MakerBot Industries

Multi-Day Pill Container by damonkohler

Another useful thing designed and uploaded to Thingiverse!  Damonkohler created and printed this multi-day pill container with eight sections (one which is always open) and a lid which rotates to expose another day’s ration and hide the rest.

One of the reasons I like this thing is that it’s exactly the kind of product that it would take you more time and money to go out and buy than it would for you to print it yourself.  Another reason I like it is that it got me thinking about how I would make a derivative of it.  It would be pretty cool if each of the eight sections could be removed or perhaps a snap fit rotating lid instead of a lid that requires a screw.

And, suppose you had a non-seven day medication schedule – you could alter the design pretty easily to have seven or five sections instead!  These kinds of custom variations just aren’t the kind of thing you can find in a store.

Check it out at woot! Sale is today only!!!

This brings the price of a MakerBot 3D Scanner to a mere

$40 for the MakerBot 3D Scanner kit (for today only and then the price goes up to $50)
99.99 for the Pico Projector
32.82 for the PlayStation Eye

For a grand total of a mere $172.81! (plus shipping)

A makeshift project that doesn't use duct tape

To begin experimenting with photoelasticity, you will need several things:¹

1. A source of polarized light
2. A video or still camera with a polarized filter

What’s that?  You don’t have these things?  No problem!  Up until half an hour ago, I didn’t either.  Here’s what you really need:

1. At least one polarized lens
2. A laptop monitor
3. Your camera or camera phone

Polarized Lens

You can find polarized lenses or polarized filters in a camera shop or on ebay.  Some 3D glasses use polarized lenses – and I just so happened to have a pair.

You can tell they are polarized lenses if you look at someone else wearing the same glasses and notice their glasses have a shimmery quality.  What’s happening is that one of your eyes sees one of their lenses dark and the other clear, while your other eye sees the opposite side clear and dark.  In order to make sense of these conflicting views your brain essentially flickers between the two images causing a shimmery sort of look.  Another way to tell the lenses are polarized is to hold one pair of glasses and rotate the other – if you look through one pair and see the other pair turn dark and clear, you’ve got polarized lenses.

Laptop Monitor – A makeshift source of polarized light

You probably already have a polarized light source without knowing it.  In all likelihood your laptop monitor has a polarized filter or coating to it that protects the LCD screen and also helps cut down the glare coming from the LCD screen itself.

To find out if your monitor has a polarized filter on it, just put your polarized lens in front of the monitor and rotate the lens. ²  If you see the lens go dark at some point and then clear as you continue to rotate, your screen has a polarized filter.  If your screen does not have a polarized filter, well, then, you’ve got a great excuse to get a new laptop!

In order to get a source of white polarized light I just open a new tab in FireFox on my laptop with it’s polarized screen.  Easy!

Camera Phone – A makeshift polarized filter

Once you have a polarized lens, just cut a small circle the size of your camera phone’s lens – that’s all you’ll need.

Just as a sanity check, place your little piece of polarized lens in front of your camera phone’s lens and rotate it as you point it at your polarized laptop monitor.  If you see the camera’s display go dark, you’re all set.

While trying to get a lens out of the glasses I ended up tearing one of the lenses pretty badly.  However, the piece was still more than large enough for my purposes.  I put tape on one end of this small (1cm x 2cm) piece and taped it to my Droid where the untaped side was covering the camera lens.  I replaced the hard phone case over the lens and was done.

But what if I don’t have a laptop with a polarized filter?

As long as you have two polarized lenses, you won’t need a polarized light source.  However, you will only be able to view the photoelasticity effect when you place the clear or clear-ish object between two polarized lenses.  Having a small polarized filter on your camera and a large polarized light source will just make things a lot easier.

My next post about photoelasticity will include a few experiments you can do you yourself. 

1. Photo courtesy of Woodleywonderworks [↩]
2. Or monitor. [↩]