Thanks to Sascha from I Build Rockets for sending in this tip. It’s a machine that does nothing other than keep a switch in the off position. Turn the switch on and a hand pops up immediately and turns it off. The circuit has no microcontroller, it is all analog. I am thinking this could make for an interesting project, who will be the first to make a kit for this available? I am thinking that fellow Canadian SaskView will be in the business of selling these very soon.

Dave Jones had a Panasonic Plasma TV die on him. Have a look at the video to see the build quality of a Panasonic. Turns out that the local TV repair shop would charge more to fix this 2.5 year old model than a new one costs now. The solution to the problem is quite technical, the repair consists of about 1 meter of black electrical tape.

Thanks to Rad Blaster for sponsoring the contest this week. They will be providing a Rad Blaster Boobbox MP3 Player/Recorder to the winner. You can plug in a set of headphones or use the internal speakers to play your tunes on the go. The unit has a tiny color OLED screen also! If that wasn’t enough, you can also use the player as a USB storage device.

“Rad Blaster Features:

1. 1 inch true color OLED screen 128*64
2. Support MP3/WMA/WAV audio format
3. Support lyric synchronization display
4. Built-in MIC, Hi-Fi record,Repeat A-B
5. 7 EQ Natural, Rock, Pop, Classic, Soft, Jazz, DBB
6. Support multiple languages
7. Multiple playback mode
8. High speed USB 2.0 (FS) interface
9. Built-in high quality speakers
10. Necklace Included”

This contest will run for one week (January 2, 2009 – January 8, 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.

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 12, 2009

The item to guess was a 3 Penny Radio

The winner is  Alan M. (There were 216 entries.)

I was impressed by some of the detective work. Some people actually messed with the image that I doctored to bring back the hidden sections of the image!

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Below are some pictures of the prize.

Robots are supposed to make our lives easier right? Well this Tool Carrying Robot is sure to lighten your load. I remember the days of doing service work, I would have a huge case full of hand tools in one hand, a laptop slung over the other shoulder and some type of paperwork in my one free hand. Lugging this gear through large industrial buildings becomes a pain real quick…  This robot could have sure came in handy back then! One enhancement it would need is a way to follow you upstairs. But I think TheGrue did a great first crack at the issue. This robot is an iterative build and it is interesting to read and learn from some of the issues that were faced during the build, below is an interesting side effect of a robot that uses a thermal sensor to “see” you and follow you.

“TOBI 4 will enhance or replace the thermal sensor in TOBI 3. The reason is that, after designing this project for over a year, I have come to realize that in an office environment, the thermal sensor has a serious flaw. TOBI will lock onto ANY human and follow them, so in this version I am going to add a secondary system to identify the master target from all other heat sources. At this point, I have no idea what I will use. It could be IR, RF or ultrasonic.“