Game Boy Gutted, Turned into a Nintendo 3DS Case

GameBoy 3DS Case

If you don’t remember quite how large the original Game Boy really was, this DIY hack will remind you. One proud 3DS owner looking for an unassuming but still geeky case for his shiny new handheld console decided that his old original Nintendo Game Boy would make a perfect carrying case. 
The modder, named “Goteking,” gutted the original Game Boy of all of its components, but kept the shell, the buttons, and the screen intact. He printed some paper cut-outs of the start screens of his favorite games, and affixed them where the Game Boy’s LCD screen used to be. Next, he attached a hinge to the left side of the Game Boy and a clasp to the right side. 
With a little sanding down, it just happens that the interior of a Game Boy – with everything else removed – is just the right size to slip a 3DS inside. He repeated the process with a newer Game Boy model with a translucent plastic body, and got the same results. Once the 3DS is inside, you can’t even tell it’s in there: it just looks like an ordinary Game Boy. 
You can see a video of the case behind the jump.

RC car runs on soda can rings, Doc Brown approves (video)

Many a future engineer was inspired by Back to the Future‘s Dr. Emmett “Doc” Brown, and not just because he proved that unkempt eccentrics could truly change the world. No, he also pioneered Mr. Fusion, the coffee maker/cold fusion reactor that turned garbage into energy. And while we’re still waiting for cold fusion and time travel to become a reality, today we’re all one step closer to waste-powered cars. A pair of Spanish engineers have recently unveiled the dAlH2Orean (see what they did there?), a R/C car that runs on aluminum. Dropping a few soda can tabs into a tank of sodium hydroxide produces enough hydrogen to power the little speedster for 40 minutes – at almost 20mph. Hit the video above to see it in action, along with your daily helping of the Chemical Brothers. Fitting.

RC car runs on soda can rings, Doc Brown approves (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 17 Apr 2011 13:29:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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MTbiggie is a DIY Surface for the masses (video)

MTbiggie

Practical or not, there is no denying the nerd-gasm inducing wow factor of Microsoft’s Surface. Of course, Surface is expensive — like, unless you’re a millionaire you’re probably not buying one for personal use expensive. There are some DIY solutions out there, but designer and developer Seth Sandler has come up with the cheapest and easiest yet. Built from about $400 worth of material (some of which you probably have lying about your home / apartment / dungeon), the MTbiggie brings big-screen multitouch to the masses. Like the hacker’s previous homebrew multitouch device, the MTmini, there’s nothing particularly difficult to find here. All you need is a couple of chairs, a mirror, a projector, an infrared webcam (which you can easily hack together with some old film negatives and cardboard), a big sheet of paper and an equally large piece of clear acrylic. Just set it all up according to the instructions in the video below and in no time you be finger painting and playing Angry Birds on a screen that dwarfs your iPad — and possibly your kitchen table, too.

Continue reading MTbiggie is a DIY Surface for the masses (video)

MTbiggie is a DIY Surface for the masses (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 11 Apr 2011 20:25:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |  sourceSeth Sandler  | Email this | Comments

The World’s Largest Lego Tower, Built by Brazilian Children

Lego Tower

Lego fans will love this: a total of 6000 Brazilians, mostly children, got together for four days to assemble what’s clearly the world’s largest Lego tower, topping off at 102 feet and 3 inches. The effort required over a half-million Lego bricks and looks amazing: the children even managed to emblazon the Brazilian flag in the side using different colored bricks. 
The tower breaks the previous world record, just over 101 feet, set in Chile at a similar event held last year. The whole structure is supported by a set of wires draped down the sides to keep the whole thing from toppling over in high wind, and is just the latest entry since the original 43-foot tower build in London that earned the first record. 
Check out a video of the tower behind the jump.

Sensor Locks Your PC By Detecting Body Heat

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Here’s a unique bit of technology for the paranoid and forgetful. A developer has written an application for PCs that locks your computer if you’re not at your desk. Now, most of the time this is accomplished through timers and the like, but this one is a little different. Using an IR heat sensor, it monitors your body heat. When it sees that it’s no longer there, it locks down the system, ensuring that nobody can see whatever super-secret data you had been working on. You can set custom delays before locking and the temperature at which the lock will trigger.

The application itself is free, but the sensor that developer Dider Stephens used costs about $90. Hack-A-Day suggests that it can work with any USB temperature sensor, so you might be able to save some money by finding a cheaper one.

Click through the break to see a video of the app in use.

[via Hack-A-Day]

Sony’s Move.me database used to create gesture-enabled mouse driver (video)

Unless you’re into weird promotional mascots, video games, or measuring the rotation of the earth, the PlayStation Move probably hasn’t caught your eye. Here’s an idea: what if you could wave it about to control your PC? Earlier this week, electronics hobbyist Jacob Pennock used the Move.me C library to build a gesture-controlled mouse driver, and we’ve got the project’s tech demo after the break. Watch as Pennock launches Facebook by drawing an “F,” starts a video with a jaunty “V,” and closes a few items with a quick “X” motion over the offending windows. Control motions are loaded through the creator’s own gesture recognition library, called hyperglyph, which he claims can record motions with 98 percent accuracy. As Move.me is currently a closed beta, Pennock is keeping the source code under wraps, but he hopes to eventually put the driver to use controlling a gesture-based Linux media center. Pretty neat, but not quite enough to stave off our Kinect hack envy.

[Thanks, Robert]

Continue reading Sony’s Move.me database used to create gesture-enabled mouse driver (video)

Sony’s Move.me database used to create gesture-enabled mouse driver (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 10 Apr 2011 09:51:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |  sourceJacob Pennock  | Email this | Comments

SparkFun intros IOIO for Android, a hack-free breakout box to get your mind spinning

Meet any seasoned techie, and they’ll likely spin whimsical tales of computing’s early days, and the challenge of finding a practical use for a device with seemingly limitless potential (you know, like feeding your cat while you sleep). A new product from SparkFun promises to bring this old-school awesomeness into the smartphone age: introducing IOIO (pronounced yo-yo), a breakout box that enables any Android 1.5+ device to control electronic circuits from within Android’s applications. Designed in collaboration with Google, Spark’s PCB connects to your phone over USB, working its magic through a Java library that hooks into your apps. This DIY paradise will begin shipping in a few weeks, and can be yours for $49.95 on pre-order. We’ve already witnessed some clever mods with IOIO, and when it sent a real alarm clock ringing, we couldn’t help but smile. Crack one yourself after the break.

Continue reading SparkFun intros IOIO for Android, a hack-free breakout box to get your mind spinning

SparkFun intros IOIO for Android, a hack-free breakout box to get your mind spinning originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 10 Apr 2011 04:22:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink Microcontrollers, Electronics & Robotics, Android Community  |  sourceSparkFun  | Email this | Comments

DIY Circuit Board Lets You Build Your Own Android Accessories

ioio.jpg

Smartphone apps are great for controlling things like GPS and cameras, but what if you need to add a bit of gear that isn’t built into your handset? Enter the IOIO (pronounced “yoyo”). This little board lets Android developers interface with any number of electronics components through Java, the language used to write Android apps. Think of it like an Arduino for your cell phone: it makes it possible to control anything connected to the little board using an app on the phone. It doesn’t even require any modification to the phone’s hardware or firmware. Your warranty remains intact if you want to tinker around with homemade phone accessories.

Created by DIY-er Ytai in Tel Aviv, the device is coming to the online retailer Sparkfun soon. When the board ships, Ytai has promised to open source the hardware and software behind it with a “very permissive license,” so if you decide to monetize your weekend project, it might not be out of the cards. It’ll be absolutely fascinating to see what inspired developers do with this board if it has anywhere close to the same impact as the Arduino. And hardware hackers, if you’re listening, an iCade for Android would be pretty nice.

[via Make, Ytai]

DIY Zelda Treasure Chest

Zelda Chest

The sound of a treasure chest opening from the iconic Legend of Zelda videogames is a sound that’s etched into the minds of young people everywhere: it hasn’t changed in well over 25 years. Now, thanks to a true Zelda fan at Instructables (where else?) you can learn how to make your very own 8″ wide treasure chest that plays the Zelda timed opening tune when you pop it open. 
The chest is large enough to store a decent number of items, too: it’s not just a prop that makes noise. The instructions even call for black felt to line the interior. The music is provided courtesy of a cheap generic mp3 player that you’ll install in the chest, pre-loaded with the treasure chest sound, and a cheap audio amp or stereo speaker connected to the mp3 player. 
The best part of the project is that it’s not even terribly difficult. The full instructions and the list of parts needed are listed at Instructables, but there’s a video of the treasure chest in action behind the jump.

Bacteria’s disciple improves upon technique, crafts N64 handheld capable of GoldenEye split-screen

This isn’t the smallest portable Nintendo 64 we’ve seen, nor the most elegant, creative or complete — in fact, it’s pretty much a straight clone of Bacteria’s iNto64, but with a spiffier paint job and one critical improvement. Yes, that is an extra controller port you see in the foreground of the image above, and if you click your way below, you will indeed be able to watch its creator engage in some wonderfully retro split-screen Mario Kart 64 and F-Zero X races, not to mention the obligatory GoldenEye death match and a wee bit of Quake 2. Ahhh, memories.

[Thanks, Alon T.]

Continue reading Bacteria’s disciple improves upon technique, crafts N64 handheld capable of GoldenEye split-screen

Bacteria’s disciple improves upon technique, crafts N64 handheld capable of GoldenEye split-screen originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 06 Apr 2011 10:41:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |  sourceModded by Bacteria Forums  | Email this | Comments