DIY Projects
USB Disco Dance Floors and a Bar!
Batman writes “Last Aptil, MIT created their very own Disco Dance Floor. Over the summer, they released their code and sold their PCB boards online, and here are some examples of what people have done with it: WashU’s Disco Dance Floor, Clint’s Disco Dance Floor, Tom’s Disco Dance Floor (in German), and David’s Disco Bar!” Link.
InventionDB iPod contest ending next week!
Michael writes “The InventionDB iPod contest is ending on Sunday 1/8/06. The contest will award the best project entry with a 30 gigabyte iPod video. Creators of any age and experience level are welcome to enter – all you have to do is create a project entry with three images and three connected resources. Entries are judged primarily on quality of the documentation (concise description, pictures, resources, etc.). InventionDB.com is an online database of projects, resources, creators, communities and vendors. It provides users with free tools to quickly build online project documentation.” Link.
What to do with free game gear?
Hunter is looking for some ideas for the discarded game gear he found, post up in the comments! – “My friend and I had an unusually lucky day and we got a lot of free electronics. Some of them working and some not. Here’s what we got: N64 – working, original playstation – working PS2 – works sometimes, Gameboy pocket – not working, gamecube – almost new condition and working and working we already have all of these so we were wondering if you would have any suggestions on how we could mod them or what we could make them into. it doesnt necessarily have to be all of them together. we were thinking about making the PS2 sphere but the PS2 doesnt work all the time and there isnt a step by step instruction on how to make the PS2 sphere.”
The LED center
John writes “Heres’ a great resource on LED products, but more importantly some of the best information on using LEDs in your own projects. Most useful are the LED calculator and the LED series/parallel array wizard for calculating resistor values for your LED applications. It even gives you the appropriate resistor color code. Talk about service!” Link.
NES Mod links…
Here’s a great list of NES projects, we’ve covered some of them here on MAKE, but there are lots of project that are new (to me)…“Got one of those extra NESes lying around? Bored out of your mind? Well you’ve come to the right place to find out you can modify with your Nes, here is a list of links to things you could modify with your Nes.” Thanks knoppy44! Link.
Make Your Own Coffee Pods…
A Make reader sent in a cheap way to make pods of his favorite coffees instead of being stuck with “proprietary” coffee – “Do you really like your pod coffee maker, but wish you could use your favorite brand of coffee instead of paying a premium price for a mediocre blend — just because it is shaped like a pod? Why not make your own? Most of what you’ll need is probably already in your kitchen.” Link.