MakerSpace Issue #04

Welcome to MakerSpace 4, an all new collection of exciting, hands-on projects! If you’re new to MakerSpace, we are a computer magazine that covers more than just the latest PCs or Apple computers – or Android or iOS smartphones and tablets for that matter. In this magazine, we talk about technology that you can use to build your own stuff and bring your ideas to life. If you don’t have the time or the necessary skills, we hope looking at the projects in this magazine will inspire you to start a programming class, learn soldering, or work on some other skill. Computing Can Be Fun We use computers in the office; we use them at home. Every smartphone is a powerful computer. If you bought a TV in the last…

When my venerable bedside clock radio and alarm – a present from my parents in the 1980s – finally died, as a maker, my first thought was not, “Where can I buy another?” but “Can I make one?”! I didn’t really use the radio (I think it was AM only, and here in the UK, AM is no longer used much), so my ideas began to form around a simple, retro-style digital clock with an LED display in an attractive wooden case. The case needed to be simple to build because my woodworking skills are limited. I chose a large green LED display for its restful color in the dark, and I wanted the clock to run off a USB wall socket to simplify the power supply design whilst retaining…

People want a variety of information presented in the same place. On the road, a smartphone plays a central role for most. At home, you might have legacy displays for heating control, an alarm system, a weather station, and so on. A common display is useful for grouping data from different sources without the need to call up different apps or read the data in different places. A Raspberry Pi Pico W lets you build your own model. A home automation solution already collects many useful values. For this sample project, I added news and a weather forecast through a connection to the Internet. To make the device compact and mobile, it has a battery. The display and controller need to be frugal in terms of power consumption, which is…

Lenticular images store multiple exposures in the same area. Animation is achieved by tilting the image. Another application creates a spatial appearance without special tools (autostereoscopy). The digital version of this often shows up on social media as a “wigglegram.” Lenticular Cameras On the consumer market, lenticular cameras are sold under the name Action-Sampler. More than 40 years ago, the fourlens Nishika (Nimslo) appeared, followed by Fuji’s eight-lens Rensha Cardia in 1991. Unlike the Nishika’s synchronous shutter action, the Fuji exposed the 35mm film sequentially. Even today, the analog scenes are still very popular on Instagram and the like. One way of creating a multilens digital recording system is to use a Raspberry Pi and a Camarray HAT [1] (hardware attached on top) by ArduCam [2]. The camera I make…

You have a pet, but you need to be away from home for a day. Is it really worth paying for a kennel when all you want is to keep an eye on your pet while you’re away? Of course, you could use a video doorbell service (like Ring or Arlo) and simply locate the camera device inside your home, but it seems like overkill to pay for a monthly service for something that you only need occasionally. Also, for privacy reasons, some people might not want to invite a streaming video service into their home when they don’t have control over how the video is processed and stored. On the other hand, if you have a Raspberry Pi, an Internet connection, and a Pi-compatible camera, it is actually pretty…

This article is about the joy of tinkering, and the project I look at is suitable for all kinds of situations when your hands are full or just dirty. The hardware requirements turn out to be quite low: a Raspberry Pi, a screen, and a gesture sensor. My choice of sensor was the APDS9960 (Figure 1), for which you can get breakouts and an I2C connector for a low price at the usual dealers ($3.20-$7.50). However, you should note whether the sensor has soldered jumpers. The left jumper (PS) controls the power supply of the infrared lamp with the pin for positive supply voltage (VCC) and definitely needs to be closed. The right jumper (labelled 12C PU on the sensor in Figure 1) enables the pullups on the clock line…