Nick Chernyy from μblog is hanging up his writing fingers. He is completing his PhD and needs to concentrate on that. The blog will remain as a reference for as long as the bits live on the server so check back on his old posts to see what you missed. Nick brought us lots of close up pictures of chips, images that us mere mortals would have otherwise never seen.

Nick will be looking for work soon so if anyone has a position for him have a look at his resume (PDF) and give him a call.

If you are working on an electronic hack and would like to poll the hacker audience. Chip Hacker is a site that should work well for you. You could also try the HG Forum but you will need to register and jump through a few hoops which are unfortunately required to combat the spam we were getting.

Thanks Marcus.

"Chiphacker is a collaboratively edited question and answer site for electronics hackers – regardless of platform or language. It’s 100% free, no registration required."

David Smith has built the smallest train I have ever seen. The Claim that it is the worlds smallest is probably true. Watch the video to see a good description of how the drive mechanism works. It is truly out of the box thinking.

"After carefully inserting the train-shaped tubing into its oval slot, I bonded the layout to a styrene support block that was in turn bonded to a mounting plate attached to the motor. This was an iterative process that involved fitting and sanding and fitting and sanding until the support block was exactly the right height. The mounting plate was made relatively large to provide a convenient means of attaching the mechanism to the layout under the building."

There are lots of Nerd Kits project examples available. Josh Davis used the LED Array Sign project and added a cool option for the sign to display voice messages left with the help of a Google voice to text service. Josh has documented the project here and has made the code available.

Via: Make

"On the software side of things, there are two python scripts that make everything happen.  The one called voice2led.py is a script that reads a text file and prints whatever is in it to the sign. The other python script, named checkvoicemail.py is where all the cool stuff happens.  Using the PyGoogleVoice module of python, this script checks my Google Voice account for voicemails."

If you like classic video games and robots you need to have a look at this Roomba Pac-Man system. At a glance it may look like a fun game where the Roomba cleaners are being controlled by a bunch of remote controls that people are controlling. That low tech scenario could not be further from what is actually happening here. There is lots of tech making these Roomba robots play!

"By utilizing service discovery and ad-hoc networking, all of the robots operate independently and autonomously. There is no centralized controller controlling the game, each robot makes its own decisions and sends its own commands. Pac-Man is the only robot that takes human input, and this is simply in an "augmented control capacity" where user input is limited to valid directions of travel (no passing through boundaries). The laptop and GUI provided for the operator provide no computational support for the game, its simply a node that allows the operator to issue commands. A good example of the level of autonomy in the robots is when a ghost kills Pac-Man. Upon determining that it has killed Pac-Man, it issues a command to Pac-Man to let it know it was killed, and then informs all of the other ghosts that Pac-Man was killed. Pac-Man performs his death, and then informs all of the other robots that they need to reset for another round."

Have a look at this beautiful Mini Acrylic Tesla Coil Project that our friend Daniel Eindhoven from Megavolts.nl put together. The build detail on this project might even rival the MV CoilMaster Mark1 Coil Gun!

"A small TeslaCoil fully made of acrylic plastic. The cool thing about this is that every part is transparent. This coil is driven by the power supply of my large DC Teslacoil. Total height 44cm, max output voltage +- 380.000 Volts (57cm arc length)."

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There is some great innovation coming out of the Elevator Space Race. The University of Saskatchewan’s Space Design Team has been in it from the start and has some promising technology. The video describes the monumental task quite well. It goes to show that with some prize money on the line a task as challenging as the space elevator is something that many will choose to pursue.

Via: Space Elevator Games

"The University of Saskatchewan Space Design Team (USST) is a team of highly motivated physics and engineering students and professionals. Building on a tradition of success, we aim to go higher and faster! The engineering challenges are great, requiring the skills of a variety of disciplines. Our success to date has relied on a multi-disciplinary approach, and expanding that approach can only make us better. Our climber makes use of solar cells to receive beamed power, and has an incredibly light superstructure. Although light, the compact design allowed us to handle wind quite well. The robot’s brain (the logic needed to follow the rules) is a microcontroller, programmed by U of S students. As the competition becomes more intense, the limitations of individual spotlights are becoming apparent."