vacuum

138 Articles

Nintendo Sixtyfree Lite-R Portable N64

December 27, 2008 by 27 Comments

n64

Nothing says Christmas like Nintendo 64 and benheck forum member [SifuF] has a treat for you. His Nintendo Sixtyfree Lite-R stuffs all the guts of at Nintendo 64 into a compact handheld package. It features dual joysticks and triggers. The display is a PSone screen with all of the extra board trimmed away. The part that really makes this project shine is the case. It’s vacuum-formed 2mm sheets of polystyrene. Another nice touch was the volume and screen brightness. They’re adjusted by holding down start and then using the other buttons. It doesn’t have internal batteries, but can run off of a 7.2V Infolithium.

[via Engadget]

Winboni, A Window Cleaning Robot

December 4, 2008 by 27 Comments

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1kchwH-3tY0]

The Winboni is the first place winner in the International Student Design Competition of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers. Winboni is a small robot that cleans windows. That alone doesn’t set the robot apart. The fact that it is held on by suction is what distinguishes it. Running off AA batteries, this robot clings to the window as it cleans it with felt pads. It is hard to believe that this isn’t already a commercial product. Actually, we thought we had even seen it before, but we can’t find it now.

[via DVICE]

Vacuum Micromouse

November 26, 2008 by 17 Comments

micromouse

Micromouse competitions have been running in Japan since 1980. In all that time, the ruleset has remained essentially unchanged. The autonomous robot mouse navigates a 16×16 maze creating a map. It then determines the optimal solution for future runs. Current records are in the six to seven second range. Teams have had to find new ways to generate traction for better times. Momoco08 uses a fan to hold the mouse to the track surface. Embedded below you’ll find a video of it solving the maze plus a photo of the vacuum skirt.

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Sticky Tape Emits X-rays

October 22, 2008 by 37 Comments

Wired posted a gallery covering an interesting phenomenon. When you unroll regular sticky tape it emits visible light, but what was recently discovered is that under vacuum it actually emits x-rays as well. They’re still trying to nail down the cause. Have a look at the gallery of UCLA’s research lab to see what kind of equipment you need to unroll tape in a vacuum.

Gas Powered Vacuum Sucks Hard Anywhere

October 10, 2008 by 36 Comments

[mdavis19] found himself in the middle of nowhere, with no electricity, needing a strong vacuum. That happens to us all right? His solution was to hack together a gas powered monster vacuum. He found a shop vac at a yard sale and promptly discarded the motor and filter. Some minor modifications to a leaf blower and a plywood mount finished the job. He now has absolute sucking power as long as he has fuel. He describes how this is going to be used for gold prospecting, though it would probably work just as well on pet hair. If you’re going to use one around the house though, you may want to find a way to mount a filter in it, and wear ear plugs.