For those living in a magical land of candy, with orange-faced helpers to do their bidding, the ability to taste your words is nothing new. But for the rest of us, the ability to taste what you type in cocktail form is a novelty. [Morskoiboy] took some back-of-the-envelope ideas and made them into a real device that uses syringes as keys, and facilitates the injection of twenty-six different flavorings into a baseline liquid. He figures that you can make each letter as creative as you want to, like representing different alcohols with a letter (T for tequila) or matching them to colors (R for red). Check out the video after the break to see an ‘Any Word’ cocktail being mixed.

This setup is entirely mechanical, and makes us wonder if [Morskoiboy] works in the medical equipment design industry. Each letter for the keyboard is affixed to the plunger on a syringe. When depressed, they cause the liquid in an external vessel (not seen above) to travel through tubing until it fills the proper cavities on a 15-segment display to match the letter pressed. From there the additive is flushed out by the gravity-fed base liquid into the drinking glass. We can’t imagine the time that went into designing all of the plumbing!

[Thanks Alex]

Have you ever wanted to be someone else, at least over the phone? Do you dream of turning the tables on telemarketers, making them hurry to get off the line instead of you? If so, [Brad] over at LucidScience has the project for you.

A bit of a prankster at heart, he walks through the conversion of a normal telephone into a Data Access Arrangement device (DAA), allowing you to interface it with either hardware or software-based audio mixers.

The process can be completed in a relatively short time period, and doesn’t require much more than an old telephone, a handful of tools, and some miscellaneous switches and jacks. He disassembled a telephone and trimmed off all of the unnecessary circuitry while retaining most of the original functionality. Line in and out jacks were then installed in place of the handset microphone and speakers, respectively. The final result is a compact box that relays altered audio from any kind of mixing device to person at the other end of the call. Since the majority of the phone remains intact, your calls still sound natural as they pass through the phone’s existing voice filter and preamp circuitry.

Once the DAA is complete, you can use any number of effects on your voice, limited only by your audio mixer. [Brad] says he has long-time friends that don’t even recognize his voice after he has run it through his effects machine, so get started on yours before April Fool’s day arrives!

[wesdoestuff]‘s mother needed a clean way to mix together fragrance oils. Being the stand up kinda guy he is, [Wes] threw together a few spare parts to make this Magnetic Stir Plate.

The whole setup is amazingly simple. Pry the fins off of an old computer fan, glue a couple magnets to the fan’s hub. Drill a hole for a DC connector, find some sort of cover and.. Bob’s your uncle! [Wes] advises that you test the spacing of the magnets on the hub before gluing them permanently, as they can be a bit tricky to align.

The stir bar for non food items is  a magnet bar from one of those crazy magnet and ball bearing toys, it is basically just a solid magnet covered in plastic.  Food safe bars can be acquired, though they are not as cheap.  With all that room under the hood we would love to see him throw in some kind of a PWM speed control but that could be a bit complicated. Most of us could throw this together from spare parts.  Video after the jump!

These speakers play different audio tracks depending on which orange square the sit atop. They’re RFID aware and the orange tiles are tags. If you get tired of a track just move the speaker to a different one, or place the speakers next to each other to play the same song. We’re sure there’s a project for us here, it’s just going to take some thinking to figure out what we want to do with it. But the concept is certainly intriguing. Check out the video demonstration after the break.

[Thanks Ferdinand]

A few days ago we wrote about the aurora open source mixer being available and that orders for the DIY or completed kit needed to be in by September 1, 2008. Well that day has since past and if you were on the fence about it and didn’t get your order in don’t worry about it. Turns out no one will be getting a mixer.

Aurora informs us that they needed to secure a minimum of 50 orders to cover cost, but in reality they were only able to secure less than 20 orders. Because of this, they will not be able to meet the initial production numbers and have postponed the sale of the mixer indefinitely.

All is not lost as they will keep the site up, along with the instructions on how to build your own mixer from scratch.

While the instructions on how to assemble your own mixer from scratch have been available for sometime now, many wanted a kit complete with everything needed to avoid having to source the parts themselves.

The aurora mixer is available in 2 versions, a fully assembled turn key deck and a DIY kit that requires the use of a soldering iron and the ability to follow directions.

So, if you’ve wanted to build your own aurora mixer but never knew where to start, this may be your lucky day. Don’t wait too long as you have until September 1st to get your order in.

A sensor board, placed behind the display, picks up the signals from the inputs. The only limitation to the number of inputs available is the size of your screen. Inputs are held on magnetically, and have a low friction backing to avoid scratching or gouging your screen.

Here is a demo video showing use with one knob. It doesn’t appear to slip or slide at all while they are turning it. We’d love to play with it a little bit and see what it is like, as well as see more information on what technology is being used.

[via Music Thing]

Whether you want to buy one now or build one yourself, the Aurora team has made both possible. You can contact them for pricing if you are ready to buy. If you prefer to build, this is an open source project with full assembly instructions, schematics, drivers, patches and all other source code and information you should need available here. See more photos of the Aurora mixer here, or see it in action after the break.

The Apu 3000 is one of the finer examples of drug use leading to carpentry. It’s a 4 gallon frozen margarita machine built out of a garbage disposal. A new garbage disposal. We don’t have the time here to speculate on what sort chemical dangers you may expose yourself to by constructing this though.

Continuing the trend of throwing horsepower at problems is the gas powered blender. It’s good for people that love a refreshing beverage while inhaling the fumes of 2-stroke engines.

We’ve covered a couple peltier based cooling projects in the past too. The first was a can cooler for the desktop. The second involved snaking a CAT5 cable across the yard to power a mug.

Back in 2005, Hackaday regular [evan] sent in his BASIC Stamp controlled kegerator. It’s very reliable and way cheaper than a commercial unit.

We’re closing on a sad note: It seems the instructions for making Guinness beersicles have fallen offline, again. From what we remember, you throw the can in the freezer till it reaches a thick slush stage. Then, release the gas so it forms a head in the can. Pierce the bottom of the can and insert the stick. Return the can to the freezer and let it freeze solid.