Introducing Make: television

Presenting a new national series from MAKE magazine, Twin Cities Public Television, and American Public Television.

Make: is the DIY series for a new generation! It celebrates "Makers" - the inventors, artists, geeks and just plain everyday folks who mix new and old technology to create new-fangled marvels. Check out the Episode Guide to watch segments and read descriptions of previous episodes.

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MAKE: television Episode 1: Bicycle Rodeo & VCR Powered Cat Feeder

For those of you who like to see the whole episodes of Make: television, here's a chance to see episode 1 in all it's glory. Meet Cyclecide, an inventive band of performance artists who build outrageous bicycle contraptions straight... Read More

MAKE: television Episode 2: Aerial Kite Photography & Burrito Blaster

Make: television Episode 2: Maker Cris Benton takes spectacular aerial photographs by rigging remote-controlled cameras to high flying kites. In the Maker Workshop John Park builds a Burrito Blaster, which can propel a burrito 50 yards, and Mister Jalopy... Read More

MAKE: television Episode 3: Steampunk & Pole Camera

Enter the alternative universe of Jake Von Slatt, a leading Steampunk Maker, who turns modern technology into Victorian works of art. In the Maker Workshop, John Park mounts a remote control camera on a painter's pole to take stunning... Read More

Make: television Episode 4: Fire Sculpture & DTV Antenna

Meet the Flaming Lotus Girls, a women-centric maker collaborative that creates gargantuan, fire-breathing sculptures. In the Workshop, John Park builds a digital TV antenna from wire coat hangers and a $10 video camera stabilizer. William Gurstelle shows surprising uses... Read More

MAKE: television Episode 5: Kinetic Wave Sculptures & Shopping Cart Chair

Tour the elegant and hypnotic motorized wave sculptures, created by visionary maker Reuben Margolin. In the Maker Workshop John Park upcycles a discarded shopping cart into a stylish easy chair, and Mister Jalopy details the unsung wonders of his... Read More

MAKE: television Episode 6: Music Machines & Trebuchet

Enter the plugged-in world of Tim Kaiser, a maker who fashions experimental musical instruments from scavenged objects. In the Workshop John Park assembles a portable trebuchet from plastic plumbing pipe, and circuit bender Bianca Pettis demystifies the art of... Read More

MAKE: television Episode 7: Urban Projections & Wind Generator

Bike along with Ali Momeni and his fleet of mobile video projectors that transform public spaces into massive sound and light shows. In the Workshop, John Park combines a used treadmill motor and PVC pipe to build a wind... Read More

MAKE: television Episode 8: Watershed Sculptures & Miniature Robots

We journey upstream with environmentalist Dan McCormick, a maker who crafts intricate watershed sculptures out of woven willow. In the Workshop, John Park shows how to build lively and inexpensive miniature robots. Mister Jalopy reveals the hidden treasures of... Read More

Make: television Episode 9: Computer Making Music & Personal Flight Recorder

Meet CCRMA, a group of musical makers who stretch the sonic boundaries by turning personal computers into an electronic symphony. In the Workshop, John Park hacks a Wii controller and turns it into a personal flight recorder that can... Read More

MAKE: television Episode 10: Wearable Technology & Cigar Box Guitar

Visit SparkLab founder and designer Syuzi Pakhchyan, a maker who explores the new frontier of high tech and fashion with her space age handiwork. In the Workshop, John Park shows us how to build a guitar out of a... Read More

 

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Make: Online

with the editors and authors of MAKE Monday February 8, 2010

Suggest a Site!

From typewriter to teleprinter

Spotted in the MAKE Flickr pool:

Flickr user numist had a typerwriter that he wasn't using anymore, so he converted it into a teleprinter. What's that? It turns out that teleprinters are the basically a printer and a keyboard put together in a single device, but not directly connected. Instead, both are connected to a remote computer using a serial connection. When you type on the keyboard, it gets interpreted by the computer, which then prints a response on the printer. They probably don't make much sense anymore, but before electronic displays were readily available, these were one of the main ways of programming mainframe computers.

To make his version, numist took an old electronic typewriter, and added some electronics between the keyboard and printer board. He used an Arduino microcontroller to read in each key press and relay it back over a serial port to his PC. When it receives characters back from the PC, the microcontroller emulates the keyboard to feed them into the original typewriter circuitry, causing the typewriter to print. Now, I'm not entirely sure what one could do with such a modernized typewriter, but I'll bet there are lots of potential projects there. Got any ideas?

Posted by Matt Mets | 6:00 PM in Arduino, Computers, Electronics | | Discuss (0)

Turning a motor into a sensor with the Peppermill

Nicolas Villar sent me a sample of the PepperMill, a new sensor board he and Steve Hodges designed at Microsoft Research in Cambridge, UK. It's a nifty little board. You attach a DC motor and the board can an output voltage when the motor is turned, and analog signals telling you the direction and speed of the motor. It turns a DC motor into a rotary encoder, of sorts. Read More

Maker Business: Venturing out...

Kicking off our Maker Business series is this piece by Jeffrey McGrew, who along with his wife Jillian Northrup, and their trusty CNC machine named Frank, are a two-person (and a bot) design and fabrication juggernaut. From their design-build... Read More

Exploring the business of making

For the next few months, in concert with our "Your Desktop Factory" themed issue of MAKE (Volume 21), we're going to be exploring the world of "maker business," turning your passion for making things into a means of making... Read More

Glenn Seaborg's old mailing address

The occasion of Dmitri Mendeleev's birthday seemed like a good opportunity to recognize another great hero of the periodic table and to relate one of my favorite anecdotes about him: Glenn T. Seaborg (Wikipedia), who, among his various stellar achievements, won the 1951 Nobel Prize for "discoveries in the chemistry of the transuranium elements." By the time of his death in 1999, Seaborg had participated in the discovery and isolation of ten superheavy elements. Shortly after the official 1997 recognition of the name seaborgium for element 106, writer Jeffrey Winters, writing in the January 1998 issue of Discover Magazine, made the following observation: Read More

Parabola, a wooden ball launcher

I think I could watch this ball-launching sculpture for a long time. Called parabola, it was created by Youtube user MechanicalSculptor. Read More

Math Monday: Skewer hyperboloid

Skewer hyperboloid By George Hart for the Museum of Mathematics Thirty two shish kabob skewers and 176 small rubber bands are all it takes to make a beautiful hyperbolid of revolution. This is an example of what is called... Read More

Maker Birthdays: Jules Verne

French author Jules Verne was born on this day in 1828. His father wanted him to be a lawyer and circumstances forced him to work as a stock broker, but eventually he shook off these humdrum vocations and became... Read More

Hello World hackerspace map

Bre Pettis made this "first draft" hackerspace map. Suggestions for additions, anyone?... Read More

Melting table

I'm digging this melting table by woodcarver Rob Smith. Read More

Maker Birthdays: Dmitri Mendeleev

Born on this date in 1834 in the small village of Aremzyani, in what was then considered Siberia, Dmitri Ivanovich Mendeleev would go on, in 1869, to produce the first periodic table of the chemical elements. Mendeleev used the periodicity he'd observed in the properties of then-known elements to accurately predict many of the properties of germanium, gallium, and scandium, which had not yet been discovered. Mendeleev died in St. Petersburg in 1907, at the age of 72. Element number 101 is named mendelevium in his honor. Read More

In the Maker Shed: Open Heart kit V2.0

The Open Heart kit V2.0 is a matrix of individually addressable LEDs that allow you to create customizable animations when connected to your favorite micro controller. Attach it temporarily to fabrics with headers that you simply push through, or sew it into a project with conductive fabric for a more permanent setup. It's "Charlieplexed" so you need only 6 wires to control the 27 LEDs Read More

Lego Solar Dynamics Observatory kit

One of the great things about being here at Kennedy Space Center for the launch of STS-130 is getting to meet some of the other space enthusiasts who are also here for the launch. The Space Tweep Society has... Read More

Bending with Casper Electronics

Pete Edwards does a bit of toy-megaphone turbo bending in this music video montage shot at the Casper Electronics lab. Dang - this makes me think I should start soldering to music myself! Related: How-To: Wet/dry control for a... Read More

Brilliant red dye made from insects

This article just drew my attention to the interesting story behind carmine, which is a pigment precipitated from carminic acid (shown above) extracted from the bodies of Dactylopius coccus, the so-called "cochineal" insect, of which the acid comprises up to 24% of dry body weight. The cochineal is a parasite of cacti of the genus opuntia, from which it has been harvested in South America since pre-Columbian times. It is carmine that made the "red" of the famous British "red coats," and today carmine is still produced in great quantity for use in fabric, cosmetics, and as a natural food coloring. [via Neatorama] Read More

Rachel in Space: A dream realized

Photo Courtesy CollectSPACE.com When I interviewed STS-130 Mission Specialist, Bob Behnken last week in Houston at Johnson Space Center, I asked his advice for what to expect at my first shuttle launch. He gave me three tips: First, he... Read More

Papercraft Surrogate iPad

Can't wait to cozy up to the new Apple iPad? Why not try your hand at constructing this handsome papercraft surrogate? Here's links to the front and back. It may not have access to your iTunes or eBooks like the real thing, but it does share its good looks and lack of multitasking, GPS, and camera. Read More

Assemble your own solar panel

This DIY video will run through the basics of chaining together polycrystalline cells and leaves the details like enclosure and such to the user. Read More

Bowling lane coffee table

William Stranger specializes in building furniture out of repurposed wood. I especially liked the massive coffee table whose top is a four-inch-thick slab of bowling lane. It's part of a exhibit(?) called Second Growth: A second growth forest is... Read More

 

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