Farm hacking: 7 amazing corn mazes

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If there’s one thing we’ve got a LOT of here in America, it’s corn. In the past few years Corn Mazes have become a wildly popular fall activity for all ages. We’ve enjoyed many ourselves and part of what we like about them is that they’re a hack. Whether made by the farmer down the road or a professional company … Read the rest

Dean Kamen’s prosthetic arm

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60 minutes has covered [Dean Kamen]‘s modular robotic arm.  This thing is light weight, adjustable for different body frame sizes, modular, and eventually thought controlled. The system is currently functioning quite well, as you can see in the video. Current testers are controlling it with buttons under their toes, but the thought control is in the later stages of … Read the rest

Multi-camera rig makes trees say cheese

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[Nick Nichols] set out to take a photograph of a full redwood tree. Here’s the catch, these redwoods are over 300 feet tall and they’re not just standing in the middle of a vast desert. If the photo is taken from a distance, you will only capture the top part of these majestic beauties. How can you take the shot … Read the rest

Arduino powered singing table

This musical Lazy Susan, or “Crazy Adam” was brought to us by students from MIT.  It basically plays [Soul II Soul]‘s “Back to Life”  as it turns.  In their words: “Through the interaction with the Singing Lazy Susan, we found the eating patterns and behaviors unique to each person, which reflect our personalities and interests. The dining experience expands to … Read the rest

Pick-and-place Lego prototyping

[Ned] tipped us off about his project for a class at Carnegie Mellon. Utilizing a Denso 6-AOF robotic arm they have built a rapid prototyping machine that uses Lego as the building material. LDraw, the open standard Lego CAD program, is used to build a model which is then translated into MATLAB files that the robotic arm can use … Read the rest

Laser triggered photography

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Popped balloons or bullets fired into apples, anyone can photograph with a quick sound based camera rig. Lasers have been used forever in motion detection. And even door bell chimes have been used before for remote camera shutter releases. No, [SaskView] wanted to go further and created his Laser Triggered High-Speed Photography setup, to photograph (of … Read the rest

Batcave-style entrance (on a budget)

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Want to enter your hidden lair in style? Well [Jimmy] simply wanted to create a cool prop for his school’s homecoming dance. This project includes some obvious inspiration from Wayne Manor. [Jimmy] wired up the automated entrance with a 12VDC motor. In order for it to be able to push the door , the motor had to be attached … Read the rest