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Sponsored by Digi-Key Gadget Master features cool, homemade electronic gadgets proudly brought to us--by you!
Complete with build instructions for the design engineer who likes the silly side of inventing things and enjoys building stuff in his and her spare time, these gadgets range from highly silly and impractical to extraordinarily inspirational for your own engineering design work.
Here's an interesting resource for prospective gadget builders interested in how machines work. It's the website for an old TV series, from the late 1980s, called The Secret Life of Machines.
Written by Tim Hunkin, the shows appeared on Channel 4 (and the Discovery Channel) and were originally developed from a cartoon strip. This was called 'The Rudiments Of Wisdom', Hunkin drew for the Observer newspaper for 14 years. (I remember the Observer cartoons, but missed the TV series)
According to the site:
Just how does a video recorder work? And how about fax machines, cars, washing machines, electric light, telephones, vacuum cleaners, and refrigerators? You'll find the answers here. This site is designed as a companion to the TV series 'The Secret Life Of Machines' written by Tim Hunkin, and presented by Tim Hunkin and Rex Garrod.
Thanks to Francesco for this one, he highlights a specially developed spot-welding device:
"This electronic spot-welding device has been specially developed for producing assemblies from steel wire," he writes. "The point where the wires meet is fixed together using a pair of pliers whose tips take the form of welding contacts; when the start switch is pressed, the joint is firmly welded together. During the welding process a current of up to 2500 A flows through the contacts for a few thousands of a second."
It's not all about the (Atmel AVR-based) Arduino here on Gadget Master, check out the latest (TI OMAP3530-based) BeagleBoard offering, the xM.
Available from Digi-Key for $179, the devkit is equipped with 512MB of memory and an ARM Cortex-A8 based processor to run open source office apps such as OpenOffice.org and Firefox.
There is on-board Ethernet and four USB 2.0 ports that support low, full and high speeds. But here's the hardware spec in full:
LED Wizard calculates resistors and draws schematics
Here is an excellent resource, certainly worth bookmarking if you are creating your own LED lighting systems - the LED series/parallel array wizard.
It describes itself:
The LED series/parallel array wizard is a calculator that will help you design large arrays of LEDs. The LED calculator was great for single LEDs--but when you have several, the wizard will help you arrange them in a series or combined series/parallel configuration. The wizard determines the current limiting resistor value for each portion of the array and calculates power consumed. All you need to know are the specs of your LEDs and how many you'd like to use.
Check out the screen grab below for our example generation.
"An exciting way for electrical engineers the world over to annoy their neighbours on a quiet Sunday morning," we said.
Well, here's a great resource in a similar vein - a site dedicated to "built-for-fun electric vehicles". Electric go karts, to you and me. See buggies.builtforfun.co.uk/index.php
Thanks to reader Alan Metcalfe for bringing this to Gadget Master's attention. He describes it as "a simple Mr Spock circular (resistor) calculator, to cut-out and make".
The Resistor Code Calculator is on RobIves.com, where its creator describes it as "Paper engineering meets electronic engineering"! Like it.
His raw material is old tech detritus - decrepit mobile phones, broken printers, unusable iPods, dusty digital cameras, and the usual collection of cables and wires - and from these unpromising beginnings he shows how to finish a number of interesting projects.
For example, how about a DIY digital projector, a portable amplifier, a keyboard lamp, or mobile phone torch? Or even an iMac Terrarium or a flat-screen ant farm? Not forgetting a RAM money clip or a USB desktop fan!
A news story for Gadget Masters to note, from interface chip supplier Future Technology Devices International (FTDI). The company is tapping in to the Arduino open-source community to simplify the design of USB 2.0 interfaces in embedded systems - it has introduced a development kit for its Vinculo USB 2.0 platform.
FDTI's Vinculo USB 2.0 platform is built around its Vinculum II VNC2-64 dual-channel host/slave controller with the capability of interfacing to the growing range of I/O application boards (shields) developed by the Arduino open-source community.
Microsoft Gadgeteer takes on Beagle Board and Arduino
Here's a piece of news that may be of interest - Microsoft has announced the official launch of Gadgeteer, a set of electronic parts designed to be plugged together to build prototypes or working electronic devices. Remote controlled cars and cameras are given as possible examples.
It is aimed squarely at Gadget Masters - "hobbyists, electronic enthusiasts and educators" - and Microsoft says it does not require any specialist electronics knowledge or soldering. The idea is to make it simple for anyone to quickly design and build their own devices.
The platform is built on the .NET Micro Framework and the small devices can be programmed in the C# language.
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It's not all about the (Atmel AVR-based) 
Here is an excellent resource, certainly worth bookmarking if you are creating your own LED lighting systems - the 
One of the most popular posts on Gadget Master, over the years, has been 
Thanks to reader Alan Metcalfe for bringing this to Gadget Master's attention. He describes it as "a simple Mr Spock circular (resistor) calculator, to cut-out and make".
Here's a good book for all budding Gadget Masters that has only just come to my attention - 
Here's a piece of news that may be of interest - Microsoft has
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