The Ben Heck show

An email recently showed up in my inbox promoting a new Internet TV show:  The Ben Heck show.  I hadn’t heard of Ben Heck previously but I took a look.  He’s apparently a gamer and console modder.  He’s been blogging since Y2K (how come nobody calls it that anymore?) on custom consoles and other video game news.

His TV show is kind of a lite version of Myth Busters.  Each episode is 15 minutes, which is probably about as much content as Myth Busters has once you take out the commercials.  In the most recent one he and a forum member attempt (but fail) to build an automatic can crusher using a home built solenoid and a bank of capacitors.  They do manage to trip the breaker and put out the lights however.

An ongoing project that is pretty neat is to make a portable Xbox 360 by transplanting the guts into a custom enclosure with a flip up screen.  Think portable computer from the early 1990s and you’ll be in the ballpark size-wise.  The case was made from  a large piece of plastic milled out on a large bed CNC machine.  If you had your own TV show then you could afford cool tools like that as well.

Anyway, I thought the show was pretty entertaining.  Maybe you will also.

Steve Ravet

Design News Gadgeteer

Send in your gadget! Design News is always looking for new gadets to feature in the print edition of the magazine.  Mechanical, electrical, pneumatic, whatever.  Believe me, if they’ll run my hot rodded Billy Bass they’ll run anything.  If you’ve creating something clever and would like to see it in print, submit it to the Design News editors:

http://www.designnews.com/file/25333-Submit_Your_Gadget_Freak_Design.pdf

You’ll get the thrill of seeing your product show up in a print magazine right in your mailbox, and you’ll get a check for $500 as well.