DIY, 1 Watt 8Ω Hi-Fi amplifier

After making the speakers we needed an amplifier to drive them so we found this lovely little project on the internet. All the components were easily available and we etched the PCB ourselves. It took 2 afternoons over the weekend to completely finish from etching to switching on. It sounds great and Lee-Kuo is really pleased to have sound from his iPod. For lots more projects including this amplifier click here.

inside the black box

view from the front

view from the back with all connections

Wow!! what a great combination, and so easy to build

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Mini miniature golf, hole 13

We finally finished hole 13 and here it is. It’s called “left turn” and is not easy to get a hole in one. We took the dimensions from a 3d model we made, this makes it so much easier to find the correct angles and lengths. Until the next hole, good putting.

hole 13, in Lee-Kuo's beautiful miniature golf series

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Mini 10W 8Ω speakers for DIY amplifier

Lee-Kuo found a new pair of speakers in our local electronics shop, which gave him the idea to build little speaker boxes and drive them with a self built amplifier. He designed the box with a bass port at school and we did a quick rendering in Cinema 4d to see if it would look good. I cut the wood and sanded it in about half an hour and Lee-Kuo did the soldering and electrical connections. We are really pleased with the results and they sound really powerful.

all the pieces for the mini speaker

the cinema 4d rendering before we made the real thing

the real thing

the final set-up with the 1 Watt self built amplifier

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Paper weaving

I find something so simple and easy to make like paper weaving, is great for children to get into mixing colours. I prepared all the strips of paper in many colours and cut the origami paper. My students then weaved the paper and made a frame from popsicle sticks. They look great hanging on a wall.

paper weaving made easy

one sheet of origami paper and strips of coloured paper

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Cube maze, designed by Lee-Kuo

This beautiful maze was completely designed by Lee-Kuo. He began with a few sketches on graph paper and then decided to use a 20 mm cube grid system with 5 mm thick walls. He drew the maze on 4 separate floors until he had a great pathway to the end. After he had finished the drawings he wanted to make it with matchsticks, we glued about 500 together and decided it would take to long, so I drew everything in Illustrator and printed it onto 120g paper. The result is a wonderfully strong cube maze which gives people hours of fun trying to get the ball through the maze. I am now working on an animated solution which will be on my YouTube channel when finished.

the sides and top of the cube, 5 mm thick

the base with 2 sides glued on

1st floor glued into place

2nd floor glued into place

3rd floor glued into place

the completed cube maze, well done Lee-Kuo

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