Feral Robot for Public Authoring
Tom writes “The first of 2 planned Robotic Feral Public Authors has been completed and is ready for its first field trial in London Fields next week: The robot has two sensors (air quality and carbon dioxide) and GPS location sensing. The sensors were selected to reflect the concerns voiced in our community pollution mapping workshop back in November, which identified air pollution as the key environmental issue of local residents. The robot communicates its Lat/Long position and sensor readings back to the Urban Tapestries public authoring system via a WiFi connection.” [via] Link.
Another great how-it’s-made-site – “How Stuff Is Made is a visual encyclopedia that documents the manufacturing processes, labor conditions and environmental impacts involved in the production of contemporary products. It is a free, independent, academic resource published by engineering and design students, who research and produce summative photoessays describing these conditions of creation.” Thanks Star! 
The new ReadyMade blog has some fun projects for Valentine’s day “Everyone’s favorite, or least favorite, day is just around the corner. Here’s how to impress your lover, friend, or family with some hearty DIY treats…” [
Nice contest for PSP homebrewers! “PSP News and the DCEmu Network are proud to announce the 3rd Coding Competition for the PSP and this time the Competition is for 60 Days instead of 30 and not only that but the top prize is a yummy GP2X Console which for any coder is a welcome addition to their collection, heres some details about the prize.” [
Alexandre made his own door opener – “I sit about 5m from my office’s door. So, every time someone ringed the bell I had to stand up and open the door. That would be fine if the door did not have an electric door opener just next to it! An ingenious device that allows you to open the door by simply pressing a button. Because of this, the device had no use at all. After all, if you were in front of the door, you could simply open it using the handle. Thus my goal was to give a purpose for the simple life of this poor electric door opener (and, of course, to save a walk of 5m ten times per day).” [
This might be a good Roomba mod project…“Grower is a small ‘rover’ vehicle which navigates around the periphery of a room. It hugs the room’s walls and responds to the carbon dioxide levels in the air by actually drawing varying heights of ‘grass’ on the walls in green ink. The Grower robot senses the carbon dioxide (CO2) level in the air via a small digital CO2 sensor.” Thanks James!