Hey we are live at the Maker Faire, blogging live! See our automated camera that follows people? Well, it’s a $160 Logitech camera we got in a hurry at Best Buy last night just before the store closed. Glad we got it working although the internet here sucks sometimes. Anyway, our booth is really popular!

Garrett is doing a great job with the crowd while I am hiding in the back. (Why am I hiding? Blogging of course!)

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Here’s a very simple wireless keyless entry DIY using some relays and stuff, very similar to the Wiimote Door Unlocker.

The mechanism is simple enough, just a momentary button on the panel in my apartment, but the mess of wires in the wall is a little unsettling. I took some meter readings of the terminals and sorted out the door button wiring. You can see where the door button is soldered through the PCB, which made it easier to identify the proper terminals. This panel has a “Door”, “Talk” and “Listen” button. The “Door” button is normally-open and the circuit is about 22V. In the following steps we’re going to effectively bypass the button with our own circuit.

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Wow, check out this cool DIY on how to make a rotating LCD! This IS very useful for reading PDFs and whatnot.
If you don’t want to make one or you are about buy a new LCD, there’s also bunch of LCDs out there that already rotates. (which I use at work)
CNET has a great review of rotating LCDs.

This fixture is very usefull for rotate 90 degrees the monitor in order to see o read documents in in a portrait fashion, there are drivers for video card that support this modes, in my case i use it to read pdfs.

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Check out this cool supercharged airplane you can make in your free time!

The single-sheet paper airplanes you made when you were a kid (or perhaps last week in your cubicle) were, well, kid stuff compared to this beefed-up paper craft, which uses an electric motor from an old pager or toy powered by a big electrolytic capacitor. Known as a “Gold Cap” and made by Panasonic, the capacitor charges from a battery pack and then metes out a steady flow of power to keep your propeller whirring for about 10 seconds—just long enough to send the flyer airborne and carry it between 30 and 100 feet.

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Wow, check out some of these really cool DIY Thumb Pianos!

Sometimes an instrument you know can become something else altogether. Bob Collier has been constructing his own thumb pianos, adding amplification, effects, self-sampling features, and novel cases involving recycled camera bodies and faux fur. As Bob says, “Sometimes the crudest and roughest looking kalimbas can sound surprisingly good especially with the right context of fx and
amplification.”

I find kalimbas beautiful and delicate to begin with. Throw in some faux fur and Korg KAOSS Pad effects, and they take on a whole new life:

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Check out this Automatic Color Sorting DIY that uses some DC and stepper motors from an old HP printer and uses Parallax’s new 32bit processor as the brain. Brilliant!

This could be great to low budget project requiring color sorting.

Once the Sensor was figured out I started to build everything. Most of the parts including the DC motor and stepper motor were taken from an old HP 712c Printer I had laying around. The carriage system for the ink head was my main platform for the sorting process to occur on. I then had to design a way to control the flow of m&m’s, this was accomplished with the idea of using a system that is commonly found in gumball machines and a coin sorting machine. I then made a CAD drawing for it to be milled by my father using a CNC machine.

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Similar to the previous post, here’s Zedomax Soju Lamp. The great thing is that I didn’t even TRY to make it, it was just there from my dedication to drinking daily while blogging. (Yes, if you are over 18, we recommend this route. Make sure to have a companion while drinking. DWC - Drink with a companion) Although I drink beer mostly, sometimes I resort to Soju because it’s only 16% alcohol and let’s me drink less thus not getting a beer belly. Plus, soju does give you better ideas and let’s you be more creative. (Okay, kids, don’t follow my example until you are in your late 20s…)

Well, I haven’t really finished the Soju Lamp yet, I still have to finish the other side (I haven’t got to it yet, have been very busy with rice wine. Rice wine is very good too.)
One day, if I do finish my Soju Lamp, I will post a nice picture of it. (The above picture is actually a year and a half worth of work. Why I haven’t finished yet? Sometimes, I forget to save the Soju bottle caps.)

HOWTO: Make sure you untwist your Soju bottle carefully so all of the metals stay intact. Then, simply twist the ends of Soju bottle cap while making sure NOT to twist it off the cap. Then shape it so it will fit right on the edge of your lamp. That’s all! Now, the rule is that you must finish all your drinks before putting it on your lamp. So make sure take a long term plan for this project. (Maybe 1-3 years based on your drinking and metal twisting skills. I’ve had many times where I’ve lost the metal ends even though I have a lot of experience…)

By the way, what is Soju? You can read all about it on Wikipedia. Well, to explain it simply, it’s similar to Japanese Sake, but slightly with more alcohol and somewhat like vodka in taste. Chamisul is the Soju you gotta go for if you want to real stuff.

You can email me at max at zedomax dot com if you have any trouble or if you start throwing up and can’t blog…just don’t blame me.

They say in Korea, in order to do business, you have to be able to drink this… (Well that’s what everyone says and I think it’s true…)

UPDATE: Here’s a video of what Soju does to you if you drink too much:

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Check out these cool Container Home Kits from Lot-EK. These would be great for quick setup of your new vacation home while saving earth too by re-using.

Lot-ek’s scalable system can accommodate anywhere from 640-2560 square feet, and comes fully equipped and ready to plop on-site with built-in electrical, plumbing, HVAC, and fully insulated AND furnished. It’s fully-equipped conceptually as well, making practical use of the world’s surplus of ISO cargo containers while exploiting the inherent structural qualities of the containers themselves.

via inhabitat