Build your own YBox for free at the Maker Faire

We caught the nifty YBox last year when it was still just a proof-of-concept, and now the folks at Uncommon Projects are ready to unleash their televised-widgets-in-an-Altoids-tin wonder on the world -- for free. There's a catch, though: you have to show up at the upcoming Maker Faire in San Mateo, California, and build it yourself. Yahoo is sponsoring free workshops with parts for all, and all the skills you need to get one together will be taught at the 'shops. No worries if you can't make it out to San Mateo, however, as you can still get the schematics and parts list from the YBox website and build one at home, but you'll be doing a little more work -- Uncommon Project's Kent Brewster has already milled 80 Altoids tins for Maker Faire participants. Peep a vid of YBox assembly after the jump.

[Thanks, Wasabi]

[Bob @ May 17th 2007 6:47PM]

Damn that's cool, unfortunately I 've got finals and can't go, but that would be neat to make one

[kuzu-b @ May 17th 2007 8:01PM]

Considering that I work in San Mateo, and the entire city is about the size of a large apartment, I think I will check this out.

[Timerider @ May 17th 2007 8:05PM]

I'd like to go to, but I live about a 1000 miles away.

[Othello @ May 17th 2007 11:10PM]

Any idea how powerful it is? I'd like to make something small and cheap to play music over wifi, but i cant find any cheap components :/

[Sean D. @ May 18th 2007 3:06AM]

That's pretty cool... but if I had one of those to tell me the weather, what would my Wii be good for?

[Travis Pulley @ May 18th 2007 5:48AM]

This thing is neat. It uses the propeller microcontroller, which has 8 independent processors (cogs) that operate independently at 20Mips each (so 160 total). It can do video output with animation using just 2 of the cogs.

See this for more: http://www.makezine.com/blog/archive/2006/02/first_look_at_parallaxs_propel.html

[Harry @ May 18th 2007 9:35AM]

"Y" would anyone want this? (serious question)

Just weather? What else can it be used for?

...and wouldn't this create "burn-in" on your tv? (i.e.- "a permanent disfigurement of areas on a computer monitor or TV screen caused by still images being displayed continuously for long periods.)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phosphor_burn-in

[Kent Brewster @ May 18th 2007 1:53PM]

Minor correction: I'm just grunt labor, not an official part of uncommonprojects. The real brains of the outfit are Josh Rooke-Ley and Tarikh Korula.

Harry: the Ybox can be configured for several (many) different channels, not just one. There's an IR remote sensor that lets you change channels with a standard remote control. Yes, I think you're right in that the image would burn in ... but the point was to do something with an old TV that was just sitting around doing nothing anyway.

[LimboMan @ May 18th 2007 6:04PM]

Will these kits be made available for those of us not living in California? ...or in the US for that matter?

[Derwin @ May 25th 2007 1:40AM]

Well, sounds like the builder listens to J Dilla.