We just received word that the book that we had heavy involvement with is nearing distribution! Keep an eye out for "Junkbots, Bugbots, and Bots on Wheels: Building Simple Robots with BEAM Technology" (ISBN: 0072226013). It's officially supposed to be out October 8th, but word is that it's presently in the warehouse! (YES, of course […]
Wednesday Cool Links: Spiderbot, Solar S...
Dave Hrynkiw
October 17, 2012
It's Wednesday! Hooray! Huzzah! We're celebrating because... Well, ok, we have nothing big to celebrate right now. So we're going to celebrate having nothing to celebrate with the traditional and only appropriate way possible... BROWSING THE INTERNET! Indeed, we've been celebrating this time-honoured tradition with steadfast dedication, and it's our pleasure to share it with all of you.
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Four-Legged Spiderbot As the website puts it, this is "a walking machine, radially symmetrical, having four legs with two degrees of freedom each, controlled through a wireless link from a hand-held controller based on two Wii Nunchucks." Very impressive articulation and range of motion. Be sure to check out the video. |
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The Almost Useless Machine A solar-powered... Reciprocating saw? Make sure you have lots of patience and a cold one to enjoy while you "work"! Seriously though, while this might not be too functional, it certainly has some great craftsmanship. |
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Solar "Death Ray": Power of 5000 suns! Mirrors. Lots of mirrors. 5800 of them, to be precise. It's pretty cool (and a LOT scary) what kind of power can be harnessed by arranging mirrors onto a fiberglass satellite dish and aligning it to the sun. |
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6 Rubens Tubes Visualizer Hrm, a flame visualization for music? SIGN ME UP. Turn it into a handy-dandy plug-in accessory for the iPod, for the best on-the-go pyrotechnics you can possibly imagine. Might want to make sure you turn it off before tucking it away in your pocket, though. |
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Solar Engineer Badge on DIY So, you think you like DIY? Well, it's time to prove your chops by completing challenges over at diy.org. They even have a Solar Engineer Badge that features a bunch of project ideas, including our Instructable for the Solar Powered Miniball. |
We were once hoping that we could instead celebrate by racing giraffes through obstacle courses, but that didn't pan out. Too bad. I was planning on decking mine out with some sweet black and white racing stripes, to make it look like a very oddly proportioned zebra.
MORE POSTS
Motion Activated Tree Lights
In compliance with the upcoming holidays we decided to contribute to the obligatory dose of Christmas ornamentation in the shape of the well-known coniferous tree. A tabletop freestanding tree with LED strings and a flashing star on top seemed like an easy enough thing to do. We also wanted to add a tech twist to […]
New Yellow Treads
Want a bumble-bee look to your robot tank? Intersperse our new GMT-Yellow treads into the link chain! You should even be able to use a yellow link as a opto-reflector in a wheel (err...tread?) encoder circuit. ALSO, we're the only place in North America you can get these new yellow tread links!
Bug Stomping - Part 2, Solarcells sold o...
We're still undergoing website bug-stomping. You may have noticed some changed news items and the like. One of the edits crashed the page, so we had to reload an older backup. The SCPD photodiodes are now officially sold out! KaPUT! Gone! Until we can find a reasonably priced replacement, we won't be restocking these items […]
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