Contest Entry Roulette

Over 150 projects made from scrap parts (translated) have been posted for your viewing pleasure. They make up the entries in the “Make fast the scrap” project from c’t magazine. We already looked in on a toilet paper printer, but there’s a ton of other fun stuff to look at as well.

Every time you load the link at the top, the page picks a different set of entries to display. You can click through all the pages, or reload to play a little project roulette. The image above shows three that caught our eye. To the upper right is a lighbulb-man riding an old computer mouse reverse-cowgirl style. Quirky, but anyone who has access to an electroplating setup can get away with making simple objects like this into awesome desktop sculptures.

Moving clockwise we have a tiny USB drive mated with an old vacuum tube. The machine translation is a bit rough, but it looks like the LED from the thumb drive gives the tube a bit of a red glow. We just think it’s interesting to carry around a vacuum tube with you.

The final banner image shows a gyroscope for a camcorder. This is an awesome setup, which you can see in action after the break. A pair of broken hard drives provide motion stabilization for a camera. The entire assembly has a handle on the top with a universal joint. When the drives are spinning, the platform holds very still, even if the operator is swinging the unit around wildly.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gu6Eo9G2DSQ&w=470]

[Thanks Arnuschky]

17 thoughts on “Contest Entry Roulette

  1. I want to build one of those gyro cams so bad, I haven’t seen any that could take out that much motion, but I only have two platters and have no idea where the motor went.

    Also. . . FIRST!

    1. I have one that does, it’s called buying a decent Canon camcorder.

      My HF200 takes out more than that gyro does because of the gyro prism in the lens. or if you have to be trendy get a IS lens for your canon DSLR to shoot video.

      Honestly, all cameras are junk compared to Canon for Image stabilization. Start with a decent canon camera and dont mess with building things to fix the limitation of the camera.

      1. Ooooor, use your existing camera and a cheap (or free, depending on what you have lying around) hack to perform an equivalent task.

        It’s a hack, that’s kind of the point.

      2. The trouble with inboard image stabilization is that it either clips the image to make the frames reasonably jitter free, but this gives each frame a different part of the lens distortion and vignette, or IIRC there’s a mechanical lens stabilizer in some cameras, but that also stabilizes at the expense of distortion.

        Either of these can cause problems with software like Syntheyes, and thus a decent steady camera mount is very much a better option.

  2. I like the repackaging of USB drive in an electron tube. The one pictured here wouldn’t be useable with my netbook with the netbook sitting on a table or desk. Using it with the front or top USB ports on my desk top will make the port next to it inaccessible. Perhaps a mini USB inside a nuvistor, but the LED wouldn’t be visible.

    1. “Stable enough for the furniture they are all.”

      Actually for those who speak both English, and German, with English being their second language, speak like that often. I grew up hearing those who spoke Ellis County(KS)(USA) German, and English where for many English was the second language well onto the 60s. You would hear things like air forced, for forced air. The engine die it, for kill the engine. Even today when talking with some of my parents generation using English, I often have to take a moment to understand what they meant to say. There are times when I look over what I have written, I see that some of the awkward syntax creeps in, and I have never been conversant with the German language. That’s why you may never see me rant about another’s English grammar or spelling. I do offer an alternative spelling, or phrase if, I see something potentially confusing.

  3. Im wondering why both disks are in the same plane on the homemade steadicam.

    things to try:
    1 laptop drives, smaller
    2 put one motor perpendicular to the other
    3 put an enclosure over it, with foam lining inside to cancel out the sound

    I think you could even sell that thing if you can come up with a nice enclosure shape with standard 1/4″ and 3/8″ screw.

    1. I wondered the same thing. In looking at the photographs it appears that the pivot points of the structures that hold the HDD are 90 degree from each other. Perhaps that allows for stabilization in both axis’?

  4. I’ve got a simple tripod design for stabilizing a camcorder. Thought of it after Thanksgiving dinner one year with the family. The counterweight consists of a dead (or extremely sleepy) mother in law, which isn’t quite as geeky as used hard drives, but may calm those shakey hands even better…

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