Last night, the gang all pulled together and got a prototype Pot o’ Gold electric parade float up and running! TomG, as usual, had all the scrap pieces we needed to put together a sweet little ride… The green steel used in the frame apparently used to support a conveyer belt system in a factory s…
By: bennelson

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The Jakks Pacific EyeClops brand made waves back around the 2007 holiday season with their super magnifying camera toy, which set a successful design strategy they’ve since followed up on with their Night Vision 2.0 and Mini Projector toys: Take a professional piece of digital optics and make a functional $50 toy version.

I bought both their active night vision and video projector toys for my nephews this last Xmas. The older of the two, Michael, agreed to review them for us:

EyeClops Night Vision 2.0 Infrared Stealth Binoculars

When I saw this, my first impression was that it was probably a fake. I thought it wouldn’t actually be much better than my eyes most of the time. I was wrong. The infra-red system does work. This toy has two settings for the infra-red light. The low setting emits no visible light, and detected a person wearing blue jeans and a dark green shirt about thirty feet away. On high, it emits some dark red light and managed to pick up the same person 77 feet away, which was better than I could do with my eyes. The image is displayed on a screen inside the object, which can be set to display black-and-white or black-and-green. Unfortunately, the detail isn’t too great. Faraway things appear only as white outlines, and it requires some playing with the focus for closer stuff. It handles bright lights well, although it does tend to be washed out in bright areas. Overall, it’s a pretty good toy.

EyeClops Mini Projector

This is a pretty cool little device. It’s about the right size to fit in the palm of my hand, and yet it projects an image up to 60″. Understandably, the speakers are rather small. It comes with an AC adaptor and a battery base. The package says the batteries last for 270 hours, but I haven’t used it that long so I don’t know. I tested it in the shadow of our TV in a lighted room during the daytime, and it clearly projected an approximately 20″ image. Understandably, it needs a dark place to be able to project a 60″ image, but it’s fairly bright for such a small projector. It accepts RCA audio and video input, and features a headphone port. It’s a good little device to take with you on trips.

[Thanks, Michael!]

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Sean Ragan’s latest Make: Project shows you how to make ice cream using dry ice. Geeky, efficient, and delicious, the ultimate trifecta of awesome!

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From the MAKE Flickr pool

Robert Hart posted a test run of his Cosmic Ray Muon Detector which uses three parallel Geiger–Müller Tubes. Simultaneous readings on all three tube sensors indicates the momentary presence of cosmic radiation. Robert built this device to assist in testing a similar unit which uses common fluorescent tubes for detection.

Related:

Cosmic ray detection with fluorescent tubes

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Mitchell F. Chan sent us a link to this amazing music-driven kinetic sculpture piece. He explains how it works:

The project on display in the video is titled “Visions of the Amen” by Mitchell F. Chan. It’s being brought to life by the voice of talented young soprano Ashleigh Semkiw. It’s a kinetic sculpture in which strings, weighed down on one end by brass bars and attached at the other end to motors, spin at various speeds to sweep out those ghostly sine-wave forms, and pull up and down on the brass rods. The resultant visual effect, overall, looks something like 16 brass rods dancing, bobbing up and down in a forest of ghostly columns.

Each string in the arrangement is activated by a different note, and spins with a velocity dependent on the volume of that note. So each song and unique delivery creates a different ballet. The microphone feeds into a software that I wrote in Processing, which does some pitch and volume analysis, and then exports PWM values for all the motors via serial protocol to a set of microcontrollers. I originally set it up with Arduinos, but I found that for addressing multiple controllers, the protocol was simpler using the new ArtBus controller being developed at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. (http://www.artbusinterface.com/SAIC)

Visions of the Amen: A Sculpture by Mitchell F. Chan, Performance By Ashleigh Semkiw

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Inspired by Assassin’s creed and http://exoticautomatic.com/, I decided to make my own gravity powered xiphoid.  Though it doesn’t seem like gravity is ideal, it allows me to retract the blade. And If I really want to, I have slots to mount springs. Tell me what you guys think, it’s my first metal w…
By: cowscankill

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Thanks to everyone who entered our Crafty Chica Challenge: Deck The Halls! Here are the lucky winners of the fantastic Crafty Chica products featured above.

Grand Prize Winner

Flickr user, Bleufly, transformed her office cubicle into a winter cabin.

The items used in the project include: two rolls of white duct tape, two pallet size cardboard boxes, two rolls of woodgrain contact paper, 42 ft. of pvc, and batting for the snow. I also stole two of my dogs’ toys, a chipmunk (located on the roof) and a bunny.

Runners’ Up:

Flickr user, homebodylynn, took inspiration from a favorite wrapping paper she’d saved from a few years ago and created custom holiday bedding.

Flickr user, heartwares, created this fun and festive paper and ribbon wreath.

Flickr user, bethanycr, made this simple and beautiful advent calendar.

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The stylish looking black ballpoint pen has hidden talents as it contains a pinhole video camera so small you almost can’t see that it’s there. The PenCam’s intelligent design includes 2GB of built-in internal memory for storing your video. Viewing or copying the videos is easy, and you can connect the standard USB plug straight into your computer to view your movies. No special cables, no adapters, no drivers, no worries! What’s more, you can use the USB port to recharge the pen’s battery to give up to 90 minutes of video recording time before needing recharging again. The PenCam DVR is perfect for sales people, lawyers, law enforcement, mystery shopping, covert surveillance or internet fun. It’s an affordable business person’s accessory or a cool gift idea!

• Captures color AVI videos in 640 x 480 & still images in 1280 x 960 resolution
• Footage recorded on 2GB internal memory; 1 hour of video & 9,000 still images
• Integrated USB connector allows for easy video/image back-up
• Rechargeable Lithium-ion battery lasts 90 minutes on a full charge
• Built-in microphone

One could imagine how wobbly and nausea-inducing the video would be — particularly while the pen is being used for writing! Still, this looks like a fairly impressive package with a lot of gear packed into the pen’s barrel. Totally James Bond circa Octopussy.

What do you think, readers? A $99 gizmo that will never get used or a serious tool for “sales people, lawyers, [and] law enforcement”?

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Sea Monkeys are a brine shrimp that are sold as "instant pets". There are various "lands" that they can "live on". The original tank is bought at around nine US dollars ($9). I will Show you How to raise and keep Them alive. Buying There are various places to buy seamonkeys. I bought mine at the …
By: bellafuzz

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My first K’nex ball machine. Still working on instructions of the new elements.
By: floris2burn

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