Mikey77 writes:

Build a 1/20 cubic inch robot with a gripper that can pick up and move small objects. It is controlled by a Picaxe microcontroller. At this point in time, I believe this may be the world's smallest wheeled robot with a gripper. That will no doubt change, tomorrow or next week, when someone builds something smaller.

The main problem with building really small robots is the relatively large size of even the smallest motors and batteries. They take up most of the volume of a micro robot. I am experimenting with ways to eventually make robots that are truly microscopic. As an interim step, I made the three tiny robots and the controller described in this instructable. I believe with modifications, these proof of concept robots, could be scaled down to microscopic size.

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There are a few clever pranks here. I particularly like the Mentos stealth geyser. From the Mischief Makers' Manual.

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That's not an adjective in the title, "Awesome Grant" is the actual name of the grant, from the Awesome Foundation, of Cambridge, MA. Each month, they give away $1,000 to someone who wants to do something... well awesome. Here's how they define what they're looking for:

Awesomeness is often overlooked by mainstream culture, which tends to rehash the same broadly appealing but mediocre creations. Thankfully, there is the web.

Awesomeness is more the product of a creator's passion than the prospect of audience or profit. Awesome creations are novel and non-obvious, evoking surprise and delight. Invariably, something about them perfectly reflects the essence of the medium, moment, or method of creation. Awesomeness challenges and inspires.

You enter the proposals on their site and they only need to be 500 words. If you get accepted, you even get access to workspace to realize your project (if you live in the Boston area).

If any of our readers submit a proposal that gets accepted, please let us know. We're sure there are plenty of awesome ideas bouncing around the noggins of Make: Online readers.

The Awesome Foundation

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On today's HacDC Blabber list, Trammell Hudson posted a link to this awesome account of British soldiers building a radio in a Japanese POW camp. Trammel writes:

Since they didn't have a local Digikey or Radioshack, everything had to be sourced from what was available. The caps were made from aluminum foil lining of tea-chests, the resistors were rusty barbed wire with burned tree bark, the rectifiers out of oxidised foil and salt water, they smuggled a tube ("valve") in the camps and bribed the local Chinese power station operator to slowly step the output voltage up to 130 from 110 volts.

Amazingly they were able to receive the BBC broadcasts! The initial RX design was pretty basic, so they then built a super-het regenerative transmitter, too, but never made use of it.

[FYI: The image I used above is not from this story, just a diagram of your basic DIY foxhole radio.]

Construction of Radio Equipment in a Japanese POW Camp

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Let's Make Robots is a popular site for robot hobbyists. They've been running two build contests on the site which are now in their finals. Rik, a community member writes:

The LMR Dagu Mr. Basic Challenge invited makers to create any robot from a basic four wheel platform (provided by community sponsor Dagu Electronics). Entries vary from spectacular light shows (using Nixie tubes) to fire fighter to mouse droid (as seen on Star Wars). Three money prizes are at stake. All community members are invited to judge the entries.

The Oddbot LMR Video Challenge is sponsoring creative videos of home made robots. The criteria for "robot" are stretched far enough as to give any one a shot at the lavish prizes. The resulting videos are very funny and creative. The prizes consist of robots and components that Oddbot built and collected over the years. He must now part with them as he moves from Australia to China to become a pro.

I love the sense of humor, and fun, expressed in a lot of the entry bot designs and videos.

Let's Make Robots

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The tradition of improvising a chess set from whatever's on hand is probably as venerable as chess itself. Chess culture is chock-full of sets put together from odds and ends of every description, but here I'm only focusing on sets built from mechanical and electrical bits--mostly nuts, bolts, and washers of various flavors. If you've got a good one I missed, please do link it in the comments.

If you're interested in making your own and want some guidance, Mother Earth News has a nice tutorial.

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Most cell phones are provided with a very basic wall-wart charger, and you usually have to pay extra for a proper charging dock. The bundled charger is often unsightly in use, being just a transformer with a cord strung out to an end table or something where the cell phone rests. If you have a cat who likes to chew through cords, as I do, this can be more than just inelegant--it can be totally impractical. It's also a good project if you just hate, for aesthetic reasons, loose power cords strung out across the furniture.

A similar product is for sale at ThinkGeek, and that's where I got the idea. The nice thing about my version is that it requires no tools to mount or demount, being suspended by the plug on the charger itself. So you can quickly move it around to whatever outlet you want or take it with you when you travel. Plus it costs all of nothing to build.

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Instructables has a roundup of 4th projects for a happy weekend. BBQs, recipes, summer clothes, and water abound.

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Jörn Loviscach shares strategies for thermographic imaging using an infrared thermometer and custom software. Impressive results considering IR thermometers can be had for less than a hundred bucks while the cameras cost several thousand. [via Hack a Day]

Update: There's also a related discussion in our forums, where Bill Beatty points out an interesting strategy.

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From the MAKE Flickr pool

J Miller shares video of the maiden voyage of his rocket built from the plans in MAKE Volume 15. The reaction to the lack-of-rocket-return here is genuinely priceless! And in case you're curious, yes, it was sucessfully recovered. Definitely a good idea to use a very wide open space for testing :)

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Ever wondered what it'd be like to set off 204 bottle rocks at the same time? I know I have. Turns out, it's a good time (so long as you're not in the line of fire).

I Love Bottle Rockets

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From the MAKE Flickr pool

Timothy J Silverman used the burrs from a peppermill to convert his drill into a handy coffee grinder. Use this along with the drill scrambler and you've got yourself a real workshop power breakfast!

Update:The maker adds -I don't recommend using peppermill innards to grind coffee. They grind better than a commercial propeller-style grinder. But they're just too small to get the job done in a reasonable amount of time.

The next iteration will use real coffee burrs from a real coffee grinder. I found some to salvage, but they're also available as replacement parts. Then I can use a hand crank instead of the drill. That should make those who share my office, where this device is normally used, happier.

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Make your own fire starter that uses compressed air and burns at 500 degrees!
Thanks to Bill Gurstelle for showing us this at Maker Faire.
To download The Fire Piston MP4 click here or subscribe in iTunes.
Pick up your own Fire Piston Kit in the Maker Shed.

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This thing is wrong on so many levels, it almost reaches back around to right. Almost.

USB Cigar Flash Memory (with LEDs)

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Some mobile carriers have started selling subsidized netbooks with integrated 3G radios. If you've already got a netbook and enjoy the form factor, but would rather not have to plug in a dongle, here's a quick run-through for integrating a Novatel EU850D 3G radio into a Dell Mini 9 that should give you an idea of what such a project entails.

How-to: 3G to Dell Mini 9. Not so easy way.. [via jkkmobile]

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Scottish sound designer, the Amazing Rolo, traveled to Maker Faire this year especially to see what sorts of cool musical technologies people were cooking up. He made a series of videos of makers demoing their wares. Of the three videos above, he writes:

First up is Elly Jessop, a Masters Student at the uber-cool MIT Media Lab, and her Vocal Augmentation and Manipulation Prosthesis (VAMP). Next is Barry Threw, from Keith McMillan Instruments, showing off the K-Bow (and accompanying software) for extending stringed instrument performance into the digital realm. And finally, the amazing Moldover and his totally bonkers Syncomasher.

The Amazing Rolo

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The Fire Piston Kit is a neat physics experiment based on the heat created when air is rapidly compressed. Bill Gurstelle, author of Backyard Ballistics and Barrage Garage, created this kit for us. If you were at Maker Faire you might have seen him demonstrating his kit in the Maker Shed. [Thanks Bill!]

More about the Fire Piston Kit

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Limor has posted another installment of her exceedingly excellent sensor tutorials, this one on that most marvelous of switches, the tilt sensor. When you just have to know which end is up, you need to strap on one of these puppies. Here's how.

Sensor tutorials - Tilt sensors!

More:
Force Sensitive Resistor (FSR) tutorial
Ladyada's temp sensor tutorial
Adafruit's CdS tutorial

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Ask MAKE is a weekly column where we answer reader questions, like yours. Write them in to becky@makezine.com or drop us a line on Twitter. We can't wait to tackle your conundrums!

Bill writes in:

Last year I built a Kid Wash and my kids have loved playing in it. We brought it out again yesterday with the great weather we had over the weekend and my son (age 12) came up with the idea of earning money over the summer by building and selling them locally. It's an easy enough project that I figure he can handle it and it is popular enough with the neighborhood children that he could also have some success in selling it.

However, the new CPSIA regulations have me worried that such a project (however small) will never get off the ground or we'll just be setting ourselves up for legal problems down the road. How do makers who build and sell toys deal with such regulations? Obviously if he was trying to make and sell something hazardous I wouldn't allow it, but how do we encourage such entrepreneurship without exposing ourselves to liabilities.

There was a huge outcry over the CPSIA regulations when they were announced because of their lack of consideration of the costs they would impose on small manufacturers, especially handmakers of one-of-a-kind toys and clothes. The CPSC voted to impose a stay of one year for testing and certification requirements, which expires February 10, 2010. These folks clearly realized there needs to be more thought put into the wide-sweeping rules that would devastate many small businesses. So you still aren't allowed to sell toys with lead paint, small choking-sized parts, etc., but you don't have to have your KidWash tested by a third party for lead and phthalates before selling them to your neighbors. Not until next year, at least.

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Matt Mets made a rotation-based MIDI controller using a motor, disc, webcam, and OpenCV. Source code included.

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