Chris Jang is building his own autonomous robot – “This robot is my first electronics and embedded systems project. I studied Electronic Circuits and Applications by Senturia and Wedlock for six months and then rebuilt and cross compiled my home computer systems with a Linux From Scratch book to prepare for it. This project is also the first time machining moving parts (as simple as the front suspension is, the parts do move). I’ve maintained what a friend referred to as an “mail blog” during the project. After some progress or discovery, I emailed a status report of sorts, usually with pictures and (rarely) movies attached. A coworker convinced me there is value in these emails as artifacts of the project history.” [via] Link.
Joelsprayberry iPod mount Instructable for his Honda Element – “I had been lookin online for ideas on the cleanest way to mount an ipod that wasn’t in the way, with wires everywhere and was not cumbersome to use or to see. I got a ipod mount for a bicycle handlebarfrom gpscity.com and modified it to fit.”Link.
AizeMashehu’s writes “I built two fan controllers into a happy-face baybus for two sets of fan arrays so I can hear the sound of silence while the eight large fans chug-a-lug-lug. One knob on the new fanbus controlls the two rear 80mm fans blowing into the water-cooling radiator (in addition to the existing 120mm fan with rear-mounted speed control knob sucking air out of the radiator from the other side) and the other knob controls the 2 front 80mm fans that blow air around 5 of the fastest hard drives in the machine. You can see a close up as well as an explaination of the switch here and the main machine that this is wired to in the other photos in this series.”Link.
Article on Cleveland.com about our new book The Makers! “The ability to create something from almost nothing is why the 100 grass-roots inventors profiled in “Makers: All Kinds of People Making Amazing Things in Their Backyard, Basement or Garage” so intrigued me. The book is written by Bob Parks, an editor and writer at Wired magazine, but it springs from the minds of the editors and contributors to Make magazine.”Link.
Bug writes “Make your own Mardis Gras mask out of water-hardened leather. Start with vegetable-tanned (also known as saddle-skirt) leather. I picked mine up at a local Tandy Leather. You’ll also need paint suitable for leather (fabric paint usually works).”Link.
Here’s how Wrapper makes custom iPod cases – and their latest, your virtual character on an iPod case – “A cover for an iPod video that features a client’s avatar. We can make great products from online identities used in massively multiplayer games. Unike developers of single player games, MMORPG developers seem relaxed about gamers making copies of their avatars and using them in RL.” [via] Link.
Bruce Stewart, editor of the new ETel site, joins The Distributing the Future Podcast for a look back at the highlights from last week’s O’Reilly Emerging Telephony conference. Josh Kinberg shows you how easy it is to get started with video blogging and what to expect if you just want to watch some good ones. Bruno Souza continues his look at open source in Brazil. Link.MP3.