in here somewhere too.

Because you have to place your hand at the fulcrum of the thing, the influence of the weight moving back and forth has a big impact.

Aside from the fact that I’m dying to try this thing, it also has me thinking about other ways we could interrupt or enhance eating with different gizmos. Maybe this is my natural next step from cocktail robotics. We should have a whole field of culinary enhancement robotics. Now that would be a tasty Maker Faire.

More projects. Check out this 3D printed RC rover by MellowFire. It’s an updated take on a 2015 design by Timmy Clark. 

This new version uses a Raspberry Pi Zero W and is designed to fit beefier high-torque DC motors. 

But what’s maybe the coolest part is that the Pi is setup as a wireless server that can connect up to an Xbox controller. You can find the code and 3D files down in the description.

I was also relieved to see that Laura Kampf has finally created a portable camping table she’s happy with. There’s been a lot of trial and error over the past year, but this design looks like a winner.

The whole thing mounts to the hitch of her van, so there are no wobbly legs to worry about. What I really like about it, though, is how it can adjust up or down to allow the back door to open. Because once you have this thing attached, you probably aren;t going to want to take it off again until you’re done camping. 

It looks great, and it’s a nice mix of metal and woodworking. It’s also a cool example of how to prototype mechanical movements before committing them to the final design. 

This week, I also got hip to the artwork of Michael Candy, which I highly recommend. In particular, his 2018 piece called Cryptid, is a giant, walking hexapod with fluorescent tubes mounted to each leg.

In the writeup I’ve linked to, there are some details on its construction. It runs off 220 volts supplied by a cable that runs out the back. There are some progress videos that show some of the actuators up close. 

And I was happy to learn that the code used to coordinate all the movements is actually adapted from an open source code developed for a small hexapod robot kit called Phoenix created by Lynxmotion. 

I love thinking about how the code for smaller, proof of concept machines can be scaled up to larger designs like this.

On Instructables, I saw this neopixel skirt by Make Tvee. I’ve seen my share of LED infused fashion, but this particular interaction was new to me. 

With a little jump, you get this bouncing ball animation that I think is just super fun. There are some other animations too, like meteors and flames, but the bouncy one is my favorite.

On Reddit Kyle Johnson talks about how he made this Spotify album art display. It uses an Adafruit 64×64 matrix display and a Raspberry Pi 3B+. 

The pi is running a media server called flaschen-taschen. With just a few lines of code, you can get it to send album art to the LED matrix. 

I kinda like the pixelated look, but I suspect some black diffusion acrylic would really put it over the top. 

You can find a link to the guide and source code down in the description.

Finally, check out this solar powered blinky circuit by Okubo Heavy Industries. It’s a freeform circuit that uses an AtTiny85, a capacitor and some small surface mount LEDs. The whole thing is encased in clear acrylic.

I just love how it’s a completely self-contained, self-powered circuit. And unlike a lot of the circuit sculpture stuff we see, the encasing here makes it durable enough to take out and show off.

Now for some tools and tips. On the Cool Tools channel, I’ve got a review of screw removal pliers made by Engineer. This is the same Japanese company that makes my favorite solder sucker. 

These pliers are also a slam dunk, and just like the solder sucker, it’s the kind of tool you want to have before you need it–so check it out.

On Tested, Adam Savage offers up his guide to drill bits. From basic woodworking bits, to masonry, step bits, spade bits, glass, and acrylic, he covers a lot of ground in a quick and entertaining video. The back half of it, though, is a love letter to forstner bits. I won’t spoil it, but he makes a compelling case to pick up a set if haven’t already.

On Hackaday, James McBennett has a self-paced Hackaday U course on designing shapes with complex geometry. 

You’ll learn how to use Grasshopper3D to create procedural designs that you can adjust with code. Whether you’re into pushing the limits with CAD, or creating your own mathematically inspired plotter art, it’s a great, free resource.

For this week’s Digi-Key spotlight, check out this Great Search video by Lady Ada at Adafruit. 

If you’ve ever made a project that’s powered by coin cell batteries, you’ve probably come face-to-face with how many different types of battery holders are out there. 

Sometimes it’s a struggle to find one exactly which holder will work for your type of battery, what the tolerances are, and how it will connect to your other components. 

Using the Digi-Key product search, Lady Ada shows you some tips and tricks to find just what you need. Check it out.

And that does it for this week’s show. Be sure to subscribe, leave a thumbs up or leave a comment. Thinking back on that mechanical drink holder, what’s another interesting way you could enhance the eating experience? 

A big thanks to Digi-Key electronics for making this show possible. Thanks for watching, and I’ll see you soon.