Giving The IPod Nano A Home On A Honda Dashboard

[Hyeinkali’s] iPod Nano looks right at home on the dashboard of his 2001 Honda Accord. He got rid of the simple LCD clock and the buttons that were used to set it. The hack holds the iPod securely in place, but it remains easy to remove and take with you.

He started by popping out the bezel that holds the clock module and hazard light button in place. The original display was about the same width as the Nano, but he wasn’t interested in mounting the mp3 player under the dash. Since he needed to be able to take it with him to sync his music library he made a space near the bottom of the bezel to accept the connector end of the USB cable while keeping the device accessible. After connecting the other end to power he covered the hole in the bezel with mesh and put everything back together. We’re not sure if audio is piped into the car stereo via a cable or through Bluetooth, but it does feed to the head unit.

[via Reddit]

Design Challenge Prize Update Delta


OK guys, I can finally announce all of the prizes for the Hack-A-Day Design Challenge! I’ve been waiting to get things in hand before announcing them all – Everything’s arrived, and it’s a pretty sweet haul.

  1. Fabienne’s Hack-A-Day iPod Nano
  2. MAKE Controller
  3. MAKE Daisy mp3 player kit
  4. SUMO Omni Beanbag
  5. 120 LED Assortment Package

If you’re busy, maybe you just don’t know how sweet some of this stuff is.

Fabienne kindly consented to give up her very own Hack-A-Day engraved iPod nano. It’s been used and the inside thoroughly inspected, but it’s otherwise unmodded.

MAKE gave us one of their new open source MAKE controllers – I opened up the one they sent and it’s pretty sweet. The 55Mhz Atmel SAM7X CPU is on a daughter-board, and the main board has terminals for every connection you could want, along with USB, Ethernet, CAN, Serial… They also sent along one of their new Daisy MP3 player kits. Unlike the controller, this one has to be put together.

Andrew over at sumolounge.com hooked us up with one of their SUMO Omni bean bags. This thing is awesome. It’s the biggest bean bag I’ve ever seen. (I may have to buy the winner another one, my daughter has been going nuts over it )

Finally, [Alan] of Alan’s Electronic Projects sent us a set of his 120 LED assortments along with a handy resistor pack for using them with 5vdc to get things going. The set even includes some 13000mcd white LEDs for making your own portable tanning device.

How do you win all this sweet stuff? You send in a design! You’ve got until December 25th!