Like many nerds, we have our share of retro video games and nonworking consoles lying around. Every so often we feel like dragging one out and hoping it works.. Luckily for us, the Super Genintari is available to fulfill our fantasies of beating Ghosts ‘N Goblins. The Super Genintari is an Atari 2600, NES, SNES and Sega Genesis all rolled into one; you can even put in four cartridges at once and hook it up to your television with a simple AV cable.
[via DVICE]
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qQNpucos9wc]
The Large Hadron Collider was a success and it didn’t destroy the world. We have to admit, we were a little bit worried about the possibility of generating black holes but were soothed by scientists’ reassurances that we would still exist, and this self-explanatory website. We’re also kind of hoping to build our own. PHD Comics visits CERN to learn all about the experiment. Xkcd prepares for the end times with a new friend. The curious can explore some amazing imagery of the LHC, and read about the best-and-worst-case scenarios, and what scientists are hoping for, or monitor progress via webcam. The celebratory will listen to appropriate music, consume inspired science fiction, and drink to the Large Hadron Collider and its success.
In a two-part series called “PS3 Fab-to-lab” on IBM’s awesome developerWorks website, [Lewin] explains how to use the Cell Broadband Engine in a PS3 to create an audio-bandwidth spectrum analyzer and function generator. The set up consists of Yellow Dog Linux, an NTSC television, and an external USB sound card to provide the inputs of the spectrum analyzer and the outputs of the function generator. The sound card driver is written to simply capture or send the info in question (audio range only) and the NTSC television as the graphical interface. This hack involves a lot of coding with hardly any example code provided. The article is more of a guide than anything. If anyone gets this working, let us know!
[via Digg]
[photo: Malcom Tredinnick]
[vimeo http://vimeo.com/1709336%5D
On the seventh anniversary of the events of September 11, 2001, it’s important to reflect on patriotism, nationalism, and responsibility to your country and motherland. This USB memorial lets us think about our contributions to our great nation. Or it’s just a tribute to misguided nationalism and capitalism via insipid flag waving. Instructions are available at Instructables.
[via F.A.T.]
The last few days many people have been talking about the USC’s contour printer. It’s a device that prints concrete outlines with the hopes of eventually printing entire houses. Caterpillar has decided to back the initiative.
It reminded us of a project we came across at Maker Faire. [Leif Ames], [Matthew Bowman], [Marides Athanasiadis], and [Terrell Edwards] built a 3D Mineral Printer as their senior engineering design project at UC Santa Cruz. The printer works by first laying down a layer of dry concrete powder. It then selectively wets the powder where it wants a solid form. The reaction doesn’t require air to dry, so the next layer can be applied immediately. The printer only creates contours and the team imagines this being used to create temporary casting molds. The build envelop is nearly a cubic meter. When we talked to them, they were experimenting with many different types of material mixes. A video of the first test is after the break. Continue reading “3D Mineral Printer”
[Gordon Johnson] recently completed part 1 of his toaster computer project. He used a standard four slot toaster as the enclosure and cut holes for access to the ports and a wireless antenna. While the specifications of the components used are not mentioned, the build is well documented on his site, complete with lots of pictures and a video. While he used a traditional fan based cooling method for part 1 of the build, he plans on using a special cooling method for part 2 that uses aluminum and mineral oil to create a thermoelectric cooling effect.
[Earl Foster] recently completed his 4th high altitude photographic balloon (HAPB-4) launch. This launch reached a peak altitude of 106,384 feet, and lasted about 3 hours. The final weight of the capsule was 5lb 3-3/8 oz, with all the electronics, GPS, digital camera, and HD video camera. His balloons operate under the exempt rules of FAA Part 101 subpart a governing unmanned balloon flight. This program has been setup to encouraging interest in science, mathematics, and engineering through unmanned ballooning. HAPB-4 uses a Parallax SPIN Stamp microcontroller, this multicore chip offers eight 32-bit processors (cogs) sharing 32kB RAM and ROM. Having eight separate COG’s allows him to log GPS data, control the camera, log and monitor sensors, and control LCD functions simultaneously with minimal hardware. During this flight he did have some equipment failures, but he was still able to capture some nice pictures.
