tech e blog

Home-Built Robotic Sentry Gun V.2

"Jtkthx" has unveiled a new version of his home-built robotic sentry gun.

A webcam first takes a picture of the environment in front of the tripod. A computer running Java then interprets that image, deciding on a target. Based on predictions of movement and servo calibrations, the computer sends a signal to a Phidget servo controller, which then moves the four servos attached to an Airsoft mini MP5. Servo 0 is the X (or pan, yaw, whichever you prefer), servos 1 and 2 are the Y (or pitch, or tilt), and servo 3 pulls the trigger

Neuroti-Kart: Custom-Built Electric Go Kart

Created by "wires99", this custom-built electric go kart is "powered by four, 12V car batteries and the frame was made from Home Depot gas pipes."

This is the Neuroti-Kart. (PsychoKart was taken) Homemade electric go-Kart. Design goals: electric powered, quiet, fast, capable of doing donuts in my street

[Source]

$230,000 Boeing 747 Flight Simulator

That's right, Matthew Sheil spent 10 years and over $230,000 building a high-tech Boeing 747 flight simulator. It's powered by thirteen quad-core Voodoo PCs. One more picture after the jump.

For video, he relies on a 42-inch Philips Ambilight LCD, and for the controls he's got Saitek's X52 joystick and toggle. He's even got crappy airline food to go with this 2-ton set up

[Source]

Custom-Built PowerBook Tablet

This followup to the touchscreen tablet, builds upon that creation and takes it to a whole new level. A USC student took apart his Wacom tablet and crammed the internals of a 800MHz PowerBook into it, complete with touchscreen functionality.

The result, two days later, was a a fully functional PowerBook tablet, with a touch-sensitive section. From what we can tell, he also added in a feature so that you can draw words (such as "google") and then use a gesture stroke to load that particular page

[Source]

DIY Tornado Machine

Want to liven up your living room? Then build your own tornado machine, using the plans found here. Here's what its creator had to say:

Can you build this? Yes! However, the design of this machine is more elaborate than it would need to be to just produce a vortex - it is meant to be put in your living room or somewhere else that requires it to look nice. If you follow the construction plans carefully and methodically, you will find that building this machine does not require a lot of work, and the results will be well worth it!

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One-Lane Garage Bowling Alley

Tim bought an old Brunswick A-2 pinsetter off eBay and made it into a one-lane bowling alley inside his garage.

I would assemble the pinsetter in the back room, knock out a whole in the wall when I was ready to assemble the lane which would extend out into the front room (the original garage), and in the winter, I could pack the lane away, cover up the whole in the wall, and park a car in the garage. Nobody would ever know there was a bowling alley in there

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Custom Built Pong Watch

Finally, the custom-built Pong watch we covered a few months ago, is almost finished.

I succeeded in compressing all the electronics for this watch in to a 10mm-thick case. The 96x64 OLED display runs continuously - unlike older LED watches, there is no need to press a button to see the time. Battery life is 25 hours, so recharging is done every night

[Source]

Touchless Lightswitch

Ryan, creator of the "DIY Nerf Rifle", is back at it again, with "a microcontroller based capacitive sensor".

I've found lately though that capacitive detection doesn't have to be so scary. With a few simple design rules and a little signal processing, you can do some immensely cool stuff with basically no effort at all.

[via HackedGadgets]

Vacuum Elevator

This "Vacuum Elevator" is a simple yet "interesting way of lifting a small elevator cab".

When the piston gear depressurizes the area inside the cylinder above the vacuum elevator cab, the cab is then lifted by higher atmospheric pressure below the cab. The inside of the vacuum elevator cab always remains at the atmospheric pressure. As air pressure is lowered above the cab, the cab is lifted

[Source]

MacMini Portable MkIII

Created by Peter Green, this UMPC-like device is actually a portable Mac Mini that sports an Intel Core Solo 1.5Ghz processor, 60GB HDD, and 512MB RAM.

The MMP MkIII is the LIGHTEST Macintosh portable ever made at just 1.9Kg including batteries. This 'UMPC' has a 3 hour battery life, integrated 8" touch screen tablet with hand writing recognition supported by 'Ink, full Blue Tooth, Airport, full SPDIF audio in/out and Front Row capabilities, on screen touch keyboard - no hardware keyboard required