Technology

Mini Tabasco Bottle Mood Lamp

Mini Tabasco Bottle Mood Lamp

Mike from Nootropic Design created this Tabasco bottle lamp: I love Tabasco and always though that their cute little miniature bottles could be the basis for a great specialty lamp. I was very happy to find that a 3mm LED fits perfectly in the bottle opening of the miniature bottles. By designing a custom circuit […]

Meet 5 Basic Survival Needs with a Busted Cellphone

Meet 5 Basic Survival Needs with a Busted Cellphone

The Art of Manliness has a post up about dismantling a broken cellphone in order to mine it for useful components that can keep you alive after you get stranded in the middle of nowhere. Tools include a compass out of magnet paired with ferrous metal wire, a survival signal mirror out of a layer of screen, and a small-game snare out of headphone wire. But my favorite is the arrowhead spear made from a circuit board.

Michael LaGrasta's DeskLights 2.0

DeskLights Ambient Notification System

San Diego-based software engineer Michael LaGrasta brought his DeskLights ambient notification system to Maker Faire Bay Area this year, where I had the chance to meet him. In a nutshell, using an Arduino Uno Ethernet and 160 RGB LEDs (in the form of Adafruit’s Pixels, “the desk receives event notifications over the network and alters […]