Eclectic junk from the four corners of the ‘Net. And pictures too!
I saw this over on Hack-a-day this morning while I was looking around the ‘net. The project is clever, I have a bunch of disposable cameras for playing around with myself. I find the lenses to be of a veru low quality but for doing simple macro work they are good enough.
Wow, talk about serious old school. An entire computer built out of relay logic is quite an impressive feat. OK, fifty years ago it was pretty normal but the transistor wisened everyone up pretty quick. He’s got this cool video clip of the LEDs blinking and stuff here.
Ah, a dream I’ve had for years… Remote controlled steam powered machines toy. They still use a battery to power the electronics (no generator on board) but it’s quite amazing to see the steam tank clamber over a block of wood.
This proves that you don’t need fancy equipment to build a camera. An empty roll of film, a matchbox, some electrical tape and a bit of foil is all you need to make this clever little gem. One of the coolest things is that because the format is 24mm x 24mm he gets 50 shots on a roll of 36. He also uses a plastic bit from a binder stuck through the sprocket holes to ‘click’ when the film is advanced. Every six clicks equals one frame. Perfect. I’m going to have to build one of these, maybe while I’m on my next trip.
[via robot action boy]
Well, it was released but only lasted a few orbits. Pretty cool idea though, using an old unserviceable space suit and some Ham gear as an impromptu satellite. I love the way it was hand lunched from ISS. As it was released, Cosmonaut Tokorev proclaimed, "Dosvidanya! Good-bye, Mr Smith!". Hopefully they will try something like this again. Wouldn’t it be interesting if the transmission failed because the batteries became too cold for them to sustain a usable output voltage? Who knows, if the suit heats up from sunlight it might squeak out a few more bits of data until it eventually re-enters and burns up.
Master Gundam model hobbyist Danny Choo shows us that an Imperial Stormtrooper is just your average salaryman. He bought a set of ‘Trooper armor (and had to do quite a re-fit on it due to poor workmanship apparently) and decided to wear it around the streets of Tokyo and Yokohama. Amazing how many people have camera phones there, he would draw quite a crowd of onlookers. And as always, kids dig the blaster. Make sure that you see his videos of the train ride and Yokohama station and also in the streets of Akihabara – I can’t think of a better place to shop for the latest in Thermal Detonators than good old Electric Town.