We have seen some pulse jet builds before but this Pulse Jet Kettle has to be once of the funniest builds I have ever seen. You can see the kettle in operation at the 3:20 mark of the first video. It has an added bonus of waking up everyone in the house to get ready to have a cup of tea. Via: Hackaday
Ben Heck shows us how he used an XBox 360 Chatpad as the keyboard input to a small computer. The Chatpad has only a few pins to connect to the external circuit (which is normally the XBox controller). Microsoft has been nice enough to provide a programming header on the circuit board. Ben flashes the integrated PIC chip with some custom firmware to allow the device to simply output
If you enjoy biking this Open Source Smartbike project will be of interest to you. Luis Cruz who brought us Eyeboards last year is now enrolled in the University of New Orleans and has started this new project. Luis will make the code and schematics available in December so you could make your own. If you would prefer to buy one you could support his Indiegogo. “The Smartbike is
We have seen lots of these word clock builds. Our friend Muris has just completed his word clock build, he is using a ATmega328P microcontroller to command the 248 LED matrix to show the time and a little something special (watch the video at around the 32 second mark). Atmel AT42QT1011 touch sensors add a nice way to interface with the clock and I am impressed by the professional
Check out this cool tour through a speaker manufacturing plant. I am quite surprised to see how much manual labor is involved and how much wasted movement of parts and pieces goes on. With some thought behind the production line I think the process could be greatly simplified. Although with a high end, high price product I guess you don’t need to be as fast and efficient as other
Youtube user TopCityGear has really gone all out in this PVC Nerf Air Gun project. A used cordless drill provides the ergonomic handle for the gun, the trigger of the drill activates a sprinkler solenoid which releases the air and propels the projectile down range. I have always been surprised how well sprinkler valves work with high air pressures since it isn’t what they were designed for. The video
If you are looking for a way to get a pan tilt camera into a plane this Techpod U.A.V. Kickstarter might be what you were waiting for. Watch the video to see how much technical work went into the design and see the plane take flight. The dome in the front allows a pan/tilt camera to get some great shots. “A high performance remote control airplane for first person
