Tales from the Auxiliary

By on

The Evil Mad Science Auxiliary is a public group on Flickr for anyone to add photos that are (at least marginally) related to posts and projects from Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories.
Lately some fantastic photos and projects have shown up in the group, so we thought that we should stop and round up a few– not all– of the great things that we’ve seen there.

The photos below were taken by their respective owners; click on the individual photos to get the full story.

DSC_2180

 

A dark detector built by cyenobite, using a tiny battery holder.

 

Joule Thief 1

 

 

 

Beautiful Joule Thief light by Jimmie Rodgers

 

 

 

Rewired 16seg POV display: Shift registers!   

Adam Greig has been having fun with AlphaPOV. (Results here.)

 

Macro shots with light ring   Bristlebot version IIBristlebot version II   Cheapest bot on Earth

Francesco (Flickr user fdecomite) made this amazing army of BristleBots, photographed with the help of his spiffy LED ring light. He even made some excellent videos of the little guys in action.

 

LED arrays   Homebrew toy blaster effects
progress

Steve Lodefink has been busy building up this set of electronics for an extra-spiffy handlheld blaster. Based on 555 and 4017 chips, it has some elements in common with our little cylon circuit. I can’t wait to see what it looks like when it’s done!

 

SP_A0133   SP_A0130SP_A0112

Channon (Flickr user plik the geek) is building up one of our interactive LED kits.

He also decorated his office printer with an overly honest label. (Coincidentally, we also did this to our own office printer.)

 

 

Finished circuits!

Speaking of interactive LED kits, A Oli Wood contributed this fabulous time exposure of his completed circuit.

So… If you’ve got pictures or projects that were in some way inspired by our projects, we would as always love to see them in the Auxiliary. And to everyone who has contributed, thanks for your cool pictures!

This entry was posted in Electronics, EMSL Projects and tagged , , , . Bookmark the Permalink.

Five Minute Project: iPod Cozy

By on

iPod inside

The iPod Touch (or iPhone, for that matter) is a slim little thing that fits well in all kinds of places. However, in pockets and bags, it runs the risk of getting scratched unless you protect it. Here is a super quick fabric sleeve you can make to keep your lovely device safe. It is snug enough that it won’t fall out, even when shaken upside down. As an added bonus, you can even use the multi-touch screen through the fabric. A few minutes and a few cents worth of fabric seem like a bargain when compared with the exorbitant prices and shipping costs (or, even worse, a trip to the mall!) for the commercial variety.
Continue reading Five Minute Project: iPod Cozy →

This entry was posted in EMSL Projects and tagged . Bookmark the Permalink.

A Velvet Bristlebot Racing Snail

By on

A velvet bristlebot racing snail

A few weeks ago we showed you how to build a BristleBot, a tiny vibrating robot (vibrobot) that is formed from the unlikely union of a toothbrush (with directional bristles) and a vibrating pager motor. Despite its simplicity, it drives like a drunken bat out of hell– propelled by the ratcheting action of the vibrated bristles.

Of course, toothbrushes aren’t the only system where you can find find oriented bristles. Approaching this process from an entirely different perspective, it turns out that certain types of velvet can also form a directional bristle system that can be driven with vibrations. Here we build a plush racing snail– a velvet vibrobot that crawls forward… at a snails pace.
Continue reading A Velvet Bristlebot Racing Snail →

This entry was posted in EMSL Projects and tagged , , . Bookmark the Permalink.

Linkdump: January 2008

By on
This entry was posted in Everything Else and tagged . Bookmark the Permalink.

One Hundred Percent EDIBLE Googly Eyes!

By on

Nilla is watching you.Googly FSM
After more than a year of painstaking directed research by our Experimental Foods Division, we have finally achieved one of our most important longstanding goals: the production of edible googly eyes. Like many other great inventions, it seems almost simple in retrospect, but in this write up we walk through the process and show you how to make your own.
Continue reading One Hundred Percent EDIBLE Googly Eyes! →

This entry was posted in EMSL Projects, Play with your food and tagged , , , , . Bookmark the Permalink.

How to organize your Lego bricks for efficient building

By on

Messy Lego

If you spend any time at all with Lego, then the sight above is probably a familiar one: a giant bin full of assorted Lego bricks and parts. As a kid, this was about the pinnacle of my organizational skills (hey, they’re in a box, right?) but I’m sure that in aggregate I wasted several years of my life pawing through boxes like this trying to find the next piece that I needed.

Twenty years later I have Lego again, but much less tolerance for digging through piles. So how can we make things better? In this article we show off some of the tricks that we use to keep our stacks organized, so that we can spend our Lego time building efficiently, not looking for bricks. (Warning: article is image heavy!)
Continue reading How to organize your Lego bricks for efficient building →

This entry was posted in EMSL Projects and tagged . Bookmark the Permalink.