Schwippy

Schwippy Christmas Tree Returns!

The controllable Schwippy Christmas Tree is back! On the Schwippy Christmas Tree page, you can choose to control our Christmas lights while viewing a web cam image of the tree and anybody (or any thing, for that matter) that decides to run across it

This year, along with the Red, Green, Blue, and White lights, we have also added a tree-topper star and even a train that you can control.
If you want to know how the project was put together, you can visit the project page at www.Plasma2002.com/tree, but if you want to control the tree and view the webcam, make sure you visit the following link:

Schwippy Christmas Tree

Blender Defender

I put up a page detailing my latest project.

Have a cat that won’t stay off your counters? I do. I finally got fed up with it enough to do something about it: scare the crap out of him with a motion-detecting blender (while recording the results for my own amusement, of course).

Check it out at www.plasma2002.com/blenderdefender

Blender Defender via Me!

Emergency Party Button

I finally did the write-up on the Emergency Party Button that I made a few months ago. I took a short video as well.

The video does it no justice… you totally need to be there to experience the awesomeness.

If you want to see how it was done and what all it consists of, go to the Emergency Party Button page at www.plasma2002.com/epb

Control The Official Schwippy Christmas Tree

This year, we have set up a Christmas Tree with lights that can be controlled via a web interface for all to enjoy! On the Schwippy Christmas Tree page, you can choose to control our christmas lights and view a webcam image of the tree and anybody (or any thing, for that matter) that decides to run across it

If you are bored and feel like playing with our lights, go to the following website.

http://tree.schwippy.com

Rock Paper Scissors 25

Who knew that one of the best games ever invented could get even better?

Along with the three common hand signs that can be thrown, 22 more signs have been added, each with their own set of rules on what beats what.

Click the image for a full size view

Check out the main site for a different chart that you can buy a large print of and put on your wall for reference.
Rock Paper Scissors 25 @ UMOP

2-Story Target and their Cartalator

So while in San Diego for the weekend, we decided to go to the mall do a little time-killing before we headed back to our simple lives in the good ol’ IE. Well, we found a Bed Bath and Beyond, and seeing as how me and Sarah are going to be getting an apartment soon, we decided to go in and get some decorating ideas and whatnot. Well, we were both surprised when it turned out to be a 2-story building. When we decided to go up to the second floor, we were both joking about how we should try to get the shopping cart on the escalator with us. But instead we just did it the boring old fashioned way and took it up with us on the elevator. I know, I know… so cliche.

Anyways, while we were riding up, I was thinking to myself of ideas on how a system could be made to accommodate shopping carts going up or down a story. Somewhat along the lines of an escalator system. Well, I left it at that and didn’t think about it much more afterwards.

After we left Bed Bath and Beyond, we went to the other side of the mall and found Target, my girlfriend’s OCD-friendly fantasy store. As much as she loves Target, I wasn’t surprised at how thrilled she was to learn that just like Bed Bath and Beyond, this store too was two stories. Up where we live, we have ever yet to see a 2 store Target. I honestly didn’t think they could have that much crap to sell.

What’s great about this Target is the fact that they had solved the shopping cart escalator problem! We were both as mesmerized with this thing much in the same way that Asian tourists are with a pretty blonde girl in Las Vegas. I felt like an idiot taking the footage of this thing in action, but I knew what I had to do. I was on a mission to bring back a sight of the new world to the people of the IE! So behold: the Target Cartalator! (Well, if I got to name it anyway…)

Tangible Reactable What What?

Check out this instrument synth device. Aparently made by some hard core geeks.

The reactable is a multi-user electro-acoustic music instrument with a tabletop tangible user interface. Several simultaneous performers share complete control over the instrument by moving physical artefacts on the table surface and constructing different audio topologies in a kind of tangible modular synthesizer or graspable flow-controlled programming language.

Reactable [Via DialyCupOfTech]

Hampster Prance

Finally! Put your hamster to some REAL use! Make him work for his own well being. Load a sheet of paper into the shredder, and your little buddy just does his thing, running his little butt off, and presto; a few gear reductions later, an instant hamster bed made from purely recycled credit card applications and unfiled TPS reports.

This is artist Tom Ballhatchet’s design, which he plans to put on display in Milan, Italy.

Check out his hanster shredder and his site below.

Tom Ballhatchet [Via Gizmodo]

X Prize Wants Their MPG

The X Prize foundation is probably most notable for their past sponsorship, the Ansari X Prize; an $10,000,000 prize to the private group who could first get a spacecraft into space and return safely. That contest was finally put to an end in 2004 when Burt Rutan and Paul Allen finally succeeded.

Since then, the X Price foundation has come up with another contest that should spawn the ideas and improvements we desperately need in the world today.

The proposal states it will give an unnamed amount in prize money (Probably the standard $10M) to the first group that can make an automobile that can successfully break the 100 MPG mark.

Whats the record right now, like 50ish or something? Hold on…… ok, a quick googling shows 76 MPG (Dont quote me on that though). But anyways, how awesome would it be to be able to have a car that could get you across the country on a single tank of gas? The foundation isn’t looking for a car that was just made by some MIT students in a dorm room. They want something that can actually be manufactured and sold. They have 2 classes so far; a 4-wheel / 4-passenger model, and a 2-passenger model with an unspecified amount of wheels.

With the rediculous gasoline prices around these days, this has got to be one of the most needed things in our world. Everything should go pretty well too, as long as Chevron doesnt get their hands on the winning prototypes. We would never hear about it again.

Automotive X Prize [Via Slashdot]

The BrakeLok

Instead of all the other companies in the anti-theft world that try to create more and more elaborate devices to protect your car every day, Yanko Design has come up with a damn good alternative: just put on the brake!

The BrakeLok fits over your already existing hand brake and covers the button on the end. It will let you press the button still when in normal use. But, at any time, at the end of the BrakeLok is a key, which can be taken out. If the key is not in the BrakeLok, there is no way of pressing the brake release button, or even taking the BrakeLok off, essentially rendering the car immovable.

As with all theft protection devices, a good thief can get around it. And that rule applies to the BrakeLok as well, but still, adding more protection to your $1,500,000 Enzo is never going to hurt.

BrakeLok [Via Gizmodo]