10 DIY Thanksgiving Mason Jar Ideas
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Thanksgiving is coming up quick! If you’re looking for last minute DIY decor ideas, here are some that using mason jars. Mason jars are great for crafting because of all the things you can do with them! You can paint them, stuff them, hang them, and give them as gifts. And since there are lots of fun things involving painting, baking, and making, you can even get the kids involved too!
Posted by wpengine | Friday November 21st, 2014 11:01 AM
Categories: Art & Design, Craft, Food & Beverage, Home, Kids & Family | Comments Off on 10 DIY Thanksgiving Mason Jar Ideas
Ambulance Drones Could Change The Future For Cardiac Arrest Patients
Within the next five years, the chance of survival from cardiac arrest could rise from an 8 percent survival rate to 80 percent due to drones. Graduate student Alec Momont of Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands designed an unmanned, autonomously navigating hexacopter that can deliver a defibrillator to a scene in less than half the time it takes an ambulance to arrive.
The drone would track the patients location from their mobile phone signal and use GPS to get to the location. Because most deaths from cardiac arrest occur within the first four to six minutes due to brain death, the time it takes to arrive on scene is crucial. These ambulance drones can get to a patient within an almost five-square-mile zone within one minute. Essentially a “medical toolbox”, the drone is equipped with medical equipment that anyone can use. Via a live stream webcam and audio connection, the drone connects to an emergency operator who can see what is going on at the scene and provide the person there with instructions on how to apply the defibrillator.
For more information on the future of this project, click here.
Posted by wpengine | Friday November 21st, 2014 7:01 AM
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10 Terrific Trebuchets
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Hurling objects at long distances with a catapult or trebuchet isn’t anything new (they were being used in their modern form since the 4th century BC) but it sure is fun and certainly satisfying when they actually hit a target. Most of the catapults today were designed for educational (historical recreations) or recreation purposes using everything from pumpkins (the annual Pumpkin Chunking contest) to vehicles as projectiles.
Actually, believe it or not, they are still being used in modern warfare today with Syrian rebels using a makeshift catapult to launch explosives at government troops in the Battle of Aleppo (in 2013) and rioters in the Ukraine used them to launch Molotov cocktails during the Hrushevskoho street riots of this year.
No matter what they’re being utilized for one thing is certain- catapults and trebuchets are making a comeback, especially with the homemade DIY maker community. Collected here are a few of the more unique and interesting takes on the age-old hurling contraption designed by the maker community
If you want to build your own, there does just happen to be a Trebuchet kit available in the Maker Shed.
Posted by wpengine | Friday November 21st, 2014 5:01 AM
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Eric Huebsch’s Humorous Blinking Rock Sculpture
It’s amazing how a simple thing, like adding a pair of blinking eyes to an otherwise inanimate object, can really personify it. Then set the mood with a powerful love song, like Cher’s “If I Could Turn Back Time,” and this blinking rock sculpture by artist Eric Huebsch just can’t help but look a little bit sentimental.
I was so amused by Huebsch’s sculpture that I got in touch with him to ask exactly how he made it and how it worked. He kindly informed me that the “rocks” were made from foam that he covered in an epoxy paste before he painted them. The large rock is hollow and contains the Arduino-controlled eye mechanism, which is triggered by a motion detector.
While I was working on the placement of the eyes inside the rock that Cher song came through my iPod shuffle and I started cracking up as the rock was staring and blinking up at me.
There’s just something delightful about seeing a rock look so affected by listening to rock music.
[via Lustik]
Posted by wpengine | Thursday November 20th, 2014 4:01 PM
Categories: Arduino, Art & Design | 2 Comments on Eric Huebsch’s Humorous Blinking Rock Sculpture
Talkin’ Tinkering with the Masters of Automata
Keith Newstead’s pieces “In the Garden with Charlie” and “Sing Cats Heads”
The Exploratorium Tinkering Studio invites all of you to join a Hangout this Friday, November 21st from 9am to 10:30am (Pacific time) to talk about one of their true specialties—Automata!—with some of their favorite masters of this art/technology.
plus.google.com/events/cfbmcijvp0a72ba6080c0s58s7o
Joining the Tinkering Studio team will be a star-studded group:
- artist Keith Newstead (whose pieces are at the top of this post)
- Gautham and Vanya from Srishti School of Art, Design and Technology
- Monika and Allan from Lawrence Hall of Science
- Brooke from Oakland’s International High School
While this will be tailored mostly for those who are teaching others to make automata, anyone and everyone is welcome. Karen from the Tinkering Studio writes:
We’re huge fans of automata here in the Tinkering Studio and think we could dedicate several hangouts to this topic alone, since it’s such rich territory for exploration. It’s one of those activities we think holds tremendous potential for making and tinkering, but isn’t the easiest one to facilitate in an open and “tinkerable” way — that’s why we think it’s worth thinking more about.
You’ll hear from an interesting mix of people, who will share their experiences working with automata in different contexts and thinking about the educational implications. We have a rough outline of what we’ll cover below, but it’s likely to change based on where collective interest takes us.
This hangout will be useful to both education and exhibit folks and those with an interest in arts education in general (think STEAM).
On the agenda:
- Material possibilities / wire, cardboard, trash, flotsam, food
- The importance of examples – figuring out what the right selection is
- Automata Workbench: An interactive exhibit prototype
- Trying to move it away from being step-by-step
- Mini-revelations related to construction
- Transition from intensive workshop to doing it on the floor
- Automata artists
- Training someone else to facilitate the activity
- The tradeoffs in terms of creativity
- Automata as part of arts education
- Incorporating circuitry and linkages
Participate
This promises to be a visual delight. Join live or if you have to miss it, watch the recorded archive.
To be able to ask questions live, use the Google+ event page. You’ll need a Google+ account to participate.
Or view the hangout via YouTube, but viewers won’t be able to ask questions of the presenters.
Posted by wpengine | Thursday November 20th, 2014 9:01 AM
Categories: Art & Design, Craft, Education, Fun & Games, Kids & Family, Woodworking | Comments Off on Talkin’ Tinkering with the Masters of Automata
DIY Backyard Ice Rink
If you’ve got the open space in a large backyard, freezing cold temperatures, and a love for ice skating, you could make you own ice rink. Imgur user legojerry created his own with lumber and polyethylene plastic.
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Using 2×4s for the perimeter, he first laid them all out to create his outline. He used 50 1″×2″×18″ stakes for stability, and 1×4s on all of the seams for added strength, inserting the screws from the inside and screwing them in flush so that they wouldn’t interfere with the liner. To correct the 5½ inch incline of his yard, he added 7/16″ oriented strand board to add height, since water self levels and since it was such a large level difference. After it is all inserted and screwed in, you can add the plastic liner. He used 6 mil 20’×45′ polyethylene plastic, but adds that a bigger liner would ensure at least a foot of excess on each side of the boards.
Posted by wpengine | Thursday November 20th, 2014 8:19 AM
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3D Printer Testing at America Makes: An Old-Fashioned American Shootout
The Make: 3D printer testing team
America Makes Founding Director Ralph Resnick and Make's Dale Dougherty
The Make: team discusses the findings after testing wraps up
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During the 2013 State of the Union Address, President Obama referenced the National Additive Manufacturing Innovation Institute (NAMII) in Youngstown, Ohio as a new program to look at for economic inspiration. A year and a half later, Make: chose to conduct its annual 3D-printer tests at their location as a way to help connect a traditional manufacturing community with the Maker Movement.
For more on 3D printing, check out Make: Volume 42.
Don’t have this issue? Get it in the Maker Shed.
Located inside a once-shuttered furniture factory, the institute, renamed America Makes in October 2013, honors the city’s industrial past while embracing a technological future. Aiming to become a center point of research and development for the rapid-moving world of 3D printing, it teaches its workers to be experts in all areas of additive manufacturing — from desktop to industrial — while offering knowledge and facilities to companies and universities who are looking to bolster their capabilities.
As promised, the venue and its collection of top-level machines, able to turn powdered metal or nylon into anything from rocket nozzles to windmills, is very inspiring. After our weekend of testing, America Makes’ founding director Ralph Resnick opened the doors to the public. The look of excitement on the faces of the visitors, many of them hopeful for an economic resurgence in the Steel Valley, made it clear that the program is headed in the right direction.
Posted by wpengine | Thursday November 20th, 2014 7:02 AM
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AgIC Will Make Your Conductive Ink Sketches Erasable
It’s extremely fun to draw circuits with conductive ink markers, but what happens when you accidentally draw a short circuit?
Rather than starting all over, AgIC aims to save your masterpiece with their latest product, the Erasable Circuit Marker. Their latest Kickstarter makes revising paper circuits as easy as correcting pencil sketches.
Eliminate short circuits and make those cat ears glow!
Perhaps the most exciting hallmark of this eraser is that it will encourage Makers to draw their craziest circuits without fear of failure. Even the eraser’s origin began as a crazy accident– AgIC teammates were curious to see what happened when 12 Volts were applied to their conductive ink. As described on their Kickstarter:
“We tested how much high voltage we could put on a trace drawn by the Circuit Marker. However, when 12V was applied, a spark happened on conductive trace and that part of the trace was removed!”
(They suggest users NOT to do this.)
Figuring that a high voltage pen would probably be a bad idea, they eventually settled on a water-based solution.
(As a sign of their other awesome crazy ideas, AgIC created paper speakers by hooking up a conductive drawing to a power amp and some magnets; apparently, this is also available as a Kickstarter award!)
Posted by wpengine | Wednesday November 19th, 2014 3:01 PM
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The Fortress of Sugar Crystals
An ordinary jar of sugar crystals were being grown by Maika of Geyser of Awesome until she transformed it into a sweet, little Fortress of Solitude with the simple addition of a small Superman figurine.
Remember those sugar crystals I started growing over the summer? They grew so numerous and large that I couldn’t bring myself to destroy my little science experiment and eat them. Instead I just bought a wee Superman figurine and positioned him inside what is clearly a tiny Fortress of Solitude.
If you’d like to try and grow a miniature Fortress of Solitude of your own, rock candy is a great project to make with kids from just a few common household items. Unfortunately for Superman, all it takes is a little blue food coloring, and those rock candy crystals could look a lot like kryptonite!
Posted by wpengine | Wednesday November 19th, 2014 2:01 PM
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