April 10, 2007
DIY HACK - Sound Trigger Circuit for High Speed Photography
Wow, check out this cool sound trigger circuit DIY for High Speed Photography! The general use is quite simple: setup a noisy event to trigger the flash. Since I am using the Sigma EF-500 Flash, which have an internal “dumb slave”, I activate a led to tell the flash when to fire. A more general solution can be found here. he circuit ... More
April 9, 2007
DIY HACK - AVR Ethernet Weather Station
Wow, check out this cool AVR ethernet weather station! My original plan was to have sensors for temperature, air pressure and wind. I started a prototype and it worked very well except for the wind measurement part. I have written a separate article about it: wind-vane-ver01.shtml. I plan to improve the wind measurement hardwa ... More
April 7, 2007
Snow surfing with a Antartic Snowbot
Check out some of the cool Antartic autonomous solar robots being developed here. Above is a picture of a guy (yes holding a laptop), snow-surfing at about 5mph… Not too bad on solar power, we give thumbs up for that. One morning, while taking walking behind the robot and dragging a sled of equipment for quantitatively measuring the strengt ... More
DIY HACK - Double the battery life
Check out this howto on doubling your battery life by replacing a linear voltage regulator (the thing that converts DC voltage, e.g. from 12V to 5V) to a switching regulator. Switching regulators are way more efficient than your typical off-the-shelve crappy regulators such as 7805 which get too hot too fast. Get the Dimension Engineering regul ... More
DIY - How to Collect Hydrogen and Oxygen!
Here’s a cool instructable on how to collect some hydrogen and oxygen! In this instructable I’ll give you a simple way to collect Hydrogen gas and if you want also, to collect Oxygen. Depending on the voltage and current that you use for the project this could be hazardous. I used a 14.4 volt power drill battery pack for the process bu ... More
April 4, 2007
Interesting Links for the day
Does Daylight Savings comin’ early really helpful? (via kottke) How to redirect Digg traffic if you are on a shared server using .htaccess file Orbitfiles Offers Six Gigs of Free Online Storage 8-core or quad-core Mac Pro workstatio Forget YouTube: Go To These Sites If You Want Hard Core Copyright Infringing Content Brain implants?!? Blo ... More
HACK - Window shade also acts as a solar powered Window Light!
Wow, check out this awesome window shade that also acts as a solar powered light! This is a continuation of a project from Design for the 5 Senses that I worked on with Michael Jefferson and Jae In Lee. It’s a window shade that doubles as a light. One set of strings would be to control the level of sunlight by adjusting the height of the sh ... More
March 29, 2007
DIY HACK - 120,000 Volt Van De Graaff Generator!
Download latest version of Flash to view video!. Cool, here’s an instructable that shows you how to zap stuff at 120,000 volts! It’s Frankenstein time. Who doesn’t enjoy the smell of ozone and the snap of a big fat spark? The dome is rotating due to vibration Although a Van De Graff generator has recently been posted I decided to ... More
March 28, 2007
Make a coffee with lasers!
Download latest version of Flash to view video!. Click Here to View in Full Screen Mode Holy S*#t, these guys can make some coffee with lasers! Well, we should be getting our dragon laser soon thanks to Frank! Tight! We will see if green lasers have a better effect on the taste of coffee… [Mr Beam] sent this in yesterday, but I didn̵ ... More
March 26, 2007
Solar Lawnmower and Mopbot
Okay, I’ve finally been able to stay away from the computer thanks to my girlfriend. But we are back for some more hacks and DIYs. Check out these cool solar lawnmower robots and mop robot if you don’t want to spend $200 on a Roomba. You could probably make these inventions a little bit smart by adding a programmable controllers su ... More
March 20, 2007
ECOS LIFELINK - A Solar/Wind Water, Electricity AND Wireless Station
Check out the Ecos Lifelink that brings re-use of energy through solar power, wind power, water power. Even wireless is provided “re-using” that same generated power. Awesome! (Save earth, peace! >- ) One of the most brilliant inventions we’ve seen to date is this mobile, portable structure which provides water purification, el ... More
March 19, 2007
High School Student Builds Nuclear Fusion Reactor
Wow, check this out. A high school student has built a nuclear fusion reactor. Maybe he can make the next Back-to-the-Future car… High school student Thiago Olson has gone beyond basic physics class. Way beyond. Using parts and materials scrounged from the local hardware story and eBay, Olson built a working fusion reactor. In November 200 ... More
March 17, 2007
Recycled Computer Parts Art
Here’s a great way to save earth and energy. By making your own computer parts art like this guy, you can help us eliminate PCB waste and toxic chemicals from being spread especially for older hardware which are lead abundant. via Art, Circuits, Circuits, computer_parts, Consumer, Consumer, Cool, Cool, DoItYourself!, DoItYourself!, Eart ... More
March 13, 2007
DIY - How to make a Colored Light!
Okay, this one doesn’t take a genius but it’s a really good idea. Maybe someone can take this color light concept further. color-light, Consumer, Consumer, Cool, Cool, DoItYourself!, DoItYourself!, DoItYourself!, Educational, Educational, Energy, Energy, Entertainment, Entertainment, Gadgets, Gadgets, genius, Graphics, Graphics, Hac ... More
DIY - How to build your own Penny Stove
Check out this howto on making your own Penny Stove for your next camping trip instead of buying one from Wal-mart. It is as powerful as stove top burners! The Penny jets produce a flame size about the same as those on a Viking stovetop. Obviously Viking thinks that big jets must be an effective way to burn gas and transfer heat to a pot and my ... More