Troll Roll [Maker Update] | Maker.io

Indiziert: 2026-05-21

[00:00:02]This week on Maker Update: rollin’ with Labubu, new contests on Instructables, Raspberry Pi around the collar, and a recipe for round pixels.

[00:00:12]Hey, I’m Donald Bell, and this is Maker Update, our weekly roundup of new and notable DIY projects and tips from across the internet.

[00:00:20]I hope you’re doing well.

[00:00:22]We’ve got a great show for you.

[00:00:23]So let’s get started with the project of the week.

[00:00:28]From the MIT Media Lab, check out Labububot by Miranda Li, Jake Read, and Dimitar Dimitrov.

[00:00:35]This is a robot that rolls around using an arrangement of 12 Labubu doll heads attached to servos.

[00:00:43]Each doll head faces out on one side of this fur covered, 3D-printed dodecahedron.

[00:00:50]The electronics live at the core of the structure and include an ESP32 board connected to a Sparkfun 6DoF IMU board that tracks the Labububot’s position and rotation.

[00:01:02]With this information, the robot is always aware of which of the heads is facing downward and can be pushed out to get it rolling.

[00:01:10]But on the flipside, literally, the robot is aware of which heads are facing up and free to move and be playful.

[00:01:17]And really it seems like the main point of building this from an academic perspective is to explore the line between cute and creepy when it comes to social robotics: the robots we’re building to interact with us on a daily basis.

[00:01:32]If these things are all a kind of Frankenstein of motors, AI, non-threatening human features, and non-verbal expressions, then let’s not just rush for the most acceptable form.

[00:01:44]That’s a little boring.

[00:01:45]Let’s play around, because it seems to me that the best type of companion robot or social robot might be something closer to a pet than a human.

[00:01:54]I don’t think this is the winning combo, or is even meant to be, but I think it reveals something when a 12-headed Labubu ball ball actually comes across as less threatening than something that looks human.

[00:02:08]You can find a link in the description to the Github repo which has nearly everything you’d need to recreate this.

[00:02:14]The 3D design files for the dodecahedron frame are tragically missing, but there’s enough closeup shots here that it seems reasonable you could recreate the design.

[00:02:24]With any luck they’ll update the repo so we can get some more Labububots out there.

[00:02:31]Now for some news.

[00:02:33]There are two new contests up on Instructables that could be a great match for you.

[00:02:38]The first is a contest for Battery-Powered projects.

[00:02:41]There are 23 prizes being awarded here, from $50 up to $500.

[00:02:46]Submissions are due by July 6.

[00:02:48]The second contest is for projects that use metal; any kind of metal.

[00:02:54]It doesn’t have to be a welding project.

[00:02:56]It could be a brass circuit sculpture.

[00:02:59]It just has to use metal.

[00:03:01]That one wraps up on June 22nd, and also has 23 prizes to give away.

[00:03:07]And I mention this not to brag but to encourage you.

[00:03:11]My animatronic robot project from a few months back got a second place prize in a contest that just wrapped up.

[00:03:17]Real people win these contests and the projects don’t have to be amazing.

[00:03:22]So why not give it a try?

[00:03:23]I mean, battery powered – how perfect is that?

[00:03:29]More projects!

[00:03:30]Here’s one that has both battery power and Raspberry Pi’s: Its this incredible bomber jacket from Zibartas with flexible OLED screens in the collar.

[00:03:42]The jacket design was inspired by the videogame Cyberpunk 2077.

[00:03:46]And because he’d already built an LED version of this jacket before, this video really deals mostly with the challenge of working with flexible OLED screens, which for me is the aspect I want to understand the most.

[00:03:59]As always, the full video is worth every minute of your time, especially if you’re a cosplayer.

[00:04:04]But here are two takeaways on the Pi and flexible OLED combo that I’ll share real quick.

[00:04:10]One surprise is that these flexible screens are often designed to bend but not to twist.

[00:04:16]Zibartas wound up damaging a screen in an initial design.

[00:04:19]The solution was to actually contain the screen in a curved, semi-rigid frame to prevent from twisting.

[00:04:26]The second surprise was that it was easier to get an older Pi 4 board to drive two screens than using a Pi 5.

[00:04:34]Four screens and two Pi 4s were the right recipe here, and it’s something you want to get right the first time before you overspend.

[00:04:42]For a different kind of display project, check out this 3D printed LED matrix design by Yotudero.

[00:04:49]Aside from the LED strip, the electronics here are just a Wemos D1 Mini Pro with a SD card shield to store the animations, a logic level shifter, and a voltage regulator.

[00:05:01]What’s incredible about this project is how well thought out, scalable, and modular the design is.

[00:05:08]It’s an all 3D-printed system, where each piece can fit on an average-size print bed.

[00:05:14]There’s a sandwich of different elements, from the back plate, to the light channels, the diffuser and the front cover.

[00:05:19]And each module fits into each other so that you can scale this whole thing to be as big or as small as you need.

[00:05:26]It’s a ton of work printing and glueing, and wiring it all up, but the payoff looks amazing.

[00:05:31]You can find the full instructional video down in the description.

[00:05:38]Now for some tips and tools.

[00:05:40]From CMozMaker, a great short introduction to the PlatformIO code development tool.

[00:05:45]This is an alternative to using the Arduino IDE for creating, troubleshooting, and uploading code to your projects.

[00:05:52]It’s a more advanced tool, especially if you’re using it as a plug-in for Visual Studio Code, which is how I use it personally.

[00:06:00]I think it’s also fair to say that it’s a more flexible system for coding ESP32 boards.

[00:06:06]So if you already feel like maybe you’re in a place where you’ve moved from Arduino hardware to ESP32, check out the video and see if moving from the Arduino IDE to something like this might also make sense.

[00:06:19]And from James Hamilton on the Stumpy Nubs channel, a look at the many advantages of adhesive backed sandpaper.

[00:06:27]This stuff kinda fell out of fashion when hook and loop sanding discs found their way everywhere.

[00:06:31]But, there’s a new type of this stuff available that seems worth checking out.

[00:06:37]The whole video, linked down in the description, demonstrates dozens of novel ways that adhesive-backed sandpaper can be uniquely useful.

[00:06:46]Most of it boils down to making custom sanding tools for the kind of work you find yourself doing.

[00:06:54]For this week’s DigiKey spotlight, from their Product Discovery channel a kind of product I didn’t know existed.

[00:07:01]These are LED light pipes.

[00:07:03]The idea is that you’ve got a project with surface mount indicator LEDs on your board and you want to transmit that light to the exterior of your enclosure.

[00:07:12]With one of these inexpensive light pipes you can just passively direct light you want it to go.

[00:07:18]With so many project boards now having a color-changing indicator light built-in, this could be a simple way to bring that light out where you can see it.

[00:07:28]Alright and that does it for this week’s show.

[00:07:30]Be sure to subscribe, leave a thumbs up or leave a comment if you can.

[00:07:34]A big thanks to DigiKey for making this show possible.

[00:07:37]And thank you for watching, I’ll see you soon.