The pi pad

In the world of electronics we have impedance; the combination of all forces which oppose the flow of electric current. Often times we have circuits with different impedances, 50 ohms for RF, or 75 for cable TV. It’s pretty important to use the right coax in these circuits, else you’ll be wondering why your RG-58 antenna feed line doesn’t give … Read the rest

iPhone charger teardown shows astounding miniaturization.

There’s no question that Apple has their industrial design down pat; comparing a cell phone charger made by Blackberry or Motorola to the tiny 1-inch-cube Apple charger just underscores this fact. [Ken Shirriff] posted a great teardown of the Apple iPhone charger that goes through the hardware that makes this charger so impressive.

Like most cell phone chargers and power … Read the rest

Building a 6502 in Minecraft

We’ll admit that we haven’t been following Minecraft like we used to; its been a while since we’ve seen something amazing in Minecraft, but [eloraam]‘s 6502 emulator (part of her RedPower Minecraft mod) takes the cake.

The RedPower mod adds a lot of industrial technology to Minecraft. Pumps, solar panels, and pneumatic tubes to move blocks around are the … Read the rest

Rain activated light show in an umbrella

In a decision we completely agree with, these industrious young women decided that playing in the rain would only be more fun if it included an interactive light show. They wanted the rain itself to cause LEDs in their umbrella to light up. To achieve this, they put piezo sensors on each of the 8 panels of the umbrella. … Read the rest

DeLorean hovercraft

[Matthew Riese] got frustrated waiting for the future to arrive so he could have his flying car. He decided to take things into his own hands and construct the closest thing he could. This turned out to be a hovercraft. Not only that, but he thought that the most fitting shape for this thing would be a DeLorean.  We can’t … Read the rest