The Great Internet Migratory Box of Electronics Junk, or T.G.I.M.B.O.E.J. has turned one. In the last year, they’ve learned a lot of things. They learned that lots of people are willing to contribute. Hundreds have signed up on the site to participate. Theyve also learned that laziness is the key road block on this project. The boxes that have stalled generally sitcollecting dust, simply because someone hasn’t bothered to ship it off. If you’re curious what kinds of stuff ends up in one of these, check our initial post. There aren’t any guarantees though, it all depends on what people toss in.

Since we last reported about The Great Internet Migratory Box of Electronic Junk, several of these boxes have begun circulating in different areas of the world. Team Hack-a-Day launched three themselves. Robots.net decided that there was a need for a specialized box just for those who hack robots, and have launched their own.

The box contains lots of things that will appeal to roboticists, such as servos, various sized motors, RC car parts, and even a small microcontroller board. Plus hackable items like old CD drives, a trackball, and miscellaneous electronic and hardware parts. Everything fits in a standard sized shipping box, but it is full. A complete list can be found on the robots.net site, and they also have pictures of the contents.

Those who wish to track the box can follow it under the name robots.net-box1 on the TGIMBOEJ wiki. There is also a place to get your name added to the list of potential recipients. The wiki contains information about the whole process, including how to start a new box.

The Great Internet Migratory Box of Electronics Junk is essentially a virtual swap meet. A mysterious USPS flatrate box arrives on your door step filled to the brim with random electronics. You remove some pieces that you find interesting or useful. Write about them. Add some items from your own collection, and then ship it off to a recipient you deem worthy. [John Park] was kind enough to send us the box code named Rangoon and here’s what we found inside:

Suprise! A bunch of electronics junk! There were old circuit boards and new unpopulated boards, a pocket phone dialer, a giant multimedia remote, coincells, random LEDs, wirewrap boards, a touchscreen toy, and a mini FM microphone amongst many other things. Most important was a small log book for suggesting recipients.

We pulled out some pin sockets, a light up fader with detents, a pager motor, and a sealed Dialight bag, which ended up being a four digit hexadecimal display.

Our contributions to the box were: some sockets, a microswitch, weights from a gaming mouse, a ShiftBrite module, controller board from a TRS-80 Model III floppy drive, a USB WiFi adapter, and a Kopin HMD board with adapter. You can see the progress of this box and others on the official wiki.