Table of contents for Vol 88 - Spring 2024 in Make:

MADE ON EARTH Know a project that would be perfect for Made on Earth? Let us know: editor@makezine.com WALTER, MONICA, CLYDE & TALULAH DILLUHLSIONAL.COM/AIRFLOAT In 2012, Walter Dill found a 1956 Airflow Land Yacht in Atascadero, California, gave it the name Talulah, and set to work renovating it. He used his box truck Clyde to haul it to Whidbey Island in Washington and then to New Albany, Indiana, where it currently resides. “The first task upon returning home was removing the skin,” said Walter. “Much of the wood frame was rotted. I removed all the existing wall structure and replaced it with structural panels called Sing Core panels.” The electrical and plumbing were ripped out, as well as appliances. “We had to start from scratch,” said Walter. The original trailer…

A few years ago in 2020, my dad showed me this great YouTube video called "Precious Plastic — The Story Behind” (youtu.be/EPA2l1bi2pQ). We were inspired by the Dutch grad student who created the video, Dave Hakkens, after hearing him talk about the plastics problem. He told us how there was plastic waste all over the world. Globally only about 10% of the plastic we put in the recycle bin actually gets reused. The vast majority of it goes into our landfills, streets, oceans, and even into our bodies — according to a study commissioned by the World Wildlife Fund, the average American consumes up to a credit card’s worth of plastic every week. And, CO2 levels everywhere in the world are rising, accelerating climate change. My friends and I wanted…

For as long as FDM/FFF 3D printers have existed, we’ve been trying to find ways to make our prints colorful. You can read about the existing landscape of multicolor systems on page 28, but once you get a printer, there’s still a lot to consider. While machines like the Bambu Labs printers with Automatic Material System (AMS) are pretty amazing, they waste a lot of material and time. Consider for a moment that every color change takes about a minute and spits out a “poop,” and this can happen several times per layer. Because of these issues, it may still be to your benefit to approach multicolor more like we used to in the old days, by basically ripping our models apart and printing the parts separately. Let’s look at…

DIGIFAB: 3D-Printed Casts Makers often look at a problem and think, I can fix that. But not many follow through to the point of creating a business, especially in a highly regulated industry. Diana Hall pulled off that sequence in about a year after recognizing a problem potentially solvable with a 3D printer. It started when Hall was volunteering for an organization that supported children who were victims of abuse. Some of these children had broken bones, and often were in temporary living situations where hygiene was a problem. Their plaster casts got wet and dirty, leading to other health issues. She wondered if 3D-printed casts would be a possibility. Trained as a chemical engineer, with an MBA and professional software experience, she knew just jumping into manufacturing was unlikely…

With all the hubbub around generative AI, it isn’t a stretch to start wondering in what new areas of making we might see this stuff proliferate. You can easily have ChatGPT write text for you or analyze your writing. You can instruct Midjourney, Dall-E, and other image generators to draw highly detailed, pixel-perfect creations in a variety of styles. What about 3D printing though? Can you type into a text box and obtain the perfect custom 3D printable model? Right now the answer is: kind of. However, in the very near future, that answer might be a resounding yes. As of winter 2023–24, there really aren’t any systems advertised with the intent of 3D printing, so I’ll talk about the general concept of text to 3D model. This goal was…

Yes, you read that right. A tin of ham can indeed be transformed into a ham radio antenna. In the DIY world, where creativity intersects with utility, the question isn’t “Can it be done?” but “How can we make it happen?” This ethos is at the heart of my latest project in my ham radio journey: I am showcasing my adventures as a newly minted ham radio operator less than a year into having my license, on my YouTube channel Ham Radio Rookie, youtube.com/@VE6SFX_HamRadioRookie. "WILL IT HAM?" This project started as a tongue-in-cheek dare from my friend Marshall. At a gathering, he asked if I could “turn anything into an antenna,” referencing my videos where I had already transformed duct tape into a J-pole style antenna for a handset. In…

FEATURES MFBA 2023 Fantastic,” I heard someone call out, on the sixth and final day of Maker Faire Bay Area, as makers were packing up, ready to take their creations back home. Keith Johnson was climbing on Jon Sarriugarte’s Project Empire, the enormous, bright green space vehicle, and as I got closer, Keith hollered out: “Maker Faire was fantastic.” I was happy to hear that. I was happy to see the relaunch of Maker Faire Bay Area at Mare Island and hear that everybody loved the new waterfront venue. I was happy that so many makers returned who had been at Maker Faire before as well as a whole group of first-time makers. Keith Johnson and Merrilee Proffitt, who brought their Cupcake Cars to earlier Maker Faires in San Mateo,…

Makers, meet Makey Mark! I’ve turned Make:’s mascot, Makey the robot, into a 3D-printed benchmark object for testing various qualities of 3D printers and filament types. Inspired by features on other benchmark objects, Makey Mark adopts some of those characteristics while keeping the classic robot’s look. For example, the arms have a surface that ends in an edge, creating a shape with a round bottom and a triangular top. This mimics the bow of the classic 3D Benchy boat benchmark object, incorporating the iconic surface quality test into Makey’s design. Here are some of the tests that Makey Mark is good for: 1 Warping from the flat base 2 Stringing between vertical surfaces 3 Layer adhesion (durability of arms) 4 Overhangs 5 Bridging 6 Round and spherical surfaces 7 Sloped surface quality (like Benchy’s bow) 8 Tolerance…

PET is a fantastic plastic for 3D printing— it’s tough, dimensionally and thermally stable, foodapproved, and has a glass-like transparency (see Make: Volume 85, “Transparent 3D Prints”). PET is also one of the main waste plastics littering the planet, in the form of beverage bottles. Luckily there’s a creative community of 3D printing fans who are dedicated to recycling waste PET into new printer filament. PET pultrusion is our method of measuring a plastic PET #1 bottle’s thickness, stripping it down to the appropriate width, and then pulling that strip through a heated 1.75mm diameter nozzle, reforming it into usable raw PET1 printer filament (Figure A ). It’s the easiest, most affordable way to make DIY 3D filament at home! Filament is commonly made by extrusion — a machine augers…

Whether you want to make a robot that can navigate your room, a creature that responds to your movements, or a gadget that can recognize your voice, you can build it with household materials and an inexpensive micro:bit mini computer — and then train an external AI to give your project extra smarts and capabilities, enabling it to react to the world around it. YOUR FIRST ANIMATRONIC Have you ever noticed how some robots look and act in realistic ways, like people or animals? You can see these used often in movies and at theme parks. These are called animatronics — or more simply, mechanical puppets controlled by lots of electronics (and even more code). While we may not be able to build something as sophisticated as a theme park…

The spinning Weather Bird wind vane points to tomorrow’s forecast! But how does it know? HOW IT WORKS As warm and cold fronts cycle around lowpressure areas, they create likely sequences of clouds and wind directions. If you can figure out where you are in these swirling weather patterns, you’ll have a pretty good guess as to what weather will come next. In this toy, the panel of cloud wheels is designed from tables of observed clouds and wind directions. Look up: If you see high, wispy clouds with winds from the north, then fair and cool weather is ahead! Why? Because you’re likely located west of a counter-clockwisespinning low-pressure system with a cold front already past you. Keep in mind these tables are made for weather patterns in the…

3D printers, CNCs, laser cutters, and other devices that move a toolhead around under digital control have become a major focus of maker activity over the last couple of decades. Often lost in the discussion of digital fabrication is a tool with a massive and extremely active user base: stencil cutters (Figure A). Often referred to as vinyl cutters due to the most commonly cut material, these tools are sold by the millions to makers, crafters, scrapbookers, DIYers, and professionals. Desktop craft cutters like Cricut and Silhouette have been sold in retail outlets far longer than 3D printers. Wide-format vinyl cutters have been a mainstay of sign-making companies around the world. The tool that these machines move is technically referred to as a drag knife — a sharp pointed blade…

Hardware builds are seldom described as “touchable,” “cuddly,” or “cute,” but I’ve found that embedding programmable electronics in soft accessories like handbags (“Bag to the Future,” Make: Volume 87) and pillows (“Pixelblaze Pillows,” Volume 83) produces projects with surprising tactile and visual appeal. Inspired by some clever and creative robot builders, I’ve experimented with placing controllers and peripherals inside plush sewing patterns to create soft, interactive companion bots. The results have been irresistibly cute and undeniably cuddly. Make: has interviewed several talented makers whose companion robot builds started me down this path, and whose palpable enthusiasm provided the incentive to follow in their footsteps. Creator Jorvon Moss (makezine.com/article/digital-fabrication/me-and-my-robot-odd-jayy- interview) has designed an entire collection of clever robots with engaging personalities. Video host and hardware maker Alex Glow built an owl…

TIME REQUIRED: 30 Minutes DIFFICULTY: Easy COST: $20–$60 Per Table MATERIALS » End table with approx. 12"×15" top for frame, such as Target 53107499 or Amazon B0B58PQX2S » Cutting board, approx. 12"×15" or bigger such as Target 87712370 » Wood screws, 1" (4) » Washers (4) » Wax, oil, or polyurethane finish TOOLS » Drill » Punch or awl » Screwdriver » Paintbrush » Very fine sandpaper, 220 grit Stroll into any Target and you’ll find beautiful wooden cutting boards with a tragic future: Most buyers will slash at them with knives, splatter them with food juices, and then toss the scarred wood in the trash. But these boards are a great source of quality wood for DIY projects. In just a few minutes, I replaced the plasticky tops of two end tables with gorgeous acacia hardwood. The…

Ceramics are an ancient material, but we think of them as high-tech when it comes to 3D printing. However, as with many 3D printing techniques, what used to be a high-tech industrial process is starting to become accessible to the garage enthusiast. And if you’re already creating and firing ceramic pieces, you may have a lot of what you need already. There are two fundamental types of 3D printable ceramics. In one case, clay is directly printed with a special-purpose paste printer. In the other, you print “ceramic” filament with clay particles embedded in a plastic carrier or binder, and you need to “debind” out the plastic before firing the piece. There is also a (challenging) resin printer version of this latter method. In all these scenarios, a standard kiln…

Prusa XL (With 5 Toolheads) $3,999 as tested prusa3d.com The Prusa XL is Prusa Research’s much-awaited large, multi-head, Core XY printer that has been in development for quite some time. With up to five independent tool heads, you can use multiple extruder sizes or even work with multiple materials in a print area of 360×360×360mm. Multi-Material, Multicolor Despite the name, the biggest selling point of this printer isn't the size. The XL is for all intents and purposes the first commercial printer with a tool changer built in. Some have existed but not on this scale commercially. During my tests, I found the print quality to be outstanding, easily on par with or even better than my Prusa MK4, which was previously my most precise and high quality machine. Printing…

OVER THE TOP Standard pianos use steel core wire wrapped in copper, aka piano wire, to get the standard notes you’re probably familiar with. The added mass of the copper lowers the resulting tone, so you can get a lower tone from a shorter string than with just the steel core wire. But how long would the strings need to be without that copper wrapping? As a student, Adrian Mann wanted to know, and it kicked off a passion for pianos that continues to this day. From its inception in October 2005 to its first concert in April 2009, Mann’s Alexander Piano took four and a half years to create. The piano measures 18 feet 9 inches (5.7m) long, with the longest bass string stretching to roughly 15 feet 3…