Google Tech Talk (more info below)
November 15, 2010

Presented by Dale Dougherty, Tony DeRose, Karen Wilkinso, Mike Petrich, and Michelle Hlubinka

ABSTRACT

Make magazine and Maker Faire are part of a larger "Do It Yourself" movement that has been gaining momentum over the last decade. In this talk we will discuss some of the factors behind the movement, where the movement is now, and where it might be going. We'll also highlight ideas for supporting youth who are passionate about hands-on activities. One such idea is the Young Makers Program that we are launching as part of a collaboration between Make Magazine, The Exploratorium, and Pixar.

Dale Dougherty is the founder of Make magazine and the creator of Maker Faire, which leads a growing maker movement. He is GM of Maker Media at O'Reilly Media in Sebastopol, California. Dougherty is a co-founder of O'Reilly Media, a technical publisher and conference organizer known for its advocacy of Open Source and the Web. An early Web pioneer, Dale was the developer of Global Network Navigator (GNN), the first commercial Web site launched in 1993 and sold to America Online in 1995. Dale was developer and publisher of Web Review, the online magazine for Web designers from 1995-1999, which was sold to CMP in 1999. He coined the term Web 2.0 as part of developing the Web 2.0 Conference. Make Magazine started in 2005 followed by the first Maker Faire in the Bay Area in 2006. This year, Maker Faire was held in the Bay Area, Detroit and New York City.

Tony DeRose is currently a Senior Scientist and lead of the Research Group at Pixar Animation Studios. He received a Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of California, Berkeley in 1985. Before joining Pixar in 1996 he was a professor of Computer Science at the University of Washington. In 1999 he received the ACM SIGGRAPH Computer Graphics Achievement Award, and in 2006 he received a Scientific and Technical Academy Award (c) for his work on the mathematics of surfaces. He loves working in the garage with his two sons on various whacky engineering projects, many of which are a combination of hardware, software and art. He has attended every Bay Area Maker Faire and has exhibited at the Faire the last three years.

Karen Wilkinson and Mike Petrich direct the Learning Studio at the Exploratorium in San Francisco. The Learning Studio is an interdisciplinary lab for the design and development of new ways to engage people with hands-on, technology-rich, arts-infused making opportunities. These activities are based on the notion that making is an important way for people to learn, especially in a materials-rich, studio environment, surrounded by others investigating questions of their own. This is the way our group designs and develops new activities, and this is the way we engage visitors on the exhibit floor. The work is messy, sometimes chaotic, a lot of fun, and always innovative. It offers visitors the opportunity to think with their hands. Karen and Mike both have undergraduate degrees in fine art from the Minneapolis College of Art and Design, and both are graduates of the Harvard Graduate School of education in Cambridge Mass. Most of their real learning, however, has occurred in close proximity to museum visitors, graduate students, prisoners, kindergartners, and monks, in a variety of learning environments, each trying to figure things out for themselves, despite the best efforts of their formal education.

Michelle Hlubinka is the Education Director for Maker Media, overseeing educational outreach and programming. Before joining the Maker Faire crew, she worked at the Exploratorium (in the Center for Museum Partnerships) and MIT Media Lab's Lifelong Kindergarten group (her research funded by LEGO and the NSF Playful Invention and Exploration grant.) That work built on previous research at the Harvard Graduate School of Education and as a long-time mentor at the Intel Computer Clubhouse Network. At the very first Maker Faire she demonstrated clay animation with Zeum, a children's art and technology museum, and thereafter joined the Maker Faire crew. When she's not supporting future Makers, she does some making of her own, most often as a graphic designer and illustrator.

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Build your very own high quality sealed subwoofer in just a fraction of the time it would take to build a traditional box. It's all about Sonotube, the toughest cardboard you'll ever meet!

Getting great a low frequency subwoofer usually involves a lot of cash, or spending a lot of time building up a box.

And even sealed boxes, the simplest subwoofer enclosures, can be a pain to build. So when we wanted to sample several box sizes fast, we picked up some Sonotube. It's a type of concrete form used to make columns... but with some plywood and a little routing, and a lot of glue, you can quickly sample several sizes of subwoofer enclosure.

It all started with Patrick's desire to get some decent low end bass in his truck... and a stop by the epic Pass DIY web pages, where he read about The Legend of EL PIPE-O, Nelson Pass' massive subwoofer experiment that sported 8 21-inch drivers and a pair of 12 foot hight Sonotube concrete forms.

Sonotube makes subwoofers quick and easy to build by eliminating a lot of saw cuts and joints. It's available in sizes from 2.25" to 36.90" and easy to cut to length... just head on over to the Enclosure Volume Calculator at HomeTheaterShack.com or the Subwoofer Enclosure Calculators at the12volt.com and play with the available sizes you want with various lengths until you get the volume of enclosure you're looking for. (Betwen .5 and 1.5 cubic feet in our case.)

Why sealed? In theory, tho they don't have the over the top boom of ported boxes, sealed subs have the most accurate audio response. They're also the easiest enclosures to design and build. Most important, HSU Research's ASW-1203 was designed for for a sealed box. That's Patrick's pick to go into his beloved truck.

Along with a subwoofer and Sonotube (sold by the foot at most hard core building supply places... ask them to cut it to the length you want if you don't have a tale saw at home) you'll need plywood or MDF for the end caps, glue, and at least a pair of clamps... tho a half dozen Jorgenson Pony pipe or Irwin Quick-Grip Bar Clamps can make the glue up go a lot faster!

You can use just about anything to cut out the hole for the Sonotube... but a router with a circle guide or a jigsaw will work a lot faster than any kind of hand tool.

To finish your subwoofer off, you'll need some polyfill pillow stuffing from the local crafts store, a terminal plate to attach your speaker cables too and some wire and connectors to attach the sub to the terminals.

Happy bass!

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Photoshop Secrets: Learn how to use Content-Aware Scaling in Photoshop CS4, eliminating the need to use the clone tool when drawing items of focus closer to each other. Also, learn how to manipulate and create new 3D graphics using gradients.

Content-Aware Scaling
Bert demonstrates by using examples such as an image of three boats in the water, or an ocean-front image with two palm trees. To draw the items of focus closer to each other, Content-Aware Scaling is used, a process that eliminates redundant areas of an image.

Content-Aware Scaling gives you the same transformation handles as the other transform tools. However, when you pull the handles in, excess space in the background is removed and the items in focus come together in the proportions. Trim the image to apply final cropping touches.

This new method in Photoshop CS4 eliminates for the need of cloning to achieve the same result.

3D Objects
3D integration has been simplified and there is no longer a need for third party software. This feature is demonstrated with a 3D image of a bench layered onto a flat image of a deck, and step-by-step instructions on creating new 3D objects. There are many free 3D images offered online.

Once you have these 3D files, you can bring them into Photoshop for manipulation.

To apply a 3D object onto another flat image, take the following steps:
- Choose from the menu: 3D > New layer from 3D. Locate your file, and it will appear in the center of the screen.
- Manipulate the 3D file by rotating, scaling, rolling, and twisting - all functions available from the main toolbar.
- Apply different lighting to the bench to make the object appear naturally into the background.

You can also create new 3D objects. Bert shows us by creating a vase, using tones from a gradient that will determine the shape of the 3D areas. Bert advises to experiment with your gradients and tones when applying 3D effects. You can learn to make custom shapes, where dark areas become narrow portions in the object, and light areas become the wide portions of the object.

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In today's episode, we're going to help you build three USB battery power supplies so you never run out of power for your favorite gadgets!

We've played around with USB power supplies before: back in Voltage Regulators: Breadboarding a DIY USB Power Supply we built one around a $1.59 7805 from Radio Shack.

How about something even simpler, like hacking a trio of batteries onto a cut off USB Extention cable?

In this episode David Calkins shows you his version of a 7805 power supply, the USB Extention Cable power supply, and walks us through building one of Lady Ada's most excellent MintyBoost battery packs, which features a LT1302 Micropower High Output Current Step-Up Adjustable and Fixed 5V DC/DC Converter

All of 'em deliver USB power... the difference between them?

Lady Ada's MintyBoost offers the most efficient use of the battery, since the 7805 tends to turn a lot of your battery power into heat!

The USB cable hack, while quick and dirty, doesn't offer a regulate supply. That means as the batteries run down, your voltage will dip. Some USB powered devices won't like this. (It won't hurt them... they just won't charge.)

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Learn to solder by building yourself the most excellent Chu Moy headphone amp. It sounds great but cheap enough to give away as holiday stocking stuffers.

Thankfully Tangentsoft.net has some incredibly detailed instructions for building the Chu Moy amp. Now one thing you'll need to be aware of are the

OPA2134 OpAmps. There great but if want them you'll need to order them online at DigiKey and Mouser. For resistors, LEDs, and headphone jacks you can pick those up at Radio Shack.

Happy soldering!!!

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Watch us hack a Nintendo 64 into a portable gaming system complete with screen, speakers and battery power: Full Nintendo anywhere you go!

So watch this episode closely as we turn a stock Nintendo 64 into a portable!

For helpful guides and tutorials from other experience makers, check out game console mod master Ben Heck's N64 forum.

And don't forget to print out this wiring diagram before you start.

If you're a bit unsure about building a proper power regulator using the TI part you can check out some samples here!

For other clever hacks, check out additional episodes of SYSTM.

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Manage All Your Social Apps in One Place, Sock + Headphones = Comfy, DIY PBX, Don't Use A Thumbdrive for That!

She's almost leaving the house for charity... Go to Humanety.com by November 30th and bid on a chance to win a 30-minute long video chat with Veronica. You can talk about games, tech, gadgets, your favorite bacon related projects...whatever! The proceeds go to Penny Arcade's most excellent charity, Child's Play to bring toys and video games to sick kids in hospitals all over the country.

Chris wants to build his own PBX to run the phones in his home off a computer. Chris, you'll love Asterisk, a slick, open source 'telephony platform' for rolling your own PBX... It should do everything you need, voice mail, conference calling, interactive voice response (ie phone menus), and automatic call distribution, compatibility with VoIP and plain old telephone service... you can use it with analog or digital phones... except for the recycling old modems part!

Two line digital phones are pretty cheap... you can get good Polycom TKs for $85 for a single phone line... $100 for a two line Polcom TK.

You'll want to check out AsteriskNOW... or Trixbox CE, formerly known as Asterisk @ Home... way cool project to do!

This week's Freebie download pick is ACID Express, the free version of ACID Pro, Sony's solid loop based music sequencer. Making music has never been easier: all you need to do to create your musical concoction is drag sound or music samples onto a track. The only real limitation we've seen in Xpress is the 10 track limit and, of course, the user's imagination.

Matt's "looking for some way to help consolidate my web-life into one neat package. I've got some web statuses I like to keep up-to-date like Pownce and Twitter, but I find that I can't keep one updated without neglecting the other. Is there any way I can manage them all in one WITHOUT duplicate posting?

Sites like Ping.FM are great if you want to post the same message to multiple sites... and Firefox plugins like Minggl will will show you your consolidated friend list and a stream of your social network updates.

But if you want all your social networks and don't want to spam the same messages out on all of 'em, Veronica says to use FriendFeed... and explains how on the show.

Veronica, why are we not friends on Pownce!? It's a long story... Veronica has so many friends, she broke the her Pownce page about 6 months ago!

Are Multi-Gigabyte USB thumb drives a good way to store audio and video files? Sure, Cate, if you need the data handy... but for archival type storage of irreplaceable data? We're not ready to give USB drives the, ahem, Thumbs Up yet.

Consider using writable CDs and DVDs or hard drives, verify the data, and re-check it every few years... online storage is another great option, just have a plan in place in case your vendor goes out of business!!!

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Veronica wants to giveaway a Zune, details in the show! Patrick reviews Gateway's One all-in-one PC. ReadyNAS vs Drobo: Which is more futureproof? Does 1080p matter on a small HDTV?

Dear Microsoft: Veronica might buy a Zune if you had Mac software for it... her take on the Zune 2.5 featues are in the show.

Omar's looking for an all-in-one PC and he wants our take on the Gateway One. Patrick put it to the test for a week, check the show for his take on the Core2Duo machine... the expansion options are pretty slick!

Which is more future proof: Netgear's new ReadyNAS Pro, with it's 6 drive bays, or the Data Robotics Drobo which can easily use drives of different sizes. Good question, Rob!

Does 1080p matter on 32" or smaller HDTV? Adam's off to college next year and wants an HDTV between 22 and 30 inches he can rock with his Xbox 360 (and, later on, the PS3). He says, "the optimal HD experience would be ideal. Also being able to hook up my Macbook would also be super rad!"

Why the 70's really ended, hint: it's not because of high oil prices. See Plaid Stallions for the truth... it's this week's Website We Just Can't Get Enough Of!

The Maker Faire is an epic festival of DIY... we've got video of some of our favorites from the gathering of Makers... anybody up for a rideable Mechanical Giraffe?

Care to avoid death on the highway? The National Highway Traffic and Safety Administration's "Click It or Ticket" campaign runs from May 19 thru June 1st this year, and they'd like you to buckle up: Fifty-nine percent of those killed in an auto accident were NOT wearing seat belts at the time of the crash.

Windows XP Service Pack 3 is out... our producer Roger installed it this morning. Late breaking update: some folks are having problems with Continuous Reboots after installing Windwos XP SP3.

Poll question of the week: Do you think SP3 release means that XP is finally make the voyage to scrapyard or is it just proof that XP's popularity is just as strong as it ever was?

JavaOne + Neil Young = Java/Blu-ray high res archive of his work, that's updatable... that he reccomends be experience via the PS3!

Speaking of Blu-ray, sales have hardly taken off since The Death of HD DVD.

The Tekzilla Gadget of the Week comes from Veronica: she loves Sound Isolating Headphones! She's not talking earbuds, she's talking in ear devices that do serious noise blocking along with audio playback.

Albin's wondering about Windows utilities that are starting to add anti-malware, adware, phishing, etc. to their former functions. Can you run too many of these things at once?" We think so... and we've got some advice so Albin can avoid conflicts between AVG 8, Comodo 3 and a few other bits of security software floasting around his PC.

Thanks to everybody that participated in our GoToMeeting meeting early this week. It was very helpful and eye opening experience! We hope to hold another very soon.

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Inspired by EA's Dead Space, we build our very own set of gravity boots, then have David try to walk upside in a warehouse.

Then try to walk upside down. Sounds like a cakewalk... right?

We had access to a warehouse, a forklift, and giant steel plates. We ordered a pair of electromagnets with a breakaway force of 650 pounds each. We figured out how to attach 'em to David's feet.

David programmed a controller to make sure he couldn't release both feet from the plate at the same time. (Safety First!)

It was when David was hanging upside down, his feet 4 meters in the air under a 1200 pound steel plate that things got... interesting.

Did we drop him on his head, or was he able to violate the laws o' gravity and walk on the ceiling?

Watch the video to find out!

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Make your own Brain in a Jar and a Giant Robot Spider - guaranteed to creep out your friends and frighten your neighbors!

First, we'll add a adding a special touch of strange to any indoor or outdoor décor when we build A Brain In A Jar. It's fun, easy to build and safe enough to build that your kids will have a blast helping you put it together. Best of all, the parts are easily and cheaply purchased or re-purposed items you probably have in your kitchen or garage. If you spend big money on the brain you might spend $50. Sure, you could build a similar product that's sold as a kit. (If you don't mind spending a lot more money.) We say do some scrounging and go DIY: it's a lot more fun!

Looking for something a bit bigger to frighten the local trick or treaters? You'll love one of our local San Francisco robotics mavins,

Nick Donaldson. He gave us some insight on how he created a huge hairy robotic spider, mummy and flying bat to terrify our local trick or treaters!

It's a spooktacular episode of Systm that you don't want to miss.

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Lighting a tech project with Electroluminescent material can look super professional, but it's easy to damage it or shock yourself. Learn how to safely add EL to any tech project in this episode of Systm!

In this episode of Systm, Dr. Kiki and David Calkins give you all the info you need to safely add EL to any project.

Wondering where to buy EL material? It's easy to purchase online from sites like Electro Luminescence Inc. but it's not super cheap. Think around $60 for an A4 sized sheet and toss in another $10 - $30 for a power inverter.

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Learn how this high school student did the Segway one better... by building his own self balancing scooter!

It works... and chances are you can build one, too.

It wouldn't hurt to have access to a place like Menlo Park, CA's fabulous Tech Shop, a DIY haven of of expertise and space to make. Think 'co-op' for people that like to build. In exchange for a modest monthly fee, Daniel had access to tons of tools he might not have been able to a afford.

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If you're just itching for an excuse to reuse that retired desktop PC or laptop sitting in your closet there here's your chance. Today we'll be looking at the basics of installing FreeNAS, an open-source DIY NAS. So instead of spending money on off the shelf options why not save yourself some cash and make use of the stuff you already have and get a super customizable network storage device to boot.

All you need to build your own is a copy of the FreeNAS installer, and a PC. It doesn't take much of a PC: just 96MB of RAM a NIC, and a CD-ROM to install from along with a hard drive, and you're ready to go. Tho you'll probably want at least one fat new hard drive to stash your stuff on!

FYI: FreeNAS isn't the only option if you're intent on rolling your own NAS. Other options include Openfiler a great alternative to FreeNAS.

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iPod? Camcorder? Notebook? Our Portable Power Pack will keep 'em running, plus we figure out if an AC Inverter or a DC/DC Converter is more efficient!

Jonathan wrote in:

Could you possibly send me more detailed instructions on how to build the DIY power supply from Episode 1 of Tekzilla? I guess I would mostly just need a parts list to make sure I've got all the components before beginning construction.

Jonathan

For anybody that missed the DIY Power Pack in episode 1 of Tekzilla, it's a simple portable battery in a bag you can use to power anything that you can plug into a 12V power jack in a car (the plug formerly known as a cigar lighter receptacle)

Given that it's Summer, it's insanely hot for San Francisco, and we desperately want to get outside of the sweltering Revision3 Headquarters, we'd -love- to go in depth building (and testing... especially testing, preferably somewhere with AC or a breeze) the DIY Power Pack for you, Jonathan.

The primary parts are:

A 12V 12Ah sealed Lead Acid Battery, commonly called an 'alarm battery' at your local hardware store. We paid $40 for the one we picked up at Fry's.

and a 12VDC Car Power Accessory Outlet from RadioShack

Crimp on quick disconnects, heat shrink tubing and some kind of container... complete the project. For folks that were curious, our battery is packed into a Maxpedition bag we picked up from our favorite tactical gear and toy shop: TAD Gear. (Technically, there's no Anime there... but there is Rocket World for toys!) Got cash? Patrick's a huge fan of his (sadly deceased) ElectroVaya's PowerPad 160 The company has slick new designs for the PowerPad 95 & 130, which sell for $199 and $299, and weigh less than a third of our DIY setup!

Once we got the Power Pack settled, we went after a question from Chris, who's wondering if he can power is Alienware M7700 laptop directly from DC, or if he needs an AC inverter. The answer is yes, but we were surprised when we tested an DC/AC Inverter powering a regular 120V power supply vs. a DC/DC power supply!

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You don't need yards of copper pipe to make liquor. Julia Nolan, a chemical engineer, shows us how to distill alcohol the easy way.

Instead of building (or buying) a complicated still, made of copper and welded together, Julia has a super simple hack for a a standard countertop water distiller.

The end result? We distill some pretty powerful hooch from a batch of hard cider... made from apple juice concentrate! (You'll need a food grade bucket along with brewer's yeast to make the cider. (It's all about -not- making vinegar!)

Julia also walks us thru how she made the cider, where the alcohol comes from, how fermentation work and distillation work, and why you'll want to blend what you capture from the distiller.

And, yes, she talks about why you're not going to blind yourself on this project... and we remind you that distilling Alcohol isn't legal for US residents without the proper permit... tho DIY distilling, or, for the foodies, 'White Collar Moonshine' is growing in popularity in the US.

We'd like to thank Julia for taking time out of her busy schedule to join us with this project!

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Back in the day, only the foolhardy overclocked a PC. Today? It's practically expected for home builders. We walk you thru the basics of getting free performance from your processor.

No problem, Weston. Tho we don't have quite the same configuration as you do, the basics of overclocking, the fine art of tweaking your CPU, memory or GPU to get more performance than the part is rate for, hold pretty much the same, whether you've got an Intel or AMD processor.

Back in the day, only the brave and the foolhardy overclocked. Today, it's practically expected. Motherboard manufacturers have made it easy to overclock without puttering with tiny jumpers on the motherboard; it's all in the Bios, and most mobos will automatically reset if you push things too far. GPU manufacturers like Nvidia and ATI put overclocking tools in their drivers.

On the show we walk you thru the basics of turning up the Front Side Bus, along with the bus multiplier, since our processor's multiplier isn't locked... we ended up boosting our procesor 13% over stock. Not a huge gain, but nothing to sneeze at.

We also test our systm's stability using Prime95 for 30 minutes between each tweak to the BIOS.

Want to get more in depth with overclocking? We highly recommend the Extremetech Overclocking Guide, by Joel Durham, Jr. It's packed full of great info on overclocking your CPU and graphic card!

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