Wednesday, November 20, 2013

Simple Plywood Desk (Desk 1.0)

This is my first instructable, a plan for a simple plywood and 2 x 4 desk that I designed and made several years ago.

The idea was to use a single sheet of hardwood plywood, and some basic hardware to build this desk for between $75 and $100. It could probably be built for less if you changed some of the materials.

Unfortunately I didn't document the build process at all, so I only have pictures from several years after it was built, and some pictures of a much larger version that I built later. I've included pictures of the other desk (a similar design), and the completed desk as it is today.


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DuckDuckGo App Brings Tracking-Free Search to Android and iOS

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$9 Bike mount for GPS or phone

Okay, so the actual cost was $9.01 at my local big box home and garden store. However, that was for everything.

I was scheduled to go on a bike ride the upcoming weekend, and wanted an inexpensive way to mount my expensive iPhone to the handlebar of my bike. This was so I could use a biking GPS app while riding.

I already had a LIFEPROOF® fre case and matching belt clip for my phone, so the $9.01 doesn’t include that. However, my bike mount could work for most any holster and case. The LIFEPROOF® fre combination does make my setup pretty bulletproof, though. I’m not associated with LIFEPROOF®, but I like the fre case because it’s shockproof, waterproof and dirtproof. (Please see their web page for details.) The belt clip that matches the case has a rotating belt attachment and a unique feature: A lock switch that secures the phone in the cradle-like clip. When that switch is in the locked position, the phone is not coming loose, not without destroying the holster. The holster itself is made of very tough plastic, so that’s not likely to happen with the kind of riding I do.

Let’s move on to the actual bike mount. Here’s the finished product, sans the iPhone. (Please ignore the lawn mower the bike is leaning against.)

As you can see, this mount will place the device front and center on the handlebar, right in front of the rider.
Parts you’ll need:
2 each ¾” conduit hangers
4 each ¼”-20 nylon self-locking or “safety” nuts
2 each ¼”-20, ¾” long machine screws
Roll of ¾” wide, 7/16” thick rubber foam, self-adhesive weather stripping (you actually only need two pieces about an inch-and-a-half long.)
Plastic outdoor-use, single-gang, blank electrical box cover (you could use anything you want here, as long as you think it’s sturdy enough: Wood, plastic, metal, whatever.)


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R/C LEGO� Dart Shooter Droid

In this project, I created a R/C LEGO® "Dart Shooter Droid" that combined the parts from components list below,

LEGO® Components
I divided LEGO® Components into four separate groups, Vertical Gearbox Support, Torso and Head, Left Arm, and Right Arm.
In addition I also provided the Instruction of the Target Bot. (Components for Target Bot, see Photo 5, are listed separately in Step 14.)
Following are components used in this project.

Torso and Head Components

1 no.   - Liftarm 1x9 Bent 7x3 (#32271)
6 nos. -  Liftarm 2x4 L shape (#32140)
4 nos. -  Liftarm 1x4 (#2825)
4 nos. -  Liftarm 1x11.5 Double Bent Thick (#32009)
2 nos. - Liftarm 3x5 L-Shape with Quarter Ellipse Thin (#32250)

4 nos. -  1/2 Bush (#32123)
2 nos. -  Bush for Cross Axle (#6590)
2 nos. -  Bush 1/2 Toothed Type II (#4265b)

1 no.   - Cross Axle 10M (#3737)
1 no.   - Cross Axle 8M (#3707)
5 nos. - Cross Axle 6M (#3706)
1 no.   - Cross Axle 5M (#32073)
3 nos. - Cross Axle 4M (#3705)
5 nos. - Cross Axle 2M with Groove(#32062)

2 nos. - Connector Peg (#3673)
3 nos. -  Connector with Peg 3M (#32556)
6 nos. -  Connector Peg/Cross Axle (#6562)
4 nos. -  Connector Peg with Friction (#2780)
2 nos. - Connector Peg with Knob  (#4274)

6 nos. - Axle Conn Perp 3L (#32184)
2 nos. -  Axle Connector Block 3 x 6 with 6 Axle holes (#32307)
1 no.   - Axle Joiner (#6538b)

2 nos. -  1x2 Technic Brick (#3700)

2 nos. - 2x4 Technic Plate (#3709)

1 no. - 2x2 Plate with Holes (#2817)

12 nos. - Technic Lever (#6632)

2 nos. - Round Plate 1x1 Transparent Green (#30057)
2 nos. -  Round Plate 1x1 Transparent Red (#30057)

1 no. - Angle Element [4], 135 Degrees (#32192)
2 nos. - Angle Element [1], 0 Degrees (#32013)

1 no. - Rigid Tube 3 mm Dia. 7L  (#75c07)
1 no. - Rigid Tube 3 mm Dia. 9L  (#75c09)

1 no. - Parabola Dish 2x2 (#4740)

1 no. - Slant Brick (#2744)

1 no. - Slope 45 6x2 Invert Brick with Connector (#????)


Vertical Gearbox Support & Base Components 4 nos.   -  Connector Peg with Friction 3M (#6558)
10 nos. -  Connector Peg/Cross Axle (#6562)

2 nos. - Connector Peg (#3673)

2 nos, -  1x16 Technic Brick (#3703)
3 nos. - 1x12 Technic Brick (#3895)
2 nos. - 1x10 Technic Brick (#2730)
2 nos. - 1x4 Technic Brick (#3701)
2 nos. - 1x2 Technic Brick (#3700)

4 nos. -   3x3 Liftarm (#32249)
2 nos. -  Liftarm 1x3 Thin (#6632)

4 nos. -  1x8 Plate (#3460)
4 nos. -  1x3 Plate  (#3623)
1 no.   - 1x2 Plate (#3023)

2 nos. -  2x2 Plate (#3022)

4 nos. -  Cross Axle 8M (#3707)

4 nos. -  Bush for Cross Axle (#6590)

2 nos. - Pin Joiner Round (#75535)

Rotational Base: 11 nos.  - Connector Peg/Cross Axle (#6562)
4 nos.    -  Connector Peg (#3673)

1 no. - Bush for Cross Axle (#6590)

2 nos. -  Liftarm 1x3 Thin (#6632)

1 no. - Cross Axle 6M (#3706)

1 nos. - 1x6 Technic Brick (#3894)

2 nos. - 2x8 Technic Plate (#3738)
1 no. - 1x8 Plate (#3460)

1 no.   - 40T Gear (#3649)
3 nos. -  8T Gear  (#3647)

Torso Rotational Servo Housing 1 no. - 1x6 Technic Brick (#3894)

1 no. - 2x8 Technic Plate (#3738)

2 nos. -  2x2 Plate (#3022)

1 no. - 16-Tooth Gear (#4019)

1 no. - 3L Axle with knob (#6587)


Tracks and Hubs: 2 nos. -  1x2 Technic Brick (#3700)
2 nos. -  1x4 Technic Brick (#3701)
1 no.   -  1x6 Technic Brick  (#3703)

4 nos. -  2x4 Technic Plate  (#3709)

3 nos. -  1x8 Plate (#3460)
2 nos. -  2x2 Plate (#3022)

4 nos. -  Bush for Cross Axle (#6590)

2 nos. -  Technic Sprocket Drive Wheel(Hub) (#32007)
2 nos. -  5" Caterpillar Treads (#680C01)

2 nos. -  16T Gear (#4019)
4 nos. -  24T Gear (#3648)


Castor: 1 no.   - 1x4 Technic Brick (#3701)
2 nos. - 1x6 Technic Brick (#3894)

2 nos. - 2x6 Technic Plate (#32001)
2 nos. - 2x4 Technic Plate (#3709)

2 nos. - 2x2 Plate (#3022)
6 nos. - 1x2 Plate (#3023)

1 no. - Cross Axle 6M (#3706)
1 no. - Cross Axle 4M (#3705)

2 nos. - Connector Peg/Cross Axle (#6562)

3 nos. - Liftarm 1x3 Thin (#6632)

2 nos. - 1/2 Bush (#32123)
1 no.   - 1/2 Bush Toothed Type II (#4265b)

3 nos. -  Bush for Cross Axle (#6590)

1 no. - Axle Joiner Perpendicular (#6536)

2 nos. - Wheels (Tire #87414, Hub #3482)

Left Arm Components
1 no. - Connector with Peg 3M (#32556)
1 no. - Connector Peg/Cross Axle (#6562)
1 no. - Connector Peg (#3673)

1 no. - Cross Axle 4M (#3705)

3 nos. -  Cross Axle 3M (#4519)
8 nos. - Cross Axle 2M with Groove(#32062)

1 no. - Perpendicular Axle Connector (#32039)
2 nos. - Perpendicular Axle Pin Connector (#6536)

2 nos. - Technic Lever (#6632)

1 no. - Pole Reverser Handle (#6553)

2 nos. - Angle Element [3], 157.5 Degrees (#32016)
1 no.   - Angle Element [4], 135 Degrees (#32192)
3 nos. - Angle Element [5], 112.5 Degrees (#32015)

1 no. - Ribbed 7 mm Dia. Tube 7L (#78c07)

Right Arm Components 2 nos. -  Connector Peg (#3673)
2 nos. - Connector Peg/Cross Axle (#6562)
1 no.   - Connector with Peg 3M (#32556)

1 no. - Liftarm 1x5 Thin (#32017)
1 no. - Lift arm 1x2 thin (#41677)

1 no. - Axle Towball (#2736)

1 no. - Axle Joiner (#6538b)
1 no. - Axle Conn Perp 3L (#32184)

3 nos. - Cross Axle 2M with Groove (#32062)

2 nos. - Technic Lever (#6632)

1 no. - Angle Element [2], 180 Degrees(#32034)
1 no. - Angle Element [4], 135 Degrees (#32192)


Target Bot
Note: This Target Bot is optional you can omit this part.
All the LEGO components are listed in Step 16.

Palm Arduino II
For the details, schematic and parts for Palm Arduino II go here.

Palm Arduino V3
For the details, schematic and parts for Palm Arduino V3 go here.

DIY Motor Controller PCB (Photo 4) or Motor Shield
For the details, schematic and parts for DIY Motor Controller go here.

Double Gearbox Kit
Tamiya 70097 Twin-Motor Gearbox Kit or similar.

Servos
2 nos. - 9g Micro Servo (T Pro SG90), or Power HD Micro Servo HD-1900A (Pololu #1050) or Adafruit's Micro Servo (#169) or similar.
1 no.   - Sub-Micro Servo 3.7g (Pololu #1053) or similar.

Tools
Razor Saw
X-acto Knife
Super Glue
Sugru


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Why Your Memory Sucks (and What You Can Do About It)

Human memory is quirky, complicated, and unreliable. Even when we think we're remembering everything accurately, chances are things have gotten twisted along the way. Let’s take a look at why your memory sucks, and how you can change that.

Science is still figuring out all kinds of new things about our brains and memory. What we do know is that a lot of people struggle with remembering things, and in many different ways. Perhaps you're always forgetting a few items at the grocery store, or to pick up the dry cleaning on your way home. Worse, maybe you can't remember events from your childhood that well, or you remember an event from college differently than a friend. So, let's take a look at what's really going on in your brain, and then see if we can actually do anything to improve your memory.

Why Your Memory Sucks (and What You Can Do About It)

Everyone's memory is different, but none of us have a perfect memory. In fact, even if you think your memory is perfect, chances are it isn't. To understand how this works, we need to look at a few different things, starting with how we remember anything to begin with.

The fact is, human memory is complicated. As an example, consider how you remember visual images. It seems straightforward, you see something, and you remember it. But as Scientific American points out, it's more complex than that:

Memories of visual images (e.g., dinner plates) are stored in what is called visual memory. Our minds use visual memory to perform even the simplest of computations; from remembering the face of someone we’ve just met, to remembering what time it was last we checked...

Memories like what you had for dinner are stored in visual short-term memory—particularly, in a kind of short-term memory often called “visual working memory.” Visual working memory is where visual images are temporarily stored while your mind works away at other tasks—like a whiteboard on which things are briefly written and then wiped away.

So, what causes those memories to stick around and not be wiped away from that whiteboard? According to a one study from MIT, it might simply be how meaningful an image is and if we can connect it to other knowledge. If you can connect that image to something else, it increases the chances you'll remember it later. Like learning, memory is all about context. This is why, as The Atlantic points out, pattern recognition is key. Essentially, the more connections a new memory has to knowledge you have, the more likely it is you'll remember that information. The same basic process seems to happen with most memories.

Underneath the hood, all types of things are happening in your brain. How Stuff Works does a good job of breaking it down:

Experts believe that the hippocampus, along with another part of the brain called the frontal cortex, is responsible for analyzing these various sensory inputs and deciding if they're worth remembering. If they are, they may become part of your long-term memory... these various bits of information are then stored in different parts of the brain. How these bits and pieces are later identified and retrieved to form a cohesive memory, however, is not yet known...

To properly encode a memory, you must first be paying attention. Since you cannot pay attention to everything all the time, most of what you encounter every day is simply filtered out, and only a few stimuli pass into your conscious awareness... What we do know is that how you pay attention to information may be the most important factor in how much of it you actually remember.

The fact of the matter is, we're still learning a lot about human memory. Why we remember certain details over others is still a mystery.

Why Your Memory Sucks (and What You Can Do About It)

It's probably no secret to you that you can't trust your memory. All of us have had moments where we've misremembered a detail, forgotten something, or even made details up completely. The reason is pretty simple: our memory isn't always reliable because it's about perception.

Memories are changed by all kinds of things. Nostalgia plays a roll in how we remember, and according to Scientific American it's surprisingly easy to instill false memories in people. Most shocking though, is how often we're just plain wrong about the details. For example, eyewitness testimony is notoriously unreliable, but as The Smithsonian Magazine points out, our memory of major events is consistantly inaccurate:

Most people have so-called flashbulb memories of where they were and what they were doing when something momentous happened: the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, say, or the explosion of the space shuttle Challenger. (Unfortunately, staggeringly terrible news seems to come out of the blue more often than staggeringly good news.) But as clear and detailed as these memories feel, psychologists find they are surprisingly inaccurate.

Nader, a neuroscientist at McGill University in Montreal, says his memory of the World Trade Center attack has played a few tricks on him. He recalled seeing television footage on September 11 of the first plane hitting the north tower of the World Trade Center. But he was surprised to learn that such footage aired for the first time the following day. Apparently he wasn’t alone: a 2003 study of 569 college students found that 73 percent shared this misperception.

It's not just traumatic events that cause our memories to flake out. One study in The Journal of the Association for Psychological Science points out that simply recalling memories enhances and distorts them. Which is to say, when you remember something you're actively changing it. In part this has a lot to do with a wide variety of memory biases that color the ways we remember. From the positivity effect where we tend to remember the positive over the negative to the egocentric bias where we remember ourselves as being better than we are, we're constantly changing memories in a way that benefits how we view ourselves. Which is to say, trusting your own memory isn't always the best idea.

For example, one study published in The Journal of Experimental Psychology showed that we tend to think we'll remember something important more than we will. This is essentially when you don't write down a brilliant idea because it's good you'll never forget it, and then you immediately forget what it was. It's happened to the best of us, and it's because we're overly confident in our ability to remember.

Unfortunately, like most of our biases, the only way to really counteract them is to know they're there. Knowing that your memory isn't perfect means you'll pay more attention to those imperfections in the future.

Improving your memory is possible, but despite what the self-help section at your local bookstore might say, it's not just about a series of mental hoops you can jump through every day. In fact, while there certainly are some techniques proven to help you retain information, improving your memory is just as much about lifestyle as anything else.

Why Your Memory Sucks (and What You Can Do About It)

We know that physical activity affects the brain in a number of positive ways, and one of those is a boost to memory.

Physical activity's role in memory is incredibly complicated. Studies published in Behavioral Neuroscience, The Journal of American Geriatrics Society, and The Journal of Aging Research, among others suggest that exercise plays a signifigant role in memory. The New York Times breaks the current research like so:

What all of this new research suggests, says Teresa Liu-Ambrose, an associate professor in the Brain Research Center at the University of British Columbia who oversaw the experiments with older women, is that for the most robust brain health, it’s probably advisable to incorporate both aerobic and resistance training. It seems that each type of exercise “selectively targets different aspects of cognition,” she says, probably by sparking the release of different proteins in the body and brain...
[B]eyond merely stemming people’s memory loss, she says, “we saw actual improvements,” an outcome that, if you’re waffling about exercising today, is worth remembering.

Essentially, exercise improves cognitive functions, and when that happens it enhances our memory storage and retrieval. Basically, the better shape your brain is in, the better the chances you'll remember something.

Why Your Memory Sucks (and What You Can Do About It)

Most of us have heard before that sleep plays an important role in memory, but as time goes on we're learning a lot more about how that works. Sleep and memory is an intensely researched subject, and it's pretty clear that sleep plays a signifigant role in memory formation. Sleep does this in two key ways. Speaking with NPR, Robert Stickgold from Harvard Medical School explains it like so:

Well, it turns out that probably all the stages of sleep are involved, but they're involved in different ways. And so what we will classically do is we'll train subjects on some memory task, and it might be a list of words, or it might be a typing sequence. So it can be very different types of memory problems...
And what we see pretty consistently is that the ones who got a chance to sleep will actually be performing much better after that 12 hours than the ones who had been awake... So on one task it might be the amount of deep sleep you get early in the night, and this would be the case more for things like verbal memory, that you'll see that the amount of improvement subjects show after sleep will depend on how much of that slow wave, that deep sleep they get, whereas in other tasks it might correlate with the amount of REM sleep that they get.

Basically, certain stages of sleep are thought to help form different types of memories. So, declarative memories (things like facts and knowledge) are enhanced by slow wave sleep (deep sleep), whereas implicit memories (long term memories that don't require conscious thought, like riding a bike or tying a shoe) are enhanced by REM Sleep. Essentially, it's thought that the better the sleep you get each night, the better your memory.

The New York Times breaks down the importance of sleep and memory pretty bluntly:

Some of the most insidious effects of too little sleep involve mental processes like learning, memory, judgment and problem-solving. During sleep, new learning and memory pathways become encoded in the brain, and adequate sleep is necessary for those pathways to work optimally. People who are well rested are better able to learn a task and more likely to remember what they learned. The cognitive decline that so often accompanies aging may in part result from chronically poor sleep.
Case in point, a good night's rest really can improve your memory in the long term. The good news is that rebooting your sleep schedule isn't that hard to do. If you stick with it, your memory should stay strong.

Why Your Memory Sucks (and What You Can Do About It)

In the end, your memory probably isn't as bad as you think. It just takes some regular maintenance and a little training to keep it in shape. You can't magically just improve your memory by studying. If you're the type who forgets your keys, you'll probably always do so. That said, you can employ certain techniques to help you with memory retention, and perhaps more importantly, your initial perception. We've talked about this a lot in the past, so here are a few places to get started:

Train your brain like a USA Memory Champion: Our own Melanie Pinola went through the USA Memory Championship and shares her techniques, including several different memorization systems.Improve your memory with the chunking technique: The chunking technique uses the pattern recognition we talked about in the first section to help you remember things. In the simplest terms, it's like remembering a phone number using the letters on a phone's dial pad instead of just the numbers.Combine information with bizarre images: If you need to remember a certain set of details, it's often easier for us to do so when we combine that information with something crazy. So, if you need to remember milk and bananas at the grocery store, remember a giant banana with a hatchet chasing after a cow that's ready to burst with milk.Use a mnemonic peg system: This one's a bit complicated, but a peg system essentially lists items as a rhyme so it's easier to remember. Once an item is pegged to the list, you can usually recall that information later.Increase your powers of observation and perception: You're only going to remember what you notice, so if you want to improve your memory skills one thing you need to do is pay more attention to what's happening. Watch the world closely, form connections between what's happening and what you know. Remember, according to research in The Journal of Neurosciece, the more we value a memory, the more likely it is to stick around. The more you see, the more accurate your memory will be.Take a nap: We already mentioned that sleeping has a direct impact on your memory, but so does a quick nap. If you can sneak one in during the day, go for it. A solid nap is an effective tool for improving memory and learning ability. If a nap's not possible, medidation has been shown to work as well.Memory is weird, and it works in strange ways. It's unreliable, but we still have to put our trust in it. Memory is hard to work with, but it's still malleable and you can force memories into your brain. Science is still figuring out exactly what works best, but for now it seems like few things trump a good night's rest and exercise.

Photos by Official U.S. Navy Imagery, jon_a_ross, Charles Smith, Joi Ito, and Quinn Dombrowski.

Show Us Your Raspberry Pi Project

Raspberry Pi has become an amazing base for fun DIY projects. It's inexpensive, doesn't require much power to run, and best of all, it's tiny. We'd like to see what kinds of projects you've done with yours.

We've shown you how you can use Raspberry Pi to do all kinds of interesting things. You can create a Vintage Google Music radio, a low-power NAS, or even a smart alarm clock that syncs with Google Calendar. And if you need help getting started, check out this beginner's guide. Now, it's your turn. Show us your best Raspberry Pi project below.