This week on Maker Update, a face-tracking chocolate launcher, Teensy 4.1, a Pi-powered pupper, a flaming lamp, a steampunk tub, a people detecting mask, and a VHS videodrome.

++Show Notes [Maker Update #177]++

-=Project of the Week=-

Alexa-controlled, face-tracking candy launcher by Harrison McIntyre
https://blog.arduino.cc/2020/05/14/beat-boredom-with-a-alexa-controlled-face-tracking-candy-launcher/
https://github.com/hamac2003/M-M_Launcher

-=News=-

Teensy 4.1
https://hackaday.com/2020/05/11/new-teensy-4-1-arrives-with-100-mbps-ethernet-high-speed-usb-8-mb-flash/
https://www.pjrc.com/store/teensy41.html

-=More Projects=-

Building a quadruped robot using a Raspberry Pi 4 by Stanford Student Robotics group
https://www.recantha.co.uk/blog/?p=20156
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Ofrtlmh0dQoEvRji5PUVH9bgwHnR-8KkTXR1eMLzXh0/edit

Aladdin’s Hand Sanitizer by Yele Labs
https://hackaday.io/project/171349-aladdins-hand-sanitizer

3D Printing Project: Steampunk Tap Valve Handle By LostWax
https://www.instructables.com/id/3D-Printing-Project-Steampunk-Tap-Valve-Handle/

Automated mask closes when others are near by Chen the DesignMaker
https://blog.arduino.cc/2020/05/11/this-automated-mask-closes-when-others-are-near/

Videodrome Pi Player by Max Haesslein
https://maxhaesslein.blog/videodrome/

-=Tips & Tools=-

Adam Savage’s Favorite Tools: Workshop Utility Apron + Everyday Carry!
https://www.tested.com/art/makers/907079-adam-savages-favorite-tools-workshop-utility-apron-everyday-carry/

Why You Need a Quarter-Inch Ratcheting Box End
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B7It0y0qK54

Gareth’s Tips, Tools, and Shop Tales – Issue #46
https://www.getrevue.co/profile/garethbranwyn/issues/gareth-s-tips-tools-and-shop-tales-issue-46-244917

Virtually Maker Faire (May 23)
https://makerfaire.com/

-=Digi-Key Spotlight=-

Environmental Sensors – Tech Basics
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=skeZtoZ00yY

Transcript

This week on Maker Update, a face-tracking chocolate launcher, Teensy 4.1, a Pi-powered pupper, a flaming lamp, a steampunk tub, a people detecting mask, and a VHS videodrome. 

Hey, I’m Donald Bell, back with another Maker Update. I hope you’re doing all right. Life is still weird and scary. I’m glad I’ve got my projects, and I hope that you’ve found something that you can lose yourself in for a little while. If you don’t, I’ve got some great projects this week that might do the trick. Let’s start off with the project of the week.

Check out how Harrison McIntyre made this face-detecting M&M launcher using a Raspberry Pi computer, a webcam, two Arduino Nano boards and a handful of servos. 

There have been a number of candy launching projects out there, but for the most part they’ve relied on some form of spring-loaded launcher. For this design, Harrison went with a flywheel launcher, like you’d see on a baseball pitching machine. 

Not only does this approach allow for a rapid fire of candy, but it also allows you to ramp the velocity up and down by adjusting the flywheel speed. This way you can adjust both the angle of the launch, but also the velocity, giving you more control over hitting your target.

Now, to do the targeting, Harrison is using Open CV on Raspberry Pi to detect faces and triangulate the mouth location. What’s even crazier is that it’s using that face data to approximate your distance from the camera. 

As the icing on the cake, he’s using an Amazon Echo Dot to handle voice control. By configuring the Pi so that the Echo recognizes it as a TV that it can control, all he has to do is ask the Echo to increase the volume by 1, and he’ll get 1 M&M launched at his face.

To make it a little more natural, he named his imaginary TV “chocolate”. So if he asks his Echo to increase his “chocolate volume by two”, he gets two M&M’s launched at his face.

And though I wouldn’t recommend it, it is possible to have this thing launch an uninterrupted stream of high-speed candy at you. His current design only holds a magazine of 10 M&Ms at a time, but that seems like a relatively easy hurdle to overcome.

It’s a great project and a really fun and informative video. All of his code is posted on Github, along with STLs for some of the 3D printed parts.

Now for some news. The announcement is over a week old at this point but I wanted to make sure you knew that there’s a new version of the Arduino-compatible Teensy microcontroller board available. 

This is version 4.1. It uses a 600 MHz ARM Cortex M7 processor, along with 8Mb of flash, making it the fastest microcontroller project board out there. 

It can also work with 100 Mbps ethernet, which could be useful for IoT projects, but maybe also for high-speed LED animations or projects where data needs to move quickly over long, wired connections. 

The board is priced just under $27.

Now for more projects. The Stanford University Student Robotics group has a guide on how to make this little, Pi-powered quadruped robot.

The little pupper sounds like Edward Scissorhands, but definitely has some of the pedigree of the Boston Dynamics Spot robot. Only instead of paying 10s of thousands of dollars, this little guy can be made for under $900. 

Now, to be fair, this thing isn’t autonomous. You control it with a wireless Playstation controller. Still, kinda cool to be the only nerd on your block with your own RC quadruped robot.

You can find the instructions and a detailed bill of materials with links to 3D printed parts using the link in the description.

On Hackaday, Yele Labs shows off his flame-throwing Alladin’s lamp. 

Probably don’t try this one at home, on account of the 3D printed plastic enclosure, the whole fire-shooting aspect, and the high-voltage. But you have to appreciate how this thing was designed.

Inside you have a relay, a microphone, a small pump, an 18650 rechargeable battery, and a spark generator that turns a 5v input into a 400,000v spark. 

Because the design is so small, they went with an Arduino-programmable Digispark ATTiny85 board that’s about the size of a quarter. 

It’s also interesting to note that the fuel used here is just hand sanitizer with a little boric acid mixed in for color. I’ve never seen anything like it. Not sure if I want to build one, but I like knowing how it’s done.

On Instructables, LostWax shows how he was able to create this custom steampunk bathtub valve handle using a 3D printed design he created entirely in Tinkercad.

I love the way this thing looks. It’s also just a refreshing to see someone who’s completely new to 3D design and 3D printing, just diving right in and trying out all sorts of techniques. 

For example, he made this awesome scrollwork by printing it flat, warming it up in water, and then molding it around the wheel before glueing them down. Not only does this conceal the seam between the two halves of the wheel, but it looks so cool and gives it a nice texture.

Through the Arduino blog I caught this video from Chen the DesignMaker who attempted to design a high-tech face mask that automatically closes up when it detects that people are around. 

The design ultimately was more trouble than it was worth, but it looks super cool, and it’s a treat to watch Chen work through the problem.

And through the Adafruit blog I found out about the Videodrom project by Max Haesslein. This is a Pi-based video player that plays random 20-second clips from the VHS vault at Archive.org. 

To make it happen, you first have to download a selection of videos, though Max’s guide shows how to automate this. With that done, you just set the Pi to run the script when it boots up, lay back, and treat yourself to a nostalgia brain scramble. 

Now for some tips and tools. On Tested, Adam Savage talks about why he’s returned to wearing a utility apron around the shop and goes through his pockets to reveal what things he likes to keep handy.

On the Cool Tools channel, Sean Michael Ragan reveals why a ¼-inch ratcheting box end is a uniquely adaptable tool to have handy. Because that ¼ inch socket fits any standard ¼-inch bit, it can work like a universal driver. Check out his video.

In Gareth Branwyn’s latest Tips, Tools, and Shop Tales newsletter, he features a tip from Maker Project Lab’s own Tyler Winegarner who made a holder for his cross-cut sled on the side of his table saw. 

He also includes a great chart from Bolt Depot that helps demystify the naming conventions for different kinds of fasteners. 

And this Saturday, don’t forget to tune in to Virtually Maker Faire. It’s going to be a day-long event with demos and talks from makers all over the world. Mark your calendar.

For this week’s Digi-Key spotlight, check out their video on environmental sensors. Air quality sensors, humidity sensors, temperature, pressure — all of them can be easily incorporated into your next project. 

In fact, for their demo they use an Adafruit BME680 breakout board that includes versions of all of those sensors. 

Using Adafruits example code, you can use the Arduino serial monitor to read a running update on the temperature, pressure, humidity, air quality level, and your approximate altitude. 

Those same values could be automatically tracked in an IoT dashboard, or used to trigger different lights, or sounds as the basis of some kind of environmental-sensing interaction.

And that does it for this week’s show. Be sure to subscribe, leave a thumb’s up, or leave a comment. Remember how I was thinking about hands-free candy delivery for halloween? And now we have a face-detecting candy shooter. Sometimes you just have to let the universe know what you’re looking for, so maybe make your project request known down in the comments. 

A big thanks to my patrons on Patreon and to Digi-Key electronics for making this show possible and for having all the stuff that makes these projects possible. Thanks for watching, and I’ll see you next week.