[Cameron Adams] recently appeared on a panel about JavaScript libraries. He represented the hard working coder that still wrote everything from scratch. He wanted to make something mindblowing for the audience. He ended up creating the JS-909 drum machine entirely in javascript without relying on libraries or flash. While he makes no claims of compatibility, it certainly is a nice bit of kit.
[via Waxy]
[blip.tv ?posts_id=1482920&dest=-1]
Adding LEDs makes everything better. Watch this video as a regular old DS gets turned into one of the most awesome things on the planet. A ton of LEDs were added, some to the body, some to an extra cartridge, some behind buttons. Parts are wired into the speakers, so you get nice effects to your music. We’ll bet the battery life suffers, but who cares. This thing is worth it. This was originally taken from Nico Nico Douga, which overlays the comments on the video.
[via Boing Boing Gadgets]
A new breed of tire has been developed that won’t go flat, even if it gets bombed. Resilient Technologies L.L.C. has started making these decidedly cool looking tires for the military. The honeycomb of stiff but flexible plastic acts as a shock absorber just as an air filled tire would. Unlike a normal tire, it won’t pop. You would have to completely destroy the tire to stop these. The article mentions that this isn’t the first of its kind. Michelin has made the “tweel” for industrial uses, but you may recall the video of the Audi driving around a course using them. If not, check it out after the break.
When we created our backpack strap WiFi detector for Engadget, we embedded soft switches to control the device. They used two sheets of aluminum foil separated by a layer of foam with holes punched in it. [Plusea] has taken a similar approach but has replaced the aluminum foil with conductive fabric. The end result is a set of three soft buttons that can be easily washed. Have a look at the video of it in action below. Check out the followup project that uses the buttons to replace a scroll wheel. Continue reading “Full Fabric Soft Switches”
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KsqNPXCm3jc]
[Deviant Ollam], lockpicker and beverage cooling contest host, was recently in Vienna, presumably for DeepSec. While there, he stopped by the Metalab hackerspace and checked out their RepRap rapid prototyping machine. You can see video of his visit above. He had them construct a custom fitted cover for the flash of his point and shoot camera. That’s what we love about rapid prototyping. Many of the projects we cover here solve a particular problem, but would never be considered commercially viable enough to put into production. With the availability of rapid prototyping increasing, hackers can start moving toward producing even more complex objects specific to their needs with a finish closer to commercial products.
We mentioned Pulse Width Modulation (PWM) when talking about [sprite_tm]’s marquee control. It’s a method of power control. While [sprite_tm] did it in software, [Afroman] sent along a very straight forward introduction to PWM using just a 555. Check out his video for coverage of this fundamental electrical design technique.
[Rory Hyde] and [Scott Mitchell] are exploring several projects that add more information to public spaces. The first is the Spoke-o-dometer a persistence of vision device that can display bicycle speed and distance traveled. To develop the device, they first bought a few POV kits to test out. They decided to build their version using an Arduino. Once they had the display proof of concept working, they added a hall effect sensor like the SpokePOV so they could determine speed and orient the display. Check out their project site for plenty of example code and development details.
[via ladyada]
