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Can you spot that charging system in the above picture? It’s the large pot on the side table. MichaelPap was facing the same issue that I have, in my living room there is a table that has tons of wires all over it and usually a bunch of devices charging. I am just living with the clutter but this is a nice solution. All the chargers are in the base of the vase and all the devices charge in the top which is out of site because of the plastic plant. We have seen some other solutions for this issue such as the Wild Charger Pad, but this is a nice simple solution that disappears into its surroundings. Sometimes a project doesn’t have to be super high tech to be useful… Via: Zedomax
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Okay, our contests might not be as interesting as the girl in the bikini but it must be a close second? I want to thank the numerous sponsors who add to the fun of participating in the contest by providing great prizes for the winners. I think we had our hardest contest and our most entered contests this month. The Name the Thing contest 110 was the hardest to date. Usually about 15 minutes into the contest there is a correct entry, this time there were 8 wrong guesses before the first correct answer came in about 2 hours after the contest started. The Name the Thing Contest 109 had a huge 252 entries, the item to guess was a tube tester. Thanks to everyone who has participated in a contest here and good luck in future contests, if your company would like to participate as a prize sponsor we would love to hear from you also. |
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If you are going to build something you might as well over design and over build it right? If you don’t agree you can go and pick up whatever you need at your local Walmart. Here we have an excellent example of over engineering something, you can get spring loaded mouse traps for about a dollar, but there is no laser system, status LEDs, arming circuit and pneumatics in one of those. Jake Easton must of had lots of fun when he was building this Extreme Mousetrap! It’s surprising that the one your get for a dollar even has the smarts to latch onto its prey without any of this sophistication. If you want to catch a mouse the real way you need to do it with one of these. “The Better Mousetrap Specifications:
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Mikey Sklar shows us how a small device can bring damaged batteries back to life. When these batteries are at their end of life they are normally recycled for the lead that’s inside. It isn’t an easy job since the battery is obviously also filled with acid. So the battery isn’t even worth its weight in lead. This means that you are able to get lots of these batteries for free or a small fee. If you are building a solar system that needs to store energy all day and discharge all night you may be able to do it on the cheap if you rejuvenate some old batteries for the task. “Battery desulfation is easy. It can save you hundreds of dollars and help keep batteries out of the waste stream. Mikey Sklar explains how to connect a desulfator and learn more about the health of a lead acid battery. “ |
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The prize this week is one of my Button Code kits. This kit was lots of fun to make and it provides a unique way to enter in a secure code. You can see documentation about it here, if you want to get your own Button Code kit they are available here (if you buy one and also win the contest I will just refund your payment if you like). This contest will run for one week (Dec 19 – 25, 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. 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 winner will be chosen at random from all of the correct entries. ———————————–———- Added January 12, 2009 The item to guess was a Nixie Tube Segments The winner is Tom P. (There were 186 entries.) ————————————–———- Below is a picture of the prize.
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What do you do when you have animals to look after but don’t have enough hours in the day to care for all their needs? Well we have seen uses of technology to feed your animals automatically. Food isn’t the only need, of course they need water also. But have no fear technology can help us there also. After all that food and water has been consumed they have some other needs, you guessed it, some tech can come to the rescue in that department also. Every now and then our pets need to be cleaned from all that lovely automation, no problem, we have an app for that. And lastly we need to keep track of them as if they were inmates in your house, this issue can also be solved using some technology! Now that we have covered what is needed to take care of our indoor animals, what about your outdoor animals? Why are the chickens being left out here? Well this is no longer a problem. “Temperature, light level and door status data is brought to the page in real time via an ioBridge. An Apple Airport Express connects the ioBridge to the outside world via our wireless network, and also extends the range of our network out into the back yard. The VSBb Automatic Chicken Coop Door Opener lets the girls out at sunrise and back in at sunset while keeping nighttime predators out of the coop. It’s extremely reliable, and it’s four AA batteries seem to last forever. Although fully automatic, it can be operated via the Web if need be. When the door opens or closes, the ioBridge sends a text message to my iPhone. It also sends a Tweet to @fussychickens and an update to Facebook via ping.fm, reminding me to fire up a browser and make sure all the chickens are in for the evening. The door usually opens and closes when the light level is about 35.” |
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Anna Ceguerra has been making some interesting applications with the 4D Systems OLED displays. This is her version of Tetris for the 4D Systems platform. You still have the rest of today to enter the contest that 4D is sponsoring, if you win, your project could be the next one featured on Hacked Gadgets. “This project is an implementation of the well-known game, Tetris, 4D-style. It is not meant to replicate the original game exactly. The hardware required are:
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We have been having lots of fun with contest here for years but there have been a few recent ones that really stand out. 
