This week on Maker Update, a Neopixel puzzle project, tickling the toe beans, machine learning plushies with micro:bit, and a cyborg funhouse.

++Show Notes [Maker Update Ep.241]++

-=Project of the Week=-

Nova Jigsaw Puzzle by Nadieh Bremer
http://fab.academany.org/2021/labs/waag/students/nadieh-bremer/final-project/?s=03

-=More Projects=-

Kitty Toe Bean Keypad with Color TFT By Ruiz Brothers & Liz Clark
https://learn.adafruit.com/kitty-toe-bean-paw-keypad-color-tct

Plush Pal by Tiffany Tseng
https://www.plushpal.app/

Cyborg Control by Niklas Roy
https://niklasroy.com/cyborg_control/

-=Tips & Tools=-

Robosapien IR codes
https://www.markcra.com/robot/ir_codes.php

Astro Pneumatic Tool ADR14 XL Blind Rivet Adapter Kit review
https://youtu.be/V9qEyvfLdwQ

Guide to ‘Bending’ an LCD screen v1.0 by Stuart Brand
https://github.com/jamhamster/Bending-an-LCD/blob/main/Guide%20to%20’Bending’%20an%20LCD%20screen%20v1.0.pdf

Desoldering Header Pins by Liz Clark
https://youtu.be/ATeRNgOUX3o

Fractal Vise by Borgey
https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:4897556

How To Make Alcohol Inks from Old Markers! by Kayte Sabicer
https://youtu.be/s8idSAuc7uI

-=Digi-Key Spotlight=-

The Great Search: Tapes & Tubes, oh my!
https://blog.adafruit.com/2021/07/06/the-great-search-tapes-tubes-oh-my-thegreatsearch-digikey-adafruit/

-=Transcript=-

This week on Maker Update, a neopixel puzzle project, tickling the toe beans, machine learning plushies with micro:bit, and a cyborg funhouse.

Hey, I’m Donald Bell, and welcome back to another Maker Update, a show for all you people who enjoy making cool stuff. How are you people? How’s your summer?

I had a fun little family road trip up to Oregon, in the middle of a heatwave and a wildfire, but even with that it was great to get out of the house.

I have a fun show for you. Let’s get started with the project of the week.

The Nova Jigsaw puzzle is Nadi Bremer’s Fab Academy finals project, and it’s gorgeous.

This is an interactive puzzle made from laser cut plywood and acrylic. As you place each piece, the puzzle board lights up to let you know if you’ve got it right.

Inside, you have a grid of 217 neopixel LEDs that get diffused through the milky white acrylic. An AtTiny microcontroller wired up to some multiplexers handle all the interaction.

In this case, it’s sensing the correct placement of each puzzle piece based on contact between pins in the board and conductive copper tape on each piece.

If the piece is correct, the copper tape bridges the pins, signalling the microcontroller to light up a new section of the board.

It really is beautifully done, and Nadi was generous enough to include a thorough writeup on how it all works, along with code, bill of materials, and design files.

More projects! On Adafruit, another fun collaboration between the Ruiz Brothers and Liz Clark. It’s a four-button mechanical keypad shaped like a cat’s paw. At the center is a display that cycles through a sequence of bitmap images with each keypress.

In this case, we get the party parrot, but it can be customized to any image sequence you want, just like keys can be mapped to any key you want. Alternatively, you can set this up as a MIDI keypad for triggering sounds in music software.

The hardware uses the tiny and inexpensive QTPy board, which is programmed using Circuit Python. The enclosure is all 3D printed and snaps together with no screws needed.

For more adorable interactions, from Tiffany Tseng I learned about a recently published web app called Plush Pal that she developed at the University of Tokyo with support from the Kawahara Lab.

Using this web app and custom firmware that you install on a micro:bit, you can turn any plush toy (or any object really) into a talking, interactive toy.

What’s so cool about this is that it’s using machine learning to interpret subtle gestures that would otherwise be missed by typical sensor threshold monitoring. Things like waving, or jumping jacks, dancing, or clapping.

Once the software learns these gestures, which are unique to your stuffed animal, you can then associate them to trigger different sounds that you can record.

It’s really a cool idea, and a great toolkit for educators or parents looking for new ways to engage kids with micro:bit.

But there is nothing on this show that I want to play with more than this shop window installation by Niklas Roy.

Niklas hacked an old Robosapien toy with a NodeMCU board. Not only does the board allow the Robosapien to be remotely controlled using a web app, but it also acts as a server and hosts the entire app. This way, people just need to walk up, connect to the robot as a wireless hotspot, and then type or scan in the address for the web app.

That alone is a pretty cool trick, but what I really love is the whole interactive cyborg world you get to move around in. There’s a world domination station, a dance club, a cyborg hair salon—there’s big-time pee-wee’s playhouse vibes going on here. I love it, and you can find all the code needed to recreate it using the link included in the description.

Also, if you missed it, go check out episode 210 where I talk about an even larger installation by Niklas called Smart Fairy Tale. It’s so much fun, and also very well documented.

Now for some tips & tools. If you’re into the idea of hacking old robosapien toys, in the last project, Niklas links out to a list of all the IR codes and commands for each movement, including some secret and undocumented codes.

Instead of sending these over IR, you can use a microcontroller to send a PWM signal right to the Robosapien’s main board. That’s what Niklas did.

On the Cool Tools channel I’ve got a review on a uniquely well-built blind rivet adapter that you can use in any power drill. If you like the idea of rivets but find them to be too much work to place manually — give this a look.

If you love the look of old TVs, you have to see this guide by Jam Hamster on how to create custom, rounded acrylic faces for flat LCD screens.

This is a way to give any LCD screen the look of a vintage CRT display. You’ll learn how to cut, grind and polish the acrylic, what kinds of acrylic to avoid, and then how to prep and apply optically clear adhesive to permanently fix it to the LCD.

It’s definitely a bit of a process, but as someone who loves the bulbous look of old TV screens, I can absolutely imagine doing something like this for a project someday.

Liz Clark has a great tip on desoldering pins from your project boards. Pins are great for prototyping, but sometimes you want to eject them when you’re making the final project. I’ve done this the hard way too many times and ruined boards in the process.

Last week, Tyler showed you that amazing, vintage fractal vise. Well Chris Borge mader his own version that you can 3D print for yourself. Not only is it a fascinating design, but it’s also a great look into Chris’ process for reverse engineering the design from patent drawings.

On Tested, Kayte Sah-bic-her shows her technique for creating her own alcohol-based inks from old markers. Not only is it a cheap way to create some beautiful and unique inks, but it’s also an environmentally friendly way to reclaim materials that would otherwise go into the landfill.

If you stick around to the end of Kayte’s video, you’ll also see her and Norm use these inks on hollow, 3D printed resin sculptures. The effect is really cool.

For this week’s Digi-Key spotlight, Lady Ada has a great tip on what to do if a surface mount electronic part your after is only available in a tube packaging instead of a pick-and-place ready reel format.

You can get parts taped using a third-party service. She uses one called Argosy. This way she can order parts from Digi-Key in tube packaging if that’s the only way they’re available, have them shipped to the service, and they’ll do the work of moving the parts to tape and shipping them to Adafruit. I had no idea this was a thing.

And that does it for this week’s show. Be sure to subscribe, leave a thumbs up, or leave a comment. You can get on the Maker Update email list, so you never miss a show. A big thanks to my patrons on Patreon and especially to the excellent folks at Digi-Key electronics for making this show possible. Thanks for watching, and I’ll see you soon.