We know what you’re thinking. “I have this Acura NSX, but my friends just won’t think I’m cool unless I have a Ferrari F50.” You know what? You’re right. To save yourself from that kind of ridicule, you can simply carry out a ridiculous body mod to make your poor NSX live up to your friends expectations. It only took massive amounts of fiberglass, foam, and bondo to get this NSX looking the way the guy wanted it. We have to wonder if there was any performance hit with the additional weight, then again, he may have removed enough metal panels to compensate. While we may joke about it, we really do have some respect for the amount of work he put into this thing. The finished job is simply amazing, in terms of reproduction of the original. Kudos crazy car modder guy.
Day: January 26, 2011
Make Presents: The Multimeter
This video falls under the category of things we want to send people when they ask “how do I get started with electronics”, and we get asked that a lot. For those of you who have been working with electronics for years at all, you can skip this entire video. That is, unless you really want to watch an instructional video on multimeters. In the video, which we’ve included after the break, they talk about the differences between different meters, the common uses and how to actually use the meter to get the results you need. Stuffed full of useful information, this video will get those of you who are still reading up to snuff pretty quickly. Now go use your multimeter to do some hacking!
Learn To Code At Lifehacker
[Adam] over at lifehacker is putting together a series on the principles of programming called “Learn to code”. They are using Javascript as a basis to teach the fundamentals that would allow you to get stuff done in any similar language, like actionscript. After you’ve got these basics down, even moving to an object oriented language shouldn’t be too difficult. We absolutely love educational resources and hope they continue this series pretty far. They’ve already released part one and part two. We have supplied the video from each after the break, but there’s more info at the links.
Stepper Directed HDTV Antenna
Broadcast TV has come a long way from adjusting the rabbit ears on top of the set just to get a fuzzy black and white picture. While nowadays there are often HD signals broadcast in most areas, it can often still be critical to redirect an antenna to get the best possible signal. By harvesting a stepper motor from an old 5 1/2″ floppy drive, and using a PC’s parallel port to control it, this adjustment can be handled automatically. Broadcast tower locations are easily found online, and once you have calibrated your stepper to face North, you are on your way to free HDTV reception.
What we would like to see is this antenna attached to a HTPC, and some kind of script to automatically direct the antenna for the best possible signal for the current channel. If anyone out there makes this happen, be sure to let us know.
Making The IM-ME Dongle More Useful
So you’ve hacked your IM-ME six ways from Sunday but don’t know what to do with the USB dongle? [Joby Taffey] set out to make this leftover a useful part of the hacking arsenal. He pulled off the USB connector and the USB controller chip. From there he glued on the pin headers as pictured above in order to turn this into a breadboard-friendly single in-line package. But wait, that’s not all… for the low-low price of common components he also built a power and programming cable. Once it’s all said and done you can load PinkOS, an operating system he developed for the device which lets you operate the onboard radio via serial protocol.
Need a better overview of the hardware on the board? [Joby] laid the groundwork for this hack back in October.
Robot Hand Has No Problem Giving You The Finger
Get your Terminator clichés ready, this robot hand reeks of Skynet. It is designed to function like the human hand, but the main goal is one of robustness. A lot of effort went into making sure this won’t break in the field. Instead of rigid gears, a system of tendons actuates each digit. The pulleys that control these are located in the forearm and each has a spring mechanism that helps to cushion shocks to the apparatus which might damage other grippers. It has bone-crushing power behind the 19 degrees of movement and, as you’ve already guessed, this comes at a pretty steep price tag; topping out around 100,000 Euros. It’s more complicated, and more expensive that jamming grippers, but it’s also far scarier. See for yourself in the silent movie after the break.
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Edison Clock Uses Ammeter Plus Bulbs To Set Alarm
This is the Edison clock, designed by [David Krawczyk]. It shows time in the same way as the multimeter clock, regulating power to two analog needle meters. The feature that makes this one a bit different is the alarm. You can see the series of holes on the front of the base. These have a small light bulb socked in each, and correspond to hours and 5-minute increments. Insert two bulbs to set the alarm time, and make sure that the alarm knob points to ‘on’. As you can see above, the alarm has been set to 8:15. Hidden on the last image of the article above is a PDF with just a bit more explanation. Still, much has been left out so if you replicate this clock we want to hear about it.