Kaden (who has an excellent Machina Arcana biz) sent along this how-to on making springs. “If you’re trying to make a spring to replace a broken one, you don’t need to know a whole lot about design. On the other hand, if you’re making a prototype of a machine, for instance, and you don’t know exactly what you want, then this page is for you. Here you’ll learn some basic data about spring design, which is what you’ll need to know to make exactly the spring you want.” Link.
Chris writes “I was looking to make my own Power Over Ethernet injector for my Apple Airport Base Station, and found this great looking HowTo. Haven’t tried it yet, but I plan to.” Link. Here’s another one we’ve posted, if you have others to help Chris out – post them in the comments.
“The Quarter Shrinker uses a technique called high velocity electromagnetic metal forming, or “Magneforming”. This technique was originally developed by the aerospace industry in conjunction with NASA, and has been popularized by Aerovox, Grumman, and Maxwell. It involves quickly discharging a high energy capacitor bank through a work coil to generate a very powerful and rapidly changing electromagnetic field which then “forms” the metal to be fabricated. While it works best with metals of relatively high electrical conductivity such as copper or aluminum alloys, it will work to a more limited extent with many poorer conducting metals and alloys such as steel or nickel.” Thanks Derek! Link.
Martyn sent along some more photos of the LEGO Pinball machine we previous posted. The LEGO pinball machine is made from +20.000 bricks and 13 RCX units that communicate in 2 communication chambers each with a seperate program. Build time was +300 hours. It runs on NQC software and it’s ALL Lego, except for the ball. Link.
This MP3 player is made from an old Nintendo controller. The buttons were rewired and are used to control the music and select the songs. If you have an old controller and a busted up MP3 player, this looks like a fun mod to attempt. [via] Link (translated page).
Giorgio write “Hi, with respect to the post you wrote about Spiral Island, well it seems that island was destroyed during the past hurricane season.” – Spiral Island was a floating artificial island in a lagoon near Puerto Aventuras, on the East coast of Mexico south of Cancun. It was built by British expatriate Richie (or “Reishee”) Sowa beginning in 1998; he filled nets with empty discarded plastic bottles to support a structure of plywood and bamboo, on which he poured sand and planted numerous plants, including mangroves. The island sported a two-story house, a solar oven, a self-composting toilet, and three beaches. He used some 250,000 bottles for the 66-by-54-foot structure. Spiral Island was destroyed by a hurricane in 2005. Mr. Sowa plans to build a stronger island in a more sheltered area. Link.
“The original Minix was an educational operating system – that actually served as the inspiration for development of Linux. MINIX 3 is a new open-source operating system designed to be highly reliable and secure. It is based somewhat on previous versions of MINIX, but is fundamentally different in many key ways. MINIX 1 and 2 were intended as teaching tools; MINIX 3 adds the new goal of being usable as a serious system on resource-limited and embedded computers and for applications requiring high reliability.” One of the nice things about Minix 3.0 is that unlike previous versions of Minix – it installs and runs just fine inside of Virtual PC. Thanks Brian! Link.
