This week on Maker Update, Arduino-controlled virtual toilet paper shopping, AI for game controllers, a swank birdhouse, and a little office worker to keep you company.

++Show Notes++

-=Project of the Week=-

Manic Toilet Paper Shopping Simulator by Jelle Vermandere
https://blog.arduino.cc/2020/04/22/manic-toilet-paper-shopping-simulated-with-arduino/
https://github.com/Jellevermandere/ArduinoMotionControls

-=More Projects=-

Xbox Controller Arm by Little French Kev
https://www.littlefrenchkev.com/xbox-controller-arm

Making a Charging Station from Walnut & Brass by I Like to Make Stuff
https://youtu.be/g7Cj6T2ZF5g

How to Make a Mid-century Modern Frank Lloyd Wright Birdhouse by Make Something
https://youtu.be/e3cHVqjtwus

Office Worker – LEGO Automaton by JK Brickworks
https://jkbrickworks.com/office-worker

-=Tips=-

Adam Savage’s Favorite Tools: Precision Rotary Tool!
https://www.tested.com/art/makers/906396-adam-savages-favorite-tools-precision-rotary-tool/

JB-Weld SteelStik review by Sophy Wong
https://youtu.be/7Vi546QmobE

Lockdown Lecture 1: “Rough ‘n’ Ready Prototyping” – Jude Pullen
https://youtu.be/c_5vQex8two

Collet Drill Stop (<1mm to 14mm) by QuadeHale
https://hackaday.com/2020/04/22/printed-it-collet-drill-stop/
https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3177276

CR2032 Battery Eliminator
https://hackaday.com/2020/04/24/a-cr2032-battery-eliminator/

-=Digi-Key Spotlight=-

Accelerometers – Tech Basics
https://youtu.be/Pv18ypLWrrk

Transcript

This week on Maker Update, Arduino-controlled virtual toilet paper shopping, AI for game controllers, a swank birdhouse, and a little office worker to keep you company.

Hey, I’m Donald Bell and welcome back to another Maker Update. I hope you’re doing well, or at least as well as you can. I have my good and bad days, but today’s a good day because I get to show you all the cool projects I came across this week. So, let’s get started with the project of the week.

Jelle Vermandere created this Arduino-controlled video game where you raid empty supermarkets looking for toilet paper to add to your cart. When rival carts try to block you, you can push them back by yelling into your computer’s microphone.

For some this may be too soon, but for me it was just the laugh I needed.

The game was created using Unity, and you can play it for free in your browser just using your keyboard. But if you just need that authentic shopping cart experience, Jelle walks you through how to turn an Arduino Uno, a stick, a Bluetooth adapter and an accelerometer into a wireless controller perfect for this game.

On his Github page, you can find the code and a circuit diagram. 

More projects! In fact it’s another Arduino and Unity game project. Little French Kev shows us how he created a machine learning system that can play games using an Xbox controller. 

There’s two incredible aspects to this project. The first part, which is easier for me to wrap my head around, is this 2-axis servo arm that fits onto your controller. The mechanism is 3D printed and attaches together with a few screws, two ball bearings, and a zip tie. 

It receives its instructions from an Arduino Nano mounted on the other side of the controller. 

But for the Arduino to do anything, it has to receive input from Unity over its USB connection. 

Now on the Unity side, he’s using the Machine Learning Agents toolkit, developed by Unity. In this example, it’s working to balance a ball wherever the X is. Because the machine learning algorithm learns through trial and error, it takes hours and hours of just letting it run before it develops any skill. 

But how cool is that? How long before we can train an AI to play Animal Crossing for us? Or toilet paper shopping simulator? You can find the Arduino code and the Unity scene on littlefrenchkev.com

Now for something analog and practical. In a recent video, Bob Clagett shows how he used walnut and brass to create this charging station for his kid’s Chromebooks. 

With all his kids using Chromebooks for schoolwork, this little rack provides a way to neatly wrangle them all together and keep them charged. 

Another woodworking project I saw this week that inspired me was this mid-century modern treehouse project from David Picciuto. 

It’s over the top, but it has so much style. I think it’s the perfect project if you have small wood scraps and leftover paint. David even uses some leftover aquarium pebbles to give it a stone wall accent. 

With all the time we’re spending looking out the window these days, at least this gives you something cool to look at, and maybe some bird friends to talk to.

But nothing underscores our weird existence right now better than this Lego automaton by Jason Allemann of JK Brickworks. 

Mechanically, it’s just a pair of cams connected to a single drive shaft. When they spin around, they move these little pegs up and down that provide the typing motion. 

In the video, Jason shows a few variations you can do on this scene to customize it into a more realistic portrait of your home office situation, changing up the monitor, or the computer, or even making a standing desk.

Now for a few tips and tools. By way of Gareth Branwyn’s Tips, Tools, and Shop Tales newsletter I found this video of Adam Savage waxing poetic over his favorite new rotary tool, made by a company called Proxxon.

It’s a 12v powered tool that requires it’s own little battery pack. Adam says he was introduced to these at Weta Workshop and that they provide a better grip and sensitivity for small detail work. The price is around $90 and you can check the video for more details. 

On the Cool Tools channel, I’ve got a video up talking with Sophy Wong about JB Weld SteelStik and how she’s been using it to place studs on the outfit she’s working on. 

This is a $5 2-part epoxy putty that hardens to a super durable material that you can litterally hammer on without breaking. You may remember Sophy talking about this stuff when she guest hosted on episode 168. This was just a nice chance to hear more about it and get a better look at what she’s doing. 

Dyson Design Engineer Jude Pullen has started a series of Lockdown Lectures on YouTube. His first is called Rough n’ Ready prototyping. It’s a rare and informative look at why it’s valuable to begin the design process with as primitive a model as possible and use it for research and feedback. 

Jude does a great job explaining it, and if you’re the type of person who feels that their projects need to look perfect right out of the gate, hearing this advice from a professional could really change your process.

Via Hackaday I found this 3D printed collet drill stop design. By twisting it, it clamps down on your drill bit and provides a nice, big bumper. This way, you can make a series of holes that are the same depth. It’s a step up from sticking a piece of tape on your drill.

Also on Hackaday, a great piece by Al Williams on using brass pet name tag blanks to create a battery eliminator for things that take CR2032 coin cell batteries. 

In his case, he had a bunch of PCB badges that he wanted to wire up in a way he could permanently display them. By soldering a positive and negative wire on a pair of these brass blanks and sandwiching them around some adhesive foam, he found his solution.

For this week’s Digi-Key spotlight, check out their latest video on understanding accelerometers. Analog, digital, PWM, multi-axis — there’s a lot to it, but this video covers the basics. You also get to see a demo of the Sparkfun ADXL337 analog accelerometer breakout board connected up to an Arduino for some simple interaction. If you want to do something like that Arduino wireless virtual cart controller, this is a great place to start.

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 so you can keep up with each week’s show. A big thanks to my Patrons on Patreon and to Digi-Key electronics for making this show possible. Thanks for watching, stay safe, and I’ll see you next week.