Matt's Lab

I built an Adafruit LED Sand Toy using an Adafruit Feather M0, a blue CharliePlex LED FeatherWing, and accelerometer boards. While this was an awesome project to try out, I had some bumps along the way. It forced me to think outside the box and make some minor, but helpful, modifications to the original design. 3D Printing the Case The Adafruit Learn website for this project provides a list of materials, 3D-printing files, code, and wiring diagrams. 3D-printing the toy’s casing 3D-printing internal parts Connecting the Wires I used a thicker gauge of wire than recommended which made soldering a little difficult. This was my first time using heat-shrink tubes to insulate connected wires to keep them from being exposed to other connections. It worked out well, and I highly recommend using some heat-shrink tubes on clamps to protect circuit boards. Soldering the boards at my work station - shown with helping hands, silicone mat, tweezers, solder, and solder...

I’m not really a big fan of fidget spinners. I mean the ones with LEDs in the weights are pretty cool, but outside of that I find them rather boring as a toy. Regardless, I decided to take one apart and see how these addictive things work. Then… I made one. The fidget spinner essentially consists of four parts: the case, the caps, the bearing, and three weights. Sometimes the weights can be bearings as well. This lets you do additional tricks with the fidget spinner. Model of Fidget Spinner Case and Caps I was able to create a 3D model of the casing and caps after watching a few YouTube videos on disassembling fidget spinners to learn about their designs. You can find a variety of intricate models on sites like Thingiverse and Tinkercad , but I chose to make a simple one for my first try. 3D model of case and caps Download or modify a 3D version of the solid model I created. 3D Printing My Design I used a Tinkerine Ditto Pro 3D printer to create the ca...

The physics behind the tippe top toy have been the subject of studies by scientists for years - dating back to the early 1890s. The tippe top is spun just like any other top, but pulls a surprise stunt. The top flips over and spins on its stem when given a strong twist. Why does the tippe top flip over? What does this mean for anyone planning to make one on a 3D printer? Nobel Prize winners, Wolfgang Pauli and Niels Bohr, take a break with a tippe top at the 1954 inauguration of the Institute of Physics in Lund, Sweden. Early Top Patents The first patent for the top, listed as “Wendekreisel”, was filed in Germany by Helene Sperl in 1891. While the patent seems to describe the top’s inversion property, reproductions of the top have proved unsuccessful. The patent expired after one year because the fee wasn’t paid. During a trip to South America, Danish engineer Werner Østberg noticed kids spinning a small, round fruit. While spinning, the fruit would flip over (or...

My daughter’s doll lost a hand. After searching for a few days, she suggested I make her doll a new hand. My kids apparently think their dad can create and fix anything. While I had never attempted to create a solid model of a toy part, I was ready for the challenge. I began with some geometric primitive shapes in Tinkercad , a 3D-modeling application. For the palm of the hand, I started with a sphere and extended that with a rectangular prism. The post that extended outward from hand to attach it to the arm of the doll was created with a cylinder and a torus wrapped around it. This cylinder jutted outward from the sphere, and the torus would allow for the hand to snap into the doll’s arm - if only my precise measurements were correct. I used a caliper to measure the post and hand dimensions of the right hand and reversed it for my left-hand model. After building the solid model of the doll’s left-hand, I tweaked it and made adjustments to the dimensions. Trying to make i...