HOW TO – Make a waterproof boombox backpack…
C Connors writes – “A student had a need for sound while running with his friends. Over several revisions, he has made several portable audio systems to provide entertainment at track meets and other running events. The latest is a waterproof boom pack made for a buddy now studying at West Point. He also has documentation of his computer aided design process for developing the files used to create the fabricated parts. If you would like to recreate his process and have access to Pro Desktop and a ShopBot, then check out the wiki here. His classmates computer aided design work is visible here.”
This looks handy for collaborative CAD work, but a little pricey at $995 – “Adobe’s Acrobat 3D software lets people view three-dimensional objects with the Acrobat reader, append notes to the images and send them to colleagues. Typically, design engineers today create a two-dimensional image and send them via e-mail, Bhalla said. Having an embedded 3D image, which people can rotate to view and append with notes, will speed up the design collaboration process and reduce errors…”
Pavel and Richard writes – “Last summer, we had a a lot of fun controlling RoboSapien robot using the serial infrared tower from LEGO Mindstorms version 1.5 kit. However, this required the tower (and thus also a PC) to be in the robot vicinity. Still, thanks to the feedback from the new WowWee family robots owners, we were very keen on seeing that the same program with small modifications can be used for RoboSapien V2, RoboPet, and RoboRaptor …” Here’s how to walk your robo dog with a LEGO bot! [
Richard writes “I have designed the hardware of the PIC game system to be able to run severla different kinds of games. It has two standard C64/Amiga/Atari joysticks and video and audio output. The processor is a PIC16F84 running at 12MHz. THe description of the hardware is placed on this separate page as it is the same for both of my PIC-based video games. So far I’ve only made two games, Pong and Tetris, but some day there might be more games for the system.” [
Cape and Ray writes “The great thing about building a loft, is that it is entirely customizable. Dorm rooms are small and it’s nice to have some extra space, so we built a loft for storage. There are many other things you can do from simply raising a chair or sofa a small bit to building an entire second floor.”

Handy Instructable from murph38_99 – “Create a USB car charger for any iPod or other Device that Charges Via USB by splicing together a car adapter that outputs 5v and USB Female plug. The most important part of this project is to make sure that the output your chosen car adapter is between 4.75v and 5.25v otherwise you risk damaging your device. Please verify voltage with a voltmeter.”