Tricks of the Trade By Tim Lillis
Put a cork on it.
Does your dish rack drain
poorly, collecting water
that sits around until you
remember to clean it out?
Thanks to this trick from
Zach Watson, you will no
longer have this problem.
All you need are some wine
corks (or similar material)
and something to cut them
with. Notch the corks so the
rack will nest inside. Place
them at the two corners
opposite the draining end.
All dish racks are different,
so cut the corks in a way
that enables the perfect
nesting of your dish rack.
You may need to try out
various heights.
Have a trick of the trade? Send it to tricks@makezine.com.
Voilà! With just that small
lift at one end, your dishwater will henceforth drain
away into the sink and keep
the rack dry.
EZ-Robot Controller
$99 makershed.com
When I first got to play with the EZ-Robot Controller, I
assumed I would have to learn its programming syntax and
the on-board Bluetooth would be hard to set up. I was wonderfully wrong. Once I paired the device to my computer
and fired up the EZ-Builder software, I was greeted by a
friendly drag-and-drop environment. I hooked the EZ-Robot
Controller up to a Boe-Bot chassis and proceeded to play
around. In under five minutes I had my crude-looking robot
chasing my dog around using voice commands!
I’m blown away by the simplicity of the system and how
even complicated things like object tracking and face detection (bring your own camera and servos) are built into the
software. If you’re the least bit interested in building robots
and hacking toys, I urge you to check this thing out. You
won’t be disappointed! —MC
Gareth Branwyn is editor-in-chief
of makezine.com.
Michael Castor is the evangelist for
the Maker Shed ( makershed.com).
Stuart Deutsch is a DI Yer, and writes
a whole lot more about tools at
toolguyd.com.
Keith Hammond is projects editor
at MAKE.
Tim Lillis is a freelance illustrator
and DI Yer ( narwhalcreative.com).
Paul Mundell is one of MAKE’s
awesome engineering interns.
Meara O’Reilly ( mearaoreilly.com)
is a sound designer.
Arwen O’Reilly Griffith is staff editor
at MAKE.
John Edgar Park is a frequent
contributor to makezine.com.
Sean Michael Ragan comes from
a long line of makers, and blogs at
makezine.com.
Nick Raymond is intern coordinator
of MAKE Labs.
* Want more? Check out our searchable online database of tips
and tools at makezine.com/tnt.
Have a tool worth keeping in
your toolbox? Let us know at
toolbox@makezine.com.
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