Hello to our Maker friends in the Midwest! We are so excited that our founder/CEO, Jen Foxbot, is a featured speaker at the Ann Arbor Creativity and Making Expo on May 19th! Fox will be doing a live demo involving Arduino and Excel as well as filming a Math Mondays episode at the Ann Arbor…
Tag: maker
Make a Light-Up Holiday Card!
Light-up cards incorporate two of the best worlds of making (electronics and crafts) with the added bonus of making somebody smile. Heck yes! Here’s my approach to light-up cards and my favorite recent discoveries: pop-ups and cotton balls. Read time: ~ 5 min. Build time: ~ 30 min -1 hr (mostly crafting the card) Cost:…
IoT Industrial Scale!
What does a baby elephant weigh?* How much impact force does a jump have?? How can you tell if a rain barrel is full without looking inside??? Answer all these questions and more by building your very own Internet of Things (“IoT”) industrial scale using the SparkFun OpenScale board! This project is intended for…
How to Use (and Choose) a Multimeter!
Checking your car battery life, debugging circuits, and finding that pesky short are all super useful functions that can be performed with just one awesome tool: the multimeter! First of all, what the heck is a multimeter?? Excellent setup question! It’s a handheld device with bunch of different electrical meters — hence, multi-meter! Measuring voltage,…
Interactive Survey Game!
A survey questionnaire come to life! Use (nearly) any object to gather helpful data through an interactive, engaging, and fun multiple-choice survey. This project uses the Makey Makey microcontroller in combination with a Raspberry Pi computer to read in participants’ survey choices and save the results in a text file. Planning & Design! This…
Prototyping Magnetic Boots!
Walking across large, metal pipes in search of urban adventure, my inner voice joked, “Hey, magnet shoes would be handy right about now.” Well, no arguing with that! Off to build my very own magnetic shoes! This tutorial gives an overview of my build process for a magnetic boot prototype in hopes of inspiring you…
Hazardous Gas Monitor
Build a portable gas monitor to check for dangerous levels of hazardous gases in your home, community, or on the go and prevent your friends from lighting a cigarette during a gasoline fight.* This tutorial shows you how to build a web-connected “canary” monitor for three hazardous gases: Liquid Propane Gas (“LPG”), Methane (aka natural gas),…
Sound Reactive EL Wire Costume
Bring science fiction to life with a personalized light-up outfit! EL wire is a delightfully futuristic-looking luminescent wire that has the added benefit of staying cool, making it ideal for wearable projects. Combining sensors and a microcontroller with EL wire allow for a wide range of feedback and control options. This project uses the SparkFun…