Here’s a collection of little LEGO oddities. Some of them exhibit a purpose, such as this interesting take on a line-following robot. Others, like the four seen above, are just automatons built to bring a smile to your face through their motion. There are dozens to choose from, with several pictures and a video of each. See the clips of these four after the break. Oh, and don’t worry, we didn’t find any LEGO iPhone docks, just cleaver mobile creations.
With summer just around the corner you should try out a build like this constant pressure water gun that [JLspacemarine] put together. Similar to the commercially available Super Soaker toys, this isn’t just a squirt gun but includes a water reservoir as well as a pressurized air chamber. Pumping up the air chamber allows for a constant stream when the trigger is depressed. [JLspacemarine] used a combination of hardware store items such as PVC, ABS, springs, hose clamps, and valves to bring this all together.
[Thanks Danukeru]
This steam-powered tank is really something of a steam-electric hybrid. Steam provides the locomotion, but an electrical system provides the remote control and steering. A full boiler will provide 10-15 minutes of operation which you can see in the video after the break. Before you leave a nasty comment: Yes, we realize this project is from several years ago. It’s new to us and the completion date doesn’t diminish the novelty of this well-executed build. This is the quality and uniqueness we’re used to seeing from [Crabfu].
We feel like trumpets should be sounding. Someone took the overused project of connecting RGB LEDs to a microcontroller and produced something useful. [Paul] created Dr. Boardman’s Color Conundrum which works much like a simple mechanical coin-op game you might find at a carnival. When switched on, a random color is displayed by the ping-pong ball covered LED on the left. The player then manipulates three knobs to color-match the two lights.
Inside you’ll find a minimalist set of hardware. An ATmega8 polls the three potentiometers and uses them to mix the appropriate user color. Everything is wired-up using prototyping board and draws power from two AA batteries. He’s using a random seed stored in EEPROM and increments it every time the uC boots up. This keeps the input color different for every game.
Fun and simple, it’s not going to make your guests marvel at the complexity but [Paul’s] come up with a unique game that we think has marketing potential.
We love to see eloquent hacks but this isn’t one of them. [Aaron] and his fellow sadists are using a Mindflex game with an electric shocker. If your brain is idle you’ll be fine, but too much activity inside the noggin and you’re in for nasty shock to the arm. Take a look at the video (bleeped but probably NSFW) after the break.
We’ve seen the Mindflex before, they’re using its interface in the same ways we’ve seen the Force Trainer used, by tapping into the LEDs. The shocks are provided by a Qkit, so hopefully there’s enough engineering behind it to keep the ‘contestant’ safe.
Hey, isn’t that the Tron Guy?
Continue reading “Using Mindflex To Shock The Heck Out Of People”
Everyone’s familiar with the quarter gobbling crane games. More often than not there’s a child nearby begging a parent for more quarters so they can try their hand at the toy-snatching claw. [Marc.Cryan] put his quarters to a better use by building a home version of the crane game.
[Marc] installed a gantry in an archway of his house. The crane trolley rides on this gantry and uses a spool to raise or lower the tether for the claw. Winning copious style-points, he used the case of an old mouse to form the claw. An Arduino controls the different motors in the system and a toy was repurposed to act as the controller. As you can see after the break, it’s more fun than the cinema-lobby version of the game and your kids can play with it for free.
This no model, but a fully functioning RC jet. The Sukhoi Su-27 was the Soviet Union’s counterpart of the F15 and this 1/6.5 scaled version measures eleven feet long and is fully controllable. As if the 80-page build log wasn’t enough, the flight video after the break is nothing short of jaw-dropping. The test flights end in smooth landings but with all the time that went into the project that’s got to be nerve-wracking.
