Gadget Master http://www.electronicsweekly.com/blogs/gadget-master/ Cool content for the electronics engineer who likes to build or control devices en Copyright 2012 Wed, 23 May 2012 11:10:29 +0000 http://www.sixapart.com/movabletype/ http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss Sign up for the Gadget Master newsletter circuits nl logo.jpg Having one of those days? Work driving you mad? Just can't seem to find the time to visit Gadget Master as much as you would like to?

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You can now sign up for the Gadget Master newsletter to ensure you receive the latest and greatest Gadget Master news, hot and fresh, straight into your inbox!

Signing up only takes a second and then you can sit back and relax as we do the rest.

]]> http://www.electronicsweekly.com/blogs/gadget-master/2012/05/sign-up-for-the-newsletter.html http://www.electronicsweekly.com/blogs/gadget-master/2012/05/sign-up-for-the-newsletter.html newsletter Sign up Wed, 23 May 2012 11:10:29 +0000 MIT student races self-built Mario-Kart

A bit of fun for a Friday afternoon... Ever found time passing heavy at work? Fancy spicing things up a gear? Maybe, racing round the corridors on your castor-based chairs? (No chance the boss will see you, he's away on a golfing trip...)

Well, it seems one MIT student found himself in this position, but also raised the stakes, putting his engineering prowess to the test to build a replica Mario-Kart, for aforesaid corridor racing...

Mark Raby, of SlashGear writes:

]]> http://www.electronicsweekly.com/blogs/gadget-master/2012/05/mit-student-races-self-built-m.html http://www.electronicsweekly.com/blogs/gadget-master/2012/05/mit-student-races-self-built-m.html Motor controllers car Super Mario Fri, 18 May 2012 15:36:16 +0000 Makey Makey circuit board turns objects into computer keys This is a nice one to share with Gadget Masters, from our sister site New Scientist - DIY circuit turns your alphabet soup into a keyboard

Jacob Aron writes about some wizardry from MIT:
Ever wanted to move Pac-Man using pencil drawings, make music with bananas or type an email with alphabet soup? Now you can thanks to Makey Makey, a simple circuit board that turns almost any object into a computer key (see video here).

"It works with anything that is a little bit electrically conductive," says Eric Rosenbaum, a researcher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. "Things like food, Play-Doh and lots of different metallic or organic materials."

]]> http://www.electronicsweekly.com/blogs/gadget-master/2012/05/makey-makey-circuit-board-turn.html http://www.electronicsweekly.com/blogs/gadget-master/2012/05/makey-makey-circuit-board-turn.html Sensors Makey Makey MIT Tue, 15 May 2012 09:41:32 +0000 Breathing on the IOIO board for an Android Breathalyser Here's a nice example of what you can do with the IOIO Android-friendly breakout board that we've featured previously.

It's a DIY Android Breathalyser. It's still in prototype form, but is shown working in cable-less form, courtesy of Bluetooth.

Note you would need a phone with Android 2.3.3+ ("Gingerbread") - for the requisite Bluetooth support - or else old-fashioned USB cable connectivity will be required... ]]> http://www.electronicsweekly.com/blogs/gadget-master/2012/05/breathing-on-the-ioio-board-fo.html http://www.electronicsweekly.com/blogs/gadget-master/2012/05/breathing-on-the-ioio-board-fo.html Sensors Android Android IOIO Breathalyser Fri, 11 May 2012 08:40:09 +0000 The Kindle Touch competition It's time for another Gadget Master competition! The theme we are taking for this one is the recent Mindstorms roundup, but the prize is not Lego-based! Time for a more conventional consumer electronics gadget, I feel...

Step forward the Kindle Touch, as a prize kindly provided by Gadget Master sponsor RS. With a touchscreen, audio and built-in Wi-Fi, the Touch version of Amazon's popular e-book reader would set you back £109.


]]> http://www.electronicsweekly.com/blogs/gadget-master/2012/05/the-kindle-touch-competition.html http://www.electronicsweekly.com/blogs/gadget-master/2012/05/the-kindle-touch-competition.html competition Tue, 08 May 2012 08:28:05 +0000 MIT student builds mobile phone from parts David Mellis, a PhD student at MIT has published the circuit and case designs and the source code for a working mobile phone that he built using parts worth
$1 50 (£93). The body is laser-cut from veneered plywood, and it has a 160x128pixel TFT screen ]]> http://www.electronicsweekly.com/blogs/gadget-master/2012/05/mit-student-builds-mobile-phon.html http://www.electronicsweekly.com/blogs/gadget-master/2012/05/mit-student-builds-mobile-phon.html consumer electronics David Mellis MIT mobile phone open source Mon, 07 May 2012 10:01:41 +0000 Whipping up a (programmable Lego) Mindstorm Before we launch the imminent May/June 2012 compo, let's have another themed roundup of posts... on Mindstorms ("Lego sets combining programmable bricks with electric motors, sensors, Lego bricks, and Lego Technic pieces (such as gears, axles, and beams)", as Wikipedia once put it).

Mindstorms has its historic roots, apparently, in a programmable brick created at the MIT Media Lab...

Anyway, the plastic brick-based platform has long proved fertile ground for Gadget Masters, so there are quite a few Lego-related posts to choose from... ]]> http://www.electronicsweekly.com/blogs/gadget-master/2012/05/whipping-up-a-programmable-leg.html http://www.electronicsweekly.com/blogs/gadget-master/2012/05/whipping-up-a-programmable-leg.html Robot Mindstorms NXT Mon, 07 May 2012 08:55:24 +0000 Spider silk conducts heat as efficiently as metals spiderman_3_movie_image-WEB.jpgA post about spider silk might sound more like biology than electronics; and the strength of spider webs is the stuff of legend, as Spiderman fans will tell you. But recent research at Iowa State University by Xinwei Wang has raised some issues that might mean we need to rethink the pigeonholing.

]]> http://www.electronicsweekly.com/blogs/gadget-master/2012/05/spider-silk-conducts-heat-as-e.html http://www.electronicsweekly.com/blogs/gadget-master/2012/05/spider-silk-conducts-heat-as-e.html Spiderman Fri, 04 May 2012 09:00:00 +0000 14 year-old New Yorker designs and builds Lego printer lego-printer-WEB.jpg

World of Mindstorms is one of the blogs of Leon Overweel, a fourteen-year-old New Yorker who includes robotics in his extensive list of interests. A recent post particularly caught my eye: PriNXT - Mindstorms NXT Printer ...

]]> http://www.electronicsweekly.com/blogs/gadget-master/2012/05/14-year-old-new-yorker-designs.html http://www.electronicsweekly.com/blogs/gadget-master/2012/05/14-year-old-new-yorker-designs.html consumer electronics Lego printer Leon Overweel NXT Thu, 03 May 2012 11:08:59 +0000 Most read Gadget Master posts in April May - and the season of Bank Holidays - is upon us! But before April 2012 becomes but a distant memory let's tarry just a while to consider the most popular posts on the blog in the foregoing month.

Topics covered include: Geiger counters, Android and NFC, calculator pranks and Flea robots... 

Taking it in reverse order, for maximum suspense:

10. DIY Geiger counter smartphone app helps measure

9. Video: Hacking a calculator for pranks

8. When you can't find the camera you want

]]> http://www.electronicsweekly.com/blogs/gadget-master/2012/05/most-read-gadget-master-posts-20.html http://www.electronicsweekly.com/blogs/gadget-master/2012/05/most-read-gadget-master-posts-20.html Wed, 02 May 2012 09:04:16 +0000 And the winner is... Time to announce the winner of the most recent Gadget Master competition, sponsored by RS Components. Up for grabs was an  BeagleBoard XM, the ARM Cortex-A8-based open source develepment system.

Thanks to all those who took part, but there can only be one winner...

[cue drum roll]

]]> http://www.electronicsweekly.com/blogs/gadget-master/2012/05/and-the-winner-is-17.html http://www.electronicsweekly.com/blogs/gadget-master/2012/05/and-the-winner-is-17.html Competitions BeagleBoard Tue, 01 May 2012 13:47:06 +0000 Cardboard camera Ikea has been working on a digital camera largely made from cardboard.

Called KNÄPPA, the folk over at PetaPixel have a witty video about it, and details.

The whole thing is neat - even the USB connector.

]]> http://www.electronicsweekly.com/blogs/gadget-master/2012/04/cardboard-camera.html http://www.electronicsweekly.com/blogs/gadget-master/2012/04/cardboard-camera.html consumer electronics camera cardboard Ikea Mon, 30 Apr 2012 12:00:50 +0000 Lego Mindstorms robot learns to play Rock-Paper-Scissors When Robots take over the world, will they play Rock-Paper-Scissors to pass the time? Well, one of their precursors does (featured at Robogames 2011 for the Lego Open challenge, where it won first place).

A canny inventor has constructed a Lego Mindstorms NXT-based device to play the game. That is to say, it learns how to play the game from past experiences. And it won't just learn to take part (apparently simulating a simple neural network), it will "beat a person 100% of the time!" the creator boasts. ]]> http://www.electronicsweekly.com/blogs/gadget-master/2012/04/lego-mindstorms-robot-learns-t.html http://www.electronicsweekly.com/blogs/gadget-master/2012/04/lego-mindstorms-robot-learns-t.html Robot Lego Mindstorms NXT robot Wed, 25 Apr 2012 14:46:47 +0000 Let the latest Gadget Master posts come to you, with RSS The best way to get the very latest Gadget Master posts as soon as they are published? RSS!

And it's not just Gadget Master. Check out all the RSS feeds that are available for Electronics Weekly content. The feed for Latest News, for example, can be found here.


There are 12 Electronics Weekly feeds you can tap into:
News
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Products]]> http://www.electronicsweekly.com/blogs/gadget-master/2012/04/let-the-latest-gadget-master-po.html http://www.electronicsweekly.com/blogs/gadget-master/2012/04/let-the-latest-gadget-master-po.html RSS Sun, 22 Apr 2012 11:24:26 +0000 Stanford students && (Android + NFC + TV) == Fun Stanford students are demonstrating the potential of NFC-based hackery with a number of projects "showing how NFC-equipped phones and televisions can work together". Very impressive it is, too.

The five applications - running between their NFC-linked Android phones and a TV - include:
* displaying photos in a slide show
* rigging up a collaborative whiteboard
* sharing a slide show presention
* playing a game of online poker and
* streaming Netlix videos...

Apparently, the TV components are done in Javascript and HTML, and the Android apps were written in Java, as is standard for Google's mobile platform.

]]> http://www.electronicsweekly.com/blogs/gadget-master/2012/04/stanford-students-android-nfc.html http://www.electronicsweekly.com/blogs/gadget-master/2012/04/stanford-students-android-nfc.html Wireless consumer electronics Android NFC Wed, 11 Apr 2012 11:57:14 +0000