Etsy is a cool place where lots of people sell homemade products. This Wall-E Thumb Drive is a great example of the cool limited quantity (currently sold out) devices that you can find there. I seem to have a thing for all types of Wall-E creations…

Via: Zedomax and Technabob

"It’s the well known dearest little WALL-E all grown up (or shrunken down) into a Thumb Drive! Instead of compacting garbage, this little guy holds 8GB of digital storage for all your storage needs! It comes with a Keyring so it stays close to you at all times."

Have a look at the video above for an amazing example of what a commercial delta robot can do. Asurofilmchen has decided to build a DIY version of one of these. Obviously it won’t have the same speed or dexterity but it is still a challenging undertaking! My favorite delta robot example is still the Croissant Picker Robot though.

"A Delta robot is a type of parallel robot. It consists of three arms connected to universal joints at the base. The key design feature is the use of parallelograms in the arms, which maintains the orientation of the end effector. The Delta robot (a parallel arm robot) was invented in the early 1980s by Reymond Clavel at the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL, Switzerland). The purpose of this new type of robot was to manipulate light and small objects at a very high speed, an industrial need at that time. In 1987, the company Demaurex purchased a license for the Delta robot and started the production of Delta robots for the packaging industry. In 1991 Reymond Clavel presents his doctoral thesis ‘Conception d’un robot parallèle rapide à 4 degrés de liberté’ and receives the golden robot award in 1999 for his work and development of the Delta robot. Also in 1999, ABB Flexible Automation starts selling its Delta robot, the FlexPicker. By the end of 1999 the Delta robots are also sold by Sigpack Systems."

This Brick Laying Robot looks like it could be a great addition to hand brick laying. Instead of using robots to simply lay bricks that anyone can do this automated process uses robots to make complex patterns which would be very hard to do by hand. As modular construction becomes more popular intricate brick panels could become very common. Just because this example system was done using a very expensive commercial robot that doesn’t mean that it could not be done on the cheap.

Via Brico Geek

"The Gantenbein Winery, in Fläsch, Switzerland, has been the prototype for an entirely new approach to bricklaying: using modified industrial robots. Traditionally, the promise of industrial robots has been that they would replace the human workforce. But these projects, led by the Architecture and Digital Fabrication laboratory at ETH Zürich, demonstrate a different result: architects are free to create designs and patterns of a precision that simply could not be achieved by hand."

With a few electronic parts you can build this cool Tazer Glove. It’s sure to be a shocking project.

"From simple everyday parts you can make this glove which has two modes. Mode 1 is a constant output of slightly over 300 v. while Mode 2 takes a few seconds to charge, but gives off a much more painful shock. All that voltage from a simple AA battery, Yay science. Expect to spend around 20$ for this fun and rewarding project."

Looks like Gareth from Switzerland has completed his next metal finding robot. I am very impressed at the accuracy of the robots ability to find coins. Looks like this robot has a good shot of paying for its creation in no time. You may remember the last version that we featured.

"TB-007 has been fitted with a Wireless Camera so i can sit in my deck chair and watch its progress should it wander off. The Camera is mounted to a servo which also has a Laser pointer attached (see main picture) During “Fine Detect” phase of software loop, the servo positions itsself to look and pinpoint with laser and Video the exact location of Metal Found."

It isn’t very often you can get a close look inside the electronics around you without using a screwdriver and voiding your warranty. Maximum PC has an interesting article that lets you have a peek under the hood of common electronics that are around you right now.

When recording audio you can either look for a very quiet spot or simply build yourself a sound booth. You will no longer need to worry about the noises in your surroundings interfering with your recordings. If you are on a super tight budget you could also replace the foam with egg cartons, it won’t work quite as good but it would still be much better than no booth.

"This is a great project if you need a sound booth with excellent sound quality on a budget. Additionally there is a bonus with this simple design in that the sound booth can be collapsed to save space. For this project you will need a drill, jigsaw, staple gun and razor blade. The key component for your sound booths effectiveness will be the sound proofing material. We chose to use an open cell foam based product that is cut in 2’ X 4’ panels produced by Auralex. We picked ours up from Guitar Center. This material can range greatly in price but you can start your booth at about 2.00 – 5.00 per square foot."