BOOMin’ MonoBox Mod
Inspired by the MonoBox Powered Speaker weekend project, Tony built his “boom box” into a solid MDF chassis approximately 6″ cubed. He attached a bungee cord to the box for portability, and opted for a combo on/off/volume switch.
Inspired by the MonoBox Powered Speaker weekend project, Tony built his “boom box” into a solid MDF chassis approximately 6″ cubed. He attached a bungee cord to the box for portability, and opted for a combo on/off/volume switch.
The last 12 months have been a busy time for Seb Lee-Delisle. With a buzzing schedule of speaking, creative coding workshops, exhibitions and public events, it looks like this is the year he’s found his feet as a digital artist.
His path has taken many turns. He started by dropping out of a computer science degree, then hopping around various creative digital disciplines, from desktop publishing to music production. In the early 2000s he began to carve out a career in multimedia production for the web. A growing client list led him to set up his own agency, Plug-in Media. But client work began to take its toll:
“We were doing probably the best work you could imagine, very creative, for high-profile clients, but the thing I realised was, even with the best clients, ” he said. “I only spent about 10 percent of my time doing the stuff I really wanted to do and the other 90 percent negotiating, in meetings, scheduling, budgeting, and team management – all this extra stuff, which I wasn’t that interested in doing. It was frustrating; I just wanted to do that 10 perent.”
The good folks over at adafruit industries have put together an amazing tutorial on making gummy candies that look just like 10 mm LEDs!
Uber-maker Mikey Sklar demonstrates how to charge, test, and recover a sealed 12V lead-acid battery from the dumpster, using his Power In My Pocket open source kit.
What goes on, exactly, inside those AAA batteries powering your LED flashlight? The short answer is: Chemistry. Chemical reactions can encourage electrons to flow out from one terminal and back to the other, doing some useful work along the way. Meanwhile, inside the battery, positive ions, also known as electron-holes, are changing places. Eventually the chemical reactions run down, and the battery stops delivering power. If it is a rechargeable type, you can force the electrons and the positive ions to go back where they started, ready to run again.
Friday night kicked off the #hackPHX Arduino hackathon at HeatSync Labs, the Phoenix area hackerspace. Everyone gathered to form 10 teams that included one Arduino newbie, one veteran, and one entrant with “hackerspace” skills (3D printing lasering welding sewing, whatever). They would have use of the entire hackerspace, an on-site designer from sponsor Cynergy, and whatever they could find at local hardware stores. Oh, and one more thing, they had to use our secret ingredient: The Shieldbot from SeeedStudios, developed by Colin Ho is a shield robot for Arduino that has five reflectance sensors, two DC motors and a 3.7V lion battery.
Our friends Nick, Kevin, and Jess from Parallax just released this video with tips for getting started with the ELEV-8 Quadcopter. It outlines common beginner mistakes and how to correct them, along how to safely get airborne the first time out.