Magnetic wristband keeps parts at hand
I don’t usually get tool envy, but I’m really digging the idea behind the MagnoGrip wristband.
Computers & Mobile
The latest DIY ideas, techniques and tools for digital gadgetry, open code, smart hacks, and more. Processing power to the people!
Windows Phone-powered t-shirt cannon at MIX10
Our Coding4Fun neighbors had a lot of great projects on display, including their Coding4Fun Cannon, which was a robotic t-shirt launching platform with two barrels. What’s more, it was controlled by a Windows Phone 7 app, and they completed it in two weeks
Kindle for Mac – can’t search your books
Kindle for Mac beta is out today, I am trying to like my Kindle while an iPad is looming… but the Kindle for Mac app does not allow searching.
How-To: Make rigid carbon fiber tubes
Epoxyworks is a free magazine published biannually, and archived online, by Michigan’s Gougeon Brothers, Inc., who use it to promote their West System brand of epoxy resins, which I have not used and have no stake in, but it’s chock full of tutorials, tips, and techniques for working with composite materials that could probably be “de-branded” and used with whomever’s products you prefer. Shown here are photos from one article that caught my eye (PDF), by J.R. Watson, showing how to form straight and curved rigid composite tubes in carbon fiber, kevlar, fiberglass, or other braided material by laying the composite up over a mold made from split foam pipe insulation. It also covers techniques for joining the finished rigid tubing sections. [Thanks, Alan Dove!]
Twitter-controlled N900 LEGO robot
NIKO is a collaborative effort to build a Twitter-controlled robot as part of the Noika PUSH N900 Mod in the USA campaign. Recently team member Eric posted this short video showing hie progress.
Materials library lets you play with exotic samples
If you’re interested in materials science, design, architecture, and/or chemistry, and you live in Austin or the central Texas area, you should not miss the UT Austin School of Architecture Materials Lab, located in room 3.102 of the West Mall Office Building on The University of Texas Campus. They’re closed this week for Spring Break, but are normally open from 9-5 every weekday. It’s open to the public, and is chock-a-block with physical samples of all kinds of exotic materials that would otherwise be difficult to get your hands on in small quantities. Anyone can poke around, and registered students can check out samples just like a book-library.
If you’re not in the area, the UTSOA Materials Lab is building an online database of its collection organized by composition, form, properties, process, and application. And although they don’t have photos of all the samples uploaded yet, it’s still fascinating browsing.
Easy-thread sewing needle
You know, as long as human beings have been squinting and poking at the tiny eyes of sewing needles, it’s pretty amazing that it’s taken so long for some clever inventor to address the problem. These spiral eye sewing needles are available direct from their inventor, Pam Turner of Minnesota. I’ve never used one, but the user feedback I hear echoing through the tubes is uniformly positive.
