We do some stuff around the office just for fun once-in-a-while. One of these projects resulted in this set of Vibebots, built by Grant McKee. Simple, a bit noisy, but FUN!
Wednesday Cool Links, Announcements and ...
Solar botics
September 11, 2013
We were at the San Mateo MakerFaire, and were representing for BPS breadboards. They've announced their winners, and the first place went to Elizabeth from Houston, Texas (age 11) (and we like unicorns too):
Now that we have established our stance towards robotic (roboCorns) and regular unicorns (unicornus vulgaris), here's some links. They are just as magical:
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Fletcher Tables This is definitely out of garage-duct tape-hot glue DIY range, but the craftsmanship is amazing, especially it's worth seeing it in motion, check out the video. |
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Robosans: Robot Made Digital Typography An intersection of typography and robotics, a font created by manipulating the controller on the OWI robotic arm. |
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Completely analog electronic music box An analog music box [Steven Dufresne], that uses 555 timer and can generate 13 different tones. Electronically simple and mechanically elegant solution. And it plays music! |
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NES: Nixie Entertainment System Tiny nixies are fun! Nintendo emulator combined with a nixie clock by [Bradley W. Lewis] is all kinds of retro-tastic. |
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Watch JPL's RoboSimian Do Pull-Ups We've seen lots of articulated robots, but this one eerily resembles a simian, with all four limbs capable of mobility and manipulation. |
Oh, do I ever wish I had a roboCorn to hold things, for example as my coat rack... But isn't that a waste of unicornal resources? Dear Elizabeth from Houston, Texas, please build one for me, I would find a good use for it.
And before I conclude, wanted to mention that Solarbotics will have a booth at the MakerFaire YYC at Alberta College of Art+Design on September 13 and 14, with the various electronic goodies and the Arduino workshop. Also noteworthy are our fellow Calgary manufacturers - BPS, the makers of prototyping boards, who I mentioned at the beginning of this post in relation to the unicorns. They (not unicorns, the BPS!) will also be doing a demo on using C Programming for AVRs/Arduinos and a demo on using breadboards.
See y'all (or some) there!
MORE POSTS
Interesting stuff at the Exploratorium
Not exactly relevant to BEAM, but an interesting distraction: Here's some interesting media from the San Francisco Exploratorium. Notable media to watch is their "Iron Science Teacher" competition (familiar with "The Iron Chef? Same idea...), and their hosting of Robot Sumo Wrestling.
BEP Application: Wilf Rigter Solar Power...
The following instructions detail how to build a Solar Power Smart Head version 3. The Head will seek light and when it finds the brightest source it will go into a low current standby mode. This version also comes with an low power FLED circuit to indicate when the head is active.
Wednesday Cool Links
Here we go, it’s the W day again. Seems like the previous one was two infinities ago. During that infinite time we had plenty of opportunities to pick the interesting stuff floating around internets, and bring it to you: Headphone Light Show EL (electroluminescent) wire is a cool thing. Add it to the headphones and […]
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