Tag Archives: diy

Easy halloween project: 8-bit gourds!

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Gourds

A quick, low-tech halloween project: we hollowed out a couple of miniature decorative gourds. You can get these by the bagful at the grocery store, next to the mini-pumpkins. The one on the left had a kind of wrinkly base that adapted itself well to this shape, and the one on the right had more of a conical tip that we cut off to make a flat base.

Gourds like these have a hard shell, about 3 mm thick, that is rather hard to cut through. We used a loose drill bit (turned by hand) to make the initial cut. From there, a regular hobby knife (e.g., x-acto) works well. Once the soft flesh and seeds are scooped out, the hard shell can dry to make a semi-permanent display.

It’s unreasonably fun to walk around with one of these in each hand, reenacting the age-old chase drama. Especially when the little yellow dude chomps a big white dot. Now who’s chasing who?!?!

You can find more pumpkin projects in our Halloween Project Archive.

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MiniPOV Cylon firmware

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MiniPOV3 Cylon   MiniPOV3 Cylon head-on

The MiniPOVs were created by AdaFruit Industries. They Rebelled. They Evolved.
And now, they may be invading your front porch.

It’s an open secret that here at evilmadscientist we go both ways: analog and digital.

So, here is yet another way to get a Cylon pumpkin circuit– a useful component for halloween. (Yes, you can do KITT too, we won’t stop you.) We’ll spare you the carved pumpkins and dive right into the details.

There seem to be a lot of MiniPOV kits out there. If you’ve got one, this is a fast way to make a passable slowly-scanning eye.

Note that we are not using the “POV” part of the MiniPOV– you don’t need to wave your pumpkin back and forth; it really is just a slowly-moving image.

(You can get a MiniPOV direct from Adafruit or from the Make store, probably in time for the big day.)

This is a one minute project for some of you (you know who you are), but if you are really starting from scratch there isn’t any giant time advantage to going doing it this way instead of analog.

Once you have a working minipov, the first step is to download the firmware (4 kB .ZIP file) and unzip it. If you are programming the MiniPOV3 directly through its serial port,
pop open a terminal and move to the directory. Type (with a return after each line):

make all
make program

And… that’s it.

(If you have a GUI for programming AVRs and know how to use it, you can of course use that instead of programming through the terminal.)

If you are using some other AVR programmer or are programming a bare ATtiny2313 without a MiniPOV at all, you will need to edit the header of the included makefile to reflect the type of AVR programmer and the port where it is located. (And then, proceed with the instructions above.)

While this makes a pretty good looking pumpkin, there is still room for improvement in the firmware– the motion is reasonably smooth but doesn’t yet capture the incandescent fade that the analog versions do. I’ll leave it to the community to improve this firmware; if you have some better code, let me know and I’ll help roll it in.

Update:
Tim Charron sent in a greatly improved version of this program– please give it a try.

You can find more pumpkin related projects in our Halloween Project Archive.

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Pumpkin Spice Truffles

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Truffles

The fall holidays are fantastic ones: Halloween is all about costumes and candy and Thanksgiving is all about food. Here is how to make one of our favorite fall treats: pumpkin spice truffles. (Yum.)

To get the note-perfect flavor of traditional American pumpkin pie, we use the spice ratio from the old-standard can of Libby’s pumpkin (here is the recipe from under the label). Bittersweet chocolate has a stronger flavor than that of pumpkin, so we actually use twice the spice of a pie for a small batch (well, small for us batch) of truffles. The amazing thing is that these pumpkin-free wonders taste uncannily like pumpkin pie. Not that anyone will have trouble distinguishing your truffles and a pie, but you just might get asked, “Are these actually made with pumpkin?”
Continue reading Pumpkin Spice Truffles →

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Make your own 1952 Fraction-of-an-inch Adding Machine

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Adding Machine in case

Last weekend we took a trip to Urban Ore in Berkeley, where I found an incredible gem: this “Fraction of an Inch Adding Machine.” It’s a simple to use device that lets you add any number of fractions– from 1/64 to 63/64– quickly, automatically, correctly, and without thinking about it.

As proudly proclaimed on the bezel itself, this calculator design is covered under patent Des. 169941, submitted in 1952, and granted a 14-year term in 1953. Forty years after the patent has expired, it’s painfully obsolescent, and yet remarkably charming. The design is so simple and so obvious in how it works, and yet… there’s something almost magical about it.

But enough talk. Want to play with one? Using our pdf pattern and some office supplies, you can make a working replica in 5-10 minutes and try it out yourself!

Usage 3: First operand

Continue reading Make your own 1952 Fraction-of-an-inch Adding Machine →

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One minute project: Bike tube rubber bands

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Patch  Set of bands

Once a bike tube needs its (n+1)th repair, where nis the number of times you’re willing to fix it, you can slice up what remains, and end up with a semi-infinite stash of cool looking rubber bands.

Useful? Yup. Cheap? You bet. Quick? Yes, to the point of being trivial.
On the other hand, not only is this a fun way to recycle, but using these is the office supplies equivalent of the secret biker’s handshake– only other bikers will even notice what you’re using.
Continue reading One minute project: Bike tube rubber bands →

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Lampshade Light Tent

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vertical light tent setup
Jellybean inspects the lampshadeHere’s a cheap and easy way to deal with getting rid of pesky reflections, shadows and backgrounds in your small object photography: use a lampshade for a light tent.

This $6 lampshade from IKEA is white, nearly cylindrical, and has an adjustable (removable) mounting bracket, all of which make it easily adaptable to this purpose.

Scale disclaimer: objects in this photo are larger than they appear – the cat is unreasonably large.
Continue reading Lampshade Light Tent →

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Circuitry Snacks

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555 LED flasher 1

PCB with components   Joule thief 2

Here we present what is arguably the tastiest way to design and learn about electronic circuits: make circuitry snacks!

Two of our favorite things in the world are playing with electronics and playing with food, and so it is about time that someone finally got around to combining the two. We begin by gathering up appropriate snack-food building blocks and making food-based models of electronic components. From these components, you can assemble “circuitry snacks”– edible models of functioning electronic circuits. You can make these for fun, for dessert, for your geek friends, for kids, and for teaching and learning electronics.
Continue reading Circuitry Snacks →

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Quick hack: The $1 C-to-D adapter

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Quick C to D adapter

Here’s a common problem: You want to power your gizmo that runs on D cells, but all that you have handy are C cells.

In many (but not all) circumstances, you can solve this problem by using the C cell and making up the battery length difference with a few quarters– typically three or four. There is a 12 mm length difference between a C cell and a D cell, and quarters are about 2 mm thick, so if your gizmo has a really weak spring it could take up to six quarters to do the job.

Yes, commercial battery size adapters are available.

They typically cost between 1.5 and three dollars and can only be used for the one purpose– adapting battery sizes. (Well, that, and as a set of matryoshki.) Using quarters can also potentially end up costing as much as $1.50, but it can go straight back into your wallet when you’re finished! Much more importantly, when you really need it, you can probably find a few quarters no further away than your pocket.

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Make a peepmobile

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Ready to roll!

Here’s how to take your left over Marshmallow Peeps, add a few components, and make them into pimped-out peepmobiles.

Okay, so Easter has come and gone. Really gone. And if you’re like us, you didn’t eat all of your Peeps. Have they gone bad by now? Probably not. As it turns out, the yellow chick-shaped Peeps are made all year long to build up enough supply for each easter, so the ones that you get for Easter could *already* be a year old. (So why can’t you buy them all year long? You can… you just have to know where to look.)

Even if you’re still saving your Chicks to eat them later, you’re not alone. The official Peeps site has a poll up asking whether you like your Peeps “Fresh from the package or aged to perfection.” According to the results so far, a full 12% of peepeaters like to wait six months or more.

However, we seem to be digressing. Let’s just go ahead and assume that you weren’t going to eat all of them. Then whatever’s left, you can make into Peepmobiles.
Continue reading Make a peepmobile →

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