Wednesday Cool Links: All Sorts of Odds ...

Solar botics
October 10, 2012

With the runaway success of the Useless Box, many of us here at Solarbotics can be assembling the kits in our sleep, even under a dose of tranquilizers, and be orchestrating the two lasers at the same time with no difficulty whatsoever. Just like I used to count transistors for the latest in Soviet Death Ray technology, which was the favourite past time of kids all across Russia in the 80's. Oh, the nostalgia... But as swamped with those fun activities as we are, we still are going to have a Wednesday Cool Links post for your viewing pleasure.

Piranha Plant Circuit Board Keychain: For Your Key-sa-Mario
Remember those plants that would rise from those green (or orange or gray) tunnels in the Super Mario video games and then hide back after a short interval of time? Here's a USB with a print of one of those. Just plug the keychain into your USB port and watch the light at the top of the plant’s mouth light up.
The Bottlerobot.com blog
These are pretty cool articulated robots made out of monochrome plastic bottle parts. Art + recycling + robots, what else could you want?! Check out the stop motion animation on May 2, 2012: these creatures are full of character.
Walking paper
Walking paper robot BIPED. If you can get past the jerky stop-motion assembly, it's an impressive build (walking starts at 3:15).
BitBox's Battery Showdown
It's always every year or so somebody out there does a really comprehensive analysis of the power-supplying capability of AA batteries. Here's a particularly detailed one, from BitBox.
2012 Yeosu EXPO HYUNDAI MOTOR GROUP - Hyper-Matrix
We've been playing around with stepper motors on and off for years, but Hyundai knows how to do a PROPER stepper motor demonstration! (And enjoy the stepper hum!)
The Popinator
We're torn between fact/fiction on this project. Ever try to manipulate the bumpy, irregular, inconsistent surface of a popped kernel? Still, everything else in this video looks cool (and feasible!).
Lakeview Computers Nominated for Top Small Business
One of our awesome distributors is currently being nominated by Alberta Venture as one of the top small businesses in the province. If you appreciate their work, we encourage you to go cast a vote in their favour.

In other news, the outside weather is proving that the world is a  gloomy place. Cold and unwelcoming (to those who don't have a death ray on hand?). How about I retreat to the warehouse and build a Useless Box? Or hundred. If that’s not an option for you, stay warm, have a chai. Or a shot of vodka if you are so inclined.

MORE POSTS

June 27, 2011
Postal Services Resume

It looks like Canada Post employees are going back to work. This means that everyone who is waiting for their order should see it sooner than later, and our free-shipping is back in effect. We'll start sending out all the back orders right away (they should all hopefully go out within the next couple days), […]

August 11, 2004
L298 Compact Motor Driver Kit

Ok, we were fed up with the strange pinouts on the L298 motor driver, and decided to do something about it. The result is the Solarbotics L298 Compact Motor Driver. It happens to be the same size as a BEP tile, offers four status LEDs, plugs for easy wiring, and screw terminals for motor and […]

June 16, 2002
University BEAM Projects

The University of of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign has been running a BEAM-style mechatronics program (GE100) for the last few years. The purpose of the class is to build a self-powered device that can propel itself over both smooth and rough terrain, using a pair of servos and a BEAM-style servo-controller circuit (similar in function to […]

September 10, 2000
New Site!

Welcome to the new Solarbotics Website! We've been busy whipping Kenny the Web-boy with various types of wet noodles (use Fettuccini - heavier!) to get this new and improved site up to snuff. This year, we've moved the site to 100% ASP (yes, I hear the "boos" from the Linux camp over in Minnesota), which […]

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