Clever Re-purposing of a Power Drill Results in a Mini Wood Lathe

Ever use a lathe? No? Neither had [Jack Hauweling], but that didn’t stop him from building his own and learning how!

Lathes are a lot of fun, especially for small wood working projects. Using mostly wood and a few small pieces of hardware, [Jack] was able to build one in an afternoon that works quite well!

He’s using a cheap corded power drill to drive the work piece, but what we really like is how he made the spur center and spur live center out of a few pieces of threaded rod and a standoff. It’s a simple system that lets him secure the work piece fairly easily simply by tightening the threaded shaft of the live center.

In the video after the break he goes through the entire build process and even shows off his first attempts at using the lathe — he actually was able to make a very nice tool grip on his third try!

Too much work? Well, you could always print it… Personally we prefer this giant treadle powered wood lathe though, if your going to go to that much effort.

[Thanks Jeremy!]

Filed under: tool hacks

THP Hacker Bio: infinityis

That profile picture is full of pure joy! Meet [infinityis], aka [David Hoelscher] — don’t worry, we’re not revealing his secret identity; he posted his real name on his profile page.

His entry for The Hackaday Prize is a functional show piece to greet guests when they step into his home. His Waterfall Wall will serve as a way to separate the living space from the entryway. The top portion of it is a water feature which will be edge-lit with LEDs whose color will be controlled wirelessly. The bottom part of the wall will provide some storage space.

Join us after the break to find out more about [David], and check out his THP video for a brief introduction to his Waterfall Wall.

 

Gaming. When I'm with siblings and/or parents, we'll play board games (Ticket to Ride, Catan), card games (Flux, Munchkin), or party games (Mafia/The Resistance, Telestrations, Wits and Wagers). I also enjoy playing video games; even though my brother and I live hours apart, we keep in touch regularly when we play games on Steam (Dota2, TF2). When it's just me by myself though, I like to create by writing software, designing circuit boards, and making physical objects.

I am an Electrical Engineer curious enough to invade the domains of mechanical, software, and systems engineering. I work for a large corporation, and my wife and I own a fledgling startup called Designer Circuits.

Debugging. Whenever there is a bewildering hardware or software problem, I love the process of iteratively breaking down the problem by generating and testing hypotheses to isolate the root cause(s). I always end up learning many new things that help me generate more creative solutions in the future.

It would definitely be some sort of cooking appliance. First, we own a toaster that gets more and more off-kilter as time goes on; one side heats too much and the other side too little. It constantly reminds me of this Calvin and Hobbes comic. Second, there is a microwave at work designed to enrage hungry people: it does not respond to any buttons except "clear" or "start" if the previous user opened the door before the timer finished counting down. If I try to press "cook time" then it just sits there and ignores me as though it has no idea what I want it to do. So to answer the question…what would I do? I'd bat two pieces of equipment at the same time.

 

For hacking purposes: Linux. With a wide array of free and open source software tools, along with the ability to scale from the tiniest of processors to massive server farms, it is like a breath of fresh air in that you *know* that it is possible to achieve what you want to do with it.

My initial thought was a high performance oscilloscope with a big touchscreen, lots of buttons/controls, and high voltage differential probes, but….after further reflection I think my favorite is a Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM). When I would see SEM images in research papers or science textbooks, I assumed that such incredible magnification is a privilege reserved for…well…researchers and textbook authors. I've actually been fortunate enough to work with a SEM and it was just as amazing as I'd hoped it could be. The experience was even better than I suspected because you can actually pan/zoom around the sample in real-time and perform spectral analyses, which was not obvious from the textbook pictures. [Image CC BY-SA 2.5]

At the risk of betraying my analog/power roots, I'm torn between a microcontroller and an FPGA. I really like the MSP430 for the incredible performance/price ratio and low power consumption. But there was also a particular Altera Cyclone FPGA in my life (you know who you are!) that was incredible to design with: it was basically like a tiny electronics factory. I could dedicate some logic cells to perform simple arithmetic operations, some others to handle communication protocols, and still others to implement multiple Z-transformed digital compensation networks—and all of it operated concurrently and deterministically in a time-bound manner. [FPGA Image]

Python. While the ubiquity and utility of C is undisputable, and I understand why VHDL is the way it is, I feel that the readability, dynamic typing, and interpreted nature of Python is a really good fit for the way I like to work.

1. Weighted Dominoes – My mom requested that I make her some dominoes that wouldn't fall over so easily when the table is bumped. I started (but haven't finished) a design for a thin-walled/hollow domino that is partially filled with small tungsten beads. This would result in a low center of gravity that would help keep dominoes from tipping over, regardless of orientation.
2. Autonomous Frostbite Lawnmower – Knowing that cold freezing temperatures can kill plant life, or cause localized frostbite for people, I think it would be interesting to use the concept in an autonomous lawnmower. Specifically, a controlled grass height would be maintained by an autonomous robot that freezes any plant matter above a prescribed height. The freezing could be done through either a small, cold surface or a jet of cold compressed gases (like the icy jet produced by a can of compressed air turned upside-down). This approach seems like it would be quieter, more efficient, and less dangerous than creating autonomous robots that wield spinning blades.
3. Write a Book (or Books) – I feel it would be somewhat selfish to go through life collecting unique experiences and knowledge without taking the time to give something meaningful back to the collective body of human knowledge. Helping others learn can be a very rewarding experience, especially when you know first-hand how hard the journey can be without the help. Also, my wife and I have talked about writing fiction together, which would be an interesting experience.

How to critically evaluate information. So many pitfalls in life can be avoided simply by continuing to ask questions when things don't make sense, recognizing the patterns (and inconsistencies) that surround us, and having the courage to act based on independently-drawn logical conclusions.

The front door of our home opens into a room that we decided to use for homeschooling our kids. We wanted a way to visually and physically block off the room while still letting natural sunlight through. We also wanted shelves for the school materials/activities. We looked into various options and decided that glass with a translucent film would work nicely above custom-built shelves. We considered putting plants and soil at the bottom of the glass, or maybe an aquarium, but discarded those ideas on account of the maintenance and incompatibility with a housecat. By instead working toward a waterfall wall with LED illumination, it should provide a pleasant ambiance through soothing water sounds and controllable mood lighting. It also gave me an excuse to use my Raspberry Pi for more than a basic Linux server, get more practice programming the MSP430, and experiment with some low cost wireless modules.

I think one of the most challenging parts of this project will be coming up with an elegant user interface for doing interesting things with a strand of LEDs. Setting all the LEDs to a single color or individually setting each LED to a particular non-time-varying color will be a necessary foundational step. Beyond that, my hope is to come up with an intuitive user interface for real-time manipulation of the LEDs, and/or a simple method of inputting algorithms to generate moving patterns. I welcome any suggestions for how to design such an interface. [Image Source]

A Hoverboard powered by hexcopters. I know the Hoverboard of Back To The Future II and III fame isn't practical from an implementation standpoint, but if budget weren't an issue, it seems that a functional equivalent could be constructed with a board suspended by an overhead fleet of quad/hex/octocopters. A critically damped feedback control loop would use range sensors on the bottom of the board to maintain an ideal distance from the ground. As far as mobility goes, lightweight construction and programming the fleet actively to respond to board movement (measured via accelerometer) would help offset the increased mass.

It's ok to be different.

Everyone has the potential to create. Some people stop challenging themselves or learning new things because of failure (or even just fear of failure). In many cases, the cost of failure is far smaller than what people imagine it to be. Learning new things is hard and prone to failure because all new concepts are foreign concepts until after they are known. Trying something new will always be hard because uncertain paths before us tend to be full of setbacks, twists and turns, and uncertainty about whether they will even lead to success. But it is the "discovery" aspects of both learning and creating that makes them such worthwhile endeavors.

Filed under: Interviews, The Hackaday Prize

Investing in Africa: Hitting highs and lows on a rapidly developing continent

GUEST POST

Above: Africa

Image Credit: Anton Balazh/Shutterstock

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Let's get one thing straight, some of the entrepreneurs I've encountered in Africa are among the best I've ever met. The fantastic DIY attitude and incredible amount of motivation are driving the developing continent faster than ever before. I'm intrigued by homegrown startups like BRCK, which is creating a router that can run without electricity, and Kopo Kopo, which is removing friction for SMEs in adopting mobile payments.

Unsurprisingly, IDC predicts investments in African tech will increase this year, with both public and private spending in the sector rising. 2014 holds the potential for African companies to continue along the road of rapid growth, yet there's one element African entrepreneurs think is holding them back — funding.

What's the problem?

I spoke to a couple of partners at Amadeus Capital, which invests in African startups, to find out what the key roadblock is.

As Amadeus' Jason Pinto puts it: "All the good entrepreneurs say there is no money, and all the people with money say there are no good entrepreneurs."

Across the continent I've seen emerging startups struggle to find initial investments. For example Banks in Ghana are reportedly charging up to 28 percent interest on business loans. Some international VC firms like Intel Capital and Summit Partners occasionally finance African tech firms, but many of the others are still wary.

"Amadeus invests globally, we invest everywhere. The African ecosystem, at least sub-Saharan Africa, is probably the least mature of all the markets we're looking at right now," Pinto tells me. "We can define maturity by the number of repeat entrepreneurs, the scale and experience of these entrepreneurs, the capital available from numerous sources, and the number of profitable and successful exits that have happened in the market in the past."

So to reach maturity, we need African entrepreneurs who have done it before, and who have failed before. So who will fund the first few failures? "It's a vicious cycle," Pinto comments.

Breaking that barrier

One of the main barriers it seems is that many African startups are focused on the local and regional opportunities.  A real catalyst to getting the entrepreneurial ecosystem in Africa running is that one, ambitious, global African success story.

"I think local heroes are critical," Perry Blacher, another partner at Amadeus, tells me. "You have to find the exception rather than the rule and point new investors towards that success. Take Skype as an example in Europe. Once Skype had been built and sold for billions as a global business, other European entrepreneurs saw that it was possible to build a massive business in Europe."

Breaking that psychological barrier and showing others that success can be global is incredibly important. Like Europe, Africa is not a single market for companies to scale in, it is a complex collection of countries with separate languages, currencies, rules, and regulations. For this reason it is a riskier market to break into. There is a way to reap the rewards when you figure out how, but everything should be done with a global perspective, not just an African one.

The African advantage

Both Pinto and Blacher agree that for entrepreneurs to succeed in Africa, making the most of local advantages is absolutely key. For VCs it is all about identifying these advantages and investing in businesses that understand them.

"In Africa labor is cheap, you have English speakers, and you're on the same time zone as Europe. It's all about looking for local advantages. Think about what resources aren't available elsewhere," says Blacher.

Europe still isn't the most mature market in the world either, say Pinto and Blacher  Just 20 years ago they were seeing the same things happening across the investment community in Europe. Both agree that uncovering an important local asset to address a global opportunity was one of the first steps for Africa's global success.

VC money can be a curse

Pinto and Blacher both point out that African entrepreneurs need to continue to remind themselves that VCs are right at the end of the risk-reward spectrum, betting on the very small chance of something very big happening. They aren't just looking for a less-risky chance of something pretty good happening.

"Remember, you wouldn't chop down a tree with a kitchen knife, or cut a tomato with a chainsaw. Venture capital might not be right for certain businesses or stages. Entrepreneurs can derail their company by taking venture money when it doesn't fit the time and rhythm of what they're doing," says Pinto.

Africa is not Silicon Valley. So it is imperative that African entrepreneurs consider all kinds of funding.  Loans, family and friends, focus on cash generation from operations, and other sources are key to getting entrepreneurs on the VC radar. And then, if you have a global product, VC money will find you. "Venture capital is the most 'mobile,'" Blacher says. "If you have big dreams, then venture is absolutely right for you. I can promise you if have a good opportunity in Lagos, you will find people from the U.S. down there to back it."

Building bridges

"We need more African entrepreneurs and investors spending time in Silicon Valley and London," says Pinto. "The more close to home people view opportunities, the less the perceived risk."

We all agree that we need more African entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley. We need them to bridge the gap and invest in what they know. African investors may feel closer to home investing in Africa and may perceive less risk than American born VCs. We need to bridge the perception gap by having Africans operating in Silicon Valley in the same way we see the Brazilians and Indians doing it. The true risks in Africa are not political instability, corruption, etc. Africa's risk is lack of development of its ecosystem and challenges in addressing a broad market by its entrepreneurs.

Following my discussion with Pinto and Blacher and based on my own experiences leading one of the Middle East and Africa's fastest growing companies, it is clear to me that frontier venture capitalism can't just be about tackling Africa, but all emerging markets. People like Blacher and Pinto are looking for the next big breakthrough that can impact and benefit the world, not just one country or one region.

[A special thanks to Jason Pinto and Perry Blacher at Amadeus Capital Partners for sharing their expertise with me for this article.]

Amr Shady is the CEO of TA Telecom, one of the fastest-growing companies in the Middle East and Africa. Jason Pinto and Perry Blacher of Amadeus Capital Partners have funded and supported more than 85 young companies globally and helped them grow.

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Latino YouTube network MiTú just bagged $10M

Image Credit: MiTú Google+

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Disney’s recent acquisition of YouTube network Maker Studios shows how much firms value video these days — and MiTú just got some swell money for its own network.

Today, Latino media company and video network MiTú announced that it has raised $10 million in a second round of funding to continue building its engineering and sales efforts and expand its production facilities in Los Angeles and Mexico City.

The company, established in 2012, is one of the largest media brands dedicated to Latino content for a young and global audience. Its programming covers beauty, food, DIY, home, and health, and it recently launched male pop culture coverage. MiTú also partners with outside content creators to launch their English, Spanish, and Portuguese-language video channels, expand their audiences, and connect with the global market.

"Having been an early & prolific investor in online video I came to the conclusion that the future will be built around strong vertical content channels. It's the best way that networks can attract and develop talent and that advertisers can reach large, endemic audiences," said Mark Suster, the managing partner of Upfront Ventures, which led the round.

"When I met the team at MiTú I knew they understood the mixture of Latino meets online video better than anybody else I had met and became excited to be a partner with them.”

MiTú has 400 million monthly video views, 40 million subscribers, and 1,200 video creators, according to its own statistics.

Some oif MiTú’s original investors joined Upfront Ventures in the round; Upfront was one of the original investors in Maker Studios.

MiTú was founded in 2012 by Doug Greiff, Beatriz Acevedo, and Roy Burstin. Its previous investors include The Chernin Group LLC, Machinima chairman and chief executive Allen DeBevoise, and Advancit Capital.

 

GRP Partners was founded in 1996 with the mission to help entrepreneurs achieve their goals of building big, transformative businesses. The partners of GRP have been involved with many startups over the years, of which 15 stand out com... read more »

YouTube, Inc. is a consumer media company for people to watch and share original videos through a Web experience. It allows people to upload, tag, and share personal video clips; browse original videos uploaded by community members; fi... read more »

After failure, what’s next?

Image Credit: Shutterstock

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Recently, I wrote a post titled After Your First Big Success, What's Next? The comment thread was powerful and fascinating, as was the direct email feedback I got, including the following note:

I think it would be interesting to hear your perspective on how an entrepreneur should approach "what's next" after coming off a failed business. How should one manage their own emotions and their own perspectives post failure? It's easy to play the blame game and it's easy to be extremely hard on ourselves. There has to be constructive ways to move forward rather than destructive ways that could lead to lack of confidence, or depression.

Having failed at a lot of things, I'm completely comfortable tackling this. But let me establish my bonafides first. My first company, Martingale Software, failed (we returned $7,000 of the $10,000 we raised.) My second company, DataVision Technologies failed. I didn't have success until my third company, Feld Technologies. While my first angel investment was a success, I resigned as the chairman after the VCs came in and left the board after the CEO was replaced. In the late 1990s, what looked like my biggest success at the time, went public, peaked at an almost $3 billion market cap, and then went bankrupt three years after the IPO. And the second VC fund I was part of, which raised $660 million in 1999, was a complete disaster.

As the cliche goes, I learned a lot from these failures.

I've had many more. I remember firing my first employee, which I viewed as a failure on my part, not hers. I remember the first CEO I fired and staying up all night prior to doing it because I was so nervous and miserable about the decision I'd made to back him. I remember the first company I funded as a VC that failed and struggling to figure out how to shut it down after everyone else fled from the scene. I remember the first time someone threatened to sue me for doing a bad job for them (they didn't.) I remember the first time I was sued for something I didn't do (I eventually won). I can keep going, but you get the idea.

What's next is simple. It's whatever you do next.

In some cases this will be easy. You'll already be on to the next thing before the previous thing you were working on failed.

In many cases it won't be easy. You'll be wallowing in the quicksand of the failure well after the other bodies have been sucked below the surface.

How you deal with your own emotions and perspectives is an entirely different matter.

I love the approach of Jeremy Bloom, the CEO of Integrate (we are investors) who I have immense respect and adoration for. In 2006 at the Winter Olympics, he was the best freestyle mogul skier in the world. On his last run, he was expected to take gold. Halfway down he missed a turn and placed sixth. As Jeremy told me, he gave himself 24 hours to be angry, depressed, upset, furious, frustrated, confused, and despondent. I imagine him in his room in the Olympic Village systematically destroying all the furniture. One minute after 24 hours, he was on to the next thing, with the failure solidly in his rear view mirror.

Now, 24 hours is a short amount of time. I've often carried my failures around for longer, but never much longer than a couple of days. I separate how I feel from failure from how I feel about life and what I'm doing. Interestingly, for me, failure isn't the thing that gets me depressed, it's boredom combined with exhaustion. But that took me a long time to figure out.

I've found that talking to people about my failures is helpful. Rather than hold them inside, I talk to Amy (my beloved) about them. I talk to my partners about them. I talk to my close friends about them. I don't ignore the failure or try to bottle it up somewhere. Rather, I set it free, as quickly as I can.

In our book Do More Faster, we have a chapter on the the wonderful story of the failure of EventVue. After it failed, some of Rob and Josh's friends from the Boulder Startup Community had a wake for EventVue. We celebrated its life, buried it, and moved on. I loved this idea and have done it a few other times for failed companies. It's important to remember that even in death you can celebrate the wonderful things that happened during life.

But ultimately, you have to know yourself. There is no right answer or magic salve for getting past failure. If you are going to be an entrepreneur, you are going to experience it a lot. It's just part of the gig. Start by understanding that, and asking yourself what you are really afraid of. And, after you fail at something, let yourself experience whatever you want to experience, remembering that it's just another small part of the journey through life. And then go on to whatever is next, in whatever time you are ready for it.

This story originally appeared on Brad Feld.

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