Hasta La Gadget!

If you’re the sort of DIY tinkerer that likes to fiddle about with Arduino-based projects, you’ll be glad to hear that the Arduino project has officially launched a new version of the powerful little microcontroller. The new product is called the Arduino Micro board, and it is based on the technology behind the Leonardo board. The main feature of the device is its small size, measuring just 1.9″ x 0.7″.

The new Micro board packs an ATmega32U4 controller, and all the power and performance of that Leonardo board in a significantly smaller package. Arduino says the new smaller form-factor makes it easy or for enthusiasts to embed the technology inside of even smaller projects. The Arduino Micro board can be used on a breadboard or soldered to a custom-designed PCB.

The Micro was developed in conjunction with Adafruit Industries. Adafruit is also creating a series of accessories to go along with the new Micro board. The new Micro board will be available exclusively online through Adafruit and in Radio Shack retail stores. The version with headers will sell for €21 (~$27 USD) and version without headers go for €18 ($23 USD). It will be available for pre-order starting next week, and shipments start on November 26th.

I love flipbooks. They just have this classic and nostalgic feel to them that makes them so special, both to the creator and to the spectators of the moving art that they hold within their pages. Now bringing mechanical flipbooks to the mainstream are kinetic artists Mark Rosen and Wendy Marvel.

Mark and Wendy created a series of motorized flipbooks last year, which became such huge hits after they were released to an adoring audience. Now they’re back with their flipbooks, but this time they’re giving everyone a chance to create their own masterpieces using this unique art format through FlipBooKit. These little mechanical wonders are available in either hand-cranked or motorized versions.

FlipBooKit is currently up for funding on Kickstarter. For a minimum pledge of $43(USD), you can get your very own kit with includes a vintage-looking flipbook shell, 30 flip panels, you-print-it printer sheets, a pre-printed trotting horse animation, a single hub, and assembly tools and on-line step-by-step instructions and flipbookit creation tools. A pledge of $66 to $76 lands you one of the first of the motorized versions of the FlipBooKit, dubbed the MOTO-FLIP. (Doesn’t that sound like a phone from the 1990s? – Ed.)

They begin shipping out this December, so they’d totally make a cool Christmas gift for both budding artists and art enthusiasts.

There were a string of weird occurrences in the last couple of months involving some people going stark crazy because of the things that they managed to do. It’s too gruesome to describe in detail, but here’s one work that sums it all up: cannibalism. This freaked a lot of people out, especially because they all occurred within a few days or weeks with each other.

Some pranksters also chose to capitalize on these real-world happenings by spreading warnings about zombies and the upcoming apocalypse online. Now, you guys should know better: there’s no such thing as zombies or an apocalypse. If you believed the hoax, then you must have been watching (or reading) too much The Walking Dead.

Anyway, if you still feel like you’re in danger, then you might be one of the few who’s willing to unload $24,000 to purchase the Z.E.R.O. Zombie Apocalypse Kit. It’s got everything – and I do mean everything – you’ll ever need to fight off the undead and protect yourself while you’re out in the wild.

The price is insane, but if you consider everything that you’ll be getting, then maybe it’s a price that you can actually stomach. Highlights of the Z.E.R.O. kit include thermal and night vision scopes, guns, knives, tactical vests, multitools, practice targets and even tools for evaluating biological samples. It also comes with the awesome OPMOD tactical mug. The full list of items in the kit are listed here.

(But again, we’re telling you: there is no zombie apocalypse. Just saying.)

[via Dvice]

Leave it to Adafruit to really help a product deliver on its DIY promise. Those pins on the Raspberry Pi taunted us from the moment we laid our hands on it, and not just cause we weren’t sure what to do with them. The board’s makers didn’t exactly make playing with them easy. Actually, prototyping a project with a Pi embedded seemed like a logistical nightmare destined to become a mess of wires. The Pi Cobbler solves that problem with a ribbon cable, some header pins and a custom PCB. The kit lets you easily run those 26 I/O pins to solderless breadboard… after you’ve soldered together the Cobbler, of course. The whole, unassembled package will set you back just $7.95, which sounds like a pretty sweet deal to us. Especially since each pin is nice and clearly labeled. Hit up the source link to order yours.

Adafruit’s Pi Cobbler breakout kit puts Raspberry Pi’s pins to work originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 02 Jul 2012 23:36:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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