Printed Circuit Board Kits Turn into Magic Voodoo Robots

Posted on 06/08/2020 by Paul Strauss

Normally, printed circuit boards are green and rectangular or square in shape. But these unique circuit boards come in colors like yellow, orange, and blue. Beyond being colorful, they’re designed to be taken apart and assembled into wonderful little robots.

Designed by Geeek Club, these Magic Voodoo Bots are festive little robots that come flat-packed on special printed circuit boards. Simply cut the pieces out of the boards, and put your basic electronics skills to work to assemble them. The finished robots look awesome when lit up, and they vibrate too which makes them skitter around.

Magic Voodoo Bots come sold in a $129 boxed set that includes seven different mini robots, along with all of the electronic components, parts, and tools you need to build them, including a soldering iron, and a rotary tool you’ll need to cut the pieces out with.

These would make a great gift for anyone just getting started in electronics, and when you’re done building them, you’ll have some really nifty light-up art to display on your desk or bookshelf.

[via Reddit]

Learn How to Make a Motherboard Cake

Posted on 26/01/2017 by Conner Flynn

If you want to make a cake that looks like a motherboard, you may have struggled in the past. Maybe it came out looking more like a motherboard after a fire. Well, Los Angeles baker and author Rosanna Pansino of Nerdy Nummies is here to help.

She will help you to make the coolest looking motherboard cake possible. In the video below she demonstrates her technique. I like how she uses various candies for the boards components. Twix for graphics card slots, Hershey’s for the processor mount, and more. It is pretty perfect and obviously delicious.

You can find this and many of other deliciously geeky creations in Rosanna’s Nerdy Nummies Cookbook.

[via Laughing Squid]

Circuit Classics: Getting Restarted in Electronics

Posted on 24/04/2016 by Lambert Varias

The electronics books of Forrest M. Mims III have educated and inspired millions of people since the ’80s, thanks to Mims’ friendly and concise writing style and his hand-drawn illustrations. Electrical engineer Star Simpson is one of Mims’ fans, and she came up with a wonderful homage to the author.

Star’s Circuit Classics are newbie-friendly circuit boards based on three of Mims’ many sample circuit diagrams: a dual LED flasher, a stepped tone generator and a bar graph voltage indicator. Mims’ hand-drawn schematic sits beside the circuit itself, drawn over a copper plate that mimics the notebook lines in Mims’ books. The reverse side of each board has’ Mims’ explanation about the circuit as well as a citation.

Pledge $44 (USD) on Crowd Supply to receive a board of your choice as a reward, or you can pledge $99 to get all three at a great discount.

[via Evil Mad Scientist]

Circuit Board Masking Tape: For Gift Cards in SLI

Posted on 12/02/2016 by Lambert Varias

Upgrade your gift wrap master race-style with Aya Codama aka Bullet’s Out of Place Artifacts circuit board tape. The gold and gray metallic elements make it look realistic and expensive. Actually it really is expensive.

Sadly, the product’s website is all in Japanese, but from my understanding Bullet is indeed selling the tape. It comes in 1″ wide 66ft. rolls and is priced at about $44 (USD) each.

[via Boing Boing]

Touch-sensitive Question Block One Ups Other Christmas Ornaments

Posted on 27/12/2015 by Lambert Varias

Jordan Wills aka njneer is an engineer at Silicon Labs. He recently helped make his company’s Christmas ornament giveaways, which were made of circuit boards. Jordan couldn’t help but notice that the bare boards look a lot like a Question Block. That gave him an idea for his own Christmas ornament.

Jordan used one of his company’s microcontrollers to make the ornament. The cube has a capacitive touch pad at the bottom as well as five LEDs: four inside the cube and one on the acrylic coin that’s on top of the cube.

He designed the block’s side panels such that each of them has a question mark-shaped area that has only FR-4, the insulating material used in circuit boards. The lights from the LEDs shine through the question marks. He added an EEPROM to the microcontroller to store a couple of sound effects. Here’s the end result:

Jump to Jordan’s website for more on the project.

[via Hack A Day]

DigiRule Interactive Binary Ruler: Bits of Knowledge

Posted on 22/10/2015 by Lambert Varias

PCB rulers usually have measurements that come in handy for a proper circuit board layout. Prolific inventor and electronics tinkerer Bradley Slattery wanted to make a different kind of PCB ruler, so he came up with the DigiRule, a 6″ ruler that demonstrates the basics of electronic engineering.

The DigiRule gives you a quick rundown – or a way to test your knowledge of – logic gates and flip flops. It also has a four bit counter, as well as on truth tables and component measurements on the other side.

Pledge at least ~$14 (USD) on Kickstarter to receive a DigiRule as a reward.

[via Cool Things]

Microduino mCookie LEGO-compatible Modular Computer

Posted on 27/07/2015 by Lambert Varias

The past couple of years we’ve seen single board computers separated into modules to make them more accessible to newbie makers, especially children. Microduino knows there’s no better way to get kids interested than with LEGOs, so it came up with the mCookie.

Like littleBits, mCookie modules attach to each other using magnets. But each module also has plastic studs on either side that snap onto LEGO pieces. Aside from the core module, mCookie has over 30 modules that provide the rest of a computer’s basic components – Bluetooth, USB, Wi-Fi etc. – as well as sensors and output devices such as a speaker, a temperature sensor and a servo. Skip to 2:46 in the video below for more on mCookie.

Like the first Microduino platform, mCookie is Arduino-compatible. Here’s a simple project made with the mCookie and a few LEGO parts:

Head to Microduino’s online store to pre-order an mCookie kit, which starts at $78 (USD).

[via Forbes]

Modulo Modular Programmable Electronics: Slidestorms

Posted on 18/05/2015 by Lambert Varias

We’ve seen programmable electronics that use magnets or Bluetooth instead of wires and solder to connect its parts. But those kits are mainly meant for beginners, and are not as powerful or versatile as more advanced computers such as the Raspberry Pi or Arduino boards. Modulo Labs has developed a middle ground in the form of Modulo, a modular development board.

Like the aforementioned beginner kits, Modulo does away with soldering thanks to modules that simply slide into a base circuit board. The base board has slots for up to four interchangeable modules; there’s also a variant that has room for a Spark controller in addition to the modules.

These modules are advanced enough for complex projects. For instance, the microcontroller module is Arduino compatible and has six i/O ports. The whole system also integrates easily with single board computers, and you can daisy chain multiple Modulo boards.

Snap into Kickstarter and pledge at least $69 (USD) to get a Modulo kit as a reward.

[via Raspberry Pi]

Voltera V1 Circuit Board Printer: Print-A-Sketch

Posted on 11/02/2015 by Lambert Varias

The latest in the growing niche of circuit board printers, the Voltera V1 can print up to two layers of conductive tracks, apply solder and reflow the board when SMDs are added.

The printer has three extruder heads – one for conductive ink, one for solder and one for insulating ink – that you can easily pop on and off thanks to their magnetic connectors. Its thermal bed can heat up to 250ºC (482ºF), making solder reflowing possible.

Voltera’s Kickstarter fundraiser has already surpassed its goal by more than three times the company’s target amount. Pledge at least $1,499(USD) on Kickstarter to receive a Voltera V1 as a reward.

[via MAKE:]

Squink Desktop Circuit Board Assembly Machine: Print & Pick & Place

Posted on 16/07/2014 by Lambert Varias

We’ve featured a handful of 3D printers that can lay out conductive tracks on a variety of materials. But that’s just part of the process of making a circuit board; you’ll still need to place a variety of small parts on the board. Large-scale manufacturers have pick-and-place machines to do that for them. If BotFactory succeeds, soon you can have your own pick-and-place machine as well.

BotFactory is working on Squink, a machine that both prints conductive tracks and installs electronic components. After a user uploads his circuit board design to a complementary program, Squink will print tracks using silver-based conductive ink, place conductive glue on the spots where components need to be placed and then install the needed parts on the board. Speaking of boards, BotFactory says Squink can use a variety of materials as substrates.

Squink won’t turn you into a one-man factory, but it should make prototyping faster and more affordable. Pledge at least $2,999 (USD) on Kickstarter to get a Squink as a reward.

[via TechCrunch]

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