We’d like to welcome listeners to today’s Science Friday show. We’re a small company that blogs about cool DIY projects and sells hobby electronic kits. You can find our archive of Halloween projects here, and our store is here.
Update: the Larson Scanner kit mentioned on the show is here, and the Snap-O-Lantern kit is here.
This week on the NPR radio show Science Friday, our co-founder, Windell Oskay, will be talking with Ira Flatow about Halloween hacks and projects and will likely be taking calls from listeners. Find out how to listen online and what radio stations will be broadcasting in your area. The show airs live from 2-4 p.m. Eastern Time (11 a.m. to 1 p.m. Pacific) and Windell should be on around 3:30 p.m. Eastern (12:30 p.m. Pacific).
Our archive of Halloween projects and hacks can be found here.
Update: Here’s the audio from the segment:
We’ve put together a roundup of our simplest LED projects; easy things to put together mostly with a bare LED and a coin cell.
Pictured above, Basics: Simple LED Pumpkins
How to hack LEDs into Lego minifigures for Halloween, and LED Ghosties for Halloween
LED-lit sea urchin shells, RoboGames Awards
Picking resistors for LEDs and Some thoughts on throwies
Quick, easy, temporary, and beautiful LED garden lights
Paper Circuitry at Home: Electric Origami, and the Soft circuitry merit badge
Edge-lit holiday cards and part II, Refining edge-it holiday cards
Just in time for the Fourth of July, Jeremiah Warren created an incredible relatively low-budget “bullet time” rig— with a 240 fps GoPro camera mounted to a ceiling fan —to photograph fireworks. He posted a full writeup showing how to build it on his web site.
The clever hack about using the GoPro on the ceiling fan is thanks to Mark Rober, who showed how to do it back in May, mostly with smaller-scale subjects. But Jeremiah has taken the idea and run with it, adapting it for larger-scale photography.
And as you can see, the results are simply fantastic.You can find more videos and the full how-to on Jeremiah’s site.
In anticipation of the upcoming father’s day holiday, we’ve put together a little gift guide with selections from our store. We’re also putting all of these items on sale now through June 12: just enter coupon code “VADER” in the shopping cart to receive 10% off.
First up is the Digi-Comp II, First Edition. It’s perfect for teaching the basics of binary math to kids and parents alike.
The Alpha Clock Five kit, in original Red Edition, the gleaming White Edition, or the brand-new Blue Edition, is the perfect clock for the discerning hobbyist. It’s eminently hackable and full-featured, with digits big enough to see across even the largest of garages or just next to the bed before you put your glasses on.
For someone expanding their electronic horizons, or working a ton of projects at once, our Diavolino Starter Packs, and AVR Starter Packs will keep them happily busy.
Our Octolively Modules would make an excellent addition to a furniture or remodeling project.
The Art Controller is a modern take on an old classic, perfect for someone with plenty of project ideas who just needs an occasional trigger.
Tools are always a great gift choice, and anyone would be proud to own our ESD-Safe Screwdriver Sets. Another great workbench addition would be our Standard LED Assortment.
The Egg-Bot started out as a way for one father used to show his family how cool it could be to play with stepper motors. Both The Original Egg-Bot Kit and the Ostrich Egg-bot are on sale.
The father’s day sale runs through June 12: enter coupon code “VADER” in the shopping cart to receive 10% off these items.
Happy Father’s Day!
Over at Made With Molecules, our friend Raven has published a set of excellent free downloadable Dopamine Day valentines. From the back:
Celebrate Dopamine Day on Feb 14 by engaging in activities that increase your dopamine, like adventure, fantasy, friends, and chocolate.
If you’re anything like us, you’ve at some point come across supposedly-nerdy valentines and thought to yourself, “A real geek would have used an equation to express that sentiment.” And if so, have we have got just the thing for you!
Here’s our collection of six little valentine cards, each of which adds a little authenticity and class to the not entirely uncommon “geek” valentine genre.
Suppose that you want to communicate to your valentine just how hot you think they are. Sure, you could go with a picture of a thermometer— or a Sriracha bottle —but isn’t the thermodynamic definition of temperature itself in a whole category of its own?
And what better way to say “I love you,” than with the gift of trigonometric identities?
You can download the original file here (260 kB .PDF document).
Print it out on (or otherwise affix to) card stock, and [some steps omitted] enjoy the resulting lifelong romance.
Update: New cards have been released! Please check out the 2019 set, which contains all 42 cards from 2013 through 2019.
AJ Fisher posted an incredibly thorough write-up about his Twitter/Raspberry Pi/Arduino controlled LED lit Eggbot decorated Christmas tree ornaments. Each ornament would light up when twitter keywords represented by their icons were being used.
In the words of a friend of ours, “It makes me feel as though there are people all over the world celebrating with their family and friends just like we are, and you’ve brought them all into the room with us” – and if that’s not what doing this sort of technology is all about then I don’t know what is.
The article includes techniques he used, links to his code, source vector art, and so much more.
Mission Objective: Use robotic (CNC) tools to make snowflakes. By any means necessary.
Timeframe: One day.
Resources: Our Snowflake 2.0 application. Laser cutter. Vinyl cutter. CNC router. Industrial embroidery machine. For raw materials, scrap on hand.
We’re not sure what it it is about Hanukkah that brings out the Star Trek fans, but they’re back. First, Joyce brings us an updated TNG hanukiah. Joyce was one of those responsible for the epic menorah we posted about in 2009. The LED on the Enterprise is being worked on–we think they may have a problem with their dilithium crystals.
Next, VanEdge posted this menorah in the forums. Both of these fine examples are based on Pez dispensers, which seem to be a handy size for holiday hacking, particularly when combined with our LED Menorah kit.
Happy Hanukkah to you both, and thank you for sharing your projects!
