First Chess, then Jeopardy, now the Rubic’s Cube. Mike Dobson and David Gilday’s CubeStormer II Rubic’s Cube solving robot successfully beat Australian Feliks Zemdegs’ 5.66 second record by solving a cube in a mere 5.352 seconds. The feat was accomplished using four LEGO Mindstorm NXT kits controlled by a Samsung Galaxy S II smartphone. The Singularity is near, I tell ya.
Materials researchers at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign have developed a highly conductive silver ink. In this video, Analisa Russo, a graduate student in the research group of Professor Jennifer Lewis shows exactly how to make this amazing ink, which could be used for a wide variety of hobby projects and in advanced electronics hardware. […]
When I first heard about it (I work with its creator, Ryan Mitchell) I figured it was more gimmicky and wasn’t really something that I’d use for an extended amount of time. However, after just one day of having it on my 11″ MacBook Air, I’m finding it to be very useful, and I’m also getting a lot of people telling me how innovative it is.
Building robots is easy if you have the right parts. This Make: Project shows you how using readily available items from the Maker Shed. All you need is a 4WD platform, a motor shield, a PING))) sensor, and an Arduino Uno. Put everything together, load the code, and you’ll have a great robot platform to build from. Good job Nick!
A “beautiful failure” from Trammell Hudson, writing on the NYC Resistor blog. Also a beautiful phrase, that. I shall be adopting it henceforth.
Mycroft Milverton used an Arduino and a Wave Shield to create the Radio Arduino Classic Edition, a retrofitted vacuum tube radio that plays different classic radio tracks when it’s tuned. The device plays 60 tracks in normal mode, but also has an easter egg mode, which can play thousands of tracks. Be sure to check out Mycroft’s original Radio Arduino as well; it’s built in the shell of an Oscar Belle two band transistor radio from the 1960′s.
I’m beginning to suspect an October conspiracy: While last week’s Flickr pool submissions, on average, had a distinctly orange hue, this week they are distinctly black. And I’ll give dollars to donuts that next week, sure as clockwork, we’ll start to see actual jack-o-lanterns. Our featured image this week is cosplayer JiaJem,as “Jack,” from Mass Effect 2, sporting Shawn Thorsson’s sweet “Predator Heavy Pistol” replica prop.
