Like most geek-filled offices, at my workplace we have several Nerf guns and similar toy weapons floating about. Not impressed with the performance of my colleague Lesterโs Nerf Maverick, a mainstay of Nerfโs suction-cup-dart-firing โN-Strikeโ series, I decided to build a better Nerf gun myself. Hereโs the result: a simple weapon, single shot only, but […]
In early 2011 my robot club, the Dallas Personal Robotics Group, was looking for a way to help our beginning members build up their skills. To this end, we produced a series of lessons covering 5 topics needed to make a simple, programmable robot: making PCBs with the toner transfer method, programming ATtiny microprocessors, laying […]
By John Baichtal and Adam Wolf Do you remember those classic video game arcades filled with rattling quarters, 8-bit songs, and flashing lights? You can reclaim that excitement in your own living room with this Coffee Table MAME Console. In 1997, Italian software developer Nicola Salmoria released the first iteration of MAME (Multiple Arcade Machine […]
The average life expectancy of a hot water heater is about 10 years, so itโs not a question of if it will leak โ itโs simply a matter of when. In my part of the country, homebuilders have been installing these tanks in the attic. This saves space, but also means that if you donโt […]
When I read the Geekcon 2010 call for projects, I thought, what the hack โ Iโll do it. Inspired by Julia Cameronโs The Artistโs Way, I decided to let creativity into my life, and start inventing things. I watched Sterling Johnsonโs magnificent โGiant Stinson Beach Bubblesโ clip on YouTube, and when I described it to […]
It might have been Robots of Saturn that first got my young brain thinking about building a mechanical man. In that obscure 1962 sci-fi adventure novel, Dig Allen and his fellow teenage space explorers transfer their thoughts into the bodies of teleoperated robots to mine Saturnโs dangerous rings for precious Methane-X. Using some of my […]
Sometimes nothing is as important as perspective. My goal in photography is often to find a view no one else has found, to be able to see things from unusual and insightful vantage points. The most practical way to obtain the elusive aerial perspective is by attaching a camera to a mast. While not trivial, […]
