This week on Maker Update, portable Skeeball, the return of Blimpduino, a reanimated zombie hand, a Raspberry Pi robot with expanding wheels, toy cars for the apocalypse, superglues compared, a balloon engine for Lego, and a $250 resin printer.

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++Show Notes++

-=Project of the Week=-

Portable Skeeball Game by seamster
https://www.instructables.com/id/Portable-Skeeball-Game/

-=News=-

Introducing the Blimpduino 2
https://blog.hackster.io/introducing-the-blimpduino-2-d551f4270084

-=More Projects=-

Crawling Animatronic Hand by Dano Wall
https://learn.adafruit.com/crawling-hand-with-CPX-and-MakeCode

FRILLER Robot by Al Bencomo
https://blog.adafruit.com/2018/10/11/the-nasa-friller-robot-uses-a-raspberry-pi-and-the-adafruit-motor-hat-raspberry_pi-nasa-adafruit-themagpi/

Github page
https://github.com/IeiuniumLux/FRILLER

Writeup in Magpi Mag (PDF link)
https://www.raspberrypi.org/magpi-issues/MagPi74.pdf?utm_source=The+MagPi+mailing+list&utm_campaign=f1045c989a-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2018_07_25_03_39_COPY_01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_748d641b78-f1045c989a-495464047&mc_cid=f1045c989a&mc_eid=20df341f39#page=14

-=Tools/Tips=-

Converting Die Cast Toy Cars into Post-Apocalyptic Combat Vehicles by Gareth Branwyn
https://makezine.com/2018/10/12/converting-die-cast-toy-cars-into-post-apocalyptic-combat-vehicles/

Tips of the Week from Gareth Branwyn
https://makezine.com/2018/10/12/tips-of-the-week-hidden-tools-superglue-strength-testing-proper-nozzle-flow-and-how-to-tie-your-shoes/

Balloon Engine for Interlocking Toy Brick System by chazwhiz
https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3060612

AA Battery Holder with Knife Switch
https://www.adafruit.com/product/3951

SparkMaker FHD resin 3D printer review
https://www.tested.com/tech/3d-printing/851385-sparkmaker-fhd-250-3d-printer-review/

Penlopy Bulnick Interview
https://youtu.be/9j24lS06KIw

-=Maker Faires=-

Beijing, Chaoyang China
Fredonia, New York USA
Chattanooga, Tennessee USA
Colorado Springs, Colorado USA
Oakland, California USA

Transcript

This week on Maker Update, Portable Skeeball, the return of Blimpduino, a reanimated zombie hand, a Raspberry Pi robot with expanding wheels, toy cars for the apocalypse, superglues compared, a balloon engine for Lego, and a $250 resin printer.

Hey, I’m Donald Bell and welcome to another Maker Update. I hope everyone’s doing great. I’ve been giving my 3D printer a workout, churning out little Halloween decorations and costume pieces. My kid wants a Fortnite mask, so I’m trying to print one for him as we speak. Anyway, I have a fun show for you today. Let’s get started, with the project of the week.

Over on Instructables, Seamster has this awesome Skeeball game he made. Not only is it portable, thanks to the wheels on the back, but it’s also collapsible.

What makes this project particularly great — aside from the fact that it’s skeeball — is that it’s a fun mix of salvaged material. The frame is made from an old bed frame, the rubber is from mudflaps, there’s metal from old road signs, and even an old basketball backboard.

It looks great, and there are a ton of little tips and ideas to pull from this guide. Be sure to check it out.

It’s time for some news. There’s a new Arduino-controlled blimp kit available called the Blimpduino 2. The kit goes for around $75 and includes the board, motors, frame, and even a mylar balloon.

What makes it particularly noteworthy is that the original Blimpduino was an effort by Chris Anderson of 3D Robotics — one of the pioneers of consumer drones. This second-gen design has been over 10 years in the making.

As you’d expect, the board has a lot of the features of a consumer drone, including a 3 axis gyroscopes, an accelerometer, a magnetometer, a laser altimeter, Wi-Fi, and a pressure/temperature sensor. You can also add a camera and two additional servos.

Assuming it’s quiet, I’d kinda like to have one for the office or the backyard.

I have just a few other projects to share. Dano Wall on Adafruit has a guide up on making this crawling animatronic zombie hand.

The project uses a Halloween zombie glove, a circuit playground express board, a servo, and some wheels to drag behind it. By tying fishing line between the servos and the fingertips, you get this crawling motion that pulls it across the floor.

For a more practical robot, check out the FRILLER robot by Al Bencomo. Developed for NASA as an all-terrain rover, this robot has wheels that flare out to help get over obstacles.

The heart of the project is a Raspberry Pi computer connected to an Adafruit motor hat. The Pi is running Android Things software and there’s a cool touch interface you use to control it with your smartphone. You can find all the files you need over on the project’s Github page. I’ll also link to a writeup on it in a recent issue of Raspi magazine.

I have some tips to share. Over on Makezine, Gareth Branwyn takes an in-depth look at modifying die cast toy cars with a post-apocalyptic look. He’s been using the results for playing the popular Gaslands tabletop game, which I now totally want to try with my family.

Also, Gareth’s Tips of the Week column has some great ones comparing the strength of various types of CA glue, and an advanced technique for cutting the tip a on a caulking tube.

Through the Adafruit blog I learned about this 3D printed piece for adding balloon power to your Lego vehicles. There’s a little lip on the top tube for holding the balloon on. The air from the balloon shoots out the back tube, pushing it forward. Low-tech, but effective.

Also on Adafruit, and also low tech, there’s a new battery holder in stock that uses an old fashioned knife switch to turn power off and on. It looks like a great thing to have handy for quickly building motor or LED projects with kids. Beats popping out the batteries or wiring in an inline switch.

Tested has a hands-on review video up on the SparkMaker FHD resin 3D printer. It’s a $250 3D printer that acts a small Formlabs-style resin printer. There are some limitations, but at that price it’s worth checking out the video if you’re curious about the tradeoffs.

And back on my channel Maker Project Lab, I got a chance to talk with Nicole Smith, (aka Penolopy Bulnick) about her wearable 3D printed projects. We talk about the process of printing on tulle fabric, embedding strings in 3D prints for earrings, and using office folder plastic for stained glass effects. Check it out.

Maker Faires! This weekend we have Beijing, China; Fredonia, New York; Chattanooga, Tennessee; Colorado Springs, Colorado; and my hometown Faire in Oakland, California where I’ll be giving a talk about new Features in Tinkercad. But if none of those are near you, head to makerfaire.com to find one in your area.

And that does it for this week’s show. Be sure to subscribe, leave a thumbs up or leave a comment. You can join the Maker Update email list to have these show notes emailed out to you automatically every week. And, I volunteer to do this show because I love it, but your support can help me build it up and make it better.

We’re coming up on my 100th episode of Maker Update in just a few weeks, and as arbitrary as it sounds, I’d love to see if we can get the show support up to $100 a month. Right now we’re around forty, but I think we can do it. Alright? Thanks for watching, and I’ll see you next week.