This week on Maker Update, a haircut from a robot, the Atomic TV, making a toy ray gun,  a physical mute button for Zoom, articulating skeleton fingers, and precision marking rulers.

++Show Notes [Maker Update #188]++

-=Project of the Week=-

I made a robot to cut my hair with scissors by Shane Wighton
https://youtu.be/7zBrbdU_y0s

-=News=-

Ex-Googler’s Startup Comes Out of Stealth With Beautifully Simple, Clever Robot Design
https://spectrum.ieee.org/automaton/robotics/home-robots/hello-robots-stretch-mobile-manipulator
https://hello-robot.com/product

-=More Projects=-

The Atomic TV by The Garage Journal
https://youtu.be/PUcWXzSy7yk

Ray Gun With Sound Effects V2 By lonesoulsurfer
https://www.instructables.com/id/Ray-Gun-With-Sound-Effects-V2/

Zoom Meetings Physical Mute Button By elliotmade
https://www.instructables.com/id/Zoom-Meetings-Physical-Mute-Button/

-=Tools/Tips=-

Incra 12″ Marking Rule Set
https://kk.org/cooltools/best-precision-marking-ruler-set/

Print-in-Place PCB Holder/Gripper created by SunShine
https://hackaday.com/2020/07/15/printed-it-print-in-place-pcb-gripper/

Articulated finger extensions by JulienJeanroy
https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:4342323

Skeleton skin for my Articulated finger extensions by JulienJeanroy
https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:4391928

Missile Switch Cover by ProDo5
https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:4206096

Parametric Hinge by Danebae
https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:4345322

Gareth’s Tips, Tools, and Shop Tales – Issue #54
https://www.getrevue.co/profile/garethbranwyn/issues/gareth-s-tips-tools-and-shop-tales-issue-54-259296

-=Digi-Key Spotlight=-

What is an Op Amp?
https://youtu.be/ySQxyToxa_o

Transcript

This week on maker update, a haircut from a robot, the Atomic TV, making a toy ray gun,  a physical mute button for Zoom, articulating skeleton fingers, and precision marking rulers.

Hey everybody, I’m Donald Bell, back again with another Maker Update. I hope you’re all doing well. I had a good week off and it’s always fun to see a Sophy Wong edition of the show. I was also able to finish up my cocktail machine, which you can expect to hear about soon. But for now, let’s get started with the project of the week.

Chances are, it’s been awhile since your last haircut. To help you out, Shane from Stuff Made Here made this incredible, slightly terrifying hair cutting robot. 

You just stick your head up through the middle of this large bearing, and a pair of servo-controlled scissors makes its way around your head over the course of 15 minutes.

In order to get your hair up into the path of the scissors, a vacuum sucks your hair up, while a pair of servo controlled fingers clamp the section of hair into a more scissor-friendly bundle. 

It’s easy to take the whole thing as a joke, but Shane really engineered the crap out of this thing. He even goes into detail on some strategies that didn’t work out, like a 3D sensing camera for detecting the location of your head. What he wound up doing instead is using a limit switch that probes the edges of your head to define a boundary and can detect if your position has changed.

It’s a great, entertaining video, with a lot of insights on engineering and design. It’s unfortunate that the machine left him with a mullet, but at least he survived. 

Now for some news. Speaking of potentially murderous household robots, last week saw the launch of Stretch, a robot from a new company called Hello Robot. 

This is a mobile robot that can manipulate different grippers with its telescoping arm. It has a sort of Roomba-sized base, but with this rail sticking out the top that the arm can travel up and down on.

An Intel Real-Sense camera sits at the top, allowing it to be operated remotely, but also giving it a spatial sense so that it can perform tasks on its own. A Lidar sensor on the bottom helps to map and navigate its surroundings.

While the videos show it cleaning up around the house, the real market for this is academic research. In that context, the $18,000 price tag is a relative bargain. 

It’s out of my budget, but it does get me wondering how to augment my Roomba.

Now for more projects. The Garage Journal has a video up on how he made this little retro, Tom Sachs-inspired TV that plays a loop of his favorite movies. 

Inside is a Raspberry Pi, a 7-inch screen, and some speakers. There’s also a neat little power supply in here that spits out 5 volts for the Pi and 12 volts for the screen, from a 110 AC input. Those were new to me.

I suspect the PI is running something like MP4 Museum or Kodi. But what really blows me away here is the attention to detail. 

From the vintage switch guards, the 12v lamp, the aluminum screen for ventilation, the fabric loop on the back. I just love how this looks, and I’m moving my way through his older videos to pick up some of his techniques.

On Instructables, Lone Soul Surfer walks you through his process for creating a toy raygun from vintage parts. He’s using an old electric drill casing, an old lamp housing, and a bunch of odds and ends. Understandably, you’ll be using whatever junk you have access to.

The real substance of this guide are all the techniques for cleaning, modifying, and attaching old scraps together. He even shows you how to add battery powered sounds and lights to make it more fun. There’s lots of great ideas in here.

For another mix of old and new, Elliot Made has this guide on making a physical mute button for Zoom calls. 

His version uses an Arduino-based Digispark board, but really you could replicate this project using any Arduino-style board capable of using an HID input library. Think of it like those Arduino macro keyboard projects, but with just one key.

Again though, big points for style here. He’s using a thick section of steel tubing, along with these stained, laser cut boards that plug the ends and offer some instructions. A short press toggles mute on and off, while a long press ends the call.

Now for some tips and tools. On the Cool Tools channel I have another video up talking with Jordan Bunker about these Incra Marking Rulers. These are a set of three laser cut aluminum rulers that have holes for marking exact measurements. 

If you’re at a place where you agonize over which side of a line to mark your material, these allow you to consistently mark directly on the line.

On Hackaday, I found these print-in-place board grippers designed by SunShine. The clamping force is provided by the spiral spring built into the design. 

One version has an integrated stand that’s a little wimpy. The other has a GoPro-style mount that, in theory, you could attach more securely. Either way the verdict is that they’re better for displaying boards than working on them. Still, if you’re like me, you’ve probably got a few boards worthy of displaying. 

Another cool but impractical 3D print I want to make are these articulating finger extensions by Julien Jeanroy. Each of these little finger extensions include geared knuckles that bend the fingers as they’re pulled. Some simple ties back to a bracelet are all you need to create the tension. 

If you’re thinking, those would make a great addition to a grim reaper costume, Julien is way ahead of you with 3D printed bones that fit over the finger extensions. These are awesome.

Ever wish you had one of those cool, missile launch style switch covers for your lightswitch? This 3D printed design by Non Non on Thingiverse lets you do exactly that.

But the most useful part I found this week is this parametric hinge design by Jon Bilbao. If you ever need a custom hinge for something, this design can be tweaked using the Thingiverse customizer or imported to OpenSCAD. You can adjust the width, number of hinges, size of the hinge hole, screw holes — it’s all there.

And in the latest issue of Gareth Branwyn’s Tip’s, Tools, and Shop tales, there’s some great info on running 3-phase tools on household power, making custom coiled cables, and factoring in the opportunity cost of space in your workshop. Check that out.

For this week’s Digi-Key spotlight, they’ve got a new video up that explains the fundamentals of Op-Amps, or operational amplifiers. 

I first came across these when I got into making my own guitar pedals. They’re perfect for amplifying signals, but they’re also just the thing for deliberately distorting them into a shredding guitar solo when you place them in the right circuit.

I’ve seen a lot of videos on how to abuse these chips, but this is the first one I’ve come across that really explains how the chip works.

And that does it for this week’s show. Be sure to subscribe, leave a thumbs up or leave a comment. You can get on the maker update email list. A big thanks to my patrons on Patreon and an extra big thanks to Digi-Key electronics for making this show possible. Thanks for watching, and I’ll see you next week.