This week on Maker Update, your own Banksy art shredder, the new Pi TV HAT, the CAD of soda bottles, a wearable touchscreen computer, a 3D printed doorman, a location aware MP3 player, and a sand table drawbot.

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Show Notes

Project of the Week

Banksy Frame by Dave Buchanan
https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3157749

Makezine coverage
https://makezine.com/2018/10/19/3d-print-your-own-banksy-art-shredder-frame/

News

Introducing the Raspberry Pi TV Hat
https://www.raspberrypi.org/blog/raspberry-pi-tv-hat/

TrussFormer Transforms Soda Bottles into Amazing Kinetic Art by Jeremy S Cook
https://blog.hackster.io/trussformer-transforms-soda-bottles-into-amazing-kinetic-art-411ee95a8f64

Software details
https://hpi.de/baudisch/projects/trussformer-3d-printing-large-kinetic-structures.html

Boldport Club is changing
https://www.boldport.com/blog/2018/10/18/boldport-club-is-changing

More Projects

POPgirl Wearable Computer Project Log by Sarah Petkus
https://hackaday.io/project/158886-she-bon/log/154313-popgirl-hardware-enclosure-build

The Doorman by Tjahzi
https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2753756

GPS Enabled Audio Player (Fake Walkie-Talkie!) by seanhodgins
https://www.instructables.com/id/GPS-Enabled-Audio-Player-Fake-Walkie-Talkie/

Sand Table Sandbot by Rob Dobson
https://robdobson.com/2018/08/a-new-sandbot/
https://github.com/robdobsn/SandTableDesignScara

Sandbot Software
https://robdobson.com/2018/09/sandbot-software-revamp/

Older Sandbot demo, but general idea
https://youtu.be/-xGQmm7FXD4

Tools/Tips

Aluminum jig for RC connections
https://amzn.to/2CRY60t

In use on 3rd hand tool by Terry Dunn
https://www.tested.com/tech/590676-how-get-hobby-rc-soldering-battery-connectors/

Tips of the Week by Gareth Branwyn
https://makezine.com/2018/10/19/tips-of-the-week-stainless-vs-steel-epoxy-shootout-etching-with-a-rotary-tool-and-halloween-hacks/

Cardboard Modelmaking Tools for Designers and Architects Eric Strebel breaks down his arsenal
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w0T9bX_M7jg

30ml luer taper lock oval squeeze bottle w blunt needle
https://www.ebay.com/itm/401616408360

Dozens of bike handle grip designs by Povhill
https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3057306

AxiDraw to Pantograph by Mike Jacobs
https://www.evilmadscientist.com/2018/axidraw-pantograph/

Best Solder Sucker – Cool Tools
https://youtu.be/TJkEAOkaL-4

Engineer SS-02 Solder Sucker
https://amzn.to/2RKmGEK

-=Maker Faires=-
Find your local Faire:
http://makerfaire.com/map/

Maker Faire Bilbao Bilbao
Northern Illinois Mini Maker FaIre DeKalb, Illinois
Montevideo Mini Maker Faire Montevideo
Maker Faire Atlanta Atlanta, Georgia
Derby Mini Maker Faire Derby, Derbyshire

Other Events

EMSL Fall Open House, Saturday, November 10, 4 pm to 8 pm
https://www.evilmadscientist.com/2018/fall-open-house-2/

#Makevember
https://twitter.com/search?q=%23makevember&src=typd&lang=en

Transcript

This week on Maker Update, your own Banksy art shredder, the new Pi TV HAT, the CAD of soda bottles, a wearable touchscreen computer, a 3D printed doorman, a location aware MP3 player, and a sandtable drawbot.

Hey, I’m Donald Bell and welcome to another Maker Update. I hope you’re all doing well. I think there’s something in the air right now, because there’s just an incredible amount of cool projects to cover today. So let’s jump right in, with the project of the week.

On Thingiverse, Dave Buchanan posted his design for this trick frame, inspired by the famous Banksy art shredder frame.

I learned about this through Mike Senese’s post on the Makezine blog. It’s essentially a new spin on the classic paper into money magic trick. Using a loop of tracing paper inside the frame as a kind of conveyor belt, twisting the knob on the side works to reel in the original print, while rolling out a separate shredded version.

It’s a 3D printed project that only needs few few extra elements, including some tracing paper for the loop, and some wood screws to fasten it together. You’ll also need to source your own art, but man, what a fun trick.

What I’d love to see though is a slightly more high tech version with a geared motor and a remote control, to make it more like the Banksy version. If you make it, let me know and I’ll feature it here.

It’s time for some news. Raspberry Pi has announced a new add-on board for the Pi called the TV HAT. It’s a $22 board that stacks on to a Pi or Pi Zero and allows the Pi to receive DVB-T2 video signals, which as I understand it are standard just about everywhere except here in the US. So have fun with that one.

Still, the idea is that this opens up new potential for the Pi allowing you to capture and stream broadcast TV on your Pi or across your network. Seems like it would be great for media center projects.

Through Hackster.io I learned about new software called TrussFormer that allows you to design large scale structures and kinetic art using recycled soda bottles as the material.

There seems to be a few ways to create or imports designs. You then just 3D print or laser cut the joints needed to tied it all together and get to work. The software is currently in beta, it looks like it runs as a plug-in within SketchUp, and you need to request access to play with it–but I love knowing that this tool exists.

I also learned this week that the Boldport Club is dropping their subscription model starting in January. But don’t worry, the company seems to be doing just fine and they will continue to sell their beautiful kits a la carte through their online store.

I’m a big fan of Boldport and I’ve been a subscriber from the beginning. I think this is actually a good and natural development now that there’s a back catalog of 32 projects to choose from. If you’re into electronics and you haven’t seen these projects yet, go take a look.

I have more projects to share with you. But first, just a reminder that Maker Update runs on the support of my awesome patrons. If this show is something you look forward to every week, you can keep it running for as little as $.25 cents a show using the Patreon link down in the description. Alright?

Back to projects, on Hackaday, Sarah Petkus shows off how she made this Pi-based spin on the Pip Boy 3000 from Fallout. She calls her version the POPgirl. It’s a wearable touch screen computer. There’s a 5-inch screen along with 5 tactile buttons down the side for different functions. Sarah includes a bill of materials, 3D files, and a thorough guide on how to put it all together with lots of photos.

Go check it out, but fair warning, her YouTube channel is currently focused on engineering a winch for her butt cheeks — which like this computer, is part of her larger SheBON project. It’s a long story, and a cool project, but I thought I should let you know in case lady butts frighten you.

On Thingiverse, there’s this Doorman project by Tjahzi. It’s actually from January but it’s new to me. It’s a 3D-printed face with an Arduino behind it and a motion sensor. When motion is detected, the mechanical eyes open up and servos move the eyes around in a programmed routine.

I love the design and the idea behind this. I think it’s a good project for me right now with where I am with Arduino and 3D printing — just challenging enough. I also think there’s a good opportunity here to push the project forward with some kind of audio greeting.

On Instructables, Sean Hodgins has a guide up on making these location-aware audio playback devices that look like old walkie talkies.

He made these for a friend’s ghost story walking tour project. The idea is you hand one of these to someone, have them walk a specific route, and every time there’s a story for a new location, you hear a beep telling to you press the playback button and listen to the story.

I love this idea. The project is pretty advanced, using a custom PCB design and surface mount components. The guide is great though, along with Sean’s video.

And then there’s this new sandtable drawbot by Rob Dobson. You’ve probably seen variations on this idea where a ball is driven through sand from an invisible force. The trick is that underneath the sand table is a CNC magnetic arm.

Well this is Rob’s latest design, and I believe one of the simplest I’ve seen yet. It’s using two stepper motors, some laser cut acrylic, 3D printed parts for the arm and some timing belts.

You can find everything on his project page and GitHub, along with the Sandbot software he uses to control it.

I have a ton of tips to share. Through a post by Terry Dunn on Tested I learned about these aluminum jigs made specifically for soldering up common RC battery connections. They have little holders for the terminals and different bullet connectors.

If you work with RC LiPo batteries for your projects, it might be a worthwhile investment. Terry also shows how he’s attached his to a 3rd hand tool.

For his tips of the week column, Gareth Branwyn has a look at why steel bolts might be better than stainless steel bolts, and Project Farm’s follow-up glue strength video, which compares different brands of epoxy.

In a new video Industrial Designer Eric Strebel runs through his must-have tools for modelmaking in cardboard. One in particular that caught my eye are these Luer squeeze bottles with blunt needle tips he uses for applying plain white PVA glue. They’re only a few bucks on eBay.

On Thingiverse, Povhill has a dozen bike handle grip designs you can print out using flexible filament.

Through Evil Mad Scientist I found this trick from Mike Jacobs on how to use a Pantograph mechanism to transform the motions of a the AxiDraw pen plotter into a large scale plotter you can use on a big canvas.

And over on the Cool Tools blog, I take a look at three types of solder suckers, only one of which I actually think is worth using. If you want to cut to the chase, I’ll include a link to my top pick down on the show notes.

Maker Faires! We have a bunch this weekend including Bilbao, Spain; DeKalb, Illinois Montevideo, Uruguay; Atlanta, Georgia and Derby in Derbyshire UK.

I also see that Evil Mad Scientist in Sunnyvale CA is having an open house coming up on Saturday November 10th.

Last year I had a lot of fun participating in #makevember. For the month of November, the idea is you try to make something — even a little thing — every day and post it on social media with the Makevember tag. A fun, supportive little community pops up around the challenge and it’s a good way to unblock your creativity. I’ll be doing it again, and I hope to see some of your work too.

That does it for this week’s show. Be sure to subscribe, leave a thumbs up or leave a comment. You can also sign up for the Maker Update email list to have show notes emailed out to you every week, plus a few bonus projects I couldn’t fit in the show.

And here’s my reminder that I am not a Make employee. I volunteer my time to make this show because I like to think it’s useful for our community. If you think it’s useful too and you’d like to see it grow, you can find the show’s Patreon page in the show notes. Alright? Thanks for watching, and I’ll see you next week.