Commercial Self-balancing Unicycle

October 18, 2008 by Eliot 12 Comments

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3-9mYCXNshQ&fmt=18]

Focus Design sent us a video of their self balancing unicycle (looks like they’re taking on Focus Features too). The electric machine moves at 8MPH and lasts 1.5hrs on a single charge. It only weighs 24.6lbs. They say that new riders only need about 2hrs. practice. They’re building ten units to start for $1500 each.

Electric unicycles are nothing new to our community. We’ve long been fans of [Trevor Blackwell]’s electric unicycle. [Trevor] spent several months learning how to ride a regular unicycle before he could properly debug the electric version. There are several other designs out there: The Einrand-Fahrzeug has a wide wheel to make balancing easier. The eniCycle includes a steering mechanism. The Uniquecycle has a brushless motor in hub for a compact design. We did a roundup back in July that covers these plus many other motorized unicycle concepts.

Prototype This Schematics Posted

October 16, 2008 by Eliot 26 Comments

As promised, [Joe Grand] has uploaded the schematics from his part of last night’s episode of Prototype This. The device monitors the driver of a demo derby car and shuts it off if he becomes too enraged. He’ll be posting schematics for every episode as they’re released. The really interesting thing is that he scanned all of his development notes too. If you missed the episode, you can watch it on Discovery’s site. You can also grab a version that doesn’t idiotically force you to watch in full screen browser window from The Pirate Bay.

UPDATE: [Joe] has been responding to your comments.

Canon 40D Hacked To Record Movies

September 23, 2008 by Joey Celis 29 Comments

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OlKywUVFJW4]

Both Canon and Nikon recently released DSLR cameras that now include a feature that most consumer level digital cameras have had for sometime: the ability to record movies. What makes movie recording especially appealing on a DSLR is the wide selection of lenses available to get the look you’re after. If you’re an owner of Canon’s 40D you may want to follow [DataGhost]’s progress on the CHDK forum as he is currently working on bringing this function to the 40D.

While [DataGhost] has a working proof of concept he notes that there are still some issues pertaining to the camera powering down while recording a video, autofocusing, and writing to the memory card. Aside from this, [DataGhost] has made considerable progress and is considering adding custom user settings via the mode dial to really give some creative control. We’re excited about this hack and can’t wait for its release to the general public.

[via CHDK forum]

Direct To Garment Printing

September 20, 2008 by Eliot 32 Comments

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f3iOuKzhUlQ]

Reader [deren lik] pointed out the world of direct to garment printing to us. You can purchase commercial machines that will print directly onto a t-shirt using inkjet technology. Unfortunately, these machines cost ~$10K, so hackers have decided to fill in the gaps. DIYDTG hosts plans for how to build your own DTG printer. Their standard instructions are based around the Epson C88 printer. A custom carrier is constructed and then the printer components are bolted on top. Commercial DTG printers are also based on Epson parts and you can easily purchase the garment inks even if you didn’t pay a premium for your printer.

DaScratch Multitouch DJ Interface

September 20, 2008 by Eliot 5 Comments

Stanton has released a new controller peripheral for laptop DJ’s. DaScratch is a USB connected MIDI device designed to emulate record interactions. It features a large touch area where the user can make scratching, sliding, and button pressing motions. The compact device has presets for software like Traktor, Serato, and Ableton Live, but can work with anything that supports MIDI. Multiple units can be paired together using magnets.

As the video below shows, there are quite a few different interactions possible. We really want to see a teardown of this device though. We get the distinct feeling that it’s designed to look more impressive than the underlying hardware actually is. Continue reading “DaScratch Multitouch DJ Interface” →

Boston LED Sweatshirt Arrestee Interviewed

September 19, 2008 by Eliot 43 Comments

In today’s episode of Boing Boing tv, [Xeni] interviews [Star Simpson]. She was arrested a year ago at Boston’s Logan airport for wearing a sweatshirt with a breadboard and some LEDs attached. With a collective groan, we watched this event unfold just months after Boston was held captive by Mooninites. After many court dates, [Star] is being forced to apologize and perform community service. She has since left MIT, disappointed with their nonexistent support, and left Boston entirely. Watch the interview for her side of the story. She’s posted how to recreate the sweatshirt.

Why I Hate Django

September 16, 2008 by Eliot 7 Comments

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i6Fr65PFqfk]

[Cal Henderson] delivered a keynote titled Why I Hate Django at the first annual DjangoCon. Django is an open source BSD licensed web framework written in Python. Google has posted the keynote in its entirety to YouTube, which you can find embedded above. While the talk is humorous (and takes many jabs at Rails developers) it does provide insight into what makes a good web framework. [Cal] is Director of Engineering at Flickr and is an authority on how to make websites scale. He points out that most frameworks are designed to get projects off the ground quickly, but are lacking when it comes to building an even larger service. He talks about several things in Django that need work and improvements that could be made. It’s really an interesting look at what it takes to go big. Continue reading “Why I Hate Django” →