A Hat full of Random

1) Anti Jellyfish Robot

Can kill 6000 an hour apparently, though I think that’s the robot swarm rather than just one of them.

They should make these to eat the plastic in the North Pacific or something. Seem to recall something about some kid who invented something to do that – but if memory serves, it was a TED talk, which is a more or less iron-clad guarantee that it will never happen.

2) Hovering Spill Table

Style over substance. Mind over matter. Wood over Magnets. Marvellous.

3) 3D Printed Painting Forgery

Yea, ok. You’ve managed to impress me there. That’s incredible. Mind you, the commentator guy in the first one is so enthusiastic he sounds like he’s on something. I want whatever he’s just had. That’d be amazing. EVERYTHING would be amazing.

4) Darpa Runbot

Absolutely no good will come of this.

The fact that it runs on a petrol motor of some sort reminds me of the way the early fighter planes were made out of wood and string. Utterly insane, and outdated already.

5) The Next Thing I’ll Fund On Kickstarter

Why?

Because they’re right… the software that comes with Chinese laser-cutters is utterly fucking abysmal. And expensive, and just the software ‘license’ costs more than this bit of kit. The fact that I can’t get at the software of my laser-cutter is a massive source of frustration – I need to be able to rewrite the bits that are shit. If it’s open-source, then it’s doable.

Mildly concerned about it’s engraving ability, but then I’ve only ever used black and white engraving anyway… and if I can get at the code, I can write my own.

I think it’s mildly interesting that it’s blown past the target as well… I’m possibly not the only one.

Mind you, it might be an idea to get a little machine to practice on, so I don’t bugger up my main one – which I use pretty much every day.


1 Comment » for A Hat full of Random
  1. Arthur Wolf says:

    Hi !

    You can actually wire Smoothieboard in parralel to the original crap electronics. I’m doing this right now on a giant ( 1500x1200mmm ) lasercutter. I’ll add a switch so I can select which one has power.
    About engraving, we have some of it working, still a work in progress.

    Cheers :)