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.

Anyway, here’s a (small) list of all the games I could find online that provided this kind of entertainment:

Fantastic Contraption

This is one of my favorites. Get the pink ball/square to the big pink goal using power wheels, free wheels, and two different kinds of connecting rods. There are some amazing designs that people have come up with to beat the levels, everything from catapults to tanks and even using gravity alone to solve the problems. Incredibly easy to spend hours here. My only gripe is that there’s no “undo” button. Link.

Magic Pen

Somewhat similar to Fantastic Contraption but with a much different feel. In this one you have a “magic pen” that you use to draw ramps, circles, hinges, etc. to get the little red circle/square to the red flag but you don’t get to use any power. This one is purely gravity based. Link.

Coconut Run

This one comes courtesy of Johnson Controls. Your goal is to get all of the coconuts to the shredder as fast as you can using powered and free wheels as well as two kinds of connecting rods. I don’t fully understand how this game directly relates to the company’s message of sustainability through ingenuity but oh well.

Though it’s much less refined than the others it’s still fun. I wish they would add a retry button so that you don’t have to rebuild your whole contraption from scratch everytime. Then again, this company’s goal is not to build a great game but to attract attention to their message. Link.

If you know of any other games similar to these post them in the comments and I’ll be sure to add them to the list.