2006

Lego Hacks

Lego is inherently a creative product, think of something and then put it together with little blocks of Lego. Well for some people Lego alone isn’t good enough. Might as well make a computer out of it like this one that Winston built. Not good enough? Why not build an entire fleet of computers out of Lego then! Don’t like the computing power of the available Mindstorm Computer? Derek Anderson

Snake Robot

This is Snake robot number 7, go to the site to see the other 6. There are also interesting videos available on the site. Materials: Expanded PVC plastic, steel rod, and plastic gears S7 is an experimental prototype that is still under development. It was inspired by a Dr. Miller’s encounter with a python. In particular it avoids using wheels to achieve locomotion by implementing a more advanced segment design.

Stanley, Winner of the DARPA Grand Challenge 2005

What is Stanley? It is the most hacked Volkswagen Touareg you will ever see. According to New Beetle “Stanley is built from a stock, Diesel-powered Volkswagen Touareg R5 modified with full-body skid plates and a reinforced front bumper. It is actuated by a drive-by-wire system developed by the ERL. All processing takes place on 6 Pentium M computers and measurements are incorporated from GPS, a 6DOF inertial measurement unit, and

Digital Gibson Guitar

This is not your average guitar. How many have you seen with a RJ45 jack mounted in them? Before you run to the store and buy one you should know the price. Are you sitting down… $3900.00 “Gibson is twanging about its digital guitar, and we spent some time strumming it today. This thing is amazing. It’s a standard Les Paul axe with an RJ45-out instead of the usual amp

ScanJet Music Hack

GanjaTron’s web site has some interesting items on it but the most interesting is his HP ScanJet hack. He found an article by HP that demonstrated an easter egg for the scanner. There is a PlayTune command that allows the user to send commands to the scanner that will move the scanner head in such a way that it produces a sound note! I guess some of the design engineers

New WD Hard Drive Aimed At Modders

Western Digital on Thursday announced the Raptor X hard drive, a new product line geared for the modding community. The Raptor X, which incorporates many of the features WD has included in its enterprise line of hard drives, trades performance for size: the 150-GByte SATA drive spins at 10,000 RPMs. In a unique twist, the drive also includes a clear cover, so that modders can show off the internals of