Robomaid Hacked
Neoteric writes “This is my second robot after getting the kit for Christmas. No prior electronics experience. The robomaid redo I have been working on is complete. I call it Robomaid2. It uses the outside of this product. It uses 5 IR pairs. 2 in front, 2 on the side, one in back. The front pair is for detecting mfront collisions. The theory of the side pair is that the robomaid2 can hang very close to the walls and cupboard bases, where most of the dust is. (I have not completed the code for this, although it works pretty well like it is) The back IR helps when the robot gets a little too cramped. It rotates, and the back IR helps it get out of loops by kicking the robot forward.” [via] Link.
Tasty project! “Make your own chewing gum with chicle, the sap of the Sapodilla tree that grows in the rainforests of Central America. Everything you need is included in this kit and it’s easy! You can make your own gum on the stove or with a microwave. Once all chewing gum was made from chicle. That’s the sap of the sapodilla tree, which grows in rainforest in Central America. Men called “chicleros” climb up the tall trees, and with their machetes, cut criss-crosses in the trunks so that the sticky sap flowed out. Then the chicle was processed and turned into gum.” [
Awesome derby car mod – “I wanted to show you all the cool car my son Matthew and I made for his cub scouts pinewood derby. We wanted to do something entirely different and decided on mounting a very small camera to it along with an LED in the back to look like a jet engine. It was powered by a 9V battery which also served as the car’s weight. The car broadcast wirelessly to a receiver which we recorded on mini-DV. We won 7 prizes and finished 4th in the races.” [
Phil writes “Spare time projects of engineers. Some wierd, some wonderful. It’s a regular feature of Design News magazine, and always gets passed around here in the lab – Design News celebrates the third anniversary of the Gadget Freak files. This popular column, sponsored by Allied Electronics, profiles the sometimes useful and always entertaining inventions that Design News readers come up with in their spare time.” 
John writes “Here’s how to make a device that is useful for visualizing the movement of small particles and for demonstrating slip planes, dislocations, defect holes, and the three states of matter. If you would rather not create your own, you can buy one for $50, but this DIY version costs about $8”. 
Devin writes “These pages are a nice guide to making high voltage items (toys?) out of trash! These two pages show how to make a Tesla Coil out of trash, and how to hook up TV flyback ransformers for all sorts of fun HV stuff (arcs, jacob’s ladders, capacitor-bank charging, coin-shrinking, etc.)” 
Frank writes “Here are some projects, plans, rural skills, renewable energy, home CNC machine building, home/hobby metal casting, dry humor, tons of pictures…Since 1999 theworkshop.ca has evolved from a general interest hobby site to become an international Small Foundry resource…2005 marks the entry into the “Art-Casting” and “Industrial Proto-Typing” markets…Industrial Proto-Typing is a service that caters to the manufacturing sector through to inventors that want a single part or series of parts cast for a “Proof-of-Concept” application.”