Hasta La Gadget!

Phil Harlow wanted an easy way for him and his roommates to split the bill for their kegerator’s beer keg refills. So they all decided that he’ll just pay for it. Just kidding. Phil is working on a facial recognition system for their kegerator that will keep a tab for them.

Phil’s setup is powered by a Raspberry Pi. It uses two flow sensors to detect if the tap is turned on, at which point a camera will activate to examine the user’s face. A touchscreen monitor displays relevant details, including the user’s name, the type and amount of beer poured and its equivalent cost. Phil and his buddies can also scroll through the kegerator’s history to see their tabs.

Now all it needs is a towel, some interesting stories and a plate of nuts. Head to Phil’s blog for more on his hack.

[via Hack A Day]

High quality microscopes cost thousands of dollars and can be hard to operate and maintain. A group of researchers from Stanford University are close to changing that with a microscope that’s made mostly out of paper and costs less than a dollar to make.

The Foldscope was conceptualized by Jim Cybulski, James Clements and Asst. Prof. Manu Prakash. They were moved to develop the revolutionary microscope because they wanted to speed up the diagnosis and treatment of various diseases in developing countries. In his recent TED presentation, Asst. Prof. Prakash said that right now it can take months for patients in developing countries to get diagnosed and treated partly because microscopes are bulky, hard to maintain and expensive to acquire . So they set out to design a microscope that’s portable, easy to operate and can be mass produced at low costs. It looks like they succeeded.

In their paper, Jim, James and Asst. Prof. Prakash. said that the Foldscope can provide a magnification of up to 2,000X depending on the lens used. All of its components can be packed on a single sheet of card stock, which can also serve as an instruction manual.  Foldscope is also resistant to impact and water. It’s so small that you can carry multiple Foldscopes in your pocket. The only part of the microscope that needs electricity is an LED, which can last over 50 hours on a button cell battery. Best of all, it only costs between $0.58 to $0.97 to make. Below is Asst. Prof. Prakash’ TED presentation about the Foldscope:

How amazing is that? A copy of Jim, James and Asst. Prof. Prakash’s paper is available from the Cornell University Library archive. If you want to get your hands on one, head to the Foldscope team’s website and apply to become one of the their 10,000 beta testers.

[via Wired via Reddit]

ThinkGeek is now selling an officially licensed plush Headcrab Hat. It sits on top of your head and doesn’t cover your face. Because that would just be silly.

The hat has an adjustable baseball cap-style closure at the back and is made of polyester. We think.

Prepare a crowbar and a torch and head to ThinkGeek to order the hat. It costs $30 (USD) and possibly your free will.

[via Gamefreaks]

Back in 2011 we featured a couple of humanoid robots designed to play table tennis. Industrial mechanic Ulf Hoffman recently unveiled a similar robot that he and his friends have been working on for the past couple of years. He calls it the Ulf Hoffman Tischtennis Roboter (Ulf Hoffman Table Tennis Robot) or UHTTR-1 for short.

As you can see the robot’s arm is on a rail mounted at one of the ends of a ping pong table. It’s made of aluminum, making it light enough for its servos to rapidly ferry it across the length of the table. It may only have one arm, but the robot has two things we don’t have: a second pair of eyes. Four cameras mounted at the top corners of the room track the ball’s position and send that data to the UHTTR-1′s software.

Ulf hasn’t said much about the robot’s program, but as you can see it has a variety of settings that help define its play style, including speed and spin. It even seems to have difficulty levels. I’m a bit worried about that “Evolve” setting.

We didn’t see it put to the test in the video, but I think you can beat the robot with a well-placed drop shot. Then again when you’re dealing with a robot that can evolve, all bets are off. Grip your browser and head to Ulf’s blog for more on his robot.

[via Laughing Squid]

We’ve seen a model of an antique typewriter made out of LEGO. But this LEGO keyboard made by Jason Allemann actually works and is good enough for daily use. With the exception of the electronics and key membrane – both of which Jason took from a discarded keyboard – the entire device is made out of LEGO.

The base of the keyboard is pretty standard stuff. Jason’s genius shows in the key switches, which he made out of Technic axles and connectors.

It may not be news to LEGO fans, but I didn’t know that LEGO makes pieces that are printed with numbers and letters. However, the world’s most famous toy company hasn’t released pieces printed with other keyboard symbols, so Jason had to improvise. His ersatz caps lock key is my favorite. Of course, Jason can easily swap the keyboard’s pieces. Get to work on that Print Screen piece LEGO.

Jason should put together a DIY kit for the keyboard. I’d buy one. Piece a browser together and head to Jason’s website for more on his awesome mod.

[via The Brothers Brick]