Table of contents for Vol 93 - Summer 2025 in Make:

On January 12, 2010, at 4:53pm local time, a 7.0 magnitude earthquake struck Haiti, about 15 miles southwest of Port-au-Prince. The earthquake lasted less than 30 seconds. About 220,000 people were reportedly killed. Near the epicenter 80–90% of buildings were destroyed or critically damaged including hospitals, the airport, seaport, and telecoms services. The devastation was hard to imagine. Financial aid poured in from around the world. And yet, three years later little had substantially changed. Why? Is it possible that the “top down” approach of aiding underprivileged or severely damaged communities doesn’t work? POOR ARE GETTING POORER In so-called developed or “First World” countries there are robust centralized systems that provide for our infrastructure needs, including things like food, shelter, water, power, communications, and transportation. If you want light or…

In 2005 we were at the front end of a digital manufacturing revolution, where finally it was conceivable to outfit one workshop with enough CNC and hand tools to make“almost anything.” The price tag? Hundreds of thousands of dollars. What’s happened to tools in 20 years? A lot. For the average maker, now is the best time ever. The cost of precision has plummeted. New categories of desktop CNC tools and 3D printers exist. Very capable portable power tools can fill out the gaps that these can’t, and CAD-to-finishedpart services have proliferated at a very low cost. I moved to Australia in 2020 and left behind a million-dollar workshop, yet I still wanted a shop to continue my projects, professional and amateur. Starting afresh with a blank slate let me…

Light pipe clocks! You may have seen my previous fiber optic clock project (Make: Volume 84, “LED Pipe Dreams”) — well, I’m back with another! This one uses fiber optics too, but tinier ones, and it’s inspired by the beautiful look of neon Nixie tube digits. I wanted to find a way to mimic the beautiful flow of the digits’ glow and the transparent style of the tubes, but with more color and style options. Here’s the outcome: an internet-connected, fiber optic “Nixie” clock. MATERIALS & TOOLS This project is a cross-join of mediums. I used a 3D printer to print some pieces, in both PLA and TPU. I used TPU to print a ring that was flexible enough for the glass digit housing to press into snugly without causing…

I’m going to show you how to use a laser cutter, a miniature 3D-printed printing press, and p5.js to make some pretty cool optical illusion prints! For the last few years, I’ve been totally obsessed with moiré patterns. If you look for them, you’ll start to see them everywhere too. Moiré is the interference pattern that happens when two repeating patterns are superimposed on each other. I’ve seen tons of unexpected moiré patterns, but the most common ones you’ll find are parallel lines, grids, or dot patterns. In order to achieve the moiré effect, the patterns have to be regularly spaced and offset at an angle from each other. What’s interesting about moiré patterns is that they tend to really change and shift with even a slight difference in offset…

TIME REQUIRED 1–2 Hours DIFFICULTY Easy COST $10–$20 MATERIALS » Iron-on conductive fabric » Ordinary nonconductive fabric » Nonconductive material, thick and squishy like thick felt, foam, or neoprene » Alligator clip wires TOOLS » Scissors » Clothes iron » Ironing board or mat » Hot glue gun » Multimeter or conductivity tester You can buy make a simple conductivity tester following the instructions in my book, Make: Wearable Electronics, 2nd Edition. Many types of miniature switches are useful in wearable electronics, from tactile pushbuttons to lever microswitches, to tiny slide or tilt switches. But if none of these off-the-shelf switches meet your needs, you can always make your own: Arrange two conductors in such a way that they will sometimes touch and sometimes not, and you’ve got yourself a switch! DIY switches can be fully integrated…

I remember receiving a deluxe Craftsman tool set as a gift when I was in high school, giving me everything I needed to work on my Dodge Daytona Shelby Turbo Z, along with that famous lifetime warranty (that I’m not sure is valid since Stanley Black & Decker aquired the brand from Sears). Tools today are often more inexpensive, but also much cheaper — feeble screwdrivers just splinter on first contact with a screw, and flimsy toolboxes flex and groan as they open and close, if they’re not so misshapen as to barely be capable of shutting at all. It was this latter class of equipment that Michigan-based industrial designer Alex Bluhm decided to tackle head-on with his Mini Toolbox Overhaul. Starting with a small, insubstantial Kobalt toolbox from Lowe’s,…

Willy Evans admits he didn’t think his skillset was a perfect match when he applied for a mechanical technician job at Berkeley Lab. After all, this was the legendary Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, whose scientists have won 16 Nobel Prizes. “The job description was extremely broad and ranged from everything like machining to cryo,” said Evans. “Nobody’s going to have all that.” Eight years later, he runs the Engineering Division’s Additive Manufacturing Lab, using industrial 3D printers and lasers to fabricate the unique scientific contraptions that make prize-winning discoveries possible. Evans grew up on a family farm, where if something needed to be fixed, they fixed it themselves. Like a lot of kids, he’d get something new and play with it awhile, take it apart to see how it worked,…

My career never prepared me for electronics manufacturing. In 2011, I had time on my hands after leaving a biotechnology company I had helped start, and my daughter’s head of school asked if I’d help set up a new makerspace in their 6–12 grade school. As a lifelong tinkerer who believed in the importance of making in education, I jumped at the chance. I ended up staying for many years as the Resident Tinkerer. While there, I saw a persistent lack of options for students to explore hands-on electronics, engineering, and coding. So, in 2014, Lectrify was born to address this. I knew nothing about electronics manufacturing and initially didn’t worry about it, because all the Kickstarter projects launching in those days made that part look easy: simply find a…

One of the best parts of my job as a makerspace manager is teaching my students advanced robotics tools that they once assumed were way over their heads. This led me to develop a series of workshops with a simple goal: demystifying inverse kinematics! Inverse kinematics can help take animatronics, humanoid or quadruped robots, or robotic arm projects to the next level, and getting started is easier than you might think! Getting servos to move to a specific position with a microcontroller is easy, but what if we need the end of our robotic arm to move to a very specific location? With a little bit of math, we can write a program that will allow us to use any coordinate point we want as an input, and our code…

Here’s how to build a small dispenser for all kinds of cereals using just a servo, glass panes, a few screws, 3D-printed parts, and a controller. This project is a servo-powered dispenser mechanism consisting of a hopper and a dispensing bucket which can eject small portions of the loaded material. The housing is 3D printed, with glass windows, and can be made as small or large as required. By using a commercially available servo for the dispenser mechanism, we can bring the cost below $20 not including the reusable Oxocard Connect microcontroller! SERVOS ARE MAKER-FRIENDLY If you want to build something with ordinary DC motors as a maker, you quickly face various challenges. Motors need power, and they cannot be controlled directly with a microcontroller, not to mention the problem…

Did you know that millions of disposable vapes are thrown away every day? Each one of these discarded devices contains a perfectly reusable, rechargeable lithium-ion cell. What a waste! In this tutorial, we’ll walk through how to safely extract these cells, check their health, and build a 100W fast-charge power bank capable of charging devices as demanding as laptops. The best part? This power bank is designed to last indefinitely. When the cells eventually degrade, you can simply replace them with new ones harvested from other disposable vapes. Projects like this prove that one person’s trash can become another’s treasure, but also shed light on the staggering waste created by the disposable vape industry. By following this guide, you’ll learn how to combine lithium-ion cells into larger battery packs, explore…

Tell us about your faves: editor@makezine.com YY1 PCB Assembly Bundle $9,497 as tested; $3,999 for YY1 pick and place alone neodenusa.com Our makerspace just became a surface-mount technology (SMT) printed circuit board (PCB) factory overnight. While services such as PCBWay have made PCB manufacturing quick and easy, you still have to populate your board — and for under $10K, Neoden will ship you a mini factory! Neoden’s comprehensive PCBA solution arrives on a pallet. You’re going to need a significant area to unpack and house the three units. For a complex system like this, the setup process is remarkably straightforward. The stencil printer is practically ready to go out of the box, while the pick and place (PnP) just requires a few fasteners, connections, and finishing its enclosure, similar to…

While everyone was sheltering in place in 2020, a group at Berkeley Lab contemplated how to help students prepare to be the next generation of dynamic contributors to the scientific world. Combining amazing facilities, world-renowned researchers, and people ready to give back, the K–12 STEM Education Program was born. “I want students to have the opportunity to say, ‘I like this [area of science]’ or ‘actually, I don’t like this,’” said program director Faith Dukes, pictured above at Science en Acción (SeA), a free bilingual STEM camp. “Getting exposure at a younger age means they’re able to check off boxes earlier, to help them focus on what they actually find interesting.” For K–5, there are After School Science Hour virtual presentations; for middle schoolers, a suite of after-school programs both…

I’ve been a maker for as long as I can remember. As a kid I built model cars and competed in our local Soap Box Derby; later I built and raced my BMW. My mom, a talented seamstress, taught me pattern layout and sewing, which came in handy when I became a professional cabinet and furniture maker. In 1979 my wife, Ronda, and I moved to the Central Oregon Coast, where we discovered our love for kites. We began attending workshops to learn the art of kite design and construction. As we became involved with local and international kite clubs, we formed strong friendships with people from around the world. What began as a hobby grew into a business making and selling high-quality kite kits worldwide. We’ve built a global…

TIME REQUIRED: 1–2 Hours DIFFICULTY: Intermediate COST: $5–$10 MATERIALS » 3D printer filament Real Lego bricks are made of ABS, but I’ve found PLA works just fine. TOOLS » Computer with SketchUp software You can use their free, browser-based app at app.sketchup.com or get a free educational account. » 3D printer (optional) You could also send your files to a 3D printing service. When we got our first 3D printer at Clear Spring School, my students were excited about finding things on Thingiverse and printing out stuff … but after a while that’s about as exciting as watching an inkjet printer. I wanted them to design things of their own, using a basic CAD modeling tool. As a woodworker, I’d been using SketchUp, so I devised these instructions for…

Is there any form of electronic communication, these days, that is absolutely, positively secure? Yes, indeed! If you have a friend whose home or office is visible from yours, a laser beam would be difficult to intercept. The question is, how would you modulate the beam to carry your secret messages? Morse code is one answer, but if you don’t want to spend time learning to interpret dots and dashes, you could try voice encoding. Set up a microphone, audio amplifier, and transformer to vary the frequency and intensity of the laser beam, and at the receiving end, a light sensor will feed another audio amplifier, connected with a speaker (see Make: Volume 12, “Simple Laser Communicator,” makezine.com/projects/simple-laser-communicator). TIME REQUIRED: 3–4 Hours DIFFICULTY: Easy–Intermediate COST: $25–$100 MATERIALS » Red laser…

A thank you from Dale Dougherty and Make: Community We truly appreciate all those who joined Make: Community and made a financial commitment to become investors in our future. Below is a list of those who supported our community fundraising campaign on Wefunder as of November 15, 2024. Together, we can encourage the next generation to shape and build a brighter tomorrow. Let’s make it happen! Shervin A • David Abramson • Programming Electronics Academy • Thomas Adams • Roman Addokhi • Jamie Agius • Dimitri Aivaliotis Abdulaziz Alarifi • Joshua Albers • Eric Albert • James Aldrich • Ben Allen • Paolo Almario • Guillermo Angeris • Sarit Arora • Erik Ashby Cabe Atwell • Jeff Atwood • Christopher Auger-Dominguez • Marc Avery • Rick Avra • Andrew B…