Wednesday Cool Links: Spiderbot, Solar S...

Dave Hrynkiw
October 17, 2012

It's Wednesday! Hooray! Huzzah! We're celebrating because... Well, ok, we have nothing big to celebrate right now. So we're going to celebrate having nothing to celebrate with the traditional and only appropriate way possible... BROWSING THE INTERNET! Indeed, we've been celebrating this time-honoured tradition with steadfast dedication, and it's our pleasure to share it with all of you.

Four-Legged Spiderbot
As the website puts it, this is "a walking machine, radially symmetrical, having four legs with two degrees of freedom each, controlled through a wireless link from a hand-held controller based on two Wii Nunchucks." Very impressive articulation and range of motion. Be sure to check out the video.
The Almost Useless Machine
A solar-powered... Reciprocating saw? Make sure you have lots of patience and a cold one to enjoy while you "work"! Seriously though, while this might not be too functional, it certainly has some great craftsmanship.
Solar "Death Ray": Power of 5000 suns!
Mirrors. Lots of mirrors. 5800 of them, to be precise. It's pretty cool (and a LOT scary) what kind of power can be harnessed by arranging mirrors onto a fiberglass satellite dish and aligning it to the sun.
6 Rubens Tubes Visualizer
Hrm, a flame visualization for music? SIGN ME UP. Turn it into a handy-dandy plug-in accessory for the iPod, for the best on-the-go pyrotechnics you can possibly imagine. Might want to make sure you turn it off before tucking it away in your pocket, though.
Solar Engineer Badge on DIY
So, you think you like DIY? Well, it's time to prove your chops by completing challenges over at diy.org. They even have a Solar Engineer Badge that features a bunch of project ideas, including our Instructable for the Solar Powered Miniball.

We were once hoping that we could instead celebrate by racing giraffes through obstacle courses, but that didn't pan out. Too bad. I was planning on decking mine out with some sweet black and white racing stripes, to make it look like a very oddly proportioned zebra.

MORE POSTS

December 15, 2000
Frogbots! Solar-powered, at that!

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October 10, 2012
Wednesday Cool Links: All Sorts of Odds ...

With the runaway success of the Useless Box, many of us here at Solarbotics can be assembling the kits in our sleep, even under a dose of tranquilizers, and be orchestrating the two lasers at the same time with no difficulty whatsoever. Just like I used to count transistors for the latest in Soviet Death […]

June 29, 2005
Holiday Closure

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August 28, 2009
Arduino Shields

As we all know, the 'A' in 'August' stands for 'Arduino'. So it's with great sorrow that this will be our last mega Arduino-centric update. We'll still be adding to our selection, but not in as massive amounts. The Arduino Components category is still rather sparse, so hopefully that'll see some love soon. But in […]

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