RSSArchives: August 2007
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August 16, 2007
Scope clock
MAKE Flickr photo pool member eschlaep uploaded some nice scope clock photos! -
My oscilloscope clock displays the current time. The buttons on the front access the menu system (which I have not completed at this time). The knobs on the side control the CRT brightness, focus, size, and position. The row of buttons navigates through the menu system (incomplete). The knobs on the side adjust all the CRT parameters. The metal nametag directly below the screen is inscribed with '3GP1,' which is the type number of the CRT.Scope clock - Link.
Posted by Phillip Torrone |
Aug 16, 2007 05:00 PM
Electronics |
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Nao bot chosen as AIBO RoboCup replacement
In a rather strange move, French start-up Aldebaran, and their Nao humanoid robot, has been chosen as the replacement competitor for the discontinued Sony AIBO. The two-legged Nao will replace the four-legged AIBO in the Standard Platform League (formerly the Four-Legged League) of RoboCup, the popular robotic soccer competition. It seems something of a curious choice, given the fact that Aldebaran hasn't even shipped a product yet.
NAO Humanoid Robot Selected to Replace AIBO for RoboCup! - Link
Aldebaran Robotics - Link
Posted by Gareth Branwyn |
Aug 16, 2007 04:10 PM
Electronics, Events, Robotics |
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| Comments (2)
Battery charger - it paid for itself
Paul writes -
I got one of those battery extenders the other week and have been working through several years worth of "dead" batteries. At $40 for the device, if these all get used just once more, it paid for itself. And I assume I can get more than one re-use out of each one. Admittedly, each additional use cycle will be shorter, but if offered a 90¢ return on each dollar, then 75¢, then 60¢, then 50¢ etc. who wouldn't take it?Battery charger - it paid for itself - Link.
From the pages of MAKE:
Everything you need to know about batteries, and then some. MAKE 11 - page 151. View it now or subscribe!
Posted by Phillip Torrone |
Aug 16, 2007 03:00 PM
Electronics |
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Tabletop wargaming how tos
The UK's Games Workshop, makers of Warhammer Fantasy Battles, Warhammer 40,000, and The Lord of the Rings: Strategy Battle Game, are frequently criticized in tabletop wargaming circles for selling outrageously expensive products. My wallet knows this first-hand. A few years ago, I almost went broke trying to feed my addiction to little toy soldiers from a dark gothic future. But Games Workshop products are also incredibly beautiful, their game worlds are impressively fleshed out, and their magazines, game novels, and comic books are some of the best in the business.
And then there's all the cool stuff you can get for free. Their website offers dozens of very high-quality how to articles that can teach you model building and converting, pro-level painting, and gameboard and terrain building. Regardless of what tabletop game you play, you can benefit from this outstanding repository of articles.
Warhammer Painting & Modeling - Link
Warhammer Terrain - Link
Warhammer 40,000 Painting & Modeling - Link
Warhammer 40,000 Terrain - Link
Lord of the Rings Painting & Modeling - Link
Lord of the Rings Terrain - Link
From the pages of MAKE:
Tabletop Terrains That's no pile of trash; it's my asteroid mining colony! Read this article in MAKE: 08: Toys and Games, Page 80. To get MAKE, subscribe or purchase single volumes. Subscribers--read this article now in your digital edition!
Posted by Gareth Branwyn |
Aug 16, 2007 02:00 PM
DIY Projects, Gaming, Toys and Games |
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| Comments (2)
BuggyRollin
This looks like a lot of fun... Thanks Terrie! Link.
Posted by Phillip Torrone |
Aug 16, 2007 01:00 PM
Transportation |
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| Comments (2)
Homemade welding machine
Erik writes -
Being on the ground in Nairobi makes it a little easier to find good AfriGadget stories. I took a walk down Ngong road, an area with a lot of shadetree mechanics, wood carvers and metal fabricators. The first place I stopped at had a home made welding machine.Homemade welding machine, Thanks Violet! - Link.Simon, the shop owner, showed me a couple of the machines and gave a video tour of how it works. He's a prime example how an entrepreneur in Africa will figure out ingenious solutions to meet local market demands. The welders sell for around 14,000 Kenya Shillings (just over $200), but fabrication costs only a small fraction of that.
Posted by Phillip Torrone |
Aug 16, 2007 12:00 PM
Made On Earth |
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| Comments (4)
The Origami house
Darren writes -
Here is a time lapse video of construction of a life sized origami house complete with furniture. The video was taken over the week of construction. And a link that shows how to make your own bricks.The Origami house - Link & make your own bricks.
Posted by Phillip Torrone |
Aug 16, 2007 11:00 AM
DIY Projects, Paper Crafts |
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| Comments (0)
"Green" surfboard kits
Brian writes -
DIY eco-friendly surfboard building supplies. Bamboo fiberglass, stringer, and fins. Recyclable EPS foam core. Bio-plastic accessories. Eco-friendly epoxy. Comprehensive 5 DVD instructional vids show every step of the process for a great looking and even better performing surfboard your first board building project.Greenlight Surfboard Supply (warning, the site sings) - Link.
Posted by Phillip Torrone |
Aug 16, 2007 10:00 AM
DIY Projects, Kits |
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| Comments (1)
LCD mystery
The Hacker's bench needs your help, they want to interface with these LCDs... These look like the Nokia LCDs we've covered here (links in the comment) - so lend a hand and they'll send you some...
So, quite some time ago I won a box of LCD displays on an ebay auction. Turns out there were more than a hundred of them, they we're brand new, and in the manufacturers original packaging. Cool! If I can get them work at all it'll be the deal of the century, and if not, I'm not out all that much. I started searching for data and after burning up MANY hours on the web, pretty much came up blank. I've decided that probably someone out there has the info I need, and maybe this little contest will motivate them to share the info with me.Hacker's Bench Link.
Posted by Phillip Torrone |
Aug 16, 2007 09:00 AM
Electronics |
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| Comments (5)
No batteries required for creative LED toys
This is interesting, crank powered toys for kids...
A local design firm with international reach is hoping to turn the trend toward environmentally friendly products into child's play.No batteries required for creative LED toys - [via] Link.Zen Design Group is launching SEE Toys, a line of LED-based children's toys that draw their power from rechargeable batteries that kids juice up as part of their play.
Posted by Phillip Torrone |
Aug 16, 2007 08:00 AM
Toys and Games |
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A poorman's oscilloscope
Ronald writes -
The oscilloscope is still one of the most important measurement tools of the electronic engineer. With the advent of the often very reasonably priced USB scopes, such an instrument is now within reach of every body. Twenty five years ago that was quite a different story. A (good) oscilloscope was then a very expensive instrument available only to a happy few. As a result many electronics hobbyist made their own scope. The popular electronics magazines in the sixties and seventies were full of scope designs almost always based on vacuum tubes. This period was closed in 1975 when the Dutch electronics magazine Elektuur (in the rest of the world known as Elektor) published their fully transistorised "Elektorscoop". Despite all this, the purchase of the expensive cathode ray tube and Special high voltage transformer remained too expensive for many people.A poorman's oscilloscope - Link.In an effort to lower the price for a scope even further, Elektuur published in 1978 the "Videoscope". The Videoscope sampled the analog input signal and stored the samples in a bucket brigade (CCD) memory. Next the data in the CCD was converted into an ordinary (black and white) video signal which could be displayed on an ordinary TV. In order to view the signal in the normal way the TV had to be put on his side, but nobody minded that. All in all it was still a rather complex design comprising a few dozen of ICs and several printed circuit boards.
These days this obviously can be done much simpler...
Posted by Phillip Torrone |
Aug 16, 2007 07:00 AM
DIY Projects, Electronics |
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16 servo controller
Here's a USB servo controller of controlling up to 16 servos! The API is provided and according to the maker who sent this in, many open source projects have already been released... Link.
Posted by Phillip Torrone |
Aug 16, 2007 06:00 AM
Electronics |
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| Comments (3)
OpenTracker project
The OpenTracker project now has kits! -
The OpenTracker is an APRS unit that transmits data via amateur radio Packet. Usually the OpenTracker is connected to the microphone input of a radio (generally a 2-meter handheld or mobile.) Data from a GPS receiver gets encoded and transmitted in APRS format, and in many parts of the world there's an extensive digipeater and gateway network that'll get the data onto the Internet. From there you can access it through websites like OpenAPRS, APRS World and Findu.com.OpenTracker project - Link.It has onboard temperature and voltage sensors, and it'll also connect to a number of different weather stations, including the 1-Wire weather instrument from AAG.
The OpenTracker is a transmit-only device. It can't receive or decode any data itself. If you're using the APRS network and you've got Internet access, you don't even need to decode anything off the air - IGate stations will do that for you. For other applications, the simplest way to start receiving data is to install a soundcard modem program like AGWPE, and simply connect a scanner or radio to your computer's audio input.
Posted by Phillip Torrone |
Aug 16, 2007 04:00 AM
DIY Projects, Electronics, Kits |
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| Comments (0)
Lightweight home security with Indigo and Asterisk
Scott writes -
I mentioned last week that I've been working on building sort of a lightweight home security system for my house so my 4-year-old daughter won't be able to sneak out of the house again.Lightweight Home Security with Indigo and Asterisk, thanks Surj! Link.I spent about a day researching possible solutions, to see if there was something simple that I could buy that would make me happy, and I couldn't find anything on the market that was cheap and would tell me which of my 6 exterior doors had been opened loudly enough to hear from across the house. There's no point in putting a door buzzer on the basement door if you can't hear it from the master bedroom. The only solutions that I found were from professional alarm companies, and they probably would have charged me a couple thousand for installation plus $30-$50 per month for monitoring. I'm just not willing to pay that much, and it's not really what I was looking for-it's gross overkill for my problem.
So, I decided to build it myself....
Posted by Phillip Torrone |
Aug 16, 2007 03:00 AM
DIY Projects |
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| Comments (0)
Toothpick and nail art
If you know more about this nail-and-toothpick artist post up in the comments - Link.
Posted by Phillip Torrone |
Aug 16, 2007 02:00 AM
Arts, Made On Earth |
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| Comments (2)
War on cables
Cheap solution for keeping the cable clutter down @ the computer desk... Link.
Posted by Phillip Torrone |
Aug 16, 2007 01:00 AM
Computers |
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| Comments (0)
August 15, 2007
Physical Interactions over IP
My friend Thomas Edwards, who's the alpha geek behind Dorkbot DC, has put up a new project wiki for his (and presumably other techno-artist's) work in what he calls Phy2Phy, or "Physical Interactions over IP." This YouTube vid shows progress-to-date on his "Touch" project, which allows two people to touch each other over a Net connection, using force-sensitive resistors. There's a lot of cool hardware here, including the Comfile CUBLOC CB220 microprocessor, the Pololu micro serial servo controller, the Lantronix Xport, and the force sensors. All details and links are on the Touch Project page on Phy2Phy. Thomas will be showing off his progress at the next Dorkbot DC, on Sept. 10.
Physical Interactions over IP - Link
Posted by Gareth Branwyn |
Aug 15, 2007 08:00 PM
Arts, DIY Projects, Electronics |
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| Comments (2)
HOW TO - Quiltbert: Q*bert video game quilt
Lenore at Evil Mad Scientist Labs shows off her fantastic Quiltbert, a Q*bert inspired quilt and shows you the steps to make one yourself - Link.
Posted by Phillip Torrone |
Aug 15, 2007 07:00 PM
Crafts, Gaming, Retro |
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| Comments (1)
Antique adding machines as objets d'art
Brass Goggles points us to the work of Andy Aaron, who crafts very steampunky, work-worn "antique calculators." Too bad there isn't more info on his site about how he makes them. They obviously contain modern electronics. As someone points out in Brass Goggles comments, he needs to do one with a nixie tube display.
Aaron Adding Machines - [via] Link
Posted by Gareth Branwyn |
Aug 15, 2007 06:00 PM
Electronics, Gadgets, Retro |
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| Comments (1)
Wooden ball machine
Ben's amazing wooden prototype ball machine - Link.
Posted by Phillip Torrone |
Aug 15, 2007 05:00 PM
Arts, Made On Earth |
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| Comments (0)
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