This week on Maker Update: Smokin’ cosplay, a password ring, secret messages, a PCB starship, 3D Printed Furniture, Project Egress, and Happy Birthday Hackaday!

++Show Notes++

Special Guest Host: Sophy Wong!

-=Project of the Week=-

The Impact Armor costume by Punished Props
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GKDE8E0Q0BA

-=News=-

Hackaday Turns 15
https://hackaday.com/2019/09/05/hackaday-celebrates-15-years-and-oh-how-the-hardware-has-changed/

Project Egress Wrap Up Video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3jdF1yVBWdc

Behind The Curtain With Anouk Wipprecht and Cirque du Soleil by Caleb Kraft on Make: Community blog
https://makezine.com/2019/09/09/behind-the-curtain-with-anouk-wipprecht-and-cirque-du-soleil/

-=More Projects=-

RFID ring by Becky Stern
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mmIDlaN9sc0

How to Make a Custom Car Badge (with a secret) by I Like to Make Stuff
https://iliketomakestuff.com/how-to-make-a-custom-car-badge-with-a-secret/

How to Make a Stool // 2 Different Methods by Get Hands Dirty
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=glTpDDa-wOg

PCB – 3D Startrek Enterprise by bobricius on Hackaday
https://hackaday.io/project/162654-pcb-3d-startrek-enterprise

3D Printing a Liquor Cabinet | 3D PRINTED FURNITURE EP 1 by Homemade Modern
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gT41mq0aSxA

-=Tools/Tips=-

Automatic 3D Print Removal using G-Code by Make Anything
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=avlengYsJdw

Milling styrene, solving mechanical problems first, (for Starlord Walkman) by Adam Savage
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vqqEFEgx-ZI

Achieve true 3D printing with non planar slicing by Teaching Tech
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gmePlcU0TRw

Making Plywood Patterns by Michael Alm
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XjxfVR2K_Ew

FS-Touch Bed Levelling Tool By Antzy Carmasaic
https://www.instructables.com/id/FS-Touch-Bed-Levelling-Tool/

Best Helping Hands Tool – Cool Tools with Donald Bell and Becky Stern
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IeBBoXdueyU

Best Best Push Stick Ever – Adjustable Fancy Tail Stock 🙂 by April Wilkerson
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bJM1FFOiQ_M

-=Product Spotlight=-

Servo Motors – Tech Basics
https://youtu.be/1bUJctEyx3E

Transcript

This week on Maker Update:

Smokin’ cosplay, a password ring, secret messages, a PCB starship, 3D Printed Furniture, Project Egress, and Happy Birthday Hackaday!

Hi Everyone! Do not adjust your computer screen, I’m not Donald Bell! I’m Sophy Wong, filling in for Donald this week. Thrilled to be here with you, looking at some awesome, inspiring projects, some tips, and just a dash of news. As always, let’s kick it off with the project of the week!

DragonCon, the cosplay heavy Atlanta convention, was a couple of weekends ago, and Bill Doran debuted this bright, Impact Armor costume, complete with lights and smoke! Bill and Brittany Doran of Punished Props are known for their elaborate and visually stunning costumes and props, but it’s been a while since they’ve had the time to dig in to a large scale, full body build, so it’s exciting to see them back The Impact Armor costume is an original design by Paige Redbird, and Bill’s massive build is documented in a 1 hour video on the Punished Props Academy YouTube channel. Bill demonstrates every step of the process from start to finish, and it’s amazing to see a master “foamsmith” at work. The main armor is made of EVA foam, with some plastizote plastic in areas that light up. Underneath the armor is a hand painted and airbrushed undersuit. The gauntlet is particularly impressive, it has articulating robot fingers, Arduino-controlled NeoPixels, and, yes, smoke! The smoke is generated by a CosClouds kit, made by Alina, at Spoon Makes. The kit uses vegetable glycerin, a vaporizer, and an air pump to generate a lot of smoke from a small package.

The costume looks awesome, and the video is super inspiring. You can watch the video over at Punished Props Academy on YouTube, and while you’re there, check out their huge collection of fantastic cosplay tutorials.

Got a few bits of news for ya:

Hackaday turned 15 last week, and that makes 15 years of featuring a hack every single day. Since it’s first article in 2004, the site has grown to host over 30,000 projects by 350,000 members, and counting. They celebrated with an interesting article about how much technology has changed over the years. Remember life before smartphones, Raspberry Pis, and 3D printers? Nostalgic or terrifying… you decide!

If you’ve been following Project Egress over at Tested, you can now watch the One Day Build video of Adam Savage and a team of makers assembling the Apollo 11 Hatch replica. The build took place in front of a live audience, at the Smithsonian, and oh yeah, I was there. Every part of the hatch was made by a different maker, and profiles of everyone who participated are now live on the Tested website, so definitely check that out.

Over on the Make: Blog, Caleb Kraft has a great article about the work of one of my absolute favorite makers, Anouk Wipprecht. Caleb chatted with at Anouk about her recent work for Cirque du Soleil, creating interactive robotic garments for performers at this year’s New York Fashion Week. It’s a great look at her process for creating innovative wearable tech.

Speaking of wearable tech:

Becky Stern combined her electronics skills with jewelry soldering to make an elegant sterling silver RFID ring. This is the first RFID ring I’ve seen that doesn’t embed the tag in resin, resulting in a minimal design that looks great and showcases the technology nicely. Becky programmed her ring to unlock her computer when she waves it over an external RFID reader.

As always, Becky has documented her project with a great video, and has quite a few Instructables up to help you learn the skills you’ll need if you want to make your own RFID ring.

Bob Claggett at I Like to Make Stuff made a laser cut custom car badge with the Shield logo from the Avengers movies. The badge has a special hidden feature: a secret Hydra logo drawn in UV reflective ink. The Hydra logo is invisible until you shine a UV light on the badge. Super cool effect, gives me some fun ideas for Halloween!

Cristiana at Get Hands Dirty showed us two different ways of making the same stool, one option uses plywood cut with an X-Carve, and the other uses solid wood. Both processes are inspiring to watch, especially with her artistic video style.

This 3D Star Trek Enterprise by Bobricius on Hackaday is made of custom PCBs that interlock together. An Attiny85 controls LEDs and sound, the interlocking design is really neat, and the finished project looks great. The boards are available on DirtyPCBs.com, firmware and details are over on the Hackaday project page.

Ben Uyeda at Homemade Modern made a liquor cabinet using 3D printed connectors, polycarbonate panels, and EMT conduit tubing. It’s a great example of mixing 3D printing with other materials to make a larger furniture object.

Now brace yourself for some awesome tips and tricks:

If you haven’t seen it yet, check out this automatic 3D print removal system developed by Devin Montes on his Make Anything YouTube channel. It’s from over a month ago but it’s still blowing my mind. Devin modified his G-Code to direct the print head to knock the completed print off the bed, and proceed directly to printing another copy of the model. I’m not brave enough to try this myself, but it’s a creative G-Code modification I haven’t seen before, and it’s so satisfying to watch it in action.

Adam Savage has a new one day build up on Tested, and as usual it is packed full of great tips and techniques. Adam built a walkman replica for his Star-Lord costume. Adam suggests tackling the more mechanically difficult issues at the beginning of your build. He also shares tips about using threaded inserts to make removable panels, he recommends guitar lacquer for a scratch resistant top coat, and he uses his Bridgeport mill to make perfectly rounded corners in styrene. Some would call that overkill, I say, use the tools you have!

Antsy Car has a great solution for 3D printer bed leveling on Instructables: it’s a bed leveling tool using a force sensor and an Arduino Pro Micro. This method is more objective and accurate than the typical sliding-a-piece-of-paper-around method.

On the Cool Tools channel, Donald chatted with Becky Stern about the multi-armed Hobby Creek helping hand tool, it’s my favorite as well.

The Teaching Tech YouTube channel showed a really cool technique of using non planar slicing to create buttery smooth curved top surfaces on 3D printed parts, instead of the stepped surfaces you would usually have with FDM printing.

Michael Alm shared how to create many different geometric patterns by layering and cutting plywood, and the results are just stunning. Finally, April Wilkerson showed how she’s improved on the design of her favorite push stick, by making the backstop adjustable. Brilliant!

Digi-Key has a new video up on the basics of servo motors. It’s a great introduction if you want to get started with making things move.

And that’s the update for the week! I hope you’re feeling inspired and energized to work on your own projects. If you liked the show, hit that like button, consider subscribing, and come back next week, Donald will be back with more Maker Update. Thanks for watching, hope to see you again soon!