October 2006

Talking Skull

  If you have one of those Talking Douglas Fir trees here is a cool talking skull idea. “I took him out to the garage and disconnected his eye and mouth motors from the main post. I then used 2 – 2″ screws and attached the jaw to the motor of the douglas talking fir(DTS now) I used hot glue and sealed the screws to the mouth to insure no

RuBot II - The Rubik's cube solving robot

  Pete Redmond from Mechatrons has created a robot that can solve the Rubik’s Cube. Many robots have done this in the past but this robot does it in a human fashion! “This is the new version of RuBot by Pete Redmond from Dublin, Ireland. It’s very different to the prototype but it has to be the coolest looking robot solver ever. There are cameras in the eyes of the

ARM Coretex M3 Microcontroller Contest

uC Hobby has some news about a microcontroller design contest. Looks like the free controllers are gone but you can still enter and get some prize money. “Circuit Cellar, Luminary Micro, and Keil are running a design competition with $10,000 in prizes. Entering the contest will get you a free ARM microcontroller development kit and your entry may be published in the Circuit Cellar hobby electronics magazine. The kit includes

Metal Storm Weapons: Million-Plus Rounds Per Minute

  The revolutionary Metal Storm technology demonstrates a completely different way of delivering a bullet. The per bullet cost sounds like it would be very high though. “O’Dwyer’s revolutionary weapons concept is based on an electronically fired gun-and-launcher design with multiple rounds stacked in a single barrel. The only moving parts are the bullets themselves. Beyond creating an astounding fast-firing weapon, the concept makes way for the creation of entirely

Wiper Motor Hangman

  If you have a tree in your front yard and some time to kill before Halloween this Hangman project that would be worth some consideration. Merlin used a Singing Santa board to control the unit however a small microcontroller or a 555 timer and a handful of components should do the trick. “Wires were soldered to the relay to power the wiper motor that will run the hangman. The

Russian VFD Clock

  This display looks very nice, if you are interested in building one (and can find the Russian VFD) the device pinout and code for the controller is available on JKX@Home. Project part 1. Project part 2. “After my nixie clock, I decided to build a new one based on a old VFD vacuum tube. In fact, the brother of a friend (which live in Ukrainia) give me a bag

Flaming LED Skull

Scary Terry has come up with a Flaming LED Skull project that would be good to greet all your guests on Halloween. Terry also links to this site as a good flaming skull resource. “I came up with my version of the Flaming Bucky. Instead of mounting the fan inside the head, I use a 4″ fan mounted near the ground and PVC pipe to direct the air into the