Print-in-Place Connectors Aim to Make Wiring Easier

One thing some of us here in the United States have always been jealous of is the WAGO connectors that seem so common in electrical wiring everywhere else in the world. We often wonder why the electrical trades here haven’t …read more

Continue reading Print-in-Place Connectors Aim to Make Wiring Easier

Hands-Free Oreo Dispenser, Now With Milk

A while back, [Emiel] aka [The Practical Engineer] created a hands-free Oreo dispenser for his shop. This was a necessary addition to his fleet of handy tools, and allowed him to multitask much more effectively by using a sander, for example, at the same time that he needed to eat …read more

Continue reading Hands-Free Oreo Dispenser, Now With Milk

Scratch-Built Ornithopter: Here’s How I Flapped My Way to Flight

One of humankind’s dreams has always been to fly like a bird. For a hacker, an achievable step along the path to that dream is to make an ornithopter — a machine which flies by flapping its wings. An RC controlled one would be wonderful, controlled flight is what everyone wants. Building a flying machine from scratch is a big enough challenge, and a better jumping-off point is to make a rubber band driven one first.

I experimented with designs which are available on the internet, to learn as much as possible, but I started from scratch in terms of …read more

Continue reading Scratch-Built Ornithopter: Here’s How I Flapped My Way to Flight

Mechanisms: The Lever, It’s Everywhere

Levers are literally all around us. You body uses them to move, pick up a pen to sign your name and you’ll use mechanical advantage to make that ballpoint roll, and that can of soda doesn’t open without a cleverly designed lever.

I got onto this topic quite by accident. I was making an ornithopter and it was having trouble lifting its wings. For the uninitiated, ornithopters are machines which fly by flapping their wings. The problem was that the lever arm was too short. To be honest, as I worked I wasn’t even thinking in terms of levers, and …read more

Continue reading Mechanisms: The Lever, It’s Everywhere

Cat Plays the Silver Ball for Treats

It’s pretty easy to train a dog to do things for treats. They’re eager to please. But a cat? Most cats have better things to do than learn tricks no matter how many treats are involved. But if you make an autonomous game out of learning a trick, they just might go for it.

That’s the idea behind Touchy Fishy, a pinball machine for cats. It’s the newest iteration of treat-dispensing machines that [Kim] made for his cat, MIDI. The previous version was shaped like a dog’s head with a joystick for a nose. MIDI was so adept at pulling …read more

Continue reading Cat Plays the Silver Ball for Treats

Repairs You Can Print: Racing the Clock for a Dishwasher Fix

No matter how mad your 3D printing skills may be, there comes a time when it makes more sense to order a replacement part than print it. For [billchurch], that time was the five-hour window he had to order an OEM part online and have it delivered within two days. The race was on — would he be able to model and print a replacement latch for his dishwasher’s detergent dispenser, or would suffer the ignominy of having to plunk down $30 for a tiny but complicated part?

As you can probably guess, [bill] managed to beat the clock. But …read more

Continue reading Repairs You Can Print: Racing the Clock for a Dishwasher Fix

HR 2.0 is the poster child for the next wave of SaaS innovation

 The path for SaaS domination of a market segment has historically followed one of two routes: bringing previously offline workflows online, or moving on-premise software processes online. In short, SaaS would take over segments that previously we… Continue reading HR 2.0 is the poster child for the next wave of SaaS innovation