Geko Geek

iPhone charger teardown shows astounding miniaturization.

geko — Sun, 20 May 2012 11:29:37 PDT

There’s no question that Apple has their industrial design down pat; comparing a cell phone charger made by Blackberry or Motorola to the tiny 1-inch-cube Apple charger just underscores this fact. [Ken Shirriff] posted a great teardown of the Apple iPhone charger that goes through the hardware that makes this charger so impressive. Like most cell [...]

Building a 6502 in Minecraft

geko — Sun, 20 May 2012 09:29:36 PDT

We’ll admit that we haven’t been following Minecraft like we used to; its been a while since we’ve seen something amazing in Minecraft, but [eloraam]‘s 6502 emulator (part of her RedPower Minecraft mod) takes the cake. The RedPower mod adds a lot of industrial technology to Minecraft. Pumps, solar panels, and pneumatic tubes to move [...]

Rain activated light show in an umbrella

geko — Sun, 20 May 2012 08:29:43 PDT

In a decision we completely agree with, these industrious young women decided that playing in the rain would only be more fun if it included an interactive light show. They wanted the rain itself to cause LEDs in their umbrella to light up. To achieve this, they put piezo sensors on each of the 8 [...]

US Military Experimental Flying Platform from 1955

geko — Sun, 20 May 2012 08:29:34 PDT

This US Military Experimental Flying Platform from 1955 is like a flying Segway. I wonder how long it will be before we have a modern day version of this. With technology that is becoming common place because of devices like the AR Drone I think the time is close since the stabilization technology would be [...]

DeLorean hovercraft

geko — Sun, 20 May 2012 06:29:34 PDT

[Matthew Riese] got frustrated waiting for the future to arrive so he could have his flying car. He decided to take things into his own hands and construct the closest thing he could. This turned out to be a hovercraft. Not only that, but he thought that the most fitting shape for this thing would [...]

Constant Current Dummy Load Project

geko — Sat, 19 May 2012 16:29:35 PDT

George Graves built this Constant Current Dummy Load Project based on this blog post over at the EEVBlog. It was built from a single sided board which was designed using ExpressPCB. That software is very nice to draft something up fast and it allows for an easy screen grab to etch what you see quickly. [...]

Name the Thing Contest – 204

geko — Sat, 19 May 2012 14:29:38 PDT

The prize this week is a non contact AC test pen. This pen can be used to test if AC voltage is present in a wire without needing to touch the bare conductor. This contest will run for one week (May 19 – 25, 2012). Ending time is based on central standard time. To enter, [...]

Making real-life portals with a Kinect

geko — Sat, 19 May 2012 12:29:35 PDT

[radicade] wanted to know what real life portals would look like; not something out of a game, but actual blue and orange portals on his living room wall. Short of building a portal gun, the only option available to [radicade] was simulating a pair of portals with a Kinect and a projector. One of the [...]

DIY spring and plate reverb

geko — Sat, 19 May 2012 10:29:34 PDT

If you’re running your own recording studio, you’re going to need a lot of gear that seems excessively esoteric to the non-musically inclined. A rack full of synth gear looks just like any other cabinet of technology you would find in a server room. Electronic musical is, for the most part, very utilitarian looking, but [...]

Geeks living off the grid are hard on batteries

geko — Sat, 19 May 2012 08:29:38 PDT

Many of you will remember [Mikey Sklar] from the multitude of times he’s been on hackaday. What you may not have noticed is that he is an ubergeek, living off the grid. He has Solar PV battery bank, three electric vehicles, a shipping container loaded with battery powered tools and a small army of iRobot [...]