QRS will no longer be making their piano player rolls. I am quite surprised that they were still making them! I love the old technology and watching how these are created and mass produced was very enjoyable. The picture above is an example of what you might have ordered from the factory back in 1917. Click on the link below to listen to the roll converted to a midi file. It is interesting that a machine which was ahead of its time when created would look like a Rube Goldberg device many years later. I am sure the same will be said of the DVD one day.

QRS_Piano_Player_21086_Follies_1917.mid

"The halt in production comes 108 years after the company was founded in Chicago, and 42 years since it moved to Buffalo. Rolls used in player pianos reached their peak in popularity in the early 20th century, when a roll of paper was able to reproduce music through perforations signifying notes played on the piano."

Via: Make

Chris Carpenter is building a cool robot head, it looks up at you when you need to enter commands since the commands are displayed on the LCD screen which is mounted on the front of the head. The servo movements all look nice and smooth, there is also a servo under the large board which is controlling the right and left movement of the head. Some of the electronics include a PicAxe microcontroller, motor driver, servo driver, radio control receiver and 8 EPROMs.

Chris has added a new tilt mechanism to his robots which allows it to turn 360 degrees. It is amazing how Chris constantly finds ways to improve his robot. It wouldn’t come as a surprise if Chris were to program Walter to play poker online and display the results on his LCD screen.

This Ratbot project is a great example of recycling, the main body of the robot is a Braun Silk Epil Hair Removal Tool!

"This is the ratb0t, he has a nervous behavior and remainds me a rat.. :] I´m using an Arduino Diecimila to control the steering servo and the traction motor. The XBee module recieves data from another Arduino, this one has a wii nunchuck controller attached."

If you are looking for the best speakers for your heavy metal these Granite Speakers would not be the correct selection, but if you need some speakers to blast your hard rock music then read on. Most of the work I have done has been with wood, I can’t imagine the time it would take to work with rock.

"Box dimensions 220 x 350 x 250 mm. Box material 20 mm thick black granite (Nero Assoluto). Weight 35 kg.
Bass reflex enclosure tuned to 45 Hz. Volume 15 L.
Input power 80W. Sensitivity 87.5 dB. Transmission bandwidth 40Hz – 20kHz. Impedance 6 ohm.  "

This contest will run for one week (Jan 10 – Jan 15, 2009) . Ending time is based on central standard time. To enter, identify the item pictured above and give an example of what can be done with it. You need to name the make and model of this system.

Please do not give the answer in the comments.

Send an email to contest @ hackedgadgets.com with "Name the Thing Contest" as the subject, and the message body consisting of:

• The name of the item in the above picture
• An example of what the item pictured above can be used for

The winner will be chosen at random from all of the correct entries.

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Added January 23, 20089

The item to guess was a Commodore PET

The winner is Brett K.

Thanks to all who entered (there were 173 entries)

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Below is a picture of the prize.

When you are working towards a tight deadline corners are sometimes cut. When a past project is working (no mater how poorly) it often gets overlooked and is never allotted any future time. I am guilty of doing this myself in the past leaned very quickly that the job needs to be done the right way the first time. I am not sure about the history of these Crazy Network Wiring Jobs but WOW are they overrun!

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Making a device extremely simple is sometimes exactly what is needed. These days it seems that most manufacturers are packing every device with more and more featured and functions. To use these modern gadgets there is always a multitude of buttons, wheels and touchscreens. The learning curve is also so high that years after owning some equipment obscure features still pop-up.

Bushnell has gone in the opposite direction with the Backtrack GPS Finder. This thing is super simple to use since all it’s doing is keeping track of a few programmable GPS locations and pointing to them so that you can walk back to it. This would be perfect when camping, you could program the campsite, washroom and the campsite office. Some sites have complex paths that make it easy to loose your bearings. That would not be a problem with this device.

Via: Red Ferret