I was told the Snoo was the bees knees of baby rockers. Damn it was pricey (1600) bucks. I luckily saw a friend's model in action. Figured it can't be hard to make! Bought myself an Arduino, a stepper motor, a few trips to home depot to get some 2*6s (needed a bit of experimentation here) as a base and a lazy Susan swivel. Voila! Hard work but a lot of fun as I not only had a working rocker (definitely wasn't as pretty as the Snoo but also learn a lot of mechanical engineering in the process. Oh yeah I did rent the Snoo for a month so the baby would have something while I was working at it.
Ask HN: What's the coolest physical thing you've made?
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Re: Ask HN: What's the coolest physical thing you've made?
#72I made a player piano from scratch ! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=atJ_YsPFDjQ (improved since I took the video). I do a LOT of custom stuff (mechanics, woodworking, house rebuilding, electronics, ...) but this is my favorite one yet, kind of sad I'm bad at showing the stuff I make :D If you have any idea of what kind of job I could do to make use of all these skills I would be happy to have your thoughts !
I think it would be cool if you made a "player xylophone". I love the tonal sounds of wood and have thought to do the same. Similarly a plucking piano with bass strings that you play like a piano but sounds like a bass guitar.
Re: Ask HN: What's the coolest physical thing you've made?
#73Re: Ask HN: What's the coolest physical thing you've made?
#74I’m designing and building a series of clocks that don’t tell you what time it is.
Re: Ask HN: What's the coolest physical thing you've made?
#75Animated laptop stickers. https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2020/06/building-a-minimum-viable-l... First time I've ever built and sold something physical. Amazed at how many people liked them.
Nice, appreciated the breakdown in the blog post!
Re: Ask HN: What's the coolest physical thing you've made?
#76I have a Fairchild K-20 [1] lens from WW2 and I created a 3D printed camera for it so I can shoot large format 4x5 inch film handheld. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairchild_K-20
Wow, nifty! I would love to see the results.
Here you go: https://imgur.com/XgSRnHi
The viewfinder isn't mounted in that picture. The two knobs on the right are from the lens to control the speed (125, 250, 500) and the aperture. The knob on the left is the shutter trigger. Shutter cocking is done by removing the ground glass from the back (which is how you preview focusing). Focusing is done by rotating the front side which is actually a giant hollow screw. The indentations are finger grips for rotating.
I have details for all my 3D printed cameras, unfortunately they're under my real name.
Re: Ask HN: What's the coolest physical thing you've made?
#77A few years ago I made a "string art" portrait for my girlfriend at the time. It's made from a continuous† 2 km long black thread, woven around a loom made from a bicycle wheel rim. I'm still very proud of how it turned out.
†OK fine, it broke at a few points and I had to knot the ends together, but it's the principle that counts.
https://imgur.com/gallery/ljoJeal
I really wanted to make something creative for her, but I'm pretty terrible as an artist, so I instead applied a talent I do have: making 200 line Python scripts. Apparently the first to do this was an artist named Petros Vrellis, though I did come up with it independently.
Sadly, we've broken up since then, and we didn't remain friends. I do wonder what happened to it, I can't imagine she'd've thrown it out, but on the other hand it would be odd to have a physically quite large memento to a previous relationship hanging from your wall.
Re: Ask HN: What's the coolest physical thing you've made?
#78All before 1982: a belt-driven windmill to an auto alternator, complete with a household DC circuit providing switchable lights. (thanks Popular Mechanic magazine!) a 6' multi-stage magnetic-driven projectile launcher complete with a horkage of old TV capacitors. An amplified passive Ultrasonic sniffer with earphone. An alarm trip sensor comprised of mirrored lightbeams. And created/deployed "THE" original credit car…
How did you make a reader like that back then?
I'm assuming that these days, and such device would use a generic microcontroller, with most of the interesting logic in the software.
(Insert snarky joke about it also requiring Electron and 16GB of RAM.)
Re: Ask HN: What's the coolest physical thing you've made?
#79Does a garden count? In a small, urban plot I grow grapes, tomatoes, strawberries, mint, elderberries, and carrots. A work in progress but I'm building a modular synthesizer. I've built the power supply and have the VCO started on a strip board. Planning on adding some bits to that, making a step sequencer, and some filters.
Doing the same, would love to see photos/ videos
Re: Ask HN: What's the coolest physical thing you've made?
#80You guessed it, boats. I have built a stitch and glue (plywood) sea kayak[0], an Aleutian-style skin-on-frame sea kayak[1], and a skin-on-frame canoe[2]. All were fairly approachable and straightforward projects (I built the first two with basically some hand tools, a drill and a jig saw, on my deck, but a table saw is highly recommended for skin on frame). Tons of fun and the feeling of being a couple miles offshore or cruising down rapids in a boat you built yourself is awesome.
[0]: https://clcboats.com/shop/boats/kayak-kits/petrel/stitch-and...
[1]: https://www.amazon.com/Aleutian-Kayak-Construction-Tradition...