Power Labs has put together a nice powerful Coil Gun. The principle behind most of these coil guns are the same however it looks like Sam has some nice tools that make the job a bit easier. "The gun has been completed, and it works! I finalized the design so that I could show it on [...]

  Remember the Fisher & Paykel Smart Drive Washing Machine Wind Generator from earlier this month? Well it looks like there is more uses for those motors! How about recycling 3 used washing machines into a huge powerful CNC machine. It takes a bit of work but apparently the 3 phase stepper motor makes for a [...]

  I wonder if the self balancing craze will make it into some real products (other than the Segway). I want a robot like this one that follows me around the house with a laptop. That way I will always be ready to get some work done when the urge strikes. What I really want to [...]

  If you are needing to use your computer on the move why not hack it into a briefcase like imp558 has done. "The next step will be to install my device programmer so it just shows a socket and indicator, and some black paint on the monitor brackets. The monitor is safely behind a piece of [...]

  The Cornell University ECE 5760 Advanced Microcontrollers Project fall 2008 results are up. This Ball-E colored ball following robot is just one of many cool projects. Cathy Chen and Matt Meister did a great job of documenting the project for us to enjoy! This year Bruce Land gave the students a Altera/Terasic DE2 FPGA development [...]

This contest will run for one week (Dec 13 - Dec 18, 2008) . Ending time is based on central standard time. To enter, identify the item pictured above and give an example of what can be done with it. Note that the picture shows the device in a cutaway model so that the inside [...]

  Thanks to Csaba for sending in this very nice looking display. The frosted blue LEDs have a great effect! Project code (zip). "Motor An old tape recorder motor. With this load it can rotate about 7.4/s. The image is flashing, it should rotate about 25/s. For supply a 7809 IC is used. Supply of the rotor The commutator of another [...]

  Our friend Sprite_tm has had some time to play a clever prank. Some HP printers have the ability for code to modify what is being displayed on the status screen. This HP Printer Display Hack uses that feature to make a stand alone module that displays some funny comments to the roommate that felt that [...]

  This drum robot was built for about $50 and a bit of time. I think this is the perfect thing to get kids involved and interested in electronics and robots. "The"body for this bot is from an old toy motor housing. The perfect size for covering all the wires, speaker, and other robot guts. (Since I [...]

  Seems like there is tremendous amount of information over at LUTEC Australia PTY describing their technology but is any of it real? I have seen lots of claims over the years form companies like this but none of them have turned out to be feasible. "In order to gain an understanding of the operation of a [...]