Here’s the most useless machine we’ve seen so far. It comes from the workshop of [forn4x] and happily turns itself off whenever any one of its eight switches are flicked to the on position.
The build began when [forn]’s Canon 850i printer gave up the ghost because of a broken print head. All the other electronics and mechanics were still salvageable, so it was decided to turn this printer into something a little more useless.
The printer used a regular DC motor with an optical encoder to move the print head. [forn] easily found the schematics for this optical sensor, because of the TTL output was able to read out the position of the slider. The rest of the build is an ATMega8, a servo, and an octet of toggle switches. [forn] has been able to get the accuracy of the servo-controlled arm down to about 0.1 mm, more than enough to accurately turn all its switches off.
You can see [forn]’s most useless machine in action after the break.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Djc8FPHs45o&w=470]
That would be excellent to put in a party room. I’m sure people would love to stumble up to it and flip switches.
Am I the only one getting a little sick of useless machines? I’m not saying they aren’t clever, or that someone hasn’t put in a lot of work, but this is hack a day. The whole point of hacking something is to give it MORE functionality than it had before. Machines that by design have zero don’t qualify, surely?
Ever considered that the same topic could apply to half of the hackaday postings? It’s a place for creators and their craftsmanship love affair, it’s rarely about users and functionality. Lean back and enjoy the nerdfun.
There aren’t many sites like hackaday. Perhaps he’s simply annoyed that these devices are getting so much exposure.
for what it is this must surely be an improvement ove the standard version,
make it slightly more emotive and it would be a fun gadget in its own right.
hm, perhaps a turing machine useless machine?
When one of the switches is flipped, it goes through the program and manually flips the switches based on its program.
Not me. I love seeing different methods of getting something done. I bet you wouldn’t appreciate the CSS Zen Garden either. http://www.csszengarden.com/ over 200 different website designs by only changing the CSS code. Nothing special about the website they use. It’s totally useless except for a platform for putting one’s mind to work, thinking of another way to build it. It’s still beautiful though.
I cant work out if this is a real post or spam….
why should it be spam?
look at the web’s name…….looks spam to me too
Obviously not spam, and that’s actually a really cool site!
@Dario maybe it would make more sense when you realize it’s CSS Zen Garden dot com. I guess seeing cssz at the beginning scared you or something.
Wow. Neither can I.
Leaving it up as the best spam comment I’ve ever seen.
/Reebock viagra prada coach sneakers vi4gra
Why does everybody keep thinking that’s spam?
On some other board, I saw “socialism” get flagged by the automatic spam filter because it has “cialis” in it. ;-)
@Rich Grise:
Which is obviously completely wrong as “Cialis” brings things up and socialism often brings things down. (e.g. economics)
It DOES have more functionality than the original and it works in an entirely different way than previous versions.
So even by your own definition, this is a worthwhile project.
What do you mean zero functionality, by design the machine is designed to turn itself off when turned on, as a joke, and this machine does this and does it very well, its most worthy of hack a day.
Since the parts were scavenged from a Canon printer ANYTHING made with them has infinitely more value than that of the original printer.
Like most things on here, they get beaten to the ground by people trying to be clever. Sorry to break it to you, if you do one of these to be clever, it comes out kitsch.
(Yes including this. Essentially you push a switch and a mechanical finger flips it back. WOW. That was cool the 1000th time I saw it.)
Lots of shit on here is like that though. Remember those 3d printers? I think even wackaday got sick of them though LOL.
I think the point of Useless Machines is they’re quite funny. They’re meant to be a joke. Giving one 8 switches and a CPU means this one isn’t funny.
The point of the UM is, it has 1 switch, the “on” switch, and it’s whole purpose is to switch itself off. Like it’s annoyed, and has personality. Or just the surrealness of making a machine with the single purpose of turning itself off.
Giving it 8 switches is confusing. What machine has 8 “on” switches? I can imagine a user’s reaction would be confusion, then “oh” once they figure it out. It’s not funny and therefore has failed in it’s purpose as a UM.
What might be funny, if you took it even further, is to give a PC a robot arm that moves it’s own mouse to the shutdown option on the menu / types it on the keyboard. Have it do this every time you turn it on.
double that
I disagree – it is funny, totally pointless, joyful and it made me laugh, so it does have a purpose
Me Four! ;-D
“The whole point of hacking something is to give it MORE functionality than it had before.”
Simply incorrect.
Yeah, kind of like art, culture, music, and other things that don’t provide material value… oh wait…. I want one…..
I think this machine should have a few different modes…
one where it does from left to right (current)
one where it does in order in which the switches were flipped
one where it does random order
That would be cool.
I’ve been thinking about building one of a slightly different style than I’ve ever seen before. Just need to bump it to the top of my projects list.
but how would the mode STAY activated if it just resets the switches anyway? ROFL
oooohh i get it, this “useless” machine is actually allowing us to use toggle switches as pushbutton switches, just with a bit of mechanical lag
i bit it throws a tantrum when you try to add new switches EDIT: surgerey XD
If you look closely, I believe this machine is in reset-by-order-switched mode. The operator just happens to be flipping them from left to right most of the time.
I think that is awesome
Well done good sir
Because it made me laugh, it is no longer a useless machine.
Its amazing that it gets funnier the longer you watch it. Love this!
I love how quickly it reacts, it adds a furiousness to it that really brings it alive.
One thing I would add: After it has been played with for a little while it should stop and play an audio track, “Hey, do you mind? I’m trying to sleep in here!”
++
I like this one better.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bOD2-mRphTI
LMAO
ive thought about bulding one of these, but this one takes the cake, i love it, i think my kids would have a riot with this one…
great work! this will keep me busy from Christmas to new year.
Love it. Especially the printer-reuse. I think I need to build one.
Does it pinch if you get a finger in the way? That could be a barrier to letting a young kid play with it. Wonder if it could have a sensor to avoid pinching the finger? Maybe capacitance or optical?
How about giving the user an increasingly strong shock if they keep antagonizing it?
Having it click out tunes via the tempo of the switch reset would be neat.
Why include a shock feature if it could pinch the user? :-) Probably the force is not enough to cause real injury. At first you want to male the machine idiot proof and then to suggest giving it the possibility to punish “idiots” :-)
On the other hand, the shock feature is much less obvious. :-) :-)
Stop bitching folks! This Useless Machine is just a pretext to build something using scavenged parts. You should be grateful to him for releasing the design and source code which would teach you what a thousand potato launchers would never do.
Looks like some really cool machines to me dude.
AnonDo.tk
But it is not useless. It turns itself off.
Related:
I rescued an old Sansui SE9 “robot” equalizer from the trash on the side of the road, not knowing it was a “robot” equalizer(was gonna yank out the VFD) until I opened it up. Replacement for burned up motor, two darlington H-bridge transistors, and a 7406 later, and it was back in action…
http://youtu.be/1bWMe6aoOQ8
Nnnnnice!
After few minutes of playing with this machine, a baseball bat should come out and punch you in the head :-)
Lot’s of hatin’ on this post for some reason.
Chill out people, it’s a fun little project.
I think it’s awesome. Bravo.
Oh, but you see, fun is a sin! We’re supposed to sweat and toil and gripe “for the good of society” until we wear out and die alone, never to laugh, never to love.
HEAVY SARCASM ALERT!!!!
I would have loved to see the machine loose it’s temper and put out one giant “finger” to flip all the switches off at once. :-)
My first thought of the 8 switch model expected it using a ruler and flipping all the switches at once.
This looks like it could be modified for knitting or some way as a crd shuffler.
Also with some modification it might may a light blinker or a device to turn on lights when you are away from home. This is not totally useless.
I think it would make a good game. The device randomly picks a pattern. When you press the switches in the proper pattern it doesn’t turn them back off. If you get one wrong it turns them all off and you have to start again. You win when all the switches are on.
I prefer the vintage: https://youtu.be/m5X8NztRvk0
Is there a place to order advanced useless boxes like this?