Nintendo DSi Teardown

dsiteardown

Now that the Nintendo DSi has been officially released in the US, the team at iFixit has worked their magic. That magic being: completely disassembling it. They found the new 840mAh battery to be much smaller than the DS Lite’s 1000mAh. The device features two cameras, but both are a paltry 0.3megapixels. They note that this is the first Nintendo device that they’ve taken apart that didn’t require a tri-wing screwdriver.

Many more DSi compatible flash carts are available now than our initial report in December, so you can pick up a Nintendo DSi for homebrew without worry.

[via iFixit blog]

A-pod

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0jyBiECoS3Q]

We know it was just two days ago that we were ranting about the hexapods known as Phoenix, and their creator [Zenta]. In the comments on that post, [Bluehash] pointed us to [Zenta’s] latest creation. This is A-pod. The sheer articulation and believable motion here made this robot worthy of a post all it’s own.  A-pod has a 2 dof “tail” and a 3 dof head with a total of 25 servos to drive it. The addition of the head adds so much character, add some face tracking and it would really blow us away. Well, after it fetched us a beer. He notes that he’s still working on the leg mechanicals, so it doesn’t do much walking yet.

Modifying A Sonic Cleaner For The Lab

sonic

[Sean] wrote in to tell us about this hack he did to modify a consumer sonicator for lab use. Sonication is often used in labs to aid in mixing in difficult containers or to add energy for certain events.  He’s a chemist on a budget, so he couldn’t necessarily afford a nice industrial one. Instead, he found a sonic jewelry cleaner.  The main shortcoming of the consumer level one is the fact that it can only go for 3 minute intervals. He needed up to an hour at a time. His solution was fairly simple, he closed the circuit to force it to be continually in the on position, then added a timer in the power line. He notes, that the consumer model wasn’t made to be run this long and could possibly produce enough heat to damage itself. It should not be turned on, then left alone.

Your Face On A Bot

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fLoRpRu_KPo]

We’ll file this one under “creepy yet amusing”. You can now order a MechRC robot with a 3d replica of your own head mounted to it. The site thatsmyface.com is offering this as a product. Simply take some pictures of your face upload them and mark some options. They’ll send you your robotic replica, ready to go. As they point out at botjunkie, they’ll put any face on there that you have some decent pictures of. That’s even creepier.