Jumping Robot Looks Like A Product Of Doctor Wily

June 25, 2010 by Mike Szczys 33 Comments

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QBYT2PeLxUk]

We love it when footage of a robot prompts a “holy crap” response from us. This little guy, a product of the Chiba Institute of Technology, uses four rods as a suspension system for jumping. The bulk of the bot can be moved up or down, using its momentum to raise the wheels and jump to the next level. Check out the clip after the break to see how getting down involves a controlled fall as graceful as a dancer. Doctor Light better get cracking on another robot to take this one out when it turns on us.

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Selective Laser Sintering Rig On The Cheap

June 25, 2010 by Mike Szczys 16 Comments

[Peter’s] been hard at work designing an affordable Selective Laser Sintering (SLS) 3D printing platform. We first saw his work on this back in April when he was working mostly with acrylic. Now he’s moved on to a design that relies on hardboard which has resulted in a build that comes it at around $20 including the motors.

The design uses a dual z-axis table for the feed stage and the build stage. That is to say, as the powder is fused together by the laser the platform it is on is lowered. Next to this platform, the feed platform is raised, allowing the power to be swept onto the build stage. This setup is moving in the right direction, but we’re still waiting to see what works when it comes to adding the laser and sourcing the powder.

SOAP Compatibility For SQLmap

June 25, 2010 by Mike Szczys 11 Comments

[_coreDump] was doing some database vulnerability testing using SQLmap to automate the process. To his dismay, the package was unable to test using the Simple Object Access Protocol. Faced with having to manually test all of the SOAP vulnerabilities he decided to work some Python magic and add support. His solution allows SQLmap 0.8 to parses XML data from the SOAP protocol by modifying three files from the package. He’s made the diff files available if you need this functionality for your own security testing.

Adding Motion Control To An RC Transmitter

June 25, 2010 by Mike Szczys 5 Comments

If your soldering skills are up to snuff you can add a motion control feature to your radio controlled transmitter. [Starlino] used a combination accelerometer and gyroscope module as an alternate source of analog control information. He built a filter to dial in the analog voltage range to match that of one of the sticks on the controller. A switch is used to disconnect the signal when motion input is not desired. This would be a nice addition to one of those more creative aerial hacks.

Yukikaze, Music Visualizations

June 25, 2010 by Caleb Kraft 14 Comments

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b4HtUwAkVDg]

[Taichi Inoue] put together this beautiful visualization system called Yukikaze, japanese for “snow wind”. Basically a spectrum analyzer, Yukikaze is delightful to watch. We would love to see what kind of response he gets, as most of the footage shows very slowly changing smooth jazz. While we don’t think he gets crisp EQ visualizations out of this since it is a single large chamber, we still think it is amazing to watch.

[via MakeZine]