This week on Maker Update: a compact Rubik’s robot, dog armor, doomsday lamps, GIF TVs, and a Peloton for TikTok.

++Show Notes [Maker Update Ep.286]

-=Project of the Week=-

CUBOTino Autonomous: Small, 3D Printed, Rubik’s Cube Robot by Andrea Favero
https://www.instructables.com/CUBOTino-Autonomous-Small-3D-Printed-Rubiks-Cube-R/

-=News=-

NYC Resistor 12th Annual Interactive Show
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/the-12th-annual-interactive-show-cursed-technology-shop-masksvax-req-tickets-331933611367

-=More Projects=-

My Dog was Bullied, So I Made Him Armor by Nerdforge
https://youtu.be/9U85M3_E8XQ

ArmaLamp by Peter Misenko
https://hackaday.io/project/185116-armalamp-armageddon-resistant-night-lamp

Mini GIF Players by Ruiz Brothers, Kattni Rembor, Liz Clark
https://learn.adafruit.com/mini-gif-players

PeloTok by Eric Guidry
https://youtu.be/oH5exxoLeaQ

-=Tips & Tools=-

3D Printed Flexure by Topias Korpi
https://hackaday.com/2022/06/03/3d-printed-flexture-shows-precision-in-action/

How To Design Print In Place 3D Printed Mechanical Iris by Caleb Kraft
https://youtu.be/eOW_kQQz2Fk

Gareth’s Tips, Tools and Shop Tales Newsletter
https://www.getrevue.co/profile/garethbranwyn/issues/gareth-s-tips-tools-and-shop-tales-issue-123-1188507

-=Digi-Key Spotlight=-

How to Repair Broken Traces
https://youtu.be/CCOuKLHsSIs

-=Transcript=-

This week on Maker Update: a compact Rubik’s robot, dog armor, doomsday lamps, GIF TVs, and a Peloton for TikTok.

Hey everyone, I’m Donald Bell, and welcome back to another Maker Update. I hope you’re doing well and maybe have some fun things planned for the summer. I’m going to keep it quick this week, but I have a lot of fun stuff to show you, starting with the project of the week.

On Instructables, Andrea Favero shows how he made this ingenious Rubiks Cube-solving robot.

I’ve shown a few different cube solving robots on this channel before, but this one has a few things that make it notable.

First, it’s tiny. It’s not much bigger than the cube. Part of what’s turned me off about projects like this is that it seems a little absurd to have a 3D printer-size machine to solve a toy puzzle.

The second noticeable difference is that the robot grip mechanism is so simple. Really that’s what allows the design to be so compact. You have this hood that drops down to hold the top two layers in place while the bottom layer twists.

That same hood, when tilted back beyond its open position, acts as a foot that flips the cube over into a new position.

And finally, the design is almost entirely 3D printed, making it easy to replicate. And again, because the design is small, it won’t take you days to print and fit all the parts.

For the electronics, Andrea is using a Raspberry Pi Zero 2, along with a Pi camera module that scans each side of the puzzle.

There are two, nice, metal arm servos – one for the lid and one for the twist action on the base.

And one of my favorite touches is this display on the side that communicates each step and the puzzle solving process.

You can find everything you need to recreate this project using the link in the description.

Now for some news. This Friday June 10th is the return of the NYC Resistor interactive showcase in Brooklyn. Becky Stern is helping to organize it, and this year’s theme is the Cursed Technology Shop.

There are over two dozen contributing artists and it should be a lot of fun. I’ll leave a link to the event page in the description.

More projects. Martina at Nerdforge has a fun and entertaining video on how she made this viking-inspired leather armor for her dog.

The dog is a really good sport here, allowing her to fit the pattern and make adjustments. Martina also shows some great techniques for giving leather a metallic look, both with paint and a high-gloss coat.

If you could use a smile, don’t miss this video.

On Hackaday, we’re seeing some great, eco-focused projects come through for the Hackaday Prize. One that really caught my attention was this small, solar powered LED lamp by Peter Misenko.

He calls this the Doomsday Light, in part because it’s designed to last a long, long time. Instead of charging up a conventional lithium-ion battery, which will eventually lose its ability to hold a charge, this design uses a supercapacitor.

The combination of capacitor and step-up converter also allows the power to drain down to .3 volts before shutting off.

I also like these 6 fancy photodiodes he’s using, which are easier to sprinkle into a board design than a clunky solar cell and are apparently more resilient against damage.

On Adafruit, there’s a fun animated GIF player project created as part of a collaboration between the Ruiz Brothers, Kattni Rembor, and Liz Clark.

I like the vintage TV set 3D printed enclosure. Inside you’ll find a Feather RP2040 board, a rounded rectangle display for that vintage TV look, a rechargeable battery pack and a slide switch.

You’ll need to optimize the size of the GIFs to get them to work but what’s great is that all you have to do is drag them to the board to get them installed.

And finally, check out Eric Guidry’s TikTok scrolling exercise bike.

By outfitting his stationary bike with a hall effect sensor, and Arduino, and a few buttons by the handle bars, Eric is able to scroll through his TikTok feed and even like videos with the press of a button.

If the bike stops or goes too slow, though, the buttons are diabled. It seems like a clever way to harness social media habits for real-world benefits. If TikTok’s not your thing, Eric’s system seems like it could be adapted to other things.

Now for some tips and tools. On Hackaday, I saw this interesting 3D printed flexure design by Topias Korpi. Using a dial indicator on one end and a screw on the other to apply force, you get to see how this particular arrangement of print-in-place flexure joints creates a roughly 15:1 reduction between the two elements.

There’s a Thingiverse link for printing your own, but really it’s meant to inspire you to explore flexures and make something useful to you.

On YouTube, Caleb Kraft has a guide on creating your own print-in-place mechanical iris.

Caleb is no stranger to mechanical iris designs. He’s made a bunch, big and small, but the idea of making a print-in-place design – where everything just works right off the printer bed – was something he wanted to try.

In this 15 minute video you get to see Caleb’s entire design process in Fusion 360, including all the little tips and tricks for engineering something to work as a print-in-place design.

Of course, if you just want to download the design and play with it, he’s included a Printables link for printing your own.

And if you enjoy the tips and tools section of this show, be sure to check out Gareth Branwyn’s Tips, Tools, and Shop Tales newsletter. This past week he had a great one that took a look at vertical tool drawers, marking codes for surface mount components, cleaning brushes with a wire wheel, and more. You can find a link in the description.

For this week’s Digi-Key spotlight, check out their video on how to repair broken traces on a circuit board.

This is a good skill to know about for fixing up old boards that may have peeling traces. It’s also a good skill for hacking or deliberately rewiring boards where you need to cut traces on purpose to make it do what you want. Check it out.

And that does it for this week’s show. Be sure to subscribe, leave a thumbs up, or leave a comment. Get on the Maker Update email list to see this week’s giveaway from my workshop purge. A big thanks to Digi-Key electronics for making this show possible. Thanks for watching, and I’ll see you soon.