Hasta La Gadget!

There are definitely defining moments in a man’s life where he needs a dream to chase, and building a ‘tank’ could be one of them for those of you who are pretty handy with your hands, and are equipped with the technical know how, of course. It was 15 years ago when a certain Hitoshi Takahashi chatted with his wife, telling her that he had a dream of building a ride which resembled the Japanese rhinoceros beetle, or otherwise known as the Kabutomushi. His wife agreed with the (now) immortal words, “Oh, that sounds interesting, so make it. You could probably ride it to take out the trash.”

Three builds later after 11 years later, Takahashi has finally realized his dream with the completed the Kabutom RX-03, back in 2009. The Kabutom RX-03 has enough room to ferry half a dozen adult passengers within, and does more than just take out the trash. It runs on a diesel engine, and will ‘walks’ on six actuated legs with the ability to raise and lower its massive head. In order to add a greater level of special effects, it will be able to breathe smoke while pumping out its theme music for all and sundry to be impressed with.

Japan-Made ‘Rhinoceros Beetle’ Tank original content from Ubergizmo.

Have you read the book, “The 5 Languages of Love?” Different folks express their love to one another differently, some do it via words, others through action, and others through gifts. Well, here is one dad who loves his kid so much, that he actually modified his son’s wheelchair. Shea, father to 2-year old Alejandro, whom the latter suffers from Spinal Muscular Atrophy that severely limits his ability to move, decided that a power wheelchair was just what Alejandro needed to gain a degree of mobility. The thing is, his health insurance is unable to cover the power wheelchair for another five years, so in a stroke of genius, he decided to get down and dirty, building one power wheelchair by himself.

The template was an $800 adult-sized powered wheelchair from eBay, which was then modified thoroughly in terms of size and how it is controlled. According to Shea, “Alejandro’s toes, while quite weak, seem to respond faster to his motor intentions than his two working fingers, so I decided to focus my efforts there.” The wheelchair’s power system was modified to be controlled via foot pedals, and with this labor of love, Alejandro now has freedom of movement of the outside world – at least to the areas where a wheelchair can move about.

Dad “Hacks” Wheelchair For Kid To Increase Mobility original content from Ubergizmo.

Video cameras are so last decade. Cinema cameras are the hot new thing. While companies like Canon, Blackmagic, and Sony are vying for the love of movie-makers, two ambitious Bostonians decided to build their own camera from the ground up, with a little help from a Mac Mini.

Read more…

It is not every single day that you see an icon from the past get transformed to catch up with the times, albeit in a far more miniaturized form that would surely have confounded your ancestors – all without having to use a shrinking gun to boot. The first Mac ever, which so happens to be Apple’s iconic beige box that made its mark in many peoples’ consciousness in a memorable 1984 TV commercial, also proved to be the harbinger of GUI (Graphical User Interface) for consumers, while being the grand daddy of all all-in-one computers that seem to be all the rage these days where desktops are concerned. Here is an idea, how about remaking the original Mac in a far smaller form factor, and ensuring that it will also work as desired? This is where such a DIY project comes into play, where this Mini Mac will run with innards powered by a Raspberry Pi computer.

John Leake, a self-proclaimed Mac nerd, is the one behind this ⅓ scale Macintosh 512k (or 128k) replica, using white PVC as the building block of choice, in addition to a Raspberry Pi credit-card sized computer (motherboard), while fitting a small 3.5-inch LCD monitor – and all of this can be put together only if you have the relevant technical know how of doing so.

Apparently John Leake spent approximately a dozen hours building this particular working computer. The 3-millimeter-thick PVC was obtained from the sign shop where he works, where it was subsequently bent and carved in the manner that he wanted, and plenty of time was spent to ensure that the bezels end up looking right as rain. Of course, Leake did not rule out the possibility of using a 3D printer for future case builds. Other hardware features of this DIY Mini Mac include an HDMI out port, USB and Ethernet ports. It will boot from an SD memory card and runs Mini vMac, which happens to be an open-source Macintosh OS emulator that enables the Mac software to run without any hiccups across a range of operating systems, Linux included.

Source
[ Mini Mac has a Raspberry Pi heart copyright by Coolest Gadgets ]

While one could definitely argue that the lo-fi images you can capture with a pinhole camera are an acquired taste, it’s still pretty cool that you can capture images on film with such a simple mechanism. Now, thanks to one creative Instructables contributor, you can make your own pinhole camera from an unconventional material – concrete.

Photography enthusiast Amuu has devised a plan to create a camera using a block of concrete, with a hole cut in it and a wooden shutter. The process requires the creation of a mold using laminated foam boards, then pouring concrete into it to cast the body of the camera.

The inside of the concrete box is then painted black to minimize light reflections. The pinhole itself is made by punching a hole in a soda can and gluing it into an opening in the concrete (though it would be cool if you could drill a tiny pinhole through the concrete itself). A couple of small wood knobs are used to wind the film, and a plywood flap is used to open the shutter and let light through to the film.

Check out the image gallery below for a few examples of images that Ammu captured with her concrete pinhole camera:

Yes, they’re definitely fuzzy, distorted and gritty, but that’s what you want out of a pinhole camera, isn’t it?

Want to make your own concrete camera? Head on over to Instructables for the complete build guide.

[via TAXI]