When I first got to play with the EZ-Robot Controller I thought it was just another microcontroller. I assumed I would have to take time to learn it’s programming syntax and the Bluetooth would be hard to set up. I was wrong. Wonderfully wrong. In under 5 minutes I was able to have a crude-looking robot chase my dog around the room using voice commands!
Love Hultèn‘s R-Kaid-6 packs the Maximus Arcade MAME front end, and cooly, you can stack the controllers on top of the console when you’re not playing. [Via Geeky Gadgets]
Looking to step up your gingerbread house making game this year? Check out this amazing gingerbread brownstone project from Instructables user kitchentablescraps! Living in Brownstone Brooklyn myself, I’m definitely impressed with the meticulous attention to cookie-and-frosting detail—there’s even a fire escape!
Radio whiz Greg Charvat just published this video showing off a very cool experiment with the low-cost coffee can radar system he and co-workers developed, in the fall of 2010, for MIT’s open courseware initiative. In the video, Greg describes and demonstrates a simple circuit that causes a red/green LED on the receiving antenna to glow one color when the amplitude of the received wave is positive, and another when it is negative…
This is a perfect project for stocking stuffers or small gifts for groups of friends. Brooke of Cheeky Kitchen shares how she and her daughter made flavored lip gloss using simple grocery and craft store ingredients. See how it came together over on her blog. I love her ideas for making holiday-themed flavors (including mistletoe!).
The Opena is the brainchild of Melbourne area makers Robert Ward and Chris Peters. Besides protecting your handset from the occasional ding, it’s also handy with liberating the contents of bottled beverages.
Just because your device doesn’t do what you want it to, doesn’t mean you should give up and accept what is handed to you. This N900 game controller from Polish maker Emeryth is a shining example of modifying technology to suit your needs. Plugging directly into the device’s USB port and controlled by an ATmega8A microcontroller, this one-off adds an analog stick and six buttons, which is perfect for playing emulated games on the workhorse handset.
