SlashGear » DIY

IllyClock squeezes color-changing time into coffee can [Video]

Chris Davies — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 16:09:12 +0000

While showing admirable recycling motivation, sticking a clock inside an old coffee can isn’t enough to impress us; Instructables member florinc makes the grade because his DIY IllyClock adds in some color magic too. Based on a Wiseduino – an Arduino clone with an integrated real-time clock – and an LED shield, the clock lights up its numerals in different shades depending on the time of day.

Video demo after the cut

Three hours before the alarm is set to go off, the numerals change from green to orange. Then, an hour before it’s due, they switch to red. The idea is that you can squint at the alarm clock in the night and tell roughly how much time you have left in bed without actually needing to decipher the actual time.

If you’re short-sighted then that could be a particularly handy feature. The Instructable is seemingly based on this previous IllyClock, as shown in the video below.

Relevant Entries on SlashGear

Itch Chair Scratches Your Itches, Itches Your Scratches

Evan Selleck — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 19:56:15 +0000

Have you ever been sitting in a chair, comfortable, and then suddenly you’re assaulted with this itch right at the center of your back? You know your arms can’t reach it (not that you don’t try), so then you’re forced to rub your back against the chair itself, hoping that you can rid yourself of the annoyance. Sure, you may look like a crazy person for a little while, but at least you took care of that itch, right? If that’s been you on one too many occasion, maybe it’s time you sit down in one of these fancy itch chairs, and relax in what the future has in store for us.

The Itch Chair (it’s got a ring to it, if you say it enough) is designed by Dana Gordon, and uses a scratching actuator that is controlled by a touchpad on the base of the chair’s seat. Basically, as you run your fingers across the touchpad beneath you, the mechanism will move across the back of the chair, and scratch your back for you. No moving around like a mad man, or reaching desperately for the spot you can’t get to. It’s all done for you.

And while some other items with a trackpad may not work all that great, from what we can tell of the still images, there’s probably not much this piece can really get wrong. Though, with interchangeable “fingernails” to better suit your scratching needs, we’re hoping the chair can’t become self-aware or anything. That would just be a bad day. No word on release date, but the rough draft seems to be pretty “rough” at the moment, but we’ll keep our fingers crossed that this comes out soon.

[via Nerd Approved]

Relevant Entries on SlashGear

Special glove lets you play rock, paper, scissors with yourself

Shane McGlaun — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 13:09:14 +0000

One geek with lots of time, a fetish for rock, paper, scissors, and apparently no friends to play with has developed a glove that plays rock, paper, and scissors with you. This might be the perfect glove for making up your mind if you have mixed feelings about some decision or if you just don’t have any friends.

The glove uses some cool tech to actually learn your style of play and try to beat you rather than throwing out random objects. If you are inclined to build your own version of the glove, there are full instructions on the builder’s website.

The thing is built using a glove, 9V battery, Arduino Pro mini 3.3V 8MHZ processor, and accelerometer, LEDs, and a number of other things. You can get the code needed to make the glove work from the builder’s site too.

[Via CrunchGear]

Relevant Entries on SlashGear

DIY R2D2 gets super-detailed build log [Video]

Chris Davies — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 10:30:35 +0000

Having spent almost two years putting together his to-scale R2D2 – complete with authentic sound effects – Victor Franco is now attempting perhaps an even tougher challenge: documenting the whole thing. The 140lb robot has become a mainstay at charity and publicity events, and can be completely remote-controlled.

Video demo after the cut

Construction is primarily plywood, aluminum and PVC, along with various chunks of MDF, resin, styrene and steel as necessary. Victor estimates the whole build cost him around $5,000 in materials (and perhaps another $2,500 in unused materials, hence why the build log will be so helpful to would-be copycats hoping to not overspend by 50-percent).

In fact there’s a sizeable community of people out there trying to build their own Star Wars droid, and it’s easy to lose an hour or two looking at galleries of the various gatherings where they drag the robots out of their garages and gather them together. More details on the build process in the video below.

[via Hack N Mod]

Relevant Entries on SlashGear

Steampunk coilgun looks like the love child of Walther PPK and a radar gun

Shane McGlaun — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 12:22:42 +0000

Steampunk designers make some cool stuff that often looks modern and old at the same time. One of the coolest steampunk designs we have seen in a while was that steampunk Professor X wheelchair that turned up last week.

We spotted a cool steampunk coil gun over on Make today that looks like the weapon James Bond would use in an alternate universe. The coil gun actually shoots projectiles that are apparently powerful enough to punch through cardboard at close range.

The gun uses a coil of copper wire along the barrel to launch the projectiles and the power source is external. Inside the brass case of the power pack are 15 photoflash capacitors that get the needed juice to fire from two AAA batteries. Check out the dark video below to see the thing fire.

Relevant Entries on SlashGear

Turn your Wacom tablet into a Cintiq clone with new kit and some elbow grease

Shane McGlaun — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 12:04:38 +0000

If you are the artsy type that uses a Wacom tablet to draw on your computer, you may have lusted after one of the sweet Cintiq displays that let you draw right on the screen rather than use a tablet. You may have been bummed at the price of the Cintiq screens too at well over $1000.

Fear not, if you are a DIY type, you can take your Wacom tablet and turn it into a Cintiq clone on the cheap. OK, maybe not cheap, but the kit costs less than the Cintiq for sure. The kit is available for four different Wacom tablet models and includes the enclosure and other materials.

Kits are offered for the Intuos4, Intuos3 A4, Intuos2, and UD starting at $221.55. The rub is that the kit doesn’t include all the parts that you need for the conversion. You will also need your own LCD screen sized depending on the tablet you are converting along with the enclosure kit and Wacom tablet. Only kits for the Intuos3 and Intuos4 are available right now.

[Via Hackaday]

Relevant Entries on SlashGear

Final Cut saw blade cuts and sands at same time

Shane McGlaun — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 12:47:55 +0000

I am a DIY kind of guy, in some instances anyway. I change my own oil; I can hook up your home theater and fix your computer. I’m not that great when it comes to building stuff from a pile of wood though. I can build it, but it might not be straight or stand up and stuff. If you like to build things that require power tools and wood the Final Cut saw blade may be the coolest gadget in your toolbox.

Final Cut looks like a plain old saw blade for your table saw. The difference is that on the sides of the saw blade where there is usually nothing, the Final Cut blade has sand paper. That means you can cut your trim pieces and sand the cuts at the same time.

I once had a dog named Gordy that liked to eat toilet paper, which was cool because he could drop a deuce and wipe at the same time. The Final Cut saw blade is sort of like good ol’ Gordy taking care of two things at one time. You can get a 10-inch blade for $64.95 and replacement sand paper discs for $27 per four pack.

Relevant Entries on SlashGear

OutRun real-world gaming cart simulates road, allows for real accidents

Chris Davies — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 10:31:12 +0000

Take a SEGA OutRun arcade cabinet, strap on a go-kart and get a university to fund the whole thing, and you’re approaching Garnet Hertz’s “immersive driving experience” project. The UC Irvine post-doctoral researcher has adapted the road-ready (though we’re not sure how legal) setup to track the upcoming highway and convert it into the 8-bit on-screen graphics. That way, you drive a real vehicle down a virtual road.

Given there’s more to road safety than tracking the white lines Hertz’s system follows in order to fashion its graphics – which come complete with OutRun-style palm trees, naturally – the golf cart based vehicle only manages a 15mph top speed. Hopefully the driver thus has enough attention to keep an eye on other vehicles and pedestrians.

Still, the researcher doesn’t actually expect any of this to end up on the open road; instead, it’s intended to highlight the limitations of computer vision and the discrepancies between real-life and games. ”No matter how good computer vision is, it is never going to be completely perfect” Hertz explains, “Computer vision is never as good, as complete, as the real world.”

[via Kotaku]

Relevant Entries on SlashGear

Pixel Qi Offers DIY Screen Replacement: Easy As Changing a Lightbulb

Evan Selleck — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 19:27:26 +0000

Do it yourself kits aren’t new, and it’s not even a new phase washing over the world. People have been finding ways to make things on their own for quite a long time. It’s part of man’s ingenuity. But some times, or maybe even more often than not, doing it yourself can be a real pain. Well, Pixel Qi wants to make it at least a little bit easier for you to replace that bland ol’ LCD screen on your laptop by offering you a do it yourself kit.

Over at the Pixel Qi blog, Mary Lou Jespen clarified a few certain points about the kits. She elaborated on the planned release date, and even expounded on why Pixel Qi is doing anything like this in the first place. First, the kits will be available by the end of the second quarter, this year. The company is going to offer up more official details when the launch gets closer. Secondly, Jespen goes on to say that during her time in Nigeria, she realized that a kit like this could be far more beneficial than people realize. Especially with the technology that Pixel Qi utilizes (a combination of LCD and E-Ink), the uses are almost endless.

In her recollection, she elaborates that 11-year old girls were taking it upon themselves to fix the monitors on laptops in their region. With this story, she alludes to the fact that changing the screen on a laptop is “only slightly more difficult than changing a lightbulb.” Basically, remove the bezel, unplug the current screen and then plug the Pixel Qi one in. Now, if you’re a fan of the warranty that comes with your laptop, this is obviously not the way you want to go. But, whether you’re out of your warranty of you’re just one of those people that love to do things on your own, we can’t stop you.

[via Pixel Qi]

Relevant Entries on SlashGear

Crazy HDD clock is a geek dream

Shane McGlaun — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 13:33:00 +0000

I have several HDDs crammed in the drawers of my desk that I don’t really have a use for. I have taken HDDs apart before just to see what was inside and a dude named Viacheslav Slavinsky has taken an old HDD and made one of the coolest clocks ever from the remains.

The dude etched numbers into the platter of the HDD somehow and strobes LEDs behind the numbers to show the time. Behind the platter is a PCB with its diffused LEDs in each character position that can be strobed independent of each other.

The platter of the HDD still spins crazy fast and as the platter spins and the LEDs strobe, you get a persistent display that shows the time. This is all kinds of cool; my kids have a couple foam fans that have words on the blades when they spin that uses similar tech. I wouldn’t want to touch that platter while the clock is in use and it’s rather loud to boot.

[Via Make]

Relevant Entries on SlashGear

Professor X steampunk wheelchair isn’t powered by thought

Shane McGlaun — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 13:19:16 +0000

I can appreciate the time and creativity it takes to pull off some of the steampunk projects we see now and again. One of the latest is a steampunk interpretation of the wheelchair Professor X of the X-Men uses to get around.

The thing is made from a 150-year old rocking chair that the maker, Daniel Valdez, upholstered himself. The works of the powerchair is a modern power wheel chair that your grandmother or grandfather might need to get around. Those long brass pistons are old pieces that worked the bellows in an iron works factory.

The tubes on the back are filled with vodka and cranberry juice says the maker and the tank on the bottom back of the chair is an ice chiller to chill said vodka and cranberry juice. The tap on the side is strategically placed to allow the user to get a drink without standing up. This may be the perfect mode of transportation for those who don’t like to walk and drink. The sound effects the thing makes are powered by an Adafruit Waveshield.

[Via Adafruit]

Relevant Entries on SlashGear

Debrand your iPhone with DIY polishing tutorial

Chris Davies — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 11:44:53 +0000

Horrified at Apple’s recent lawsuit against HTC, and refuse to flaunt the company’s brand on your iPhone any more? We think you’re probably taking the patent litigation a little too seriously – Mommy and Daddy still love each other, they just choose to show it via the ITC – but just at the right time comes Hack N Mod’s gadget polishing tutorial, showing you how to take a battered iPhone (or any other gadget) and with a little elbow grease bring it back to unbranded life.

To be fair, the tutorial isn’t intended to remove the Apple logo from the back of the iPhone; that was just a byproduct of the polishing. In fact the handset was a heavily scratched example from eBay, with a cracked front display to boot.

With some dedicated buffing, however, and the help of 3M’s $15 Headlight Lens Restoration Kit, the iPhone is taken to perhaps a better shine than when it was box-fresh. The replacement screen cost $10, so the whole endeavour was far cheaper than buying a new iPhone housing. We reckon there’ll be quite a few people keen to de-brand their handset, scratches (or HTC argument) or not.

[Thanks Michael!]

Relevant Entries on SlashGear

Free motion stationary cycling, DIYed [Video]

Paul Fang — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 05:36:23 +0000

Cycling workouts are difficult to actually execute when you’re living in a highly urbanized area like downtown New York or Los Angeles, or on those dark, rainy days. For those who don’t feel like falling to the stationary bike as a last resort, there are these remarkable DIY-able free motion bicycle rollers.

I’m fortunate enough to live in a more suburban part of Los Angeles, so the only reason why I’d consider these would be rainy days (which we’re getting more of lately), and because I already own a road bike that could be used with this Instructables project. It does look somewhat dicey, but less so than being hit by, say a car or something.

At $35 in parts and apparently less than 4 hours or so to make, it looks to be something for the more venturesome, so YMMV, indeed.

[Instructables via Gizmodo]

Relevant Entries on SlashGear

Twitter LED table project mixes Bluetooth, IKEA & awesome

Chris Davies — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 14:24:34 +0000

We’ve a soft-spot for odd Twitter-enabled devices – anything that lets us follow the SlashGear tweets in unusual ways has to be a good thing – and so Macetech’s Twitter end-table, which also throws in some multi-color LED action, is proving particularly appealing. The project builds on their previous LED table, an IKEA coffee table wired up with 81 RGB lights in a 9×9 grid, adding in a Bluetooth Arduino shield for wireless connection to a nearby MacBook Pro.

The MBP has some custom code that uses the Twitter API to pull in anything tagged #ledtable, squirting those messages over to the table. The tweet then scrolls across the LED array, while the app waits 30 seconds before searching again.

Future developments include two-way feedback from the table itself, potentially adding sensors that could allow it to send its own messages to a Twitter account. Alternatively, you could hook up several different devices via Bluetooth and have them each display different kinds of status updates: server status in the office, say, and personal messages in the bedroom. The whole thing cost around $600 to make; more details here.

[via MAKE]

Relevant Entries on SlashGear

Why buy a DSLR when you can build your own SLR?

Shane McGlaun — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 14:11:07 +0000

I have a DSLR camera and if I am to be honest, I don’t know how to use the darn thing. I have to break out the manual every time I need to change lenses and if I get into manual modes, all bets are off. I mostly bought the thing so I could take pictures of my always in motion kids and actually get them not just their elbow or the side of their head thanks to slow shutters on point and shoot cameras.

We have seen lots of new cameras including more than a few DSLRs debut recently with PMA 2010 underway. If you want a new camera and don’t want to just buy one, you could always build your own SLR like one French geek has. In the end, I will have to say the thing is ugly. It looks like some Russian camera from the 60’s.

Still, thinking that someone scratch built the entire camera including the housing is very impressive. Details on exactly how the maker of the camera pulled this off are few and in French, but I am impressed.

[via Make]

Relevant Entries on SlashGear

DIY Barbot uses breast-milk pumps [Video]

Chris Davies — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 10:30:26 +0000

Ah, the future. Tinfoil suits, robots that make us drinks. It may not yet be socially-acceptable to wrap yourself in aluminum foil and roam the streets, but with a little DIY work – and three breast-milk pumps – you can certainly create the automatic barbot of your dreams.

Video demo after the cut

The humbly-titled “Drink Making Unit” shown here is the handiwork of Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories, and was thrown together for for Barbot 2010. It’s all pretty straightforward: the breast-milk pumps – which are obviously food safe – are used to suck up various liquids from the carafes placed on the shelf behind, before dumping them through an ice bucket that drains into the glass.

Control is via a simple button panel that has an accompanying 8×8 LED matrix for system messages and self-promotion. Currently it’s set up to produce White Russians, as you can see in the video below.

[via HackNMod]

Relevant Entries on SlashGear

MSI Wind gets sliding touchscreen tablet mod

Chris Davies — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 14:38:41 +0000

The slider form-factor isn’t unusual in mobile devices – HTC’s Touch Pro2 has a particularly nifty mechanism, and larger handhelds, such as the PsiXpda UMPC, have used it too – but how about a 10.2-inch slider tablet? That’s what InsanelyWind forum member c0ff33 is working on, turning his Advent 4211c (a rebadge of the MSI Wind U100) into a touchscreen tablet that opens up to reveal the QWERTY keyboard.

Right now he’s managed to flip the display around and fit the touchscreen layer, as well as add some custom shortcut buttons that allow him to more easily choose between the dual-booting Windows 7 or OS X 10.6.2 installs. Unfortunately there’s no sign of the sliding mechanism as yet, but it’s working as a regular slate instead.

c0ff33 has extended the LCD connectors in preparation, and is now looking for suitable sliding hinges. We’re not entirely convinced this is the ideal form-factor for a device of this size – especially considering how far up the touchscreen will have to slide in order to reveal the keyboard – but we’ll withhold judgement until the final results.

[via Netbooked]

Relevant Entries on SlashGear

DIY Dell Mini 9 netbook keyboard light

Chris Davies — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 16:11:58 +0000

One of the frustrating things about netbooks is that, because they’re cheap, you usually miss out on premium features like backlit keyboards. Of course, because they’re cheap owners often feel happier with the idea of opening up and generally hacking them, and that’s just what My Dell Mini forum member vrg3 did to his netbook. Wanting to still be able to type while in the dark, he drilled a hole for a white LED up by the A90’s webcam, which is toggled on and off via the Ctrl key.

He describes it as the DIY version of the Lenovo ThinkLight, and it uses an LED salvaged from a string of Christmas tree lights together with a ATTiny13 microcontroller. The latter monitors the Ctrl key via the keyboard pins; hold down the button for a few seconds and it switches the light on and off.

Of course, if you’re feeling less confident about microcontroller programming then you could rig up a switch or button somewhere instead, though of course that would probably require more holes cutting in your netbook. While the photo above doesn’t look dramatically impressive, according to vrg3 that’s the fault of the camera rather than the performance of the LED itself.

[via Lilliputing]

Relevant Entries on SlashGear

DIY Vicacopter is open source and autonomous

Shane McGlaun — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 14:38:50 +0000

We have seen several interesting helicopter or quadcopter devices turn up recently. One of the coolest was the Parrot AR.Drone that we played with a bit at CES. If you are into making your own gizmos, a DIY project to make one has been posted at Make.

The project was offered by Jack Crossfire and is called the Vicacopter. The device is an autonomous VTOL UAV and the build sounds challenging. A caveat is included stating you need to be an expert in PIC assembly, electronics, and the devices source code to make it work.

In all the copter has under $100 in parts in it and can fly and take off unaided. The device has a sonar sensor for indoor flight and GPS for outdoor flight. The missions for the copter are written in picoC scripting language. The thing is pretty darn cool.

Relevant Entries on SlashGear

DIY WiFi radio based on OpenWRT

Chris Davies — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 15:53:15 +0000

WiFi radios have fallen to a price point where you have to be pretty DIY-obsessed to bother making your own rather than picking one up off-the-shelf, so we’re all the more impressed by Gary Dion’s effort. Starting from an ASUS WL-520GU wireless router, he threw in a USB audio adapter and a VFD display together with a custom enclosure to match the rest of his A/V setup.

The build owes much of its inspiration to Jeff Keyzer’s DIY WiFi radio from back in 2008. The various parts have a DIY controller board keeping them all in check, and then the router gets reflashed with OpenWRT. The whole thing can be locally controlled with the front-panel knob and button, or you can log into it remotely over the network.

[via MAKE]

Relevant Entries on SlashGear

iPort Control Dock uses iPod touch as in-wall controller

Chris Davies — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 15:50:17 +0000

Home automation controller specialists iPort have been talking about using an iPod touch as a budget A/V controller for years now – we last wrote about their in-wall docking cradle back in 2007, no less – but if you’ve been looking for a more permanent solution than a simple dock then they’ve a prototype that may appeal. At CES 2010 last week the company was showing off the iPort Control Dock, intended to semi-permanently mount an iPod touch for in-wall use.

The system consists of a docking cradle – which is inserted into a section cut out from your drywall – and a magnetically-attached faceplate that snaps in front. The iPod touch is powered via the dock, and two hardware buttons are used to control its power and Home keys. Both landscape and portrait orientations are possible, and since many companies have iPod touch clients for use with their A/V and home automation systems it’s reasonably platform agnostic.

It sounds like iPort are yet to decide whether to put the Control Dock into production; VP of sales Jason Sloan told CE Pro “we’re looking at that right now.” While sandwiching an Apple PMP in the wall might seem extreme, compared to how much many integrated color touchscreens cost even a brand new iPod touch starts to look like a bargain.

Relevant Entries on SlashGear

DIY Quadrocopters: Quaduino NG and AeroQuad [Videos]

Chris Davies — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 14:37:46 +0000

Parrot’s AR.Drone was a surprise hit at CES 2010, but if you can’t wait for the off-the-shelf option and want some quadracopter action right now then there are a couple of DIY projects that might scratch that itch. The Quaduino NG and the AeroQuad (pictured) both rely on the Arduino microprocessor as their flight boards, combining gyroscope information with other sensors to make steady flight more straightforward.

Video demos after the cut

Parrot are yet to announce pricing for the AR.Drone, but we’re not expecting the quadracopter – which is remotely controlled from an iPhone or iPod touch, and can beam live video back to the user’s handset from an onboard camera – to be cheap; similarly, putting together your own (basic) version from off-the-shelf parts isn’t inexpensive either. The Quaduino NG team estimate around $505 (excluding a suitable controller).

The end result lacks the design finesse of the Parrot version, but it potentially much more flexible since Arduino is so terribly open to tinkering. Future mods to the AeroQuad include the same sort of live video feedback as the AR.Drone has, together with an LED display board and improved auto-pilot skills.

Quaduino NG video demo:

AeroQuad video demo:

[via MAKE]

Relevant Entries on SlashGear

DIY Android Doll and Rovio dog-costume: when geeks get crafty

Satsuki Then — Wed, 30 Dec 2009 17:09:46 +0000

We’re not sure what it is about geeks, sewing kits and the holiday season, but bizarre DIY efforts seem to proliferate at this time of the year. Over at Recombu they’re sharing a stuffed Android doll tutorial, which shows you how to make your very own smartphone desk-stand in the shape of the Android logo, while an enterprising modder over at RoboCommunity has whipped up a dog-costume for his WowWee Rovio.

The Android doll basically involves enlarging the official logo, tracing around it in felt, and then trying to avoid pricking your finger too much as you sew up the edges and squeeze in some stuffing. It’s the ideal gift for someone who just received a new Android handset over the holidays, or perhaps someone you’re not especially fond of.

As for the dog costume, that’s the handiwork of RoboCommunity forum member quine9, who wanted “something a bit more stealth” in which to dress up his WiFi-enabled robotic webcam. We’re not quite sure how convincing the disguise would be in a line-up with some real dogs, but we doubt there are many burglars who could face down its glowing eyes.

[Thanks Andrew and Robert!]

Relevant Entries on SlashGear

For DIYers and PC Gamers, GIGABYTE System Builder released by Futuremark

Paul Fang — Thu, 24 Dec 2009 05:32:46 +0000

Most shoppers for a new PC face the dilemma of deciding how much to spend (especially in this economy) and what type of performance they should expect in return. Known for its performance analysis software and services( for PCs and smartphones such as the the 3DMark benchmark suite), Futuremark, is attempting take the strenuous guesswork out of the process of purchasing a PC with the System Builder by Gigabyte online tool.

On the site, users can easily select from drop-down menus the latest Gigabyte-based system components including motherboard, CPU, and graphics card, and from that, configure their desired build. Then, the System Builder does an automatic calculation of the total Manufacturer’s Suggested Retail Price costs as well as the 3DMark benchmark performance of the selected hardware setup, and ultimately allows the buyer to examine the cost and performance of the system before purchasing any actual hardware.

As stated by Futuremark, “Anyone at any budget can confidently make PC purchasing decisions for any PC component combination using the latest CPU, motherboard, and graphic card technology.” Not quite a try it before you buy it plan, but close; it’s a way to prevent some of that buyer’s remorse before you even consider buying anything.

Relevant Entries on SlashGear

IntoDream DIY handheld SEGA DreamCast [Video]

Chris Davies — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 10:59:38 +0000

It seems we’ll never tire of seeing full-sized consoles refettled into handheld casings, and that’s handy since gamers don’t seem to tire of attempting such miniturization. Today’s – the handiwork of Bacteria – is the IntoDream, and it takes the venerable SEGA DreamCast and packs it into a handheld with a 5-inch PSone LCD, official PAL DreamCast hardware and joystick from the Nintendo N64.

Video demos after the cut

The grey window in the top right hand corner is where the DreamCast’s VMU sits, the combo memory cartridge and display/portable mini game unit – and the whole thing is powered by a 6 amp battery. That’s good enough for up to 2 hours 15 minutes of solid gaming, which pales somewhat compared to a DSi or PSP but then again they’re not using mainstream gaming hardware.

It’s all good enough to run Quake 3 and Unreal Tournament with no problems, and was the handiwork of four months effort. No plans to sell it, however, though there’s the possibility of a few basic commissions being taken for less complex consoles than the DreamCast.

Build log:

Demo video:

[via Joystiq]

Relevant Entries on SlashGear

Better Mousetrap design packs 102lbs of strike force [Video]

Chris Davies — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 10:02:07 +0000

Taking old ideas and making them better – or at least shinier and more entertainingly complex – is the geek creed, and with that in mind we have quiet admiration for Jake Easton’s “Better Mousetrap“. Powered by compressed air and triggered by motion sensors, the polished pest control box isn’t, Easton concurs, as simplistic in its design as an original trap, but it’s “a lot more fun to watch”.

Video demo after the cut

Inside the 0.25-inch thick hand-crafted aluminum case lurk the various solenoids, valves and electronics, and the whole thing tips the scales at 5.5lbs. To be honest you could probably do more damage to vermin by throwing it at them, but then that’s not taking advantage of the 60psi of pressure on tap.

At just 40psi, the trap snaps shut with 102lbs of strike force, once you’ve armed it and withdrawn all fingers to a safe distance of course. Those of you who hold a special place in their hearts for small toy mice should probably not watch the following video.

Relevant Entries on SlashGear

Project 413 makes xkcd robot hamster a reality [Video]

Chris Davies — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 15:54:33 +0000

When it comes to brilliantly awesome DIY projects, building a real-life version of xkcd’s robot hamster rates pretty highly in our book. That’s just what Stuart Donnan and Jacob Nieman of Georgia Tech have done with their Project 413, however, taking an eBox nettop, giving it omni-directional wheels and mounting it inside a ferret ball (hamsters are pretty small).

Video demo after the cut

Unlike the xkcd version, theirs doesn’t have an external camera – they didn’t have time to properly implement it – and it’s not autonomous. Instead it’s controlled remotely via a host PC, with the operator using a Wiimote to direct the ‘bot.

Since the wireless link used is WiFi, the robot can be controlled over the internet rather than demanding the user is physically nearby, so you could realistically use it as a Rovio alternative. If you’re tempted to make your own, Donnan and Neiman have helpfully published the schematics and software code on their project page.

[via Hack A Day]

Relevant Entries on SlashGear

Harlequin dual-touchscreen netbook mod is DIY Courier

Chris Davies — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 11:30:15 +0000

Now turning a netbook into a cheap tablet or UMPC isn’t new, and we’ve seen plenty such mods before, but this so-called Harlequin project is something else. My Dell Mini forum member pakkei decided he couldn’t wait for Microsoft to release the Courier and thought he’d make one himself, converting his Inspiron Mini 9 into a slate-format tablet and adding in a second, 9-inch USB touchscreen.

He’s expecting to use the left panel for reading content – as you can see in the image above, there are shortcuts to different websites running across the bottom of the display – while taking notes on the right panel, either handwritten or pecked out on an on-screen keyboard. Since the netbook is running Windows 7 there’s both handwriting recognition and voice recognition, and you can also flip the orientation of the two displays and use it in a more traditional notebook form-factor with touchscreen controls.

So far most of the system is functional, but it needs a dual-hinge casing and some cable work to slim everything down. Still, we’ve a feeling pakkei will have his DIY Courier complete before there’s a whiff of the real thing on the market. Ironically, too, Courier is tipped to have been originally inspired by another dual-screen mod, that time courtesy of Microsoft Research’s Ken Hinckley, which we wrote about all the way back in October 2008.

[via Netbooked]

Relevant Entries on SlashGear

Google Maps Navigation hack blocked outside of US

Chris Davies — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 19:08:46 +0000

Google appear to have closed off the loophole that allowed users of Android smartphones to access the Google Maps Navigation beta outside of the US. Tutorials explaining how to unlock the software – which was announced back in October – appeared in late November, and showed how workarounds for Google’s location limitations could enable the turn-by-turn navigation for users in the rest of the world. Unfortunately a software update for Google Maps on Android this weekend appears to have cut off those workarounds.

The Google Maps Navigation beta added voice guidance prompts together with voice control to US Android 2.0 devices initially, and then was rolled out – though without voice control – to Android 1.6 handsets. One suggestion for Google’s move to block the unofficial hack is that they use different mapping suppliers for US versus non-US Android devices, and as such only had licensing agreements for turn-by-turn from the US providers. For the same reason, the Motorola MILESTONE launched in Europe with Motorola’s own navigation app, whereas its US DROID counterpart has the Google beta.

Relevant Entries on SlashGear

DIY Word Clock from old digital photo frame

Chris Davies — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 15:57:24 +0000

We reckon this is a mod that could be pretty popular after the holidays, when people wonder what exactly they’re going to do with the non-wireless digital photo frames they’ve been given. Matt Mets took one look at his and decided it would make a great DIY Word Clock, stepping through slides with the time written out long-hand; a frame that can automatically change the image every sixty seconds would even be able to do all the clock-work for him.

The best laid plans don’t necessarily go as expected, however, and Matt had to get around the fact that his digital photo frame doesn’t actually have a one-minute frame shift. Instead he used an Arduino clone wired into the guts of the DPF that triggers the next-image button every minute.

His tutorial includes that code, but of course if you’ve got a suitably equipped frame you won’t have to go to such efforts. People are already suggesting different ways of displaying the time other than words – we’re particularly keen on the idea of lots of different clocks and watches.

[via MAKE]

Relevant Entries on SlashGear