Eclectic junk from the four corners of the ‘Net. And pictures too!
if you have to have an artificial limb due to either trauma or birth defect you might as well have one with some serious style. I’d personally want exposed gears and pistons and some neon backlighting. This is a wonderful project, I can only hope that other artists and creative types step up and try this medium.
[Via Dude Craft]
Ever wonder what goes into an LED light bulb? Well Todd did and you can too because he posted a great tear down of one that failed. Pretty good info if you are thinking of taking one apart.
Very cool!!! I wouldn’t go as far as to call it a ‘Lomo’ mod, as there are no Lomo camera parts in it and the lens is a magnitude of quality better then any plastic that has ever graced a toy camera body. Still, the effects are rather stylistic.
Take a cheap Vivitar digital camera, strip the body and lens off, add a nice lens mount and some fancy looking hand brushed aluminum U rails for a body and you have a serviceable camera. I’d add a ultra wide auxilary lens to the prime to get a nicer field of view but other than that this is something to be duplicated. Now where did I put that old camera…
[via MAKE]
Very cool use of off the shelf tech.
The little truck was used by the troops to run ahead of them on patrols and look for roadside bombs. Fessenden has had it since 2007, when Ernie and Kevin Guy, the owner of the Everything Hobby shop in Rochester, rigged it with a wireless video camera and shipped it to him.
Last week, it paid off. Chris Fessenden said he had loaned the truck to a group of fellow soldiers, who used it to check the road ahead of them on a patrol. It got tangled in a trip wire connected to what Fessenden guesses could have been 500 lbs. of explosives. The bomb went off. The six soldiers controlling the truck from their Humvee were unhurt.
Remote Controlled Truck Sent to Soldier in Afghanistan Saves 6 Soldiers’ Lives – ABC News.
Nice little kinetic ball sorting thing. The video (might take some time to load, it’s coming from China) has enough close up shots that is would not be that tough to duplicate this. I need to find a good supply of that brass wire he uses, looks like it’s brazing rod so it shouldn’t be too hard to locate some. I see a trip to Harbor Freight in my future!
Funny DIY Device With Subtle Control of Steel Balls’ tracks
My friend Kelly built this:
When my boys were very young, I made a treasure chest from a cheap toolbox, placed an electronic lock in it (AT90S1200) and sent them on a treasure hunt, solving clues and ultimately opening the chest to get their pirate booty, a pair of N64 games. Over the years that chest has been used on many such hunts, created by myself or the boys.
Fast forward over 10 years later and I felt it was time for a new chest, one that would run the treasure hunt itself, playing videos, sound effects, and even hand out paper clues. The typical scenario would start with the chest playing a video clue on the iTouch, which would send the treasure hunters off looking for more clues and eventually get a key. Returning to the chest they would insert the key which would signal the chest that they completed that scenario and it’s time to start the next one, which could be another video, or dispensing a paper clue or map. Once the last scenario was completed the chest would release the big spring loaded trunk latch and the treasure hunters could reap the reward of what ever was inside waiting for them.
This is a pretty amazing project and the documentation is top notch. Thanks for telling me about this Kelly! Once you have seen the chest writeup go have a look at his robots, the man is a master of ingenuity and creativity. I’m proud to say that my robots have had their tin cans kicked by his ‘bots a number of times.
Treasure Chest