Roller skating got taken over by roller blading, what technology is next? Have a look at the next generation of wheels that can be attached to your feet and take your pick. They all look very interesting but I wonder how hard they are to use?

This is a bed shaking alarm clock on steroids! This is even more jolting than my Fire Alarm Bell Alarm Clock! It uses two sources of air, a huge air compressor under the basement stairs and air from the car compressor. A computer controls a valve which starts bed shaking action. See the video below where it is tried out at a radio station.

Thanks for the tip Stagueve.

The Nevada Lightning Laboratory were recently trying many experiments, such as what would happen if you flew a small radio controlled helicopter between two Tesla coils, could a small vehicle big enough for one person be powered using a Tesla coil. Watch the videos below for the cool answers.

"We’ve done a number of things using Tesla’s original schematic, and have been able to transmit and receive considerable amounts of power. The 1:12 Scale Prototype Towers. These twin prototypes serve as an accurate scale model of the proposed full-scale 12-story Lightning Lab design, allowing detailed study the complex dynamics between two phased, coupled, high voltage resonators. The twins have already revealed many interesting abilities, including a unexpectedly strong tendency to couple power wirelessly, over sizable distances. We studied this peculiar ability in greater detail, and published a paper at the 2008 North American Power Symposium."

I have seen some big RC model planes before but this one is huge! I can just imagine the time and money invested into this thing. I would hate to even attempt to take it up for its first flight since I would be terrified of crashing it into a million pieces. My hat goes off to the workmanship that went into this marvelous machine.

You may remember the Hexapod Robot that Matt Denton built. I think this new Chiara Robot could give Matt a run for his money as far as features and power. Chiara  was developed at Carnegie Mellon University’s Tekkotsu lab, best of all it will be manufactured and sold by RoPro Design, Inc. David Touretzky, Gaku Sato, Ethan Tira-Thompson, and David Rice have done a great job on this system. I can’t wait till it gets released to see what its full potential is!

"Chiara Features:

• Fully assembled and ready to run right out of the box
• Six legs provide stable and precise holonomic motion
• 6 DOF arm with gripper lets the robot acquire and manipulate objects
• Digital servos: 24 Dynamixel AX-12+ servos with position and force feedback, plus three analog microservos in the gripper
• Pico-ITX computer: x86 architecture with 1 GHz processor, 1 GB RAM, and 80 GB hard drive provides serious on-board computing power
• Logitech webcam: QuickCam Pro 9000 on a pan/tilt mount for sophisticated robot vision programming
• Infrared rangefinder: Dynamixel AX-S1 sensor module with three-direction IR rangefinder mounted directly below the camera for multimodal sensing
• Networking: Ethernet plus 802.11(b/g) allows the robot to communicate with you and other Chiaras
• Ubuntu Linux OS: widely used, free, and open source
• Tekkotsu application development framework using C++ provides integrated vision/kinematics, teleoperation, and monitoring.
• Audio and LED outputs: essential tools for human-robot interaction
• USB bus lets you extend the robot by adding your own USB-compatible devices
• Open source body design allows you to customize the Chiara by changing component shapes, adding sensors, etc."

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This is one huge LED Music Tower. We have see lots of cool LED/Music creations lately, I say keep em coming! JC Omega Projects is in French so hopefully we get a good English translation but a picture is worth a thousand words. It looks like there was two sizes of this cool project built, the mini table top version and the huge in your face taller than you are version. I personally would take the version that would force me to re-arrange my living room furniture…

“Materials: wood and acrylic and electronics .

Circuit: Microchip microcontroller, 16 leds, 6 IC buffers, 3 amplifiers, Micro, Power supply: 12v.
Modes: 9 dynamic modes, 1 demo mode, 2 color modes, 2 sounds meter modes.
This lamp have 3 button for: On/OFF, change speed, change mode.”

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Rich Harley from Suspicion Industries sent in some pictures of a vehicle that they just completed. This is what I call a office away from home! I know where to go if I ever start a career as a super secret spy! Instead of a limo could I rent this van for an evening?

“Here is a rather large home project we have completed - a surveillance
vehicle or mobile office. The project took around 9 months to finish
and we have pictures and build information to document progress. The
van has:

* onboard power system/batteries (10 hour runtime), plug sockets etc
* lighting
* onboard computers x 2 + TFT wall mounted monitors
* wireless router
* desk + chair setup
* furnished walls and floor
* climate control

We’ve also added a Pan-Tilt-Zoom Camera connected to the computers
for surveillance or recording use. Our aim is to hire the van to
individuals/small business, or perhaps to sell the vehicle outright.”

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