MIT researcher Skylar Tibbits and his students are working on a way to make Buildings that assemble themselves. By embedding computers into the bricks and other building materials the structural components will be able to communicate the design intent to each piece so that they can collaborate on achieving the desired form.
Skylar Tibbit’s research involves using natural structures like proteins and DNA as the models for his proposed building blocks. To be successful each cell must have (more…)
Photo: Make.com
I admire people who tackle big projects with everyday items. Arthur Sacek built a DIY Lego 3D CNC milling machine completely from Lego. Sacek is a member of Brazil’s ZOOM Education for Life, a 13-year-old company that is developing innovative learning projects in cooperation with LEGO Education. Sacek made his Mini CNC milling machine using parts from LEGO Mindstorms NXT 2.0 building system. Lego Mindstorms kits are being used in schools all around the world to introduce children to robotics. The NXT 2.0 bloq is an intelligent microprocessor that provides an easy to use programming interface which allow drag and drop programming to make things move. Arthur Sacek built every piece of the machine using LEGO parts with the exception of the (more…)
First view of the test batch of Makerslide Extrusions.
Kickstarter backers of the Makerslide project got their first glimpse of the sample batch of Makerslide extrusion. Makerslide extrusions are a low cost alternative for creating bearing surfaces for CNC machine building. Project founder Barton Dring posted pictures of two 4′ long sections of the material on his kickstarter project page. These are samples from the second test of the die created for this project. The first test pieces from the die needed a slight modification but the current batch is perfect. “I have tested some carriages on them and they (more…)
I am making a pilgrimage to the Detroit Makers Faire. This will be my first event after reading about them for years. Hopefully this will live up to my expectations.
I will post more when I have Internet access.
RobotGrrl Erin Kennedy has pushed back another barrier to easy Robotics. This talented teen is using an iPad to control her Arduino powered Robot RoboBrrd‘s servos. RobotGrrl created an iPad app which will allow her to feed her Feather covered robotic bird using the iPad tablet’s touch screen. Dragging virtual fruit to RoboBrrds beak on the iPad display causes the actual robot to flap his wings and make eating sounds including a burp if he eats too much.
RoboBrrd is a sophisticated Robot made from Popsicle sticks and pencils. Kennedy designed RoboBrrd to be a fun introduction to robotics that anyone could build. The Robot was originally designed for (more…)
