Arduino meets iPhone at last! Plus top tools, tech toys, model makers’ mags, gastronomy, gardening, and gaming geeks.
TOOLBOX
LEGO TECHNIC CONTAINER TRUCK 8052
$70 lego.com
Lego’s Container Truck set lets you build a cool and detailed model equipped with a battery pack and motor. Pull the lever and the truck unloads the container behind it. Pull the lever forward and it loads it back on. However, the kit’s true potential lies in all the work Lego has put into its Technic products, which it conceived as a way of bringing robotics to Lego.
Technic beams feature peg-style connections rather than the classic studs of System bricks, making for stronger models that are less likely to break apart when the motors start spinning.
While Lego’s fabulously successful Mindstorms NXT set uses the beams to build its robots, Technic has its own robotics components, a line called Power Functions, that in some ways rivals its more famous cousin. It features a variety of DC motors, switches, battery packs, and actuators far more diverse than what NXT offers. These, combined with Technic’s robust assortment of gears and axles, make robot building a cinch.
If that weren’t enough, the Container Truck kit features one rare and useful part: a linear actuator. This is a rod that extends or contracts when the axle socket is spun, making it great for robotic limbs and other projects employing linear motion. The actuator was released in 2008 and only nine sets feature its goodness, giving you another reason for grabbing this set.
—John Baichtal
Autodesk 123D Sculpt
Free makezine.com/go/123d
This has quickly become my new favorite iPad app. It’s a free, scaled-down version of Autodesk’s 123D beta, with plenty of features. I dashed straight to the stock head shape and started making Mr. Random Demon Dude.
The deformation tools are robust, allowing you to push, pull, pucker, and paint. Texturing tools allow for “rubbing” more than 60 patterns onto your mesh or importing your own pictures. Saving and duplicating your sculpts enables you to essentially create your own stock library. Export and share your creations as transparent .png files or as 720p HD turntable movies.
—Jason Babler
Fuji Instax Mini 50S
The retro-styled, piano-black Fuji Instax Mini 50S is a newfangled instant camera. Instax cameras are not new, but Fuji loaded the 50S with smart features. The lens is amazing and includes a detachable macro-like lens. The flash is intelligent and can be tuned for different lighting levels. A brilliant self-timer encourages sharing by snapping two shots. As the film quickly develops, the richness of the colors surpasses expectations.
With billion-megapixel cellphone cameras everywhere, and the Hipstamatic trend still gaining popularity, the Instax Mini 50S might seem redundant. But its usefulness extends into a realm that digital can never touch. Surprising friends with an instant memory never gets old, and holding a printed photo is just a great feeling. These photos beg to be given away.
—Brookelynn Morris
GET BUCKY
$25–$40 getbuckyballs.com
Buckyballs — the toy, not the C60 molecule — are sphere-shaped rare-earth magnets that serve as a stress relief toy, a mini building set, and fridge decoration. The Original Edition set I played with packed 216 of the little guys, making for a malleable metallic lump the size of a golf ball. Have fun, but remember that rare-earth magnets and kids do not mix.
—J. Baichtal
GARDEN WORKS ANGLE WEEDER
$15–$20 garden-works.net
I’m a compulsive weeder; I have been known to de-dandelion hotel lawns and local parks. While a fork or even a stick will do, the best tool I’ve ever found for the job is Garden Works’ Angle Weeder. Available for right- or left-handers, it has wicked little prongs for getting under the leaves of dandelions, small thistles, crabgrass, etc. The angle provides the perfect lever for uprooting them completely. If only it would fold up in my back pocket, my life would be complete!
—Arwen O’Reilly Griffith
Eureka! By Roy Doty
Phfft!
Ephrem’s Bottle Cutting Kits
$39 (original), $44 (deluxe) ephremsbottleworks.com
Cutting glass is tricky! Luckily, this bottle cutting rig does an excellent job of evenly scoring the glass — next to impossible to do freehand. I was grateful for Ephrem’s suggestion to use alternating hot and cold tap water, resulting in predictably clean breaks. I now have an unlimited ability to make drinking glasses, bowls, and even food storage containers out of my recycling!
—Meara O’Reilly
Bosch 10” Table Saw GTS1031
$400 boschtools.com
The 10" portable table saw from Bosch is great if you’re limited on space or need to move your workshop from place to place. A one-handed carrying handle is built into the rigid steel frame, and the fence, blade guard, miter gauge, push stick, and wrenches all snap into place under the table.
This small package has plenty of bite from the 4HP electric motor spinning at 5,000rpm, and comes from the factory with a sharp 24-tooth, 10" carbide blade. The table-top expands and allows you to rip pieces up to 18" in width. This versatile saw is ideal for DIY or home projects, especially if you’re concerned about storage space but still want the power and functionality of a larger table saw.
—Nick Raymond
REDPARK BREAKOUT PACK FOR ARDUINO AND IOS 
$80 (kit), $59 (cable only) makershed.com
Apple made big news again in July when it approved, for the very first time, a general-purpose serial cable for the iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch. On one end, it’s got a dock connector to plug into your iOS device. On the other, it has an RS232 port that you can easily connect to Arduino or any other gadget that speaks a serial protocol.
At the Maker Shed we’ve put together a breakout pack that includes the cable, an RS232-to-TTL serial adapter (so you can connect the Redpark Serial Cable for iOS to an Arduino), and the Mintronics Survival Pack (to supply you with components and sensors to play with).
With the breakout pack and an Arduino, you’re ready to build apps that connect your Arduino and iOS device. We’ve prepared a guide at Make: Projects (makeprojects.com/project/c/1130) to take you through a simple project with this kit, controlling the Arduino’s LED with a switch button on the iOS device’s screen. It’s just the beginning.
—Brian Jepson
USB INFRARED TOY V2
This is an open source device not much larger than a postage stamp that lets you explore the invisible world of infrared communication. It’s a fully assembled IR monitoring and analysis tool that opens up unlimited possibilities. You can receive IR signals, remotely control your computer, view IR signals on a logic analyzer, and capture and replay remote-control buttons from any device’s IR remote (think TVs!). Dangerous Prototypes is always working on updates. Support from the company is great, and new hacks are regularly posted on its forum.
—L. Abraham Smith, N3BAH
MAKE LOOKS AT BOOKS
A World of Your Own Making
Fantasy Freaks and Gaming Geeks by Ethan Gilsdorf
$25 The Lyons Press
In 1978, Ethan Gilsdorf’s life took a dramatic and scary turn when his mother suffered a devastating brain aneurism. He was ripe for escape, and it came one day in JP, the nerdy new kid from across the street. JP whisked Ethan into another dimension, one of limitless mental invention and adventure, called Dungeons & Dragons. Ethan grew out of his D&D obsession by college, but a chance rediscovery of his massive D&D collection sent him on a new quest: to find out what purpose fantasy “escapism” serves others.
So, he set off on a journey around the world to meet gamers, Tolkien fanatics, live action role-playing (LARPing) enthusiasts, Potter fans, and others. The result is a surprisingly moving memoir and ode to geek culture. It’s also a great book to give to friends and relatives who don’t understand the appeal of this subculture. I, for one, am glad that my drawstring bag of RPG dice is still always at the ready. This book rolled a natural d20 (and the wonderful design gets a +2 bonus).
—Gareth Branwyn
Hidden Treasure
Unscrewed by Ed Sobey
$17 Chicago Review Press
According to Ed Sobey’s Unscrewed, there’s gold inside the electromechanical detritus left by the curb for the trash collector.
Take, for example, the obsolete inkjet printers cluttering many a basement. There are all sorts of maker treasures inside — motors, gears, pulleys — and Sobey provides instructions on liberating these parts for reuse.
Tiny motors inside a scrapped digital camera can be made to drive very small, solar-powered kinetic sculptures, while microswitches inside a computer mouse can be re-engineered to play a chime, turn on a light, or power a motor. Want to build a model car or boat? The solar cells in that old emergency radio could come in handy. Convert an old popcorn popper into a coffee roaster, or pillage an electric toothbrush to create a working submarine toy. The wheel of mechanical life turns round and round.
—William Gurstelle
New from MAKE and O’Reilly
Making Things Talk,
2nd edition
by Tom Igoe
$28–$35 pre-order O’Reilly Media
Building electronics projects that interact with the physical world is fun, but when the devices start to talk to each other, things really get interesting. Here are 33 easy projects perfect for people with little training but a lot of interest.
Getting Started with Arduino, 2nd edition
by Massimo Banzi
$15 pre-order O’Reilly Media
Join the legion of hobbyists who have discovered this incredible (and educational) electronics prototyping platform. Written by the co-founder of the Arduino project, Getting Started with Arduino gets you in on all the fun!
The Kitchen’s Cutting Edge
Modernist Cuisine by Nathan Myhrvold, Chris Young, Maxime Bilet
$625 The Cooking Lab
The Codex on Cooking has arrived. Former Microsoft CTO and polymath chef Nathan Myhrvold has created the definitive work on modern cooking. This gorgeous six-volume set demystifies cooking techniques, ingredients, and equipment. You gotta love their use of water jets and band saws to bisect grills, microwaves, and pressure cookers so we can view their guts in stunning cutaway photos.
While I can’t replicate every technique (their bewitching pea butter will remain out of reach until I borrow a laboratory centrifuge), many I can. I followed their Modernist Mac and Cheese recipe, which eschews cream for iota carrageenan and sodium citrate to achieve a cheesier, less muddled, yet stable sauce. It was modern, comforting, and delicious. And it improved my understanding of elevating food to its highest levels.
The price tag may be a bit hard to swallow, but at 2,458 pages, that’s only 25 cents per page to own perhaps the best cookbook ever written!
—John Edgar Park
ARTISTRÉ MOLECULAR GASTRONOMY EXPERIMENTAL KIT
I’ve been dabbling in scientifically derived cooking techniques. Call it modernist cuisine or molecular gastronomy — either way, one of the hard parts is procuring unusual ingredients without buying in bulk. The Artistré kit offers 12 different 50g ingredient packs to get you started.
—JEP
MASTERFUL MODELING
Like a lot of kids in the 60s and 70s, I started assembling plastic model kits as soon as I was old enough to know better than to huff the plastic cement. I don’t do much modeling anymore, but I still regularly buy modeling magazines and marvel at the hobby from a distance.
—Gareth Branwyn
Amazing Figure Modeler
$28/4 issues amazingmodeler.com
This is my all-time favorite modeling magazine, which mainly covers the custom resin-kit scene. The kits are usually made and sold in small productions by individuals, then the buyers go crazy, modify the kits, and build absurdly detailed dioramas around them (all lovingly chronicled in the pages of AFM). Tons of kit reviews and detailed how-tos in every issue.
Airfix Model World
$65/12 issues airfixmodelworld.com
This thick, slick U.K. model monthly is something of a house organ for the Airfix model brand, but they do cover other kits. And although they make a point of stating on their website that it’s for “all scale modellers,” it mainly covers the planes of its namesake.
Amazing Vehicular Modeler
$10/issue amazingmodeler.com
This new biannual publication from the folks at Amazing Figure Modeler does for vehicle kits what AFM does for character models. Cool conversions and dioramas for the Batmobile, the Monkeemobile, the Mysterion, the Munster Koach, and other car-kit classics.
FineScale Modeler
$40/10 issues finescale.com
This venerable modeling magazine focuses on military models, with lots of tutorials, shop tips, and plenty of reviews where the “experts” build and critically review new kits.
Scale Aircraft Modelling
$127/12 issues
Another U.K. favorite, SAM goes very in-depth on the planes behind the models as well as the models themselves, with aviation profiles, pullout plans, insignia, and color schemes. A must for the serious aviation modeler.
Tricks of the Trade By Tim Lillis
Get a grip!
Makers have a lot of tools, and tools have handles. Use this trick — an old favorite of firemen, and hockey and bike polo players — to get a good grip.
First, using hockey tape, build up a knob at the end of the tool to ensure that the handle can’t slip out of your hand.
Next, twist some tape so it forms a cord-like shape, and wrap your handle down and back up to the knob, crisscrossing the tape.
Cover the crisscrossed area with flat tape and you’ll have a sure grip every time!
Have a trick of the trade? Send it to [email protected].
Super Soaker Thunderstorm
$15 hasbro.com
Two interesting innovations are built into Hasbro’s newest squirt gun: first, they ditched the classic reservoir in place of a system of swappable 10oz/300ml clips. Ten ounces may not seem like much, but when you have extra clips on your belt, you’ll find yourself reloading much more rapidly than the old dip-into-the-swimming-pool method. Second, they added a battery-powered peristaltic pump, which forces the water out at high velocities.
The Thunderstorm offers fascinating hacking options. To squirt more water out in the same amount of time, you have only to up the volts running to the pump. Another mod could involve ditching the clip in favor of a larger reservoir. And peristaltic pumps can be food-safe, making it possible to reuse them for dispensing beverages. Hello, drinkbot!
—J. Babler
Jason Babler is senior art director of MAKE, an avid gamer, and a beer maker.
John Baichtal writes for MAKE, makezine.com, and geekdad.com.
Gareth Branwyn is editor-in-chief of makezine.com.
William Gurstelle is a contributing editor of MAKE.
Brian Jepson is an O’Reilly Media editor and hacker.
Tim Lillis is a freelance illustrator and DIYer.
Brookelynn Morris is the author of Feltique, a book about felt-making.
Meara O’Reilly (mearaoreilly.com) is a sound designer.
John Edgar Park is a frequent contributor to makezine.com.
Nick Raymond is one of MAKE’s awesome engineering interns.
L. Abraham Smith works with open source hardware every chance he gets.
Want more? Check out our searchable online database of tips and tools at makezine.com/tnt. Have a tool worth keeping in your toolbox? Let us know at [email protected].