Is it Useless? It's a Machine After All

Can you design a machine that turns itself off?

When you turn on the switch to the machine pictured here, an arm reaches out of the box and turns it off.

Since the 1950s, engineers have tried out design ideas on "Useless Machines."

This article--and the embedded video--provide an interesting look at Useless Machines.

Maker Projects: 1/22 Photogates, Arduino Buggies,Stained Glass

Lots of things happening/available!

We have plenty of glass available if you've never scored and broken glass.

Maker Project: 1/17 Light Source for Physics Photogates

Honors physics has designed and assembled photo-resistor photogates using:

• AAA battery + holder
• 2200ohm resistor
• photoresistor (various)
• 1/8 stereo audio jack
• intercom wire
• Wal-mart travel hygiene bottle (fits nicely into a test tube clamp and cleans things up)

Each group was left to design their own containment vessel and configuration from the bottle. Here's a nice looking setup from Allison, Michelle, and present SCMaker member Nick.

Output from the circuit is recorded using Audacity on the dell 600D laptops running Ubuntu.

The light sources for these require 3 AAA batteries and are quite bulky.

During the meeting time, we will work on adapting a USB mouse circuit to power the LED flashlight.