Good news, good news! We've been following the Oomlout system of learning Arduino since last February, and we've finally finished putting together our own Solarbotics Edition of the open-source ARDX Arduino Experimenter's Kit. Besides just working with the fine folks at Oomlout to make sure our edition meets their high standards, we've also been contributing […]
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
Tech Tip: Micro Terminal Blocks
We use many, many devices with 0.1" spaced holes, which are pretty much an electronics design standard. We're finding these 0.1" space terminal blocks incredibly useful for making solid, secure, yet serviceable connections to the rest of our designs. We'll often reach for a microcontroller board, then reach for a necessary handful of these parts […]
Wednesday Links: Helical Springs, Electr...
Did you see the lunar eclipse on Monday night? I wish they had it rescheduled for Sunday afternoon, so all of us night-owls-who-have-to-get-up-early could watch that. But noooOOoOO. But at least the internet will save us. At least from information deficit. Laser Cut Helical Springs I wonder if zigzag helical springs can still travel down […]
New GMPW Wheels!
No more rubber band tires for us! We've invested in getting our very own wheels made for us, with molded-on thermoplastic rubber wheels! These wheels are slightly larger in diameter than the old style, measuring 69.2mm (2.72") diameter and 7.65mm (0.30") wide. Ah, but how good are they? They're definitely better than the old style! […]
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Please visit www.P65Warnings.ca.gov for more information. This item was manufactured prior to August 31, 2018.