Day: May 24, 2008

Underwater Camera Housings

May 24, 2008 by 7 Comments

Underwater cameras can produce some amazing photography, but who wants to pay for housing if you can make something yourself?

This underwater camera housing on Instructables doesn’t require a specific container, allowing you to choose anything you have around the house that’s watertight and large enough to fit your camera. A finger from a glove is added so you can still operated the controls. A similar project uses an insulated water jug, accommodating any camera that fits inside. Neither of these involve any camera mods.

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PIC Controlled Spray Paint

May 24, 2008 by 4 Comments


Most people make LEDs light up for their first microcontroller project. [Alex] built a “large scale dot matrix printer.” This beast is a PIC controlled ground graffiti machine. As it rolls across the ground it deposits strategically located bits of spray paint. Rather than use actual spray paint, he opted for a set of solenoid controlled nozzles that shoot the paint downward.

IControlpad, IPhone Gamepad

May 24, 2008 by 7 Comments

[CraigX] has been dabbling in iPhone accessories lately by adding a gamepad. Called the iControlpad it surrounds the iPhone making it look very PSP like. As anyone who has jailbroken and installed emulators probably knows, without feedback the touch screen based buttons are less than great.

The unit is currently a prototype however there are plans to produce and sell the units. They have received support from Zodttd, an organization that has created iPhone apps like snes4iphone and genesis4iphone. The developers also state they’ll provide source and SDK support. The sparse development blog announces their success using a hacked up SNES controller over the docks serial connector, but they provide absolutely no details.

[via Engadget]

The Chief Cook Robot

May 24, 2008 by 8 Comments


We feel the need to apologize immediately for the use of Yakkity Sax in the preceding video and recommend you watch the longer, yak free, video below. It shows researchers at the Learning Algorithms and Systems Laboratory teaching a robot how to make a ham and cheese omelet. Each working area and food item is labeled with a machine recognizable tag. The researcher demonstrates the task by guiding the robot’s hand. The robot combines multiple demonstrations to generalize the skill. It can then adapt the learned skill to the specific task. You can see this in the video when the robot adjusts to the location of the bowl and cutting board when they’re moved around. Teaching through demonstration would make the use of robotics much easier for the general population.

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Biggest Drawing In The World Created With GPS

May 24, 2008 by 44 Comments


UPDATE: The text: “This is fictional work. DHL did not transport the GPS at any time” has been added to the bottom of the page since the original posting.

Artist [Erik Nordenankar] has created the Biggest Drawing In The World. At least that’s what his URL says. He used the movement of a GPS device to create a giant single line self portrait on the globe. His Pelican case containing four large batteries and the GPS data logger was handed off DHL with very specific travel instructions for its 55 day journey. It’s a pretty amazing feat, but we really wish the case had managed to make the trip without the close watch shown in the video.

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