[Build Some Stuff] created an unusual spiral clock that’s almost entirely made from laser-cut wood, even the curved and bendy parts.

The clock works by using a stepper motor and gear to rotate the clock’s face, which consists of a large dial with a spiral structure. Upon this spiral ramp rolls a ball, whose position relative to the printed numbers indicates the time. Each number is an hour, so if the ball is halfway between six and seven, it’s 6:30. At the center of the spiral is a hole, which drops the ball back down to the twelve at the beginning of the spiral so the cycle can repeat.

The video (embedded below) demonstrates the design elements and construction of the clock in greater detail, and of particular interest is how the curved wall of the spiral structure consists of a big living hinge, a way to allow mostly rigid materials to flex far beyond what they are used to. Laser cutting is well-suited to creating living hinges, but it’s a technique applicable to 3D printing, as well.

Thanks to [Kelton] for the tip!

Unless you happen to be from Finland, this is just an all too familiar situation: you’re stuck in an inescapable situation with this one person who is really more of an acquaintance than a friend, and neither of you knows who should say something in hopes of keeping a conversation going. Awkward silence is inevitable, and the longer it lasts, the more excruciating the thought of opening your mouth becomes. Well, consider those days over, thanks to [Jasper Choi] and his friends, who blessed us with the System for Awkward Silence Solution and Interaction Enhancer, or SASSIE.

Built as a laser-cut rotating cylinder, and equipped with a pair of microphones, SASSIE detects and counts the duration of any ongoing silence in the room. Once a pre-defined time limit is reached, it rotates itself to a random direction, symbolically pointing a finger to one of the people present in the room to indicate its their turn to speak now. To break the silence right off the bat, the finger pointing is accompanied by some pre-recorded messages. Unfortunately the audio files exceeded the storage of the Arduino Uno used here, so the responsibilities had to be divided between two Arduinos, arranged with the help of some simple serial communication.

While this is obviously a tongue-in-cheek project, it might just be a welcoming relieve for people with social anxiety, and there is definitely potential to take the idea further. Maybe with some inspiration from this happy robot fellow, a future version might ease the conversation even further by suggesting a topic along the way.

Digitizing an object usually means firing up a CAD program and keeping the calipers handy, or using a 3D scanner to create a point cloud representing an object’s surfaces. [Dzl] took an entirely different approach with his DIY manual 3D digitizer, a laser-cut and 3D printed assembly that uses rotary encoders to create a turntable with an articulated “probe arm” attached.

Each joint of the arm is also an encoder, and by reading the encoder values and applying a bit of trigonometry, the relative position of the arm’s tip can be known at all times. Manually moving the tip of the arm from point to point on an object therefore creates measurements of that object. [Dzl] successfully created a prototype to test the idea, and the project files are available on GitHub.

We remember the earlier version of this project and it’s great to see how it’s been updated with improvements like the addition of a turntable with an encoder. DIY 3D digitizing takes all kinds of approaches, and one example was this unit that used four Raspberry Pi Zeros and four cameras to generate high quality 3D scans.

Building your own robot is something everyone should do, and [Ahmed] has already built a few robots designed to be driven around indoors. An indoor robot is easy, though: you have flat surfaces to roll around on, and the worst-case scenario you have a staircase to worry about. An outdoor robot is something else entirely, which makes this project so spectacular. It’s the M1 Rover, an unmanned ground vehicle, built around the Arduino platform.

The design goal of the M1 Rover isn’t just to be a remote-controlled car that can be driven around indoors. This robot is meant for rough terrain, and is a robot that can be programmed, can also be driven around by a computer, a video game controller, or custom joysticks.

To this end, the M1 rover is designed around high-quality laser cut plywood, powered by a few DC motors controlled through a dual H-bridge, and loaded up with sensors, including a front-mounted ultrasonic sensor. All the electronics are tucked away in the chassis, and the software is just fantastic. In fact, with the addition of a smartphone skillfully mounted to the top of the chassis, this little robot can became an autonomous rover, complete with a webcam. It’s one of the better robotic rover projects we’ve seen, and amazing addition to this year’s Hackaday Prize.

Self-described “Inventor Dad” [pepelepoisson]’s project is called Stecchino (English translation link here) and it’s an Arduino-based physical balancing game that aims to be intuitive to use and play for all ages. Using the Stecchino (‘toothpick’ in Italian) consists of balancing the device on your hand and trying to keep it upright for as long as possible. The LED strip fills up as time passes, and it keeps records of high scores. It was specifically designed to be instantly understood and simple to use by people of all ages, and we think it has succeeded in this brilliantly.

To sense orientation and movement, Stecchino uses an MPU-6050 gyro and accelerometer board. An RGB LED strip gives feedback, and it includes a small li-po cell and charger board for easy recharging via USB. The enclosure is made from a few layers of laser-cut and laser-engraved material that also holds the components in place. The WS2828B LED strip used is technically a 5 V unit, but [pepelepoisson] found that feeding them direct from the 3.7 V cell works just fine; it’s not until the cell drops to about three volts that things start to glitch out. All source code and design files are on GitHub.

Games are great, and the wonderful options available to people today allow for all kinds of interesting experimentation like a blind version of tag, or putting new twists on old classics like testing speed instead of strength.

[Ryan Bates] loves arcade games, any arcade games. Which is why you can find claw machines, coin pushers, video games, and more on his website.

We’ve covered his work before with his Venduino project. We also really enjoyed his 3D printed arcade joystick based off the design of a commercial variant. His coin pushing machine could help some us finally live our dream of getting a big win out of the most insidious gambling machine at arcades meant for children.

Speaking of frustrating gambling machines for children, he also built his own claw machine. Nothing like enabling test mode and winning a fluffy teddy bear or an Arduino!

It’s quite a large site and there’s good content hidden in nooks and crannys, so explore. He also sells kits, but it’s well balanced against a lot of open source files if you’d like to do it yourself. If you’re wondering how he gets it all done, his energy drink review might provide a clue.

Beautifully documented, modular, and completely open-source, this split flap display project by [JON-A-TRON] uses 3D printing, laser cutting and engraving, and parts anyone can find online to make a device that looks as sharp as it is brilliantly designed. Also, it appears to be a commentary on our modern culture since this beautifully engineered, highly complex device is limited to communicating via three-letter combos and cat pictures (or cat video, if you hold the button down!) As [JON-A-TRON] puts it, “Why use high-resolution, multi-functional devices when you can get back to your industrial revolution roots?” Video is embedded below.

The only limitation is that the device has no way of knowing the state of individual displays, so it’s unable to spell out specific messages – an operator simply holds a button to scroll through letters, and stops when the correct letter is displayed. For a similar project that has serious control hardware (but none of the cheeky commentary) check out this scratch-built alphanumeric split flap display.

[via Adafruit Blog]

[wyojustin] was trying to think of projects he could do that would take advantage of some of the fabrication tech that’s become available to the average hobbyist. Even though he doesn’t have any particular interest in clocks, [wyojustin] discovered that he could learn a lot about the tools he has access to by building a clock.

[wyojustin] first made a clock based off of a design by [Brian Wagner] that we featured a while back. The clock uses an idler wheel to move the hour ring so it doesn’t need a separate hour hand. After he built his first design, [wyojustin] realized he could add a planetary gear that could move an hour hand as well. After a bit of trial and error with gear ratios, he landed on a design that worked.

The clock’s movement is a stepper motor that’s driven by an Arduino. Although [wyojustin] isn’t too happy with the appearance of his electronics, the drive setup seems to work pretty well. Check out [wyojustin]’s site to see the other clock builds he’s done (including a version with a second hand), and you can peruse all of his design files on GitHub.

Looking for more clock-building inspiration? Check out some other awesome clock builds we’ve featured before.

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Hi, I'm new to LMR as a member. But I've been browsing around LMR to learn robotics. First, sorry for my bad English. I finished making my quadruped robot a couple weeks ago. It was my first robotic project using microcontroller. In fact, it was my first microcontroller project. Unfortunately it wasn't well documented during the making process since I didn't plan to publish it before. :( So here is what I can collect from scattered file in my PC..

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