READER INPUT

Where makers tell their tales and offer praise, brickbats, and swell ideas.

Skylar is 11 years old [pictured at right], and he loves to make things. He went to Home Depot and Lowe’s three times this weekend. He is pretty tight with the plumbing dudes. They got a kick out of his weekend project. Not your typical DIY.

After many viewings of his fav podcast at makezine.com, Skylar made the T-shirt cannon this weekend. First launch was 7: 40 p.m. He has already lost a T-shirt in the neighbor’s bushes.

It works! Genius?

—Skylar’s mom, Katie Wisdom Weinstein

I happened across my first issue of MAKE magazine with Volume 05. At the time I was working on developing some children’s alternative energy educational programs for a local startup in upstate New York. Your magazine sucked me in with the article about the DIY wind turbine from Velacreations [page 90, “Wind Powered Generator,” by Abe and Josie Connally]. In a month’s time I built my first Chispito wind turbine. From there it has been a whirlwind of change in my life.

I ended up building six Chispitos, became a forum administrator for the Connallys’ website, traveled to southwest Texas to finally meet them in person in February 2007, decided two months later to sell my house in upstate New York and move to their part of Texas, designed an 8'× 16' structure I could move into within two weeks, bought land in late November, began construction on Dec. 7, moved in on Dec. 19, and after ten weeks in the desert I’m just a couple weeks away from finishing all the details of my off-the-grid desert hut [pictured at lower right] — building materials $2,500, solar power system $1,500, water catchment system $500.

Funny thing is, I have yet to add a wind turbine to my place. This is just the first phase of a sustainable living field research facility. Will be posting the full set of construction photos at Flickr. Happy to email some to you — you gotta see it!

—John Wells lifeoffthegrid@yahoo.com

172 Make: Volume 14

The Beetlebot article in Volume 12 is a delightfully minimalist creation. I really appreciate how concise and symmetric the design is. I do have a suggestion, prompted mostly by a sense of missed symmetry.

If the polarity of one of the motors is reversed, along with a reversal of the NO and NC connections on that motor’s switch, then both batteries will be used and drained “equally” — by that I mean that when the Beetlebot is running unobstructed, each battery will power one motor, and only when turning would all the power come from a single motor.

—Peter Langston