For our first annual Valentine’s special edition of Gadget Freak we pulled out some of our most precious Gadget Freaks from the Design News archives. Just click on the link to review Gadget Freaks that address affairs of the heart.
Calling All Gadget Freaks! Have you built a Valentine's Day gadget that involves electronics, motion control, and/or sensing devices? Tell us about it, and you could win $500! E-mail us the gadget details, including a detailed description of how it works, a schematic, and a parts list. If your gadget is selected for publication in Design News, you’ll receive a crisp check (courtesy of Gadget Freak sponsor Allied Electronics), and your gadget will be featured in an upcoming issue of the magazine.Download the entry form | E-mail us
Avoiding Doggus Interrupt-Us Planning a romantic evening at home? Les designed a remote control door opener so you don’t have to manually let Fido out of his cage. The system consists of a clevis mounted to the shaft of a solenoid and the door latch of the cage. Get Build Instructions | Post a Comment
Extra long-lasting Dripless Candles A candlelight dinner? Relax and enjoy the lambent halos and silhouettes. With electronic flame flicker there's no hurry – the candles never burn down and they won't get wax on your tablecloth. But use real ones around the hot tub. Get Build Instructions | Post a Comment
Les Wears His Silicon on His Sleeve If you’re looking for cool way to wow that special someone on Valentine’s Day/birthday/whatever, build her a flashing heart made from LEDs driven by a programmable microcontroller. Les Grant’s gadget is simple to build and made from easily-obtainable parts. Get Build Instructions | Post a Comment
Staying Cool in a Hot Tent Happy campers Bruce Field and daughter Ellie love their portable heating/cooling device built to maintain a constant and comfortable temperature inside their tent. To ensure climate control, they married a room air-conditioner and tent with slinky-type dryer ducting. Get Build Instructions | Post a Comment
For 3D printing to make the jump from rapid prototyping to manufacturing, engineers will need to find easier ways to move products from their CAD screens to their printers.
Gigabit and PoE are two networking technologies moving ahead in tandem as industrial users power remote Ethernet devices such as IP security cameras at 1,000 Mbps over existing CAT5 cable.
New versions of BASF's Ecovio line are both compostable and designed for either injection molding or thermoforming. These combinations are becoming more common for the single-use bioplastics used in food service and food packaging applications, but are still not widely available.
From Dell / Intel® New Paradigms in Design Work Scott Hamilton, vertical market strategist for Dell Precision workstations, 5/2/2013 5
Early in my career, I worked as a draftsman and remember the days of drawing on vellum with numbered pencils and Mylar with plastic lead. This was a fun experience in the sense that I ...
I've been using workstations for more than 10 years and love finding ways to get more performance from my system. With demanding professional applications that require more power each ...
A lasting memory from my first job as an engineer in an auto assembly plant is standing on hard concrete at six in the morning, vending-machine coffee clutched in hand, listening to ...
For industrial control applications, or even a simple assembly line, that machine can go almost 24/7 without a break. But what happens when the task is a little more complex? That’s where the “smart” machine would come in. The smart machine is one that has some simple (or complex in some cases) processing capability to be able to adapt to changing conditions. Such machines are suited for a host of applications, including automotive, aerospace, defense, medical, computers and electronics, telecommunications, consumer goods, and so on. This radio show will show what’s possible with smart machines, and what tradeoffs need to be made to implement such a solution.
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