This week on Maker Update: a picture perfect dress, a 3D printer plays chess, lots of robot friends, cosmic embroidery, and a doggie duplex.

++Show Notes [Maker Update #222]++

-=Project of the Week=-

Gingham Dress from The Queen’s Gambit by Angela Clayton
https://youtu.be/pTHgIBew6so

I taught my 3D printer to play chess by Matou Makes
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6b2As388-Ro

-=News=-

Jorvon Moss “Me and My Robot” in Make: Magazine
https://makezine.com/2021/02/15/me-and-my-robot-odd-jayy-interview/

Meet a Maker: Lenore Edman
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Htn3sILXYvU

-=More Projects=-

Insulated Doghouse for 2 – April Wilkerson
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1LZKsnqa6Uk

(and congrats to April on her new TV show!)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b2yrdwEHs2g

The AI Label Maker by 8 Bits and a Byte
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hlpnbiDAdCg&feature=youtu.be

Zodiac Embroidery by Becky Stern
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CSdNQlm7PiI&feature=youtu.be

My Cyberpunk LED Jacket with 3D Printing
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qCOanCRQQJQ&t=6s

-=Channel Spotlight=-

Anika’s DIY Life
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCgOvuAMPW7iMr5mNQxjHpfA

-=Tips & Tools=-

Woodworking 101 playlist from Anika’s DIY Life
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLd1dJLmn4xwlZYs-yt02nr929aOBBKBoT

Trying airbrushing with The Crafsman
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xlv1w0HTCmA

I made a custom fit pinnable dressform with $40 – Claire Zhang
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eOXT0nq19y0

SJ’s Declassified Metal Survival Guide (Additive manufacturing)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y6qIeI4hNCI
https://twitter.com/inconelle

Transcript

This week on Maker Update: a picture perfect dress, a 3D printer plays chess, lots of robot friends, cosmic embroidery, and a doggie duplex.

Hello everyone, and welcome to Maker Update. Last week made one whole year of lockdown for me and, you know, it’s been a long haul but I’m hanging in there. What’s really helped me get through this past year has been seeing other people’s creative projects, and getting inspired by awesome folks from the maker world! And there are a bunch of cool people and projects inspiring me this week, so let’s jump right in with TWO projects of the week!

Projects of the Week:
I found two amazing chess-related projects this week! First up, Angela Clayton made a stellar reproduction of the iconic gingham dress from the Netflix show, The Queen’s Gambit. I love the visual styling of The Queen’s Gambit, especially the costumes, so I was thrilled to see Angela tackle this look. Angela drafted her pattern of the dress from scratch, so that it would be as accurate as possible. In her video she talks about studying reference images during the design phase, and how she translated that information into design decisions for her project, for example, which pieces of the dress needed to be cut out on the bias, as opposed to on the straight grain. If you want to make your own gingham dress from The Queen’s Gambit, Angela has made her pattern available over on her Patreon, so definitely check that out.

She also mentions in the video that it took her 7 mock ups to achieve the final piece, and I can so relate to this. That is a ton of work! But the final dress is so well done, and fits her beautifully, and you can really only get that perfect fit by working through as many mock ups as it takes. So I will definitely remember Angela’s dress the next time I’m working on my 6th or 7th mock up of a project – and remind myself that the end result will totally be worth all that work.

Angela’s channel is an amazing collection of her costuming and historical garment projects, her work is highly detailed and just gorgeous. Her videos are packed with useful sewing information and there’s so much to learn from just watching her work. Whether she is working from a reference or an original design, I love her use of fabric, pattern, and trims. I’m super inspired by her to sew more historical garments and vintage patterns.

Another chess-themed project this week comes from Matou over on Matou Makes. Matou turned his 3D printer into an artificially intelligent chess-playing robot, and I love both the concept and the execution of this project. The printer printed out its own chess pieces, as well as the chess board itself, right onto its printer bed. Matou designed a very cool gripper attachment for the extruder of his printer, also 3D printed – right down to the tiny spring inside the gripper. A piece of thread connects to the extruder motor to control the opening of the gripper. A webcam watches the chessboard on the bed, and a Raspberry Pi running OctoPrint monitors the gameplay, sending images to a nearby laptop. The laptop runs a computer vision program and an open source chess AI.

Matou gives a brief overview of how this all works in his video, but there is more documentation, code, and 3D model files over on his Github page. He’s even thinking of writing an OctoPrint plugin for this, which would be amazing.

I think this project is beautifully elegant in how it uses the strengths of a 3D printer to transform its function into something completely different than its original purpose. I think of a 3D printer as a tool, all it can normally do is extrude plastic. But what you use it for, what you design for it to make, that’s where the power is. And Matou has used that power to turn the printer itself into a thinking, chess-playing companion. It even throws a fit when it loses.

News:
Speaking of robot companions, check out the latest issue of Make: Magazine for a great interview with Jorvon Moss, also known as Odd Jay. Odd Jay is a prolific maker of wearable gadgets and robot friends, like his personal robot familiar, Dexter. He’s one of my favorite makers, and it’s awesome to learn about his origin story as a maker.

And for more inspiring makers, check out the Meet a Maker series hosted by Billie Ruben and GeekyFaye over on Billie’s YouTube channel. In their most recent episode, they interview Lenore Edman of Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories. Lenore is an amazing creative maker, and an absolute legend in the maker world. Highly recommend checking it out!

Now onto more projects!

April Wilkerson made this sweet doghouse for her two pups. In her video she walks through the design choices she made, which are all centered around the habits of her dogs, and I love how she let their behaviors influence the layout of the house. She also used standard, readily available materials, 2x4s, to build it, but went a few steps further with paint, trim, and textured beadboard, and the finished result looks so polished with that extra attention to the aesthetic. She added insulation and heated padding to keep her dogs comfortable, and the hinged roof opens up for human access. Brilliant!

Also, huge congratulations to April on her new TV show! She’s the resident expert on the new show, Assembly Required on the History Channel, there’s a behind the scenes peek over on her YouTube channel, it looks awesome, I’m excited to check it out.

If you love organizing and label making as much as I do (and that’s a lot), check out The AI Label Maker from Dane and Nicole at 8 Bits and a Byte. The AI Label Maker consists of a camera connected to a Raspberry Pi that uses the DeepAI DenseCap API to identify objects. A thermal printer prints the label onto sticky paper and… voila! Labels at the touch of an arcade button! Ok so the labels are more “art” than accurate, but I love the concept here and this project would be a great way to dip your toes into AI and object detection. And the creative object descriptions that came out of the printer just brought me so much joy. Dane and Nicole have an Instructable up for the project if you want to build your own.

Becky Stern’s latest project is embroidery inspired by the signs of the Zodiac. Becky uses white embroidery floss on dark blue fabric to create constellations that light up with a few LEDs and conductive thread. The little points of light are really effective as stars, and this is a simple and beautiful project that looks positively meditative to make. Becky has LED sewing kits that are perfect for this project up on Tindie, and step by step instructions on her website.

And I have a new video out about how I made my cyberpunk LED jacket using 3D printed diffuser panels. My video contains an in-depth walkthrough of the process of 3D printing directly onto fabric, so definitely check that out if you’d like to give that process a try! I have a full written tutorial about the jacket in my wearable tech projects book, and the video is a good overview for the whole project.

Channel Spotlight:
Now I want to tell you about a YouTube channel that is a fantastic resource for learning about making things: Anika’s DIY Life. Anika’s channel focuses on woodworking, tool tutorials, home improvement projects, home decor crafts, and more. Anika is great at explaining her projects, tools, and techniques, and she makes functional projects with a beautiful, modern aesthetic.

Now for a few Tips and Tools.
If you’re new to woodworking, check out Anika’s Woodworking 101 series, which is a great place to get started! She also has a ton of great beginner woodworking projects on her channel, so you can try out your new skills on some cool DIYs.

If you’re interested in learning about metal 3D-printing, head over to Billie Ruben’s channel, and watch SJ’s Declassified Metal Survival guide. SJ gave this talk at the recent TIPE conference organized by Women in 3D Printing. It’s a fantastic overview of the process of metal additive manufacturing, as well as a look into how the process works at an industry level, and amazing personal insight into the career and life of an additive engineer.

Claire Zhang has a great video about making a custom fit pinnable dress form, specifically for making historical garments and costumes. Historical women’s garments are often based on corseted silhouettes that can’t be easily achieved with commercially available dressforms, so making a custom form is a great option. This option is also much more affordable than purchasing a standard pinnable form.

If you’ve been wanting to try airbrushing, but felt too overwhelmed to try it, check out The Crafsman’s latest video about figuring it out for the first time. It’s a great walkthrough of how a gravity feed airbrush works, what you need to get started, and what to expect when you give it a try for the first time.

And that’s it for this week’s maker update, like I said, learning from these inspiring people and seeing their amazing work, that’s all keeping me going this year and I hope it’s inspiring to you too. If something you saw here was inspiring to you, definitely head over to that person’s channel and let them know. Thanks so much for watching, and I’ll see you again soon!