Arno writes “Just like the Yamaha papercraft site you wrote about earlier, this site has some nice 3D papercraft in different categories such as: animals, science, buildings of the world, seasons, holidays, games, kids, etc.” [via] Link. The Science section is my favorite. As paper becomes smarter, with micro-ink technology, these papercrafts will become 3D models that can also dispense code and information.
Greg Smith’s kids started a company that makes costumes for Roombas. The company is “myRoomBud” and they’re currently selling a few different variety of Roomba skins. Mooba Cow, Roor the Tiger, Zeb the Zebra and Spotty the Leopard. They’re motto is “If you don’t dress up your Roomba, it’s just a naked vacuum.” [via] Link.
I think Quanta makes Apple’s Powerbook too, I wonder if they made the eMate…“The One Laptop per Child (OLPC) organization, which hopes to bring a $100 laptop championed by MIT’s Nicholas Negroponte, has selected Quanta to serve as its original design manufacturer, or ODM. ODMs typically manufacture products, but also participate substantially in the final design. Although not many U.S. consumers know the name, many own Quanta’s products. The company produces systems for Hewlett-Packard, Dell and others. It is engaged in a long-running rivalry with Compal, also based out of Taiwan.” Link.
Paolo writes “Here’s a project developed by the Federal Polytechnic School of Lausanne to build insect robots that are able interact with cockroachs communities.” On the site there are photos, videos, PDF schematics and software to download. Link. In MAKE 02 we had a Made on Earth with a roach controlled robot…something for these little guys to look forward to I suppose.
Robie from Pirateweather writes about a new service called Feed2Podcast that will turn your RSS feed (or any RSS feed) into a audio player so you can listen to the feed “They/we use new text to speech engine and your rss feed and turn your blog into a podcast instantly” It’s a pretty good text to speech engine – here’s what it sounds like with their preview audio player, click here to listen. Neat!
Chris has a great arcade building how to, he writes – “…the cabinet construction was completed in 24 hours, but it took about three months to get around to the last few bits (like decorating the unit), so don’t complain if after one day you don’t get something that looks like the unit on the left! Please browse through the links at the top and bottom of each page. They will cover the construction diary (in blow-by-blow detail), the finishing of the unit together with a shopping list, prices and then information on the PC inside the unit. Finally you will be able to download some plans we created after building the device, together with some of the graphics that are on the unit.” Thanks Rick! Link.
Rob writes “One of my co-workers and his brother are somewhat serious about their Christmas lights. They welcomed the introduction of LED lights, because it meant that they could stop adding new electrical panels to their house. Of particular interest to MAKE readers are the technical notes on the sidebar of their site.” Link. But wait, there’s more! Snopes on another music sync’d home, and you can see it on Google video. Lastly, build your own – with MAKE!
