Ejaad-Nama 003: Makers Vs Social Distancing
Ejaad-Nama (Urdu: Letters of Invention). A bi-weekly newsletter about Science, Electronics, Makers, DIY, and everything technical. We talk about lemons, acid battery and anything in between.
COVID-19 has put everyone in a lockdown. Those who are putting themselves to quarantine and/or social distancing measures may have noticed how much time suddenly they have on their hands. For example, in the last few weeks, I have organized my computer desktop, uninstalled all the unwanted apps to clear the memory, and cleaned up my email inbox. I had almost forgotten the feeling of relief and satisfaction it provides. This newsletter is also a product of lockdown.
Hence, today my focus is going to be on makers who have managed to get time on their hands and see what they have been up to. And oh, I am going to tell you a joke in the end.
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I have been blessed in having a partner that is highly efficient in managing the housework and professional life. Due to that, I started feeling a bit useless around the house. This feeling of being worthless brought to me finally finish my 3d printed useless machine. Have a look at a 30-second gif below.
Well, you see it does exactly what it’s supposed to do. Nothing (just like me *giggle*). I had fun building it though: I wanted to level-up my CAD modelling skills, and this project had enough moving parts and complexity to not hamper my learning. The challenges you have to think about become apparent as you start making it: How will the assembly look like? how will the hatch overcome the friction to come down? If in future I want to upgrade the firmware, how will I access the electronics?
Getting the M3 nuts nice and snug fit into the bottom cover requires some work: I measured an M3 nut and added a clearance of 0.04mm to account for shrinkage of plastic when going to cold and over extrusion of plastic from my printer. They nicely canceled out each other. Oh, and I used a simple rubber band to pull down the hatch. I would recommend anyone starting with robotics/electronics/3d printing to give this a try. All the files, code, assembly is linked here. The design is big inspiration from this design from thingiverse user grafalex.
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Fevers are not cool. Especially if they are related to COVID-19. That’s why Aqeel Arshad, a maker based in Munich, dug out a very old defective contactless thermometer in his (what normal people will call) trash. The dead thermometer was ripe to open and reverse engineer. And he did exactly that. Reverse engineering is an art, and I am a big admirer of it. Check out how he managed to sort through the internet to reverse engineer a dead product that otherwise would have ended up in a landfill polluting our planet.
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Internet, Netflix, Food. The three most important necessities of our generation (in that particular order). If the first thing does not work, you have to take it upon you to fix it. Nishant Singh is a chip designer from India who could not do nothing.
We all know of our one particular favorite spot where the wifi signal is the weakest. Nishant Singh decided to change it with his 3d printing powers and some Antenna theory. He 3d printed additional parabola antennas and mounted it onto his router to make the signal more directional and make it reach where it matters the most. He managed to get 10 - 12 dB improvement in signal strength which is just enough to get the Netflix working consistently. He has written a detailed explanation, physics behind it, and his 3d printed files here.
Antenna theory is complex and it’s hard to find people who can explain it any better. If you are still confused about how this works, here is a great resource on the introduction to advanced antenna theory.
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I came across this amazing youtube who builds some outrageous things. Like a social distancing bike. The build video taught me so many things about tools used in working with metals and considerations you have to take to build this sort of thing. Even if you will never work with metals, this video might just teach you how to build complex things.
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If you have read all this long for the joke, here it is: I know a great joke about Corona Virus, you probably won't get it though :).
Stay healthy.
If you would like to send in your projects and hacks to be part of the newsletter, please do comment below, or email me: a.nadeem89@gmail.com.
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