Design Inspiration for the Inventive Mind..
Throwable Cameras are an awesome concept, and this 3D printed ball with 36 cameras by Jonas Pfeil takes it to the next level. Just toss the ball in the air and when it reaches the vertex, all the cameras take a picture. The result is a stitched together panoramic image with a full 360° unobstructed view. I can think of all sorts of variations of this that could be useful, from adding infrared and using it for military and police actions, to using a launcher to get a shot of the whole neighborhood, to doubling the cameras for 3D shots. Video Below
The camera isn’t yet on the market, but I’m sure the first question they are going to get from the masses will be: Can I get it in purple?
Not a year goes by lately without Festo coming out with some awesome new biomimetic toys, well, industrial automation really, but you can bet these will be in toy stores in some form within a year or two.
This time, they’ve created a bionic seagull, fully autonomous from takeoff to landing. It uses the same kind of active torsion to take advantage of vortices that flying animals use to get that extra edge in flight that has previously been hard to duplicate in man made devices. Turning is accomplished wit a tilt of the tail.
Rather than using lighter than air materials like in their past projects,the SmartBird frame is constructed from carbon fiber, polyeurathane foam and other lightweight but strong materials, yet they’ve still managed to keep it aloft even with the weight of the brains, batteries, motors, and even a radio transmitter. Video below.
For more technical specs, check out their pdf
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I’m a big fan of X-Prize style innovation. Instead of hiring a research team, and building a whole facility to research a subject, just start adding to a prize fund for whoever the first person is to give you the answer you seek. This way, you end up getting facilities, minds, correlations, and other resources you may not have realized existed working for you, all without paying a cent until you see results.
Several years ago, Google started a project along these lines, asking the public for their ideas to change the world. They offered big connections and prize money to those ideas they chose as the best. They ended up far behind schedule, and I wasn’t that impressed with their choices in the end, but I like that they tried. My submission is below:
A data path exists for processing credit and debit transactions at stores. Use this system to upload store receipts to online accounts. The customer could then use their account at home (like online banking) to use this information as they see fit, and the aggregated data could be used to varying degrees (allowing for privacy) to better the retail system.
What problem or issue does your idea address?
This antenna being developed by SPAWAR Systems uses a jet of seawater as its conductor. It can both recieve and transmit, and by adjusting the length of the jet, they can better tune in a specific wavelength.
Don’t expect to have one of these on your cellphone any time soon, but it seems like it would have a lot of potential for sensors floating out at sea.
When getting a new computer, there is always the issue of how to get your stuff off of the old one, which is often not even functional, like the time I knocked a full glass of water into my power supply (oops). This elegantly designed little product not only helps you with this problem, it also gives that old drive new purpose. It works on both IDE (old wide cables) and SATA (new little cables) drives, and lets you plug them into your USB port.
I always keep my old hard drives when I get a new machine, both for security reasons, and as backup, but then they changed the cables. This adapter not only lets you get your data off those old drives into your new computer, it also makes them into a better way to back up your data than DVDs, which I find unreliable, or the lesser capacity of flash drives. It supports the newer USB2 as well, so it works quickly (for USB).
Or you can go straight to Buy.com:
Cables Unlimited USB 2.0 to IDE & SATA Adapter Cable w/ Power
HackaDay has a fun little project up for those of you who play the guitar and have a do-it-yourself mentality. This little device can be used like a guitar pick. Using the buttons to select your note will cause the LEDs to flash at that frequency. The light will only be visible on the string when it’s in tune.
Or, for around ten bucks, you can save yourself some time and buy one pre-made.
With the flood of dumbed-down instrument games like Guitar Hero
In the above video, we see a simpler solution. Instead of focusing on the instrument, focus on the sound. By using the Rock Band
Obviously, this would be better if the game were designed for such, but I don’t see much chance of that coming from the big developers. What we need is a good open source program to do for the mic what StepMania did for the dance pad. If anyone out there knows of a good equivalent, let me know and I will update this post accordingly.
I don’t know what it is about clocks, but they are a magnet for innovative designers. I love the simplicity of this device, which is made from a gear and a bicycle chain with copper digits. I think it would be fun to make a clock under this principle with scoops on the numbers. Put the bottom of the chain in a basin with ball bearings or some other scoopable which would ring the hour when they fall from the top.
via: Unicahome
