2008 Honorable Mentions

Until further notice I’ll be putting up a post at the end of each month with the items of interest I’ve come across that just didn’t quite merit their own post. They will only be listed under the compilation tag in the Ideas category, so if you remember seeing something here and can’t find it, check there.

Yoshimoto Cube transforms into two stellated rhombic dodecahedrons (video). This cube transforms into two cubes the same size as the first, among other tricks. (via Gizmodo).

Fun laptop concept from Kyle Cherry. The top slides apart and flips up, doubling your screen size.

Manapotions has hacked a nerf gun to fire 500 rounds per minute, painted it up, and added a digital round counter. Watch it in action.

A team of students has hacked a cellphone and a webcam to screen for HIV and other blood disorders. I’m sure there are a ton of disclaimers that need to come with this thing, but it is truly a design inspiration (via WIRED).

A hotrod for hamsters (video).

The keyboard for blondes (via Geekologie).

Color e-paper that adjusts the distance of two layers to create color from the interference of reflected light (via Twine).

Skateboarder having way too much fun skating in a swimming pool filled with turquoise balloons (video).

Someone hacked a Super Nintendo into an alarm clock (via Engadget).

Microsoft surface application keeps an eye on your glass and gives your bar a HUD telling drinkers when they should drink more or less to optimize drunkenness (via Engadget).

DARPA invents a gun scope that uses the long term average of the wavering images in heat waves rising off of the desert to magnify distant tagets (via TheFutureof Things).

For the advent calendar loving crowd, a  calendar with a bubble wrap bubble to pop for every day of the year (bubblecalendar.com).

A nite lite fore kids that changes from a glowing blue moon at night to a cheerful orange sun at a specified time. It helps tell them when it is ok to get up and be noisy (via Crunchgear).

Please consider this to be an open post as well. Feel free to post a link to your blog, throw up a link to something you think should be featured on this site, or talk about what is on your mind. All comments will be moderated, so don’t be spammy.

Robot Rats Run Rampant!

Geeks around the world are hard at work building and training robotic rats to run mazes. No doubt we will soon have sewers infested with faster, smarter robo-rodents. At least they don’t breed…yet.

This first video is a well designed little rodent. It moves at a good pace, seeking the open section at the center of the maze (they really need some virtual cheese here). Once it finds the center, if remembers the course, calculates the best route out, and  picks up the pace.

This is a much faster one. It moves a lot more like the real thing: light on its feet and quick, but with none of the pausing to wash its face. Another one over at BotJunkie uses a vacuum to hold itself down so it doesn’t skid around the corners.

This one is almost more like a robotic gopher. It has to move the obstacles out of the way as it goes. Complicating this is that it has to make it back out of the maze and can choose where to drop it. It can end up putting the obstacle in its way further down the line, so it requires planning to win this race. The rules for microclippers can be found here.

Upadate: The below insight into the micromouse brain was found on a page about micromouse code by BotJunkie

Candle Powered LED

I know this seems about as useful as the first time you heard about solar powered flashlights, but like the solar flashlight there is more to the story.

The problem with fire is that it puts out far more energy as heat than as light. By using thermoelectrics to generate electricity from the heat, ane use the electricity to power an efficient LED, you can produce far more light from a single candle. I think it would be fun to make a fire powered steampunk lantern, no batteries required; just toss in something burnable to power the bulbs.

The experiment serves to highlight the amount of energy we waste. The inefficiencies of our various devices are mostly expended as heat, which we use additional power to try and blow away. Research into simple, effective ways of turning heat into energy have the potential to be extremely rewarding. I intend to highlight more of them as I come across them.

(Via Tech-On)

Pneumatic Muscles

 

Instructables has a good tutorial up on how to make pneumatic muscles out of latex tubing and a braided sleeve. They work a bit like that extendable fist cartoon characters are so fond of. The latex expands and forces the lattice of the braided tube to turn the length into width, while preventing the latex tube from rupturing. They can be cheaply made out of readily available materials, and can lift 400 times their own weight. It occurs to me that since the air doesn’t have to be lost in order to flex the muscle, a closed system with an air bulb might be used to remove the requirement for an air compressor. It would also provide the potential for a certain amount of tactile feedback on the strain the muscle is under.

Best Bearded Lady Award: I Made You a Beard

 

Until Further notice, Imadeyouabeard is officially our nominee for most awesome seller on Etsy. For those of you who are unfamiliar with Etsy, it is an online marketplace where artists and craftsmen can show and sell their work.

From Erin’s profile on Etsy:  ”My name is Erin, and I make beards. I grew up in Portland, where there are only two types of people: hipsters with beards, and lumberjacks with beards.” 

“I was born without the ability to grow a beard, and now I make beards to help people like me blend in with their bearded compatriots.”

A noble pursuit, certainly!

I have no such trouble in growing a beard of my very own, but I have to admit I’m tempted to put one of these on my Christmas list. They just look so comfortable and full of good cheer. She also has a blog.

Blink Detection

I’m not in the habit of posting all the latest cameras, cell phones, laptops, etc. But a new feature has started showing up in cameras this year: Blink detection. If the camera notices that someone blinked when the shot was taken, it will immediately follow up with another shot. Quite a few cameras have the feature now, Including the sony DSC-277 pictured above. The only problem I see with it is I can think of some people who would fill up a camera card on a single click:

HUD for Billiards

These are some top notch geeks. They built a setup to compute and project the trajectories of pool shots directly onto their table. It doesn’t work terribly well, but I think it is mostly a problem of low end hardware and strange setup. Why didn’t they put the webcam by the projector, pointed at the mirror?  By having it in the corner they make things immensely more difficult to compute. For more info and the code, go here.

I think once Surface goes mainstream, innovations like this will come in a flood.

Robotic Drummer

Back to the cute robots: 

This little drummer robot rolls about looking like a little crab, all the while tapping and tweetling out his own little theme music. Next time I’m out on the warpath, I’m taking a troop of these little guys as my fifers, to sir the troops and strike fear into my enemies. Well…maybe not fear, but something.
The little guy reminds me of a similarly impressive organic counterpart:

Cold Heat Alternative

Instructables just posted an awesome DIY Cold Heat Soldering Iron project. If you haven’t heard of these irons, they use the heat caused by electrical resistance to heat the work directly, rather than heating the iron. I think I actually happen to have everything required for the project lying around the house, and unlike the original, there are no batteries to replace. It runs off of an old computer power supply.

I think the only thing I see that I would change for my first attempt is the conductor for the tip. I’d switch out the mechanical pencil lead for carpenter pencil lead. It is wide and flat, and much stronger. It would likely heat less at the copper connections and could be sharpened to near any tip shape. How to get the graphite out of the pencil? Throw it in the fireplace. They use the stuff in cooling rods for nuclear reactors, I hardly think a little fire will hurt it.

Or, if you are too lazy to build your own,get the original ColdHeat soldering iron here. There is also a more powerful variant at ThinkGeek Gadgets

Mindstorm Madness

I never expected this blog to end up so heavy on the robots, but I have to admit, I’m a sucker for a mesmerizing machine. This little robot does one thing, and I find it astounding how few resources it needs to do it. It solves Rubik’s cubes.

Did you ever have that friend when you were a kid who would come over to your house and mix up your cube? They obviously were hopelessly incapable of ever solving it, but they messed it up anyway. Then, out of frustration at being outsmarted buy a mindless lump of plastic, they sought redemption by peeling off all the stickers and putting them back in the right order. The stickers wouldn’t stay of course; I think that glue from the 80’s was made of hooves and gum. If I ever get another cube, I’m painting it.

Now that the geeky kids of yesteryear are growing up and looking for new challenges, they are seeking extra geek cred by building robots to solve the cube. This one is by no means the fastest, but it is truly a pleasure to watch as it gets up close to squint at the cube, then kicks it over for a look at another side. After it has had a good look, it stops for a moment to ponder. Like a scene from Hero (one of the most awesome king-fu movies ever), the real masters fight the battle in their heads, rather than through trial and error. By the time it kicks back into motion to start twisting, it has already visualized the whole solution. There is something about how robots move. It lacks the grace of biology, but it has an eerie jerky precision, like a zombie lurching about in the endless pursuit of brains. The best part about this little guy is that you can make it yourself. It is made from mindstorm lego sets. The full instructions for the tilted twister can be found here.

See Also:

Not Your Grandpa’s Legos

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