February 2007

Full Botanicalls circuit with solar sensor battery boost Kate Hartman and I are working on augmenting Botanicalls with a solar panel that will act as both a light sensor and a battery charger for each plant in the project. The full circuit schematic is above with a detail showing the solar charge and sensor connections […]

Initial Sketch for Project Icons The ITP Solar Powered project will channel power into many of the small electrics on the ITP floor, using energy created by our rooftop solar panel. The aim of the project is to create high visibility for sustainable power while fully utilizing our limited clean energy resources. Currently the solar

Click to Play Movie Lesley and I created a lever set (with 100% reused materials) to experiment with and demonstrate first, second and third-class levers. Our working model was made from masonite arms, wooden dowels for pivots and linkage points, some gears for spacers and a couple metal parts as simple counterweights. To calculate the

I built several motors from the handy Make Magazine HowToons instructions from Issue #1. They’re easy to build and fun to watch. All that was required was some magnet wire from Radio Shack and a few permanent magnets. Todd Holoubeck was kind enough to lend me a few of the powerful magnets that he collects.

On Saturday, February 3rd we braved a cold New York morning for the Green Roof Tour at Silvercup Studios in Long Island City, Queens. It was co-sponsored by the Wagner Environmental Policy in Action (WEPA) group and UPSA. Silvercup Studios boasts the largest green roof in NYC over the buildings where they shot The Sopranos,

The prototype push charger is now complete. Starting where I left off on the disassembled remote-control car, I added a diode bridge between the wires coming from the gearhead motor and the battery compartment. The diode bridge ensures that the battery always receives the same polarity of current. Even if the push charger is being

The XBee time clock is back up and running on the ITP floor. It has been changed from a broadcast to a responder model. This is both more efficient generally, and faster in practice. The new PIC code for the clock is matched with new sample Arduino code that any project can incorporate to pick

Got my very first Instructable online this morning. I’m teaching the world how to perfectly cook a sealed can and create dulce de leche, a delicious caramel desert.

I started the power generation monorail project by trying out a quick LEGO prototype. First I created a conveyor system using their instructions: It worked:

For the kinetic energy project, I’m prototyping a human powered battery charging system. ITP has very long hallways, so I’d like to take harness the traffic up and down the halls to power projects. The end product is envisioned as a monorail tramway type of system. A handle dangles from the overhead tramway, and tugging