I’ve always been into unconventional things. So when I came across this website selling the most unusual jewelry I was in love.
The creator of these unique designs, who goes by the name edmdesigns, has chosen to brand the art as the “Tiffany’s of Steampunk.” Influenced by the craftsmanship and vintage artistry of the Victorian era, edmdesigns reanimates those same designs for us.
Although other items are up for sale as well, but as I am a girl, naturally I am more attracted to the jewelry, most notably rings.
One of the happiest moments backs as a Teaching Assistant in college was when a Professor told me to build a underwater autonomous course under $1000 and out of Lego Bricks.
There are a lot of things to over come if you are building one. But its not impossible to build a pretty intelligent Lego submersible. Especially when they are now digital with microcontrollers and sensors. One of my favorite examples was when Rhode Island University Beat MIT’s AUV with their Lego version.
Have you ever wanted a computer that you can leave on 24/7 and not even notice that it is on when you walk into the room? I know I have. Now I finally built one that is so quiet you can’t hear if it’s on or not even if you stand next to it.
As a bonus, it is only the size of a large book, has a 1.6Ghz dual core atom processor, and idles at 19C (or whatever the room temperature happens to be).
Here is a video to give you an idea of how small the computer is.
Notice how it makes almost no noise when it’s on. If you walked into the room you wouldn’t be able to tell that there is a computer there too.
Cooling
The dual core Atom motherboard used to have a small fan on it that cooled the graphics processor. That was removed and a 140mm Scythe fan was placed on top of the entire motherboard. Why such a ridiculously large fan? Because it’s quiet. Rate at 10dB, it is the quietest fan that I have found for sale and it happened to be 140mm big. So I worked with it, and it turned out to do an amazing job at cooling the whole computer.
I was worried at first. While this big fan does move a lot of air, it moves it over a large area. The original 10mm fan sat directly on the chipset heat sink, providing localized cooling, which I was afraid the big fan might not match. I’m glad it worked out well in the end when I finally assembled everything and tried it out.
The front of the computer has the power button. No USB ports or sd card readers. I was satisfied with just having 4 USB ports in the back. I used this computer as a media PC. I have a projector connected to it as well as a wireless mouse and keyboard.
Here is a little Candy dispenser I made for the office one day. I bought one of those massive bags of M&M peanuts and the guys around the office finished them in a day.
AndiE and I were walking around Manhattan and we stumbled upon a street fair for Bastille Day. Bastille Day is a French national holiday honoring the Storming of the Bastille.
We had some wonderful crepes and acted like tourists. I couldn’t take my eyes off of this french fry machine they had. So flippin’ cool. You can even hear me say it’s so flippin cool.
This was a little Lego Turret I built using 80% ABS Lego Bricks. The other 15% is an automated BB gun. I control it using the standard Lego Motor box and the BB Gun is powered using a Cell Phone Charger as a power supply 5V at 1A. The base is wide so the recoil of the gun doesn’t tip the gun over. Plus it gave me the chance to use the oversized wheel from my dissassembled Lego Starwars Hail Fire Droid and use it for lazy Susan.
Some of you can add better than I and realize I’m missing 5%. That 5% is a resin I used to attach some Lego Beams to the Gun. By doing that I Lego-ized the gun in case I ever need to rebuild it.
The toy is a manual control turret so it doesn’t need limit switches.
When I was a young whipper snapper, my first lesson in automotive repair was enlightening and required extreme dedication. My father passed it down to me, as I’m sure countless fathers have around the world. It’s like it was just yesterday, when my dad started off with those classic few words, “Son, hold the light.”
I don’t know about you, but I would have killed for one of these tools. I feel like I could build one just as easily, but for $9 bucks this tool isn’t too expensive. Opinions?
I was thinking of little innovations to make in my usual thinking spot. Then it hit me, I should be building an automatic toilet flusher. I needed a little intro as to what all the little moving parts in a toilet were called and I decided to take Toiletology 101. Its kind of amazing how we take bathrooms for granted.
I thought this video was a bit impressive. I’m glad all that junk mail I recycle is going in its proper place.
