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.

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.
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.
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.
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.
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

January 12, 2003
Cool project

Neil Sandstrom from the BEAM mailing list recently posted a notice about his "ShokHead" circuit built from our tutorial. What makes this project a bit different is that he mounted it on a VPM motor, so it's all self-contained. Here's what he says about it: Just finished!!! Check it out it is really small!! http://groups.yahoo.com/group/beam/files/Psyclesam/ […]

February 16, 2001
More Biobot info, and Mark Tilden Lectur...

Mark Tilden just sent us this link - there are more BioBots! The "B.I.O. Bots" were a hit at this years New York Toy Fair and it looks like we might be seeing more of these robots in the future! USA Today carried some pictures of the new BEAM ideology based robots, along with some […]

November 17, 2009
What's on the burner...

We're working on some new Arduino projects. It's fun working on open-source hardware. Both these projects are out for manufacture now, so hopefully it will only be a few weeks until they are ready. Project One: The GVS Shield We love Phidgets. They have all kinds of useful sensors, to which most subscribe to a […]

November 9, 2012
Friday New Product Post and a Few Projec...

It's snowing here. Here's the proof - a ruler measured with another ruler, reading about 7" depth of (what used to be) snow. It's a massive invasion of snowflakes, and they don't seem too friendly. The amount of snowfall we are experiencing now can prevent anyone in their right mind from being outside. And the […]

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