October 2009

Name the Thing Contest - 102

There will be two prizes this week (one winner for each prize).  The first is a cool remote control watch. Have fun messing with your friends or the TVs at your local hangout. The second prize is two of our new 1 foot LED lighting strips. These 12 volt LED strip lights can be installed anywhere such as under your cabinets, in a shed or in a vehicle. The strips

Bumble-b LED Matrix Computer Interface

  Guysoft shows us how to create a Bumble-b LED Matrix Computer Interface. I have never used a Bumble-b but for $17 how could you go wrong? It seams like one of the best ways to communicate directly via USB to a computer. Via: HG Forum "After getting my LED matrix to display messages, I wanted to make use of the USB port, and get the matrix to work as

POV Fan Display Hack

  This POV Fan Display Hack by Hacking with Gum required a bit of reverse engineering to determine how the device worked in the first place, then a way to re-program the operation of the device to display a new message.  Thanks Craig. "It turns out that Cenzic made it very easy to access the fan’s EEPROM chip, and with a simple RS232-to-I2C interface you can re-write the EEPROM on

Halloween Scar Effects and Real Scar Tattoos

  Wow if I run into someone this Halloween with effect makeup that looks as realistic as the video above it will certainly send shivers up my spine. It demonstrates that you can really step it up from the production rubber mask that most people pick up at the corner drugstore. Have a look at the tutorials listed for more Halloween scar techniques. How to make a fake wound Create

Weight Logging Bathroom Scale

  This is a cool scale mod. The Weight Logging Bathroom Scale saves the the time stamped weight for each use to an SD card. This allows the data to be plotted and analyzed. The method that the weight was taken from the existing digital scale platform is real interesting. The original LCD data lines were snooped on to determine what value is being displayed! Thanks Jorge. "First I thought

Bricklin On Technology - Review

  Dan Bricklin is one of the developers behind VisiCalc back in 1979. Dan hasn’t slowed down since VisiCalc, in Bricklin On Technology he shares his visionary thoughts with all of us. It is written in an interesting way, many sections are filled with blog posts and views on how technology will influence our lives. As a true Engineer he is always attempting to solve the needs of his fellow

ChessBot - Chess Playing Robot

  Norris Labs has created an interesting Robot called the ChessBot. It doesn’t actually play the game but rather has the ability to move the chess pieces around the board. Just imagine playing a game of chess on this system via webcam instead of playing virtual chess on the net. "ChessBot takes a hybrid approach that produces a more visually interesting way to move a chess pieces. It uses a