This week on Maker Update, a round-up of the best pandemic themed projects of 2020, and some of the maker trends that defined the year.

++Show Notes [Maker Update #213]++

-=Favorite Pandemic Projects of 2020=-

Mask Launcher by Allen Pan
https://youtu.be/pa6BlJlrL-k

Scrubber Plays Spotify Jams While You Wash Your Hands by Deep Local
https://github.com/Deeplocal/scrubber

Manic Toilet Paper Shopping Simulator by Jelle Vermandere
https://blog.arduino.cc/2020/04/22/manic-toilet-paper-shopping-simulated-with-arduino/

I made a robot to cut my hair with scissors by Shane Wighton
https://youtu.be/7zBrbdU_y0s

Gigantic pumpkin dispenses candy at the push of a button by Brankly
https://blog.arduino.cc/2020/10/21/gigantic-pumpkin-dispenses-candy-at-the-push-of-a-button/

Astable Exhalation by Bornach
https://hackaday.io/project/175570-astable-exhalation

Wobble Sphere by Robin Baumgarten
https://wobblylabs.com/projects/wobblesphere

Plywood Indoor Swing by Laura Kampf
https://youtu.be/okF7YDdi0EM

Simone Giertz built herself a proud parent
https://youtu.be/M1B3gATS0GE

The Highcycle – Social Distance Bike by colinfurze
https://youtu.be/vZFDNR9V5Nc

-=Top Trends of 2020=-

Cyberdecks, Book Nooks, Open Source Medical Supplies

-=Tips & Tools=-

Best of 2020 – Adafruit Edition
https://makerprojectlab.com/2020-besties-maker-update-adafruit-edition/

2020 Holiday ornament. by Gabriel Nagmay
https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:4670812

Transcript

This week on Maker Update, a round-up of the best pandemic themed projects of 2020, and some of the maker trends that defined the year.

Hey, I’m Donald Bell, here with the last Maker Update of the year. And oh, what a year it was. After doing this so long, I sometimes get jaded seeing the same kinds of projects come up again and again. This was not that kind of year. This was a year for projects I would have never imagined.

So here, in no particular order, are my favorite pandemic-themed maker projects of 2020. You can find links to them all down in the description.

I will start things off with arguably the most — I want to say viral, but let’s say popular — project of the year, Allen Pan’s mask launcher. 

Fed up seeing people willfully walking around without a mask on, back in August Allen created a functional, if not accurate mask gun. 

As a maker what made this project great was getting to know the CO2 solenoid valves Allen used to propel his mask, plus the next-level Macguyvering he did on using brake line adapters as pneumatic tubing.

But as a considerate, science-trusting, pro-mask American, what made this project was how Allen was able to bring attention to our frustration using his energetic mix of humor and mad science.

One of the earliest, brilliant, pandemic themed projects of the year came from the design studio Deep Local. Scrubber is an off the shelf soap dispenser that’s been hacked to play 20 seconds of music pulled from your favorite Spotify playlists. 

The idea is to find a fun way to encourage people to clean their hands for the recommended 20 seconds to help prevent the spread of viruses. 

The project uses an inexpensive Raspberry Pi Zero W board outfitted with an Adafruit Speaker Bonnet for music playback. 

But the most valuable section of the project (which is all on Github) is learning how to create your own Spotify app to run on the Pi, trigger from an input and run for a selected amount of time. That’s a trick that could come in handy on other projects.

Another project from earlier in the year when everyone was freaking out and hoarding toilet paper, is this custom-controlled video game by Jelle Vermandere. It’s called Manic Toilet Paper Shopping Simulator. 

It was created in Unity and can be run, right now, straight from your browser. The Arduino-based wireless shopping cart controller isn’t required to run the game, it certainly enhances the toilet paper shopping realism. 

After learning the true value of toilet paper this year, we also learned the value of a good haircut. In an effort towards self-sufficiency, Shane Wighton created this complex and insanely dangerous haircutting robot.

The idea is that you stick your head up into the ring and the scissor-wielding robot arm rotates around, grabs a chunk of your hair, and trims it. As a bonus, Shane gave it the gift of small talk.

As silly as it may sound, this was one of the most intricate engineering challenges I saw all year. Getting a robot to sense and understand the edges of your oddly shaped skull, and then apply just the right amount of force to clamp and trim your hair. It’s way beyond me. 

But what I remember most from this video is that it was the first time I understood the appeal of a CNC plasma cutter, combined with a metal brake to bend the metal into custom shapes. The result looks so professional, even if it’s on a crazy mullet-making robot.

Another problem we had to solve this year was how to give out candy for Halloween without giving out a virus with it. Long PVC tubes were the most common and most practical answer. But my favorite idea was this footswitch activated, candy dispensing pumpkin by Brankly. 

Using an Arduino Nano and a motorized turntable, this system pushes out just the right amount of candy and the retracts just enough to loosen the next batch. 

The genius here is that the whole rig is designed to fit inside a 5-gallon bucket. So not only is it good for halloween, but you can adapt it for all kinds of other projects and just change the exterior.

Moving from the practical to the profound, one of my favorite pieces of engineered art this year is this circuit sculpture from Bornach. It’s called Astable Exhalation and it was part of the Hackaday Circuit Sculpture contest this year.

Not only is it stunning and all hand bent and soldered, but the lights are all animated using just discrete components. There are no microcontrollers or code involved. If you’re curious to see how it all works, the project page includes a detailed circuit diagram.

For a sculpture that’s more interactive and definitely hits the COVID theme on the head, check out Robin Baumgarten’s Wobble Sphere. 

This is a ball of printed circuit boards that are all wired together and connect up to a Teensy 4.0 microcontroller, which gets instructions from a computer over USB. 

The 60 hexagon sections of the design include an addressable LED ring and a door stopper spring wired up to respond to touch. Add them up, and you have 1,152 LEDs, 72 springs and one of the trippiest objects ever created.

We saw some clever woodworking projects this year too. One of my favorites was Laura Kampf’s indoor swing. 

I’m not sure if she meant for this to be a quarantine project — maybe it’s just something nice to have when it’s cold outside — but let’s go with it. Sure it’s dangerous, but when you’re going squirrely from being stuck inside, it’s a fun diversion that also doubles as a pull-up bar and can store the swing out of the way.

Simone Giertz predictably made some awesome, silly stuff this year. My favorite is her proud parent machine. 

Especially right now around the holidays, we’re all dealing with a certain amount of disconnection from our families. How much would you pay to have a robot facsimile of your dad pat you on the shoulder and say they’re proud of you?

Simone’s betting you’d pay at least 25 cents. Considering that she got Adam Savage to contribute the voice of the dad, I’d say you’re getting a bargain.

It’s a great, and hilarious build, but also a useful exploration of the kind of mechanical projects you can create and trigger with coin-operation.

Finally, if there’s a pandemic project that I just keep thinking about and always puts a smile on my face, it’s the Colin Furze Highcycle, Social Distance Bike. 

By raising the seat of the bike (along with the pedals and the steering) 2 meters into the air, Colin has created a bike with social-distancing safety built right in. 

Sure, there’s a lot of welding and engineering needed to pull it off, and yes, you do risk falling over when you come to a stop, but that’s small stuff compared to the thrill of riding around your streets and safely bringing joy to your neighbors. 

Now, apart from pandemic projects, if I had to summarize any maker trends for 2020 here’s what I noticed, but I’d love to hear your opinion down in the comments. 

Cyberdecks! Maybe it’s the Cyberpunk game release, or maybe it’s just our descent into a genuine William Gibson dystopia, but there were a few months this year where Raspberry Pi Cyberdeck builds were just flooding the maker blogs.

To be fair, I saw some amazing builds this year, but at this point I’m a little Cyberdecked out.

I don’t think there can be too many book nooks, however. And that was the other trend I saw throughout this year. From Jen Schacter’s book nook kits, to the pepper’s ghost illusion Nerdforge build — book nooks have officially spun out into their own maker discipline, and I think it’s great.

I also just have to tip my hat to the maker community’s outstanding response to the need for hospital protective equipment, and even full-blown open source medical equipment. It’s a trend for 2020 that I wish didn’t have to be, but I’m proud of everyone who stepped up and found a way to contribute their time, their designs, their 3D printer, and their expertise. Well done.

Now for just a couple tips to wrap it up. In case you missed it, last week Tyler Winegarner released our last Adafruit edition of Maker Update. Like this episode, it was a look back at some of the year’s best projects. 

But don’t worry, you’re going to see plenty of Adafruit content on this show going forward. Tyler is going to be stepping in to help host this show a couple times a month next year, and bringing all his Adafruit experience with him. So look forward to that.

And if you need one last decoration for your holiday tree this year, may I suggest this 3D printed ornament by Gabriel Nagmay. It’s certainly been a year to remember, or maybe a year we can all someday forget. Either way, it seems an appropriate time for a homemade ornament. Makes a great gift too.

And that does it for this week’s show. Be sure to subscribe, leave a thumbs up, or leave me a comment. What was your favorite project or trend of the year? A big thanks to my patrons on Patreon, to Digi-Key electronics for being awesome, and to my guest hosts this year, Sophy Wong, Tyler Winegarner and Becky Stern. The show will be in hibernation mode for the next two weeks, but I’m excited to see you in 2021. Thanks for watching, happy holidays, and I’ll see you next year.