Hasta La Gadget!

Most of us don’t have $15,000 to drop on an Anybot, even though having one around would be nice in the event we don’t feel like leaving the house to get some coffee. To help those of us with more humble means, our old friend Johnny Chung Lee (of Wiimote hacking and Kinect dev team fame) has utilized his prodigious DIY talents to create a video chat robot for the relatively paltry sum of $500. Using an iRobot Create ($250), a netbook with Skype ($250), a cable to connect the two, and some control software he wrote himself, Mr. Lee built a digital surrogate on the cheap. Johnny isn’t the first person to so leverage iRobot’s hacking platform, but he added a stand on top of the robot to get the PC closer to human height, attached a fish-eye lens to the webcam for better remote viewing, and even did some re-wiring to allow the netbook to charge via the Create’s base station. The code and how-to instructions are up on his blog, so hit the source link if you’re feeling up to making one yourself. Seems like Johnny Lee’s putting that Google 20 percent time to good use thus far — keep ’em coming. Check the video of this latest creation after the break.

Continue reading Johnny Chung Lee makes DIY telepresence bot out of an iRobot Create and a netbook

Johnny Chung Lee makes DIY telepresence bot out of an iRobot Create and a netbook originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 11 Feb 2011 23:40:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Now, you may look at this little project and ask yourself, “what is the point of this thing?” but that would, in fact, be the wrong question. The Pac Man-loving creator of Pac Machina needs no reasons, and honestly, neither do we. While we wouldn’t necessarily want one of these clock-like Pac Men in our drawing room, we admire the creativity and time put into what was surely a somewhat tedious project. We are huge fans of tedium, after all. Video is after the break.

Continue reading Pac Machina displays a trivial love of the needlessly complex

Pac Machina displays a trivial love of the needlessly complex originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 10 Feb 2011 16:42:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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I have one question for you, God, and I want a straight answer: Why wasn’t the Makedo around when I was a kid? I’m serious. Back then I was like most kids of the 1970s, and the box a toy came in was more exciting than the toy itself (often the toys were the same drab beige as these boxes). The day my parents got a new washing machine was one of the best in my so-far short life.

And with Makedo that day would have been around one zillion times better. Mekedo is a pack of parts to help you to make anything from the scraps plastic and card around the house. There are three different pieces. One tool, which is a saw made from plastic with a spike in the handle to drill holes in card.

The other two are fixings. There’s a two-part pin-and-clip for joining sheets together, which works like a cross between a zip-tie and a rivet. Then there’s a lock-hinge, which is joined to two pieces of card with the pins and does what you think, letting you lock it open at any angle. And that’s it.

But like that washing machine box, which had the potential to become anything, these simple tools and fixings extend the possibilities even further. They let you put in doors, add heads to robots, put (spinning) rotors onto helicopters. I can honestly say that Mekedo would have been the best toy I could have gotten back in the dreary 1970s.

Thanks a lot, God. If time travel is ever invented, I’m going back to my six-year-old self and telling him to skip Sunday-school. Total frikkin’ waste of time.

Kits start from $25.

Mekedo Store [Makedo]

See Also:

• Disposable Cardboard Trolley Lets You Walk Home from Ikea
• Safety Fail: Cardboard Box with Built-In Box-Cutter
• Homemade Bamboo Jeep
• Home Made Circuit Board Razor