You’ve probably been fantasizing about getting amazing gifts this December, like robots with servo-mounted laser pointers and authentic battle damage. It’s time to realize that it’s unlikely that this will happen. Stay calm. You can still get sweet hacky things if you just forward this gift-giving guide to your friends and loved ones.
Join us after the break to see what we want and be sure to let us know what you’ve got your eye on.
Continue reading “2010 Hacker Gift Guide”
PBS Newshour did a piece on robots. They talked about NASA’s bot pictured above, Asimo, Big Dog, PR2, Robbie the robot and a few others. We didn’t see anything new, but we really do like the coverage getting out there. We also never need an excuse to watch that guy kick big dog around for a while. We know it’ll only be a matter of time before the tables are turned.
Willow Garage, the folks behind PR2, are conducting a survey to see what your favorite robot is. Their list is pretty short, but they did leave a spot for you to add a name. The picture above, is not from willow garage though. This is the picture I got from BotJunkie (we love this site) where I found this story. They didn’t attribute the artist, but I feel they need credit, it is an awesome shirt.
It turns out that it is a t-shirt design available at the chopshopstore. You can see that their eyes are done in glow-in-the-dark material. On a side note, the hackaday store just got glow in the dark material yesterday(as well as a re-design) and will be announcing several new designs in the near future.
I personally inherited several huge boxes full of sci-fi pulp. The robots I’ve seen in these are amazing, ranging from amazingly ridiculous to amazingly awesome. I’ve only just begun scanning in the covers, and plan to post at least one a day. You know what would be awesome though? If I had one of these.
We know you just got a links post a couple hours ago, but more people tipped us off to some great Halloween stuff and we just couldn’t wait.
[Michael] came up with this fantastic idea for a flying ghost. He’s using a twin prop tilt rotor design to fly his ghost all over the neighborhood. It has a camera mounted on board and the footage is both fascinating and, toward the end, quite funny. Nothing beats chasing children down the street in first person from a flying ghost.
[Trey] wrote in to show off his 47 foot wide spider. He made it himself out of black painters plastic that he heat welded together using a heat gun. In the video you can see his victim, a dummy mounted on a salvaged rotissierie.
[Floe] has been thinking about this one for quite some time. He finally decided to build his flame throwing jack-o-lantern, a concept we approve of. Using two servos, one to start a pilot light and one to spray a travel deodorant, it is pretty simple. He used a ceramic jack-o-lantern so it would be sturdy enough, and marginally less flammable.
Here’s a safer Jack-o-lantern for you. [Paul] wrote in to show us his LED synchronized Jack-o-lanterns. While they may not be ground breaking, we just love seeing that logo out in the wild. Maybe we’re just egotistical, maybe those toothpicks just brought back fond memories. Why didn’t we ever run that Jack-0-lantern carving contest? Oh well, maybe next year. You can see a video of it in action after we get it uploaded correctly to our youtube channel.
Happy Halloween to one and all. Let’s celebrate the holiday with some related links.
[Brandon] carved the Hackaday logo into his Jack-‘o-Lantern. But that’s not all, inspired by EMSL’s Jack-‘o-Lantern, as well as our own offering, he added LEDs. Three of them occupy the flesh behind the eyes and nose, fading in and out thanks to some pulse-width modulation that an Arduino provides.
Mad Scientist Blinken Costume
[Bill Porter] is getting down with the LEDs by making a Mad Scientist costume. The accent jewelry is an LED matrix necklace that he made himself to go along with 76 of them sewn into the coat. Also joining the party is over one hundred feet of wire and two Arduinos.
Dole Out Candy Via Twitter/Phone
Apparently [Noel Portugal] will be too busy hacking together his next project to dish out candy on Halloween. To make up for his double-booked schedule he built an automated candy dispenser. Just tweet your request and the bucket will open a hatch from which candy will fall. There’s also an option to activate it with a voice call, or just slap that red button until your blood sugar reaches an adequate level.
Star Wars Pumpkins
[Charles Gantt] carved Yoda’s mug into his pumpkin and backlit it with green LEDs. Someone else paired two together for a Death Star shoots Alderon scene [via Reddit]. If those aren’t enough for you there’s a Star Wars top 10 collection out there somewhere.
Now go start working on next year’s props!
Square Gears
This video demonstrates square gears and other oddly shaped cogs. We can’t think of a use but it’s interesting none-the-less. [via Tinkernology]
Cooking with Lasers
It’s late and you’ve been at the workbench for quite some time. But why go to the kitchen for a snack? Grab a couple of 1 watt lasers, hot glue a kernel of corn to a DC motor, and you’ll have popcorn in no time.
Calling this a simulator just doesn’t do it justice
Okay, so this link is a Lexus commercial. But it’s worth watching to see the footage of this driving simulator. Inside that pod is an actual automobile surrounded by a 360 degree screen. The room has a full x and y axis to move the pod (and the car) as you drive through the simulated world. It’s like someone gave a bunch of geeks an unlimited budget and say “go nuts”. [Thanks Luke]
What takes the most time in your hacking adventures?
Everyone whose spent some time in web design has run across the peculiar rendering bugs and workarounds associated with Internet Explorer. Internet Explorer Stole My Life aims to tabulate the collective time wasted from the lives of developers. We think it’s hilarious because spending the same amount of time meeting W3C standards and this problem would go away. But [Caleb] mentioned something interesting when he saw this site: What part of your hacking adventures wastes the most time? We’d love to hear about it in the comments.
Cards you should crank
These greeting cards must be the product of a mechanical engineer run amok. They come with a crank and are designed to entertain with their simple, yet elegant movements. [Thanks Phil]
Magnetic card stripe reader
[JP] built an Arduino based magnetic card reader. It uses off-the-shelf parts but if you don’t mind buying the components this will get you up and running in no time. If you want more info there’s also this Teensy based version.
Homemade Airsoft sentry gun
This sentry gun has an amazingly fast firing rate that can continue for quite a while, thanks to the big flashlight housing that is holds a lot of ammo. [Thanks David]
Scanner easter egg
The engineers over at HP had a little fun building an easter egg into this scanner. If you know what you’re doing you can get it to play the Ode to Joy. It needs to join the old-hardware band from our Links post earlier in the month. [Thanks Googfan]
Old timey pics with a new timey camera
Update: We’ve already looked at this one… see the full article for all the details.
One way to get old-looking photographs is to use a vintage camera. Then again you can just connect a 1908 lens to a modern dslr with great results. [Thanks MS3FGX]
Cheap iPad mounting bracket
Need a way to hang your iPad but don’t want to spend some bucks? [Tumbleweed] used a $3 plate hanger to do the trick.
Hand engraving
You can get free laser engraving when you buy an iPhone but it won’t look as good as this does. [Viljo Marrandi] spent eight hours on this, but most of the time was spent resharpening tools dulled by the tough metal.
Let time prevent your computer from going idle
Want to keep your screen saver from running? No need to change settings, software, or use special hardware. Just set your mouse on an analog watch and let the moving hands jiggle it around. [Thanks Lovro]
