Whelp, it's just been one of those weeks. When the Calgary Stampede gets into full swing, things get a bit crazy. Fireworks, pancake breakfasts and BBQ lunches, cowboy hats, questionable choice in music ("We got both kinds - country AND western!"), and all-around crazy people. So it's fairly safe to say that we don't have […]
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
Calgary Mini Maker Faire
... is over and it has been great. The weather cooperated, TelusSpark Science Centre grounds cooperated, squirrels cooperated, people checking out our booth were awesome, every single one of them. Check out some photos of the event on our Flickr stream. And our Marble Machine got featured in this great video by Paul Spenard: Not […]
Web Links Tuesday
Magnetic storage reaches the atomic level The magnetic field of a single atom is read and written, but it's not very stable (Via ArsTechnica) Magnificent Cardboard Airships by Jeroen van Kesteren Beautifully crafted and intricate fantastic ships made of cardboard (Via Colossal) Google X Levi's touch-sensitive denim jacket Embedded conductive threads make it touch and […]
SCC3733 Solarcell hacking
Here's a tip submitted by Rick Steenblik regarding hacking our SCC3733 for less voltage, but more current: After using your SCC3733 solar cells for a couple of bots I noticed that they can be altered to provide about 3.3v at 80ma (in full sun) by cutting the bus connector on the back to electrically separate […]
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