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Solar-powered rollerblading robot carries you to work on a chariot of humiliation (video)
Bob Schneevis is at it again. The man who turned George W. Bush into a robotic Roman warrior has now developed something he calls the Solar Electric Robot Chariot. Showcased at this year's Maker Faire Bay Area, Schneevis' single-motor, bot-drawn carriage features a set of battery-juicing solar panels and an array of cameras that control its chauffeur's mechanized movements. The bot, meanwhile, glides around on a pair of rollerblades and is designed to move its legs in the same way humans do -- with the only difference being that humans don't rollerblade anymore. Skate past the break to see the chariot coast around a parking lot with Mitchell Goosen-like grace.
Maker Faire pony has Wiimote-controlled indigestion, belches fire (video)
There's a good reason why My Little Pony wasn't marketed to boys. Shown off at the 2011 Maker Faire in Detroit, this animatronic, fire-breathing horsie got to spread a little heat thanks to the Louisville, KY-based modding duo, LVL1. The partially Wiimote-controlled mechanical filly is the result of the duo's Hackerspace efforts, and plans are already underway to loose this steed into the great, fully wireless open. Also on deck for the hot-mouthed stallion: a flame-spewing cabbage patch doll riding companion. How's that for a DIY-perversion of your precious 80s youth? Peep the full pyromania-tinged project after the break.
Telecommunications device for the deaf gets hitched to a rotary phone, hacked to run Zork
In today's episode of "But will it run Zork?" a chap named Ulysses got the vintage game to run on a TDD (telecommunications device for the deaf) -- a project he built to show off at the Bay Area Maker Faire last weekend. In a move we truly respect, he hunted down a rotary phone lifted straight out of the era when Zork was conceived (that would be the late '70s / early '80s). Then, he modified a modem so that the acoustically coupled TDD could be interfaced -- transmitting at a slow 45.5 baud to make it easy for even ponderous readers to keep up, one line at a time on the TDD's narrow display. Once this was sorted, things weren't exactly smooth sailing when Ulysses started fitting the compressed Zork story file into the system. At first, he tried using an Arduino Pro and an Arduino Mega, but found that neither had enough memory to accommodate the compressed Zork story file. Ultimately, he took a different tack and settled on an embeddable FitPC. We'd love nothing more than to see this thing in action, but in lieu of a video we highly suggest carving out a few minutes and perusing Ulysses' photo blog at the source link.
Maker Faire 2011, in pictures: Arduinos, Androids, and angry robots (video)
The rapture has come and gone, but the Maker Faire powers on. Despite warnings of a May 21st doomsday, folks came out in droves for the annual celebration of all things DIY, and we were there to bring you the best in homespun inventions. This year's Maker Faire was light on robots and big on corporate sponsorship. Among the giants supporting the little guys were Google, ASUS, and HP, but El Goog's presence extended beyond its dedicated tents. The new Android ADK was big with at-home tinkerers this year, spawning a number of little robots and at least one DIY alternative. Perhaps no other trend proved more pervasive than 3D printing, however -- every time we turned around there was another MakerBot or RapMan pumping out everything from statuettes of attendees to cutesy salt shakers. There were robotic building blocks, a Heineken-themed R2-D2, DIY drones, custom keyboards, and a ton of repurposed gadgets, but it was an arena of destructo-bots, tucked away in the farthest corner of the San Mateo County Event Center, that really blew us away. We came away sunburned and bedraggled, but lucky for you, we did all the dirty work so you don't have to. To see what made this year's Maker Faire, hop on past the break for a video of our favorite DIY finds. %Gallery-124165% Myriam Joire contributed to this report.
Mark Frauenfelder on maker culture, openness and Apple
I'm attending Respect The Internet in NYC, a one-day Ketchum conference highlighting the sometimes tenuous and touchy relationship between online culture and traditional marketing/media. Among the morning's star presenters was Boing Boing founder and MAKE magazine/Maker Faire standard bearer Mark Frauenfelder, who discussed the maker ethos and the DIY manifesto (user-replaceable parts! screws not glue!) while highlighting some fascinating sites, companies and grass-roots efforts around the world. I noticed that Mark was presenting from an 11" MacBook Air, which had the effect of making his lap and hands look unusually large -- but it also made me wonder how the idea of a hackable product ecosystem with full user access is reconciled with Apple's attitude toward hacking in general and hardware modification/upgrades in particular. Since I had the chance to ask him about it, I did. His response is nuanced; he's "not an extremist" about openness, although he wants to see greater accessibility in product design. "Not everything has to be open," he noted. A video clip of the Q & A (sorry for the Stickam quality) is in the second half of this post. The conference continues this afternoon; you can tune into the live feed here.
Maker Faire 2010, in pictures
What does it take to pique your curiosity? Would a building-sized, needle-nosed 50's space ship do the trick? Perhaps the female form, constructed entirely out of obsolete typewriter parts? How about a machine designed specifically to find out how many licks it takes to get to the center of that blasted Tootsie Roll pop? These were just a few of the many wonders present at the 2010 Maker Faire in San Mateo, California, and despite being a lifelong resident of the region, this weekend marked my very first attendance at the event. Needless to say, I've been kicking myself for not exploring my DIY side earlier. You don't have to do the same, however, because I brought home practically enough pictures to give you a virtual tour; you'll find robotic spiders, NES banjos, LEGO cities, automobile-sized bicycles, miniature nautical battles and much, much more in the gallery below. Now, go get lost in there. %Gallery-93609% Special Bonus: Rock band OK Go, performing under the influence of H2O. Quite literally, we might add. When was the last time you rocked out underwater?
Video: Wii Nunchuk controls motorized Beancat chair
Nintendo's Wiimote (and the Nunchuk, by extension) have certainly been wired up to control their fair share of oddities, but we honestly can't think of a more suitable use for a spare 'chuk than this right here. The so-called Beancat is nothing more than a motorized beanbag chair that takes direction from a wired Nunchuk, and while we can't exactly speak from experience, it certainly looks thrilling from afar. Have a glance yourself just past the break, and tap the read link if you're eager to see how it all came together. [Via MAKE]
Homebrew PC features 2MHz hand-wrapped CPU
BMOW (Big Mess O' Wires) is a DIY PC, complete with a hand wrapped 8-bit CPU. Built by a game developer named Steve Chamberlain, this bad boy operates at 2MHz and sports 512KB memory, two-color video output, and a 512 x 480 display. According to Wired, the processor is closest in design to the MOS Technology 6502 (previously seen in such classic machines as the Apple II, Commodore 64, and some early Atari game consoles), and it took him about a year and a half from design to finish. Visitors to the Maker Faire in San Francisco can see the machine in person (and play chess on it, to boot) over the weekend. The rest of yinz can feel free to hit the read link for meticulous build details and lots of colorful pictures.[Via Wired]
Disney, WowWee, and Thinkway Toys team up on cute killer bots for the ironic uprising
Need some irony with your angst-battered diet this morning? Swell, try some of this. Disney and Pixar are set to release their latest animated blockbuster, WALL-E, this summer. The premise of the film finds WALL-E (Waste Allocation Load Lifter - Earth-Class) cleaning up the Earth's trash after rampant, unchecked consumerism made the planet uninhabitable. So how do they promote the film? You got it, they launch a new line of plastic WALL-E robots developed in partnership with Thinkway Toys which no child could possibly live without. Ultimate WALL-E will list for $190 when launched sometime this summer and feature 10 motors, a remote control, and plenty of sensors to avoid obstacles, respond to touch, and feel the mocking satire of its own existence. The bot will be joined by a $25 iDance WALL-E (think i-Species) and a $40 WowWee FlyTech Tinker Bell when they make their May 29th debut in San Mateo at the Maker Faire.
Mary had a little...Pleo?
From now on, when we can't sleep at night, we'll be counting Pleos.[Via Robots Rule]
Maker Faire, Austin: you going?
Austinites and Texans near and far, we hope you're headed out to your local Maker Faire this weekend -- wish we could be there, too. Seriously, where else in the world are you going to see a skinned Sega Dream Pony? Do us a fave, put your pictures on up the Engadget Flickr group, would ya?
Woz at Maker Faire
Steve Wozniak showed up at Maker Faire this week - there he is zipping around on his Segway at right - and was classically "Woz." He said very little of Apple, according to Infinite Loop, but instead spoke about his love of mathematics, his old dial-a-joke line and told the young electronics geeks in the audience how they can "...feel good about doing what you are good at." In other words, he displayed the brilliance and charm that make him such an interesting person.
Maker Faire 2007 - robots. Lots of robots. And other fun stuff.
There was a lot to see at Maker Faire 2007 -- too much, really -- but if you're obsessed with robots like we are, this was THE place for you. Seriously, the last time we saw this many robot kits, sculptures, warriors, and automatons, we woke up in a cold sweat fearing the very destruction of mankind. Anywho, being that there is literally just too much to cover at the Faire, we've gone the lazy route and put up a mammoth photo gallery. The highlights: EepyBird debuting the Mentos/Diet Coke bottle nozzle (plus the 102 bottle show they put on) SparkFun's DIY cellphone and rotary cellphone Evil Mad Scientist Labs's DIY 3D sugar printer (writeup here) Hacked Nabaztags Half-lane electric cars Wired's NXT-powered flight drones Multiple drumbots If you get a chance to make it out this weekend, we highly recommend!P.S. -For last year's Maker Faire coverage, see here and here.%Gallery-3319%
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]
Maker Faire (Part 2)
We've got more odd creations and far out gadgets from our leisurely Saturday and Sunday at the Maker Faire. If you liked round one, check out round two to see more from the Faire and find out about this robot made from scrounged and garage sale parts. See you next year, Maker Faire!
