Gardner's Mathemagic

Gardner's Mathemagic
Donald E. Simanek | Make Vol. 13- 2008 | Pdf | 4 pgs | 1 mb

The Gilbreath Principle

A number of card tricks are based on a principle that
magician Norman Gilbreath introduced to magic. It's
an application of combinatorial mathematics (which
we will spare you here). Gardner discusses it in
his books New Mathematical Diversions from
Scientific American, Chapter 9, and Mathematical
Magic Show, Chapter 7. We'll describe here the
simpler versions.

Prepare the deck ahead of time with the cards in
black/red alternation. No other order is necessary.
When you start this trick, you can do any false shuffle
that doesn't change the card order. But if you don't
have those skills, don't bother.
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Easy Motor

Easy Motor
Make a spinning motor with a minimum of parts
Cy Tymony | Make Vol. 11- 2007 | Pdf | 1 pgs | 1 mb

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Recycled Kaleidoscope

Recycled Kaleidoscope
Make a classic optics toy from an old CD case
Carolyn Bennet | Make Vol. 14- 2008 | Pdf | 4 pgs | 2 mb

The kaleidoscope was invented in 1816 by a Scottish physicist named Sir David Brewster, and it has intrigued people of all ages ever since. Through the years, kaleidoscopes have been made of nearly every possible material.
Now it's time to take the kaleidoscope green. Here's a simple one you can create from recycled materials and common household items. For the mirror elements, we'll use pieces of an old "jewel box" CD case backed with black paper or neoprene.

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Covert Spy Sunglasses

Covert Spy Sunglasses
Kip Kedersha | Make Vol. 14- 2008 | Pdf | 3 pgs | 1 mb

Ever since I was a kid I've loved spy gadgets. From
Wild Wild West to Get Smart and Mission Impossible,
they have always fascinated me. I can remember
sitting in front of the tube watching the hidden
camera pranks of Candid Camera. Well, now I have
my own pair of sneaky sunglasses that are cheap
and easy to make.
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Mini Bike Light

Mini Bike Light
Trevor Shannon | Make Vol. 14- 2008 | Pdf | 2 pgs | 1 mb

I wanted to build a small, bright, and durable LED
light for my bike, and I read online that plumbing
parts work well as housings. So I made a 3-LED
headlamp that's enclosed by a 3/a" hose faucet
adapter and powered by an outboard battery pack.
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The Machinist's Phonograph

The Machinist's Phonograph
Royston Maybery | Make Vol. 14- 2008 | Pdf | 4 pgs | 2 mb

When Edison invented the phonograph in 1877, he
envisioned it as a business dictation machine.
But it soon became a popular medium for music,
recorded onto durable cylinders that are still avail-
able and playable today. Cylinders came in a wide
variety of formats - 21/4", 31/2", or 5" in diameter,
4" or 6" long, 120rpm-160rpm,100 or 200 grooves
per inch --- most of which required different types
of phonographs to play.

Today there's one specialty machine, the
Archeophone, that can handle all formats of cylinder
recordings, but it costs more than $16.000. So
I decided to build my own, and being a licensed
machinist, I call it the Machinist's Phonograph.
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Lensless Microscope

Lensless Microscope:
A webcam's image chip is an ultrafine shadow-imaging stage
Tom Zimmerman | Make Vol. 14- 2008 | Pdf | 7 pgs | 3 mb

Behind the lens of a webcam is an imager chip with thousands of tiny light sensors, each about 1/10 the diameter of a human hair. If you replace the lens with an LED light source, and place tiny objects on the imager chip, shadows will project onto the sensor, creating a lensless microscopic image. You can use the webcam's regular software to save pictures and video, or stream live images to the internet. Or use the imager chip from a security camera to see a colony of live plankton on TV.
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Homebrew Digital 3D Movies

Homebrew Digital 3D Movies:
Build your own stereo vidcam and 3D viewer
Eric Kurland | Make Vol. 14- 2008 | Pdf | 8 pgs | 3 mb

I have two eyes. And because of that simple fact, I also have stereopsis, the ability to perceive depth. When I was about 7 years old, I gazed into a View-Master toy and saw an amazing three-dimensional picture, and I was hooked. Today, I create 3D videos, using various homebrew camera rigs and displays. I'll introduce you to a few of my devices, but first, a quick history lesson.
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Molecular Gastronomy

Molecular Gastronomy
Michael Zbyszynski | Make Vol. 14- 2008 | Pdf | 4 pgs | 2 mb

There is a movement in the cooking world called
Molecular Gastronomy. The term was coined by
Nicholas Kurti and Herve This, and it has become
associated with chefs like Ferran Adria at El Bulli
in Spain, Heston Blumenthal at The Fat Duck in
England, Wylie Dufresne at wd~50 in New York,
and Homaru Cantu at Moto in Chicago.

Essentially, it involves applying scientific techniques
to the cooking process. One of the more interest-
ing techniques is the use of common substances to
control the texture of foods, often in surprising ways.

You don't need a chemistry lab to pull off such
effects. With a few inexpensive tools and chemi-
cals. it's possible to use spherification to make
all kinds of "caviar" (and other shapes) in your
own kitchen.
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Art Work: Life Models

Art Work: Life Models
Douglas Repetto | Make Vol. 14- 2008 | Pdf | 2 pgs | 1 mb

ARTISTS' STUDIOS HAVE TRADITIONALLY
been full of reference materials like botanical
drawings, medical texts, photographs, cata-
logs, and images clipped from magazines. Artists
use these images as direct models for realistic
renderings. but they often provide indirect inspira-
tion as well: patterns in a botanical drawing might
end up as abstract gestures in a painting, or shapes
from a tool catalog might inspire sculptural forms.

Just as often, reference materials simply set the
mood or tone in the studio: being surrounded by
meaningful materials is an inspiration in itself. I
recently visited the reconstruction of Francis Bacon's
home studio at the Hugh Lane Gallery in Dublin, and
was overwhelmed by the density and intensity of
the materials (books, magazines, clothing, painting
supplies, canvases) jumbled across every surface in
the room. Although Bacon didn't often use images
from these sources directly in his paintings, he was
certainly inspired by having them around. He said:
"I feel at home here in this chaos because chaos
suggests images to me." Interestingly, the rest of
his small home was rather tidy and uncluttered; the
chaos of his studio seemed a conscious technique.
a key part of his process as a painter.
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3D Printing Methods

3D Printing Methods
Tom Owad | Make Vol. 14- 2008 | Pdf | 2 pgs | 1 mb

3D printers print layer on top of layer,
slowly building a three-dimensional
object. A plethora of materials and
methods are used to build these layers.

The Stratasys Dimension is a commercial 3D
printer that uses ABS plastic. The ABS filament
comes in a self-loading cartridge, and is fed into
a heater block by two drive wheels. In the heater
block, the ABS is heated to a semiliquid state and
extruded through the tip, with layers as thin as 0.01".
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The Gomicycle

The Gomicycle
Marque Cornblatt | Make Vol. 14- 2008 | Pdf | 3 pgs | 2 mb

While most civilians wait patiently for electric
vehicles (EVs) to arrive at their local showroom,
we makers take matters into our own hands. We've
created a dizzying array of street-legal electric
cars, scooters, and motorcycles, and there's even
a National Electric Drag Racing Association.

I wanted to go electric for my own day-to-day
transportation, but I didn't want to reinvent the
wheel. So I researched the existing art, and pur-
chased plans for the "El Chopper ET", a Honda Rebel
250 project that was developed by motorcycle EV
conversion guru John Bidwell.
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Evasive Beeping Thing

Evasive Beeping Thing
Brad Graham & kathy McGowan | Make Vol. 14- 2008 | Pdf | 3 pgs | 1 mb

The Evasive Beeping Thing is appropriately named,
since it dutifully does exactly what its name implies:
it sends out a 5-second, high-pitched beep every
few minutes. The source is extremely difficult to
locate because of the way that high frequencies
can penetrate objects and trick our ears.

You've probably encountered something similar in
the real world, such as a failing appliance or a beep-
ing wristwatch buried deep in a couch. As you know,
high-pitched sounds seem like they are coming from
all directions, which makes tracking them to the
source a real chore. Add the fact that the sound only
happens once every several minutes, and it may drive
a person loopy as they spend all day looking for the
source of the sound. Well, that's our goal, anyhow!
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Make Vol. 14- 2008: Upload

Make Vol. 14- 2008: Upload
Pdf | 8 pgs | 3 mb

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The Pixelmusic 3000

The Pixelmusic 3000
Tarikh Korula | Make Vol. 14- 2008 | Pdf | 10 pgs | 4 mb

TV PARTY TONIGHT

Re-create a mid-1970s video trip by plugging this box into
any TV and audio source. Beneath the fake wood paneling,
a Propeller microcontroller simulates Atari's classic music
visualizer.

In 1976, Atari introduced Atari Video Music, a plugged-in
music visualizer designed by Pong creator Bob Brown that
bridged the yawning gap between consumers' stereos and
their TV sets. The quirky, psychedelic pixelation device never
caught on, but watching it in action today (search YouTube),
one is taken back to another time, long before iTunes and
Winamp visualizers. It was a time when vinyl, denim, Foghat,
mood rings, limited color palettes, and RadioShack's
business model all somehow made sense.
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Taffy Pulling Machine

Taffy Pulling Machine
William Gurstelle | Make Vol. 14- 2008 | Pdf | 8 pgs | 3 mb

TWISTED, TUGGED, AND TASTY

Make a simple mechanism that pulls delicious candy
while it stretches the limits of multidimensional math.

Sometimes the simplest things have richer histories and
more complex scientific connections than you ever
imagined. Such is the case for the taffy pulling machine.
Taffy pullers manipulate long strands of semisolid, sugary
dough into the delicious, chewy confection called salt water
taffy. After viewing myriad taffy machines in tourist traps
and internet videos, I sought to build one for myself.

Why? Well, when in operation, these devices display
a periodic, repetitive motion so mesmerizing that, when
placed in the front window of a candy shop. they invariably
attract large audiences and pull in customers.
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Living Room Baja Buggies

Living Room Baja Buggies
John Mouton | Make Vol. 14- 2008 | Pdf | 10 pgs | 3 mb

BUG'S-EYE VIEW

With wireless cameras on board, these radio-controlled
racers give you virtual reality telepresence.

Do you like radio-controlled (R/C) cars? Do you like the
desert, but hate the heat? Well, sit down and kick back as you
engage in the excitement of Living Room Baja Buggy Racing.
This off-road competition combines the fun of homemade
R/C cars with the air-conditioned convenience of a fake,
indoor desert landscape - without the big dollar price.
There are no rules, no expensive automotive racing equip-
ment, and a total disregard for public safety (because these
cars are only 6" long and 4" tall).
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Solar Power System Design

Solar Power System Design
Parker Jardine | Make Vol. 14- 2008 | Pdf | 8 pgs | 3 mb

In the first part of my solar power Primer,
I showed how to make inexpensive photovoltaic
(PV) panels (see MAKE, Volume 12, page 158,
"20-Watt Solar Panel").

Here, I'll explain how I incorporated them into
a complete solar PV power system. While this
article provides installation tips and general
how-to information, it's not a step-by-step guide
to building the complete system. Rather, it's an
introduction to a complex project that could
easily fill a book.
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