Nuno José Almeida’s Useless Robot
Laser engraving a laptop with our 60 watt Epilog Helix laser-cutter.
Alex555, a forum member over at Dangerous Prototypes has created this wicked Useless Machine and entered it in a design contest. No micro-controller or Arduino is being used to control the servos, instead Alex555 is using:
“eleven 74xx chips on a wire-wrap board. The servos are controlled by a 555 timer circuit, a decoder, diodes, and four dip switches.
Two servos open doors on the device and the other two servos drive an arm and gripper. I think this is one heck of a machine, especially when you consider that it uses only discrete logic chips and some 555 timers to accomplish it’s objective.
Via Google Alerts
全力でスイッチをONするとOFFするロボットをいじめてみた
(Useless Machine: Fight Mode On)
回路師（Kairoshi）is back with a second installment of Awesomeness. You might have seen his first video, a battlebot-like useless machine. Now he’s added a LED matrix and upgraded the case. And like his previous video, it’s epic!
I’ve added a permanent page to The Frivolous Engineering Company’s website called History of the Machine.
Please check it out, it even has a short clip of Marvin Minsky speaking about the Useless Machine.
“Weird Al” Yankovic Sez:
“I never realized till now how much I needed one of these.”
Last Wednesday night the Frivolous engineers took in the “Weird Al” Yankovic concert at Casino Regina and it was fantastic.
Not only hilarious, it was one of the best live concerts I’ve seen in a long time. Musically, they did a better job than the original artists they were spoofing. These guys know how to rock.
Al and his band played all their best stuff. With costume changes between most songs, they got into character dressing up as Star Warriors, Amish, and Al even wore his fat suit!
A large projection screen played snippets of videos throughout the concert, and in between songs they play clips and videos as a way of setting up for the next piece. This also gave them time for costume changes.
During the concert the drummer treated the audience to two solos. All I can say is that even though I’m not a fan of drum solos, these were THE BEST EVER. You’ll just have to take my word on this one and see for yourself what I’m talking about.
As a fan of Weird Al I just had to give him an Ultimate Useless Machine. And being the super cool guy that he is, he posted a Youtube video of his machine:
The Frivolous Engineers want to send a BIG thank you to Al Yankovic and his band for making us laugh while at the same time making great music. And also, thank you Al for posting the useless video!