[Alexander Avtanski] has put together a nice clock to meet all your interstellar travel needs. Besides being another PIC based timer, this is a neat little project because it incorporates pretty much every feature you could think of when building a clock for our solar sytem.  For example, it has 16 independent timers and alarms, it can  simultaneously give the time for multiple planets, as well as keep track of other stellar events like the eye of Jupiter or the phases of the moon. To get this project off the ground [Alex] reverse engineered an old dial up modem to serve as an enclosure and power supply and then added in a rechargeable battery so that his  his interstellar clock wasn’t tied to a wall.

[via make]

[Crabfu] pulled off some great chassis work on top of a remote control drivetrain. His most recent build turns the tiny traveler into a lunar rover complete with passenger and a communications array. For this he’s sourced the parts from a toy but boosted the realism with hand-painted details that leave us in awe. His previous project sourced the body from a model truck kit. Once again, it’s the paint work that makes us envious of his skills.

Both projects conceal a Losi 1/24 scale micro rock crawler that provides for some incredible locomotion. See video of both builds after the break.

Read the rest of this entry »

When you’ve got problems with your lunar rover you can’t just “trust the Midas touch”. Every unexpected repair that happens outside of the Earth’s atmosphere is a hack and it seems the common ingredient in each one is Duct tape. If you’ve seen the movie Apollo 13 you know it was used in making a square carbon dioxide filter fit into a round filter socket. [XD] let us know about another hack where NASA used Duct tape to replace a fender on the lunar rover during the Apollo 17 mission.

The rover kicks up a lot of moon dust as it cruises around on its wire tires. When a rear fender started to come loose it was secured with duct tape. We delighted in watching a moon-man tear off chunks of tape for the fix, shown in the video after the break. When the fender finally flew off of the vehicle, the engineers on the ground came up with a way to replace it using laminated maps and more duct tape.

We’ve been critical of the use of duct tape in the past. But when you’re in a bind, accept no substitutes.

Read the rest of this entry »