It’s been a while since we’ve seen anything new on the robosapien front, but I’d say that a laser sighted rail gun for our favorite robots is worthy. From the video, it appears to have decent accuracy and a fair sized clip. It’s creator, [Marcus] says that he’ll have a tutorial up soon. Thanks to [Robert] for the tip. (Update: The tip says it’s a mini rail gun, so I’m not sure if it’s a rail gun or a coil gun.)
Keyboard Contact Repair
Here’s a little bit of a blast from the past, but I’d bet that many of us have encountered this problem. Keyboard contacts can wear out, be damaged by drink spills or that vat of acid you left by the TV. Automotive defroster repair paint should work – if have some handy. [eeun] documented a keyboard contact repair method using household aluminum foil and superglue.
Design Challenge: Hung Jury
We’re not really hung, but it is taking a while for us to decide just who get the title. While we decide, here’s a couple more entries remind you what it’s all about.
[Razvan] sent in this excellent entry. (I’m hosting it on my personal server since he didn’t have one)
The writeup could be a bit clearer, but the design is pretty sweet. It features a mega avr brain and a microchip ethernet controller with a software based USB interface. It’s a pretty intriguing design – lots of possibilities for ethernet controllable projects.
[Tom D] sent in this rolling codes garage door opener. This will step through all the garage door opener codes for garage doors made before 2003.
Remote Control Lawn Mower
[Terry] sent in the first of his projects that he’s posted on his site. Having grown up in the midwestern US, I can’t even express how badly I wanted to build one of these puppies when I was a kid. His remote control lawnmower is essentially the bastard child of a three way between a R/C car, a wheelchair and the lawnmower. The radio is interfaced with the control box from a wheelchair, otherwise it’s a good welding project.
Nice work. I’ve one suggestion – a safety circuit that disables the mower if radio control is lost. There are a few devices designed just for R/C projects that’ll do the trick. (Update: ok, there’s a failsafe in the design but I wouldn’t call it optional!)
Modded TI-83 Calculator
[Christopher] sent in his modded TI-83 calculator. (Hit the read link, a bug is broke the one I tried to embed) Besides the uh, racing stripes, he added a PS/2 port (though I see drivers for this mod are up on ticalc.org) and an integrated (cpu controlled) RGB backlight. The backlight is controlled with a programmable AND array that’s slaved off a pair of the CPU I/O lines. Just to top everything off, I poked around and found that you can overclock these puppies, as well as expand their memory. I’m hopeful that wetsanding and varnishing the thing 10 times smoothed out the paintbrush lines, but an inexpensive airbrush would yield much smoother results.
Bent 2400 Baud Modem
Zune Antenna Extension
[Dyer13] sent in his Zune antenna mod. It’s a simple one, but we haven’t seen too many Zune mods yet. It’s really just a matter of adding more surface area to the transmitter. I’d suggest adding a wire that’s actually tuned to an appropriate wavelength. If you want something with a bit more power, check out this Belkin Tunecase power upgrade.
