November 2009

μblog will be missed

  Nick Chernyy from μblog is hanging up his writing fingers. He is completing his PhD and needs to concentrate on that. The blog will remain as a reference for as long as the bits live on the server so check back on his old posts to see what you missed. Nick brought us lots of close up pictures of chips, images that us mere mortals would have otherwise never

Chip Hacker

  If you are working on an electronic hack and would like to poll the hacker audience. Chip Hacker is a site that should work well for you. You could also try the HG Forum but you will need to register and jump through a few hoops which are unfortunately required to combat the spam we were getting. Thanks Marcus. "Chiphacker is a collaboratively edited question and answer site for

Worlds Smallest Model Train

  David Smith has built the smallest train I have ever seen. The Claim that it is the worlds smallest is probably true. Watch the video to see a good description of how the drive mechanism works. It is truly out of the box thinking. "After carefully inserting the train-shaped tubing into its oval slot, I bonded the layout to a styrene support block that was in turn bonded to

Voice Controlled LED Sign

  There are lots of Nerd Kits project examples available. Josh Davis used the LED Array Sign project and added a cool option for the sign to display voice messages left with the help of a Google voice to text service. Josh has documented the project here and has made the code available. Via: Make "On the software side of things, there are two python scripts that make everything happen. 

Roomba Pac-Man

  If you like classic video games and robots you need to have a look at this Roomba Pac-Man system. At a glance it may look like a fun game where the Roomba cleaners are being controlled by a bunch of remote controls that people are controlling. That low tech scenario could not be further from what is actually happening here. There is lots of tech making these Roomba robots

Mini Acrylic Tesla Coil Project

  Have a look at this beautiful Mini Acrylic Tesla Coil Project that our friend Daniel Eindhoven from Megavolts.nl put together. The build detail on this project might even rival the MV CoilMaster Mark1 Coil Gun! "A small TeslaCoil fully made of acrylic plastic. The cool thing about this is that every part is transparent. This coil is driven by the power supply of my large DC Teslacoil. Total height

University of Saskatchewan's Space Design Team Space Elevator

  There is some great innovation coming out of the Elevator Space Race. The University of Saskatchewan’s Space Design Team has been in it from the start and has some promising technology. The video describes the monumental task quite well. It goes to show that with some prize money on the line a task as challenging as the space elevator is something that many will choose to pursue. Via: Space