Category: Cool

GBA Robotics

Nintendo-bot

More and more little computers come on the market in the guise of video games, address books, and video players. With each device comes people that take it upon themselves to push them to the limit of how then can be used. In many cases it takes a little hardware to make it all come together. This is one such case.
The Xport plugs into a Gameboy Advanced and gives you the following:

* Fully programmable FPGA with 50,000 or 150,000 logic gates
* 64 user-programmable I/O signals
* 4 Mbytes (32 Mbits) of flash memory
* 16 Mbytes of SDRAM (optional)
* Built-in high-speed communications and debug port
* Free FPGA synthesis software
* Several pre-tested logic configurations
* In system programmability
* Open source software
* Source level debugging
* Comprehensive software distribution
* eCos 2.0, RedBoot, and Insight included

Amazing no?

There is also an ebook (not going to be published in a dead tree sortof way due to the lawyers) that shows how you can program you GBA.
Time to trade in some old PS1 hardware and get a GBA!

Xport 2.0
Programming The Nintendo Game Boy Advance

cool, DIY, Nintendo, robotics

Robot Prototypes At Expo 05

expo

Loads of photos and video from the big robot demo at the 2005 Expo in Japan. The site is all in Japanese but don’t let that scare you, just click on the links and be amazed…
Walking robots, drum playing robots, robots that climb trees, robots that swim, robots that fly. Could this be the future? I hope so.

“Love terrestrial Hiroshi (Aichi international exposition)” on the 9th, displays the robot of 65 types “prototype robot spreading/displaying”

Love and earth Expo “Prototype robot exhibition” holding

Translated if you want to read the text. (Good chance that the links worn’t work.)

technology, robots, Japan,

Flybook A33i

Flybook

For a 9″x6″ laptop this is a fantastic deal. This would be the perfect computer to take with you on a trip so you can dump camera photos to it. Heck, it even comes in diffent colors!

The TechReport has some nice photos of the tiny Flybook. Measuring only 235x155x31mm and weighing 1.2kg, the Flybook has a 1024×600 pixels screen and GPRS, Bluetooth and Wi-fi connectivity built-in (3G Card available). The model in the photo is the A33i running a 1GHz Transmeta Crusoe-based system with 512MB. The A33i is already available already in Europe with a price ticket of about $2,000. The new Flybooks V33i and V35i feature the Pentium M “Dothan” running at 1.1 to 1.2GHz. Those new models are not yet on sale.
The Flybook A33i comes in six fun colors (see photo below). I would definitely get the yellow one. Flybooks are not available yet in the US, but might come soon. I would wait for the new V33i and V35i with the Intel CPUs.

Flybook A33i

cool, small, sub mini, computer

Lego-Tronics

LEGO

I saw this on MAKE today. I used to dream about building this sort of thing. However, due to time and a billion other things I never did.

Using LEGO bricks, soldering nails, various electronic components to build an “Lego Electronic Lab Kit”.

Exactly! a concept so simple and cool that it’s a wonder that LEGO themselves have not already produced the. Ok, if your old enough to remember the Dacta line they had some sensors and such, but nothing like this. Makes me want to get my electronics parts bin out and do some building…

Lego Electronic Lab Kit Main

DIY, science, electronics, lego