A very power suit Halloween


We spent our Halloween dressed as an irate traveler as we flew cross country, but it looks like a lot of people were having much more fun. [flaming_pele!]‘s Aliens power loader is one of the best costumes we’ve seen yet. He built it by referencing a 1/12th model kit and a lot of photos. The final costume is about 80% full size which gets it under their 8 foot ceilings. There’s a video of the suit embedded below. Our love of power suits was documented fairly well in our roundup post this summer. Make found two other related costumes: a Star Wars AT-ST and a generic mech constructed from packing foam. Did any of you dress as something truly nerdy for Halloween? [Read more...]

Maker Faire Austin is this weekend

Maker Faire Austin is happening this weekend, October 18 & 19, 2008 at the Travis County Expo Center in Austin, TX. Maker Faire is a showcase of all things DIY. You’ll see robots, sculptures, live performances, and other wonders including many of the projects we cover here every day. We enjoyed our time in San Mateo earlier this year and the show keeps getting better and better. You can see photos from previous events on Flickr. If you’ve got a chance to go, take it.

NES controller connectors for sale

If you weren’t looking forward to trying to find a NES Four Score just to rip connectors out of it or were reluctant to cut the ends off your NES controllers and use different connectors for your NES hack, you’re in luck. Parallax has released an NES controller connector (7-pin, male) that is compatible with the Nintendo controller. They also provide the socket pinout. It’s interesting to see a product like this come out so long after the original console, a testament to the popularity.

[via Make]

Peek email reader teardown

[morcheeba], who you should remember from CVS camera hacking, picked up a Peek and took some pictures while tearing it down. The Peek is a $100 QWERTY device with a simple OS designed only to check email. The device is being sold by T-Mobile with a $19.95/mo data plan. There’s nothing too spectacular to see other than 16MB of flash memory and a TI OMAP processor.

[via Make]

SparkFun Arduino Pro


SparkFun’s new Arduino Pro is an updated version of their Skinny. The board comes populated with the running gear of an Arduino, but without all of the connectors in place. It’s targeted at people building integrated systems around the Arduino and not just prototyping. The board is 3.3V with an 8MHz bootloader just like the LilyPads and is fully certified by Arduino. It has a small side mounted power switch, but you have to supply your own DC jack (if you need it). There is no USB hardware on board and you’re expected to program it via an FTDI breakout board or cable. We definitely like the stripped down approach, but it would have been nice if the price had dropped more.

[via Make]

Make: television

Make Magazine, famous for the Maker Faire, among other things, has announced a new project called Make: television. The show will be coming to public television stations throughout the USA starting early 2009. The big news is that you can submit 2 minute long videos of your projects to be included in the show’s Maker Channel segment. The bigger news is that if your video is selected, they’ll send you a $50 gift certificate from the Maker Shed and a free year of Make Magazine.

Mister Jalopy on NPR


[Mister Jalopy] is an outspoken recycler. He believes it is wrong that we live in a “throw away culture” and we here at Hackaday tend to agree. There is so much potential left in products, long after they may have given up their original purpose. He has been pushing to get companies to work with the public, to encourage re purposing and hacking. The belief is that it can only improve a company’s relationship with their customers.

[Mister Jalopy] appeared on National Public Radio today. They discussed the benefits of making your own stuff, as well as the legalities involved with modifying off the shelf products.

We covered his open house last October. Tons of fascinating stuff there.

[via Hoopty Rides]