Bars of Ham

From Make: Volume 8

So I just finished Orly the Ornithopter from Make: volume 8 and I have some tips. If you’re interested in the project just follow the link and you can download the plans as a pdf.

On to the tips:

• Buy the accelerator (L). It’s worth the extra 5-6 bucks. Without it it’s much messier and much harder to get the pieces to stay in the spot you want them to stay in. If you can’t get accelerator or really don’t want to spend the money, then use the glue stick (M) to help hold the piece in place while the CA dries.
• 16 lb. paper (G) (as far as I can ascertain) is pretty much standard printer paper. Please let me know if I’m wrong about that.
• On step 1c., you should use the glue stick (M). Basically, I coated the whole 2″x2″ piece of 16 lb. paper (G) with it before I started to roll it around the music wire (E) (the music wire is simply a guide). It enables the paper to stay tight as you roll and gives you the ability to remove the music wire before you coat the paper with CA (K).
• They give the wrong measurement for the “crank/front motor attachment wire” on the materials page. I used about 5″ of music wire (E) and simply cut off the excess once it was through the crankshaft tube in step 1e.
• The “Full-scale templates” they give online is not correctly to scale, use the image file I’ve uploaded instead. It’s of much higher resolution and it’s the proper scale. I’ll make and upload the template if there’s anyone interested.

I was a little disappointed when I first launched the little guy. I would wind it up, throw it, and it seemed to actually go less far than if I simply just threw it without the rubber band. For the best effect, don’t throw it. Instead, wind it up and let it fly away from your hand. I was able to get about 3 times the distance with the latter method.

My next goal is to possibly motorize my ornithopter. I have some of those toy helicopters that I’ve received over the last few Christmases (that’s suppose to be the plural of Christmas) and I’ve since broken the rotor of one of them. Hopefully, I can rip the guts out and make a remote controlled ornithopter. I’ll post it up if I do.

Although this idea was not mine, nor was it even built by me, I feel compelled to share it with the world since Ricky (the genius behind this idea) is too lazy to put this online himself.

As I’ve said, I did not build this. I did help Ricky build it however. In fact it was in my house and I took the pictures. I believe this entitles me to at least post it online.

materials needed:

• hulk hands
• power drill
• 2″ hole saw
• cold beer

step one

Obtain your Hulk Hands. You might have to search around on ebay or someplace like that because I don’t think they sell these at stores too much anymore.

continue reading…

For those of you who have visited the Ubuntu online store since Hardy Heron came out, you’ve undoubtedly seen the Hardy Heron t-shirt design. It’s a gorgeous design and a t-shirt I’d want even if I’d never heard of Ubuntu. But the two big problems I’ve had with obtaining the shirt were 1.) the t-shirt costs nearly $30.00 and 2.) they sold out extremely quickly.

Since Ubuntu rolls out with a new version every 6 months (next is Intrepid Ibex) I knew my chances were slim that I’d get a hand on one of those sweet t-shirts. Since these guys were open source I figured it wouldn’t hurt to at least ask for the “source file” for the t-shirt design. Here was their reply:

Hi Devin,

Thank-you very much for your enquiry and sorry for the delay in getting back to you.

Unfortunately you are correct, we will be brining out the Intrepid Ibex shirts at the end of this month so we will no longer be producing the 2nd edition mens Hardy Heron T-shirts.

I have attached an EPS of the hardy heron design. Hopefully you can use this to produce a T-shirt for yourself.

Keep spreading the Ubuntu love.

Warm regards,

The Canonical Store Team

So now, for all of you out there that wanted one of these shirts as well, here’s the file they sent to me.