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The Harford Hackerspace has been building a CNC machine. You can see all the build details here. This machine is a huge success! The Z axis can lift an amazing 65 lbs and it has no problem cutting metal throwing stars. What more testing do you need? I think we can call the build done at this point. “The CNC machine’s construction has advanced to the point where we can begin to cut items. Being a bunch of teenagers trapped in adult bodies, someone decided that we should cut a throwing star from sheet aluminum. One copy of CamBam and 6 minutes later and the star was ready to be cut! After a few adjustments and a bit snapped in half from being dragged through the metal too fast, the cutting was underway. The star took about 10 minutes to cut and was an excellent first attempt at metal production. The next step is to use the CNC to cut more precise parts for itself and help bring about the Robot Armageddon.”
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So going to CES was not in the cards for me this year. Not a problem since I am not all that interested in the mainstream stuff anyway. I am more interested in the far out gadgets and some of the crazy products that may not find it in consumers hands. I have mainly been following the coverage from Zedomax, Hack a Day and Makezine. This phone watch that does everything was found by my friend Max from Zedomax, as the guy rattles off the featured it sounds like this thing can do everything! I think they borrowed the engineer who came up with the Swiss Army Knife and had him help in the design of this watch. You can see more details about the Kempler and Strauss W Phone Watch by going to their site. They have some of those annoying sites that doesn’t allow direct page linking so when you get to the site look for W phonewatch in the right column. On a side note, I have heard a few people pronounce gigabyte like this guy does (jigabyte). Is this an alternative pronunciation in some countries? I always thought is was just a non-technical person whenever I heard it but this sales rep must know his stuff? “The W PhoneWatch incorporates a GSM phone that supports the 850MHz, 900MHz, 1800MHz, and 1900MHz bands. The 1.5-inch TFT LCD micro-touch touchscreen features a screen resolution of 128 x 128 and displays 260,000 colors. The watch measures a mere 57 x 45 x 18mm and weighs only 2.5 ounces.
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I purchased a small model rocket kit a about 10 years ago, it was lots of fun until it got permanently stuck in a tree. I can just imagine how much more fun it would have been if I could have experienced the flight from a perspective other than from a fixed ground based location. Well, I Build Rockets has done exactly that. They have strapped a cheap $11.50 camera to a rocket and recorded a fantastic launch and recovery. The only thing more interesting to me other than the actual footage is how nice and warm it looks for early December! “I decided to try out the new ‘Gum stick’ camera I recently purchased on eBay. The rocket was a quick scratch-build, BT50 with a 18mm motor mount. Both launches were on an Estes C6-5 with an altitude of just a few hundred feet, recovery under a 12″ Mylar parachute. Ideal shake-down flights for the camera.” |
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This Step-a-Sketch project is sure to bring back some memories if you are around my age. I remember having one of these growing up, I think I got it for a Christmas present one year. Unfortunately it was killed when I was going through my how does this work phase. Almost everything with screws around me got taken apart, some were even put back successfully. By using a PIC 16f84a microcontroller tied to a home made unipolar stepper driver Chris from Powered By Nerd was able to allow a computer is able to send CNC pulse data to the PIC and the PIC then controls the stepper motors to draw a 2D image on the Etch a Sketch. We have seen a similar project before and the same project in reverse, something about a toy from my childhood brought to life with modern electronics that is a pleasure to see. If you want to build one for yourself Chris has provided the code and schematic to give you a head start. Thanks for the tip Jeff. “This code works fine, but it would need some work before it’s connected to an industrial machine. The most glaring problem is that the PIC will not take the same amount of time to execute the code every pass through the program, due to whether or not one or both of the motors have been instructed to move. This could also account for some of the hesitation I occasionally see. An easy solution to this would be to add delay loops into the code, when no real work needs to be done.”
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What does it take to pimp out a Range Rover Sport into a limo? A little more than a paint and polish that’s for sure! Have a look at some of the build pictures that Midlands Limos sent in below for an idea of how invasive the process is. Next time I ‘m in the UK I will have to have a ride in this limo!
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Thanks to Digiarty Software, Inc for sponsoring the contest this week. They are providing 10 copies of WinX DVD Ripper Platinum, that is $299.50 worth of software spread out amongst 10 lucky winners. Nice thing about this software is you can make backups of all your DVDs so that your originals can be kept safe and you can just watch copies. “WinX DVD Ripper Platinum can rip the content of DVDs to all popular video formats such as AVI, MOV, FLV, WMV, MPEG, MP4, 3GP, etc. What’s more, it also owns the ability of ripping different DVDs (including encrypted DVDs) to Sony PSP, Apple iPhone, iPod, iTouch, Apple TV, Zune, Mobile phone, etc.” This contest will run for one week (January 9, 2010 – January 15, 2010) . 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. Make and model isn’t needed just what it is and what it can be used for is fine. 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 Feb 6, 2009 The item to guess was a Wang 144-T Scientific Calculator The winners are Michael A, Emmett R, Kan, George T, Raleigh S, Roger S, David, M, Almost T, Bruce M and Steven S ————————————–———- Below are some pictures of the prize. |
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We mentioned before that Fletchtronics will be building a bunch of Bumble Bs and sharing the process with us. Well the creation of the devices are done and the videos are finished. Watch them for some tiny surface mount techniques. I haven’t played with a Bumble B before but we have featured a project that was built with the $17 controller. What is a Bumble B you may ask, here is a description from the site. “It is a breakout board for Atmel’s at90usb162 microcontroller, along with supporting hardware and USB connector. It is DIP-24/600mil shape, and works very well on a breadboard. You can program Bumble-B without any special hardware and using entirely free and open source software from Atmel and the AVR community. This makes Bumble-B a self-contained AVR development kit that you can start working with instantly, with no special tools.” Day 2 Video
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