When I became interested in BEAM robotics and started taking apart pagers to cannibalize their motors, I was fascinated by the offset-weight on the motor shaft. That’s what makes your pager or other comm device vibrate, a one-sided weight spinning around and causing the vibrations you feel. While these weights are usually removed in miniature bot building, I started thinking about how you could use this off-kilter rumbling as a form of motility. Later, I discovered there’s a whole branch on the BEAM family tree for these “Vibrobots.”
Zach Debord, who created the Twin Engine Solarroller has built some cool Vibrobots. I’m going to talk to him about another Street Tech piece that shows off some of these and describes how he built ’em.
Which brings us to this amazing, analog vibrobot drawing robot project, built with little more than a paper cup, three felt pens, a battery pack and a DC toy motor with an “eccentric weight.” The video of the builder’s son taking it for a spin is adorable.
[Via Make]
I liked this book the first time, when it was called the 
On Kevin Kelly’s highly-recommended Street Use site, he has a couple of 
Here’s one from the “Because I Can” File. Grant Hutchinson is serving 
I’ve been sort of surprised by the extent to which the tech press has gotten all excited over the Microsoft Zune. Now granted, I’m no big fan of Mr. Bill and company, but part of me has been hoping the Zune will be a success and bring some pressure to bear on Apple (the consumer being the winner in a competitive market, and all that jazz). And this (MS enjoying a significant marketshare) is likely to be the case, regardless of the quality of their product. But it’s that quality (or apparent lack thereof) I’m sort of surprised by. What I’ve seen and heard about the Zune has not said “iPod Killer” to me. The price is one of the few things that’s struck me as threatening. The slightly larger screen is nice, too. Otherwise, well… I’ll let these snip-snips from recent articles critical of the Zune do the talkin’:
Alright, it’s official, the USB port has finally and completely lost its way, or at least, gadget designers have loosened too many of their screws over USB. Meet the latest evidence of widespread serial port psychosis: the 
Just in time for Halloween, it’s “Mad Scientist Lights,” and it’s a 
Everybody’s favorite steampunk engineer I-Wei has posted a