Micro Sized Desktop Line Following Robot

Desktop robot

This little line follower moves at 53 cm/sec and only weighs 15 gm! Quite amazing.

Recently many kind of robot contests have being opened and some interesting reports of the challenge are found on the web. The Line Following is a kind of the robot contests to vie running speed on the line. I build a tiny line following robot which can run on the desk, moving the key board aside will do. It is for only a personal toy reduced its size less than one fifth compared to typical line following robots, not in formula. But I believe that it is suitable for home use in the small Japanese houses…

[via MAKE: Blog]
Desktop Line Following Robot

Cat Attack

Cat Attack

This makes me wish I had a cat, or maybe a water proof version of this so I could use it with my fish…

Developed by chaos labs in Japan, and based on the neural network of a mouse, the Chaos Wand will stimulate your cat’s natural hunting instinct. Sit back and relax with the radio control for the ultimate game of Cat-and-Mouse!
… The Cat Attack uses the latest research in chaos theory and complex systems to emulate the movements and personality of a cat’s favorite prey. This “virtual mouse” technology utilizes algorithms based on a six-dimensional coupled nzmap system modeled on the neural network of a real mouse. What that all means is that the Cat Attack’s “virtual mouse” will become your cat’s new best friend!

Neural network of a mouse? It looks like a little floppy thing on an arm that is rotated by a motor in the radio controlled base. Maybe the arm is moved automaticly when the base is driven around the room and if the ‘virtual mouse’ is not active enough you can give it a virtual goose by pressing the ‘spin’ button. My experience with R/C cars and cats is that the cat will see the moving car and run away from it once it moves. Perhaps the rodent neural network makes up for this and the cat is drawn towards it like a fist to a well crafted lure.

Cat Attack

Rocket Cam On the Cheap!

rocket rocketcam
Here is an interview with Matt Campbell, why should you read it? Well he took a model rocket and adapted it’s nose cone to house a hacked CVS video camera. The videos of the launch are pretty impressive. The recovery phase of the launch wa a little rough, if there was a way to stabalize the nose cone during decent the video was be heaps better. It’s also of some not that the camera will do odd things to the image is it’s slewed too fast. Go take a look at the video to see that I mean.
The CVS Video camera is going to be showing up in so many projects that it’s bound to win some sort of DIY hackability award (hint hint MAKE, you should have one of these).
I know if I had a few (and yes, I’d want at least three of them) I’d put a zoom lens on one, and turn the other two into a stereoptic video system with variable ocular distance. That would be so flipping cool… Then there would be the ‘lets-make-you-sick’ three inches off the road camera for my car, an underwater housing for those times at the beach, and not to mention a pretty cool payload for an R/C car.

Medical Shipment Container

Medical transport

It looks neat, I wonder what they use as an insulator. Aerogel would be fantastic but might cost and arm and a leg.

Hitachi Transport System has developed a shipment container with its considerable transport experience and its workability concept. The container doesn’t need a temperature controller or a source of power, and at the same time it is simple and lightweight.
This new type of shipment container makes it possible to transport cultured cells by various methods, including by food, auto, train such as Shinkansen, or on a plane. The cultured cells could be kept at the same temperatures as culture experiments at the hospital where a transplant surgery is carried out.

Portable shipment container