Solarbotics and the Useless Box have been mentioned in the Wall Street Journal article "Looking for Something Useful to Do With Your Time? Don't Try This"! It is dedicated to the historical overview of the uselessness starting with its invention in the 1950s to nowadays. The useless box can take many guises, names and materials […]
Useless (Xmas) Machines!
Dave Hrynkiw
December 13, 2010
We're teaming up with Brett Coulthard of Saskview.com to get their version of the Useless Machine put together as a parts bundle. We just finished it Friday night, and quick-posted tweets & a few photos of it, and are shipping today!
What comes in the bundle? Pretty much everything you need to successfully build a Useless Machine of your own:
- 1 x 39300 Black acrylic "Useless Box" construction set (with nut/bolt hardware)
- 1 x SWT8 DPDT toggle switch
- 1 x SWT9 SPDT lever switch
- 2 x #2 mounting screws for SWT9
- 1 x BHoldAA 2-AA battery pack
- 1 x DSST (double sided sticky tape, for mounting the battery pack)
- 6" hookup wire
- 1 x GM4 gear motor
- 4 x "Little Rubber Feet" to protect your Useless machine from abrasive counter tops!
We're only offering the box in black acrylic at the moment (experimented with clear - ehk), but if you ask really nicely, we probably could run one in red, blue, green, orange, white and (if you really want it), clear. Call in if you want any of those options.
Speaking of cool "Useless machines", Tony Youngblood's Christmas version was just featured on the Makezine Blog. He built his with our GM8 for super-fast response (we did our bundle with the slower GM4 - we like a more deliberate "ME: OFF" response).
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Warning: This product contains chemicals known to the State of California to cause cancer and birth defects or other reproductive harm.
Please visit www.P65Warnings.ca.gov for more information. This item was manufactured prior to August 31, 2018.