Over on Seattlest they have a great story about SeattleWireless member Casey Halverson and how he is providing WiFi access to passengers on the Sounder commuter rail service from Tacoma. The self-contained backpack based 144Kbps portable hotspot can be found in the first car of the last morning train and in Car 403 on the 5:10pm return trip.
About a year ago I was at Radio Shack headquarters hanging out with my friend and Make pal Dave, while there I saw the now released Vex Robotic Kits in early development. The cool thing, amongst other cool things about these robotic kits is that they were specifically designed to be used in the FIRST national high-school science competition (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology). We’ll try and do a review of these here right away. I’m so thrilled to see these. PC Magazine article here, along with photos here.
Make Flickr group pool member drewish asks “I’m trying to find out more about using surface mount components in my projects. I came across a link that’s almost got me convinced that I can make it work. If anyone else has any info or must-have products for hand-assembling/soldering SMT components I’d love to see them”. Anyone have any advice for him? Post here or join the Make photo pool to post.
Starting in April Bill Nye is hitting the public broadcast spectrum with some science shows- his latest is called “Eyes of Nye” and the show (according to the /. story) will cover topics like addiction, cloning and climate change. I hope they release these via the web Bit Torrent’ed. If anyone knows anyone that is connected with the show or Bill can you drop me a line?
The Elevator Slingshot- When the elevator door opens, the pencil is pulled from the two rings that hold the slingshot back, launching a wet paper towel into the door of the elevator. Here are the pictures from the engineering floor of Daniels hall, Winter 2004 at the University of Cincinnati by Steve Farber.
[Via WMMNA] This is the one of the most incredible projects you absolutely need to see. The Pixel Roller “rolls” out a picture in any direction on any surface using phosophescent ink which will eventually fad away. Check out the video here and gallery here.
What do you get when you combine some particle board, 112 mirrors and our closest star? The Solar Death Ray. Each of the tiny mirrors are angled to hit one area (the target). The Solar Death Ray can heat the target up to 500-600 degrees Celsius (930-1100 degrees Fahrenheit). More about the tech here, and some target gallery action here (burnt stuff).
