Getting a finished look on custom gear is always hard. If it was made in your basement it usually shows. Rabbisu demonstrates how it is possible to make a great looking custom audio panel using the toner transfer and galvanic etching method on some metal panels. The results look great, the only thing I would change is that the dials would all go to 11. Check out the gallery for
Our friend Carlos from Carlitos’ Contraptions has joined the Aldebaran Developer Program, they make the Nao humanoid platform. Thanks to Carlos we will get a first hand view into how this robot works and what it can do. At $16,000 it isn’t a toy but as a humanoid development platform that is a decent price. It reminds me a bit of the RoboSapien but is much bigger and has a
Jérôme Demers from the Université de Sherbrooke built this fun Fart Meter, I can just imagine how much fun this would be in an office environment. 🙂 The meter uses an Arduino to monitor a Methane sensor, the dial then indicates how much gas it detected. Not sure I would want to be a judge in this competition… You probably remember Jerome from his Robot Build that he shared with
If you are a procrastinator and have some electronics in your junk box why not make one of these LED hearts for that special someone. ThermalRunaway did a great job on the circuit board but I think I would have made mine from a heart shaped box of chocolates. The circuit is very simple and I like the way the components are symmetrical and look quite nice when laid out
Johnny Lee from Procrastineering (who we interviewed about 3 years ago) made a great DIY Video Chat Robot project. He is using a Roomba as the movable robotic platform and a netbook as the video conferencing system. Skype is used to do the actual telepresence. We did an article about the Anybot Telepresence Robot recently which is the same idea in a more polished package but essentially provides the same
We recently featured the DIY Electronic Watering System which used technology take care of your plant for you but what if you still want to be involved but just need some reminders to keep your plants alive? Have a look at the Talking Plant Project that jeff-o made called The Plant Whisperer. We have all heard that talking to your plants is good for them but I wonder if having
LEGO NTX projects can be lots of fun but what if you need to have one part of your project talk to another and wires are not practical? There are lots of wireless technologies around but they would be hard to interface to your LEGO NXT system. That is until now, dexter industries has developed a NXTBee sensor which allows you to extend your LEGO projects from around the corner
