We named our Arduino-powered submersible "FREUD". It stands for Field Remote Expeditionary Underwater Device. Bonus points to anyone that gets the reference.

Naming the bot is useful if you are working on many of them, or making it a group project. It just makes it easier to refer to it as a name, name project files/folders after it, and title papers after it.

Getting a 404 when clicking the link.

They probably forgot to water the transistors again.

Homemade Arduino "medical" equipment.  What could possibly go wrong?

The Ubiquiti Aircams are pretty straightforward IIRC. You can stream directly from them using RTSP, but only for a few connections.

Given where morale is headed in the USPS system, I can only hope that the postal police will keep that kind of behavior in check in the US.

I did mail an Xbox 360 to someone and have it arrive looking like it fell out of an airplane...during a hurricane. Not sure what the postman was thinking when he dropped it off. Probably "not my problem". The little punk that received it tried to blame me for the damage too, filed every complaint form he could find with Paypal and Ebay. I don't usually waterproof my shipments.

You should look up "I wanna be the guy" for a crazy-difficult game.

I havn't lost any yet, but a couple have taken several weeks to arrive via USPS to foreign countries.  Held up in in-country Customs seems to be the cause.

Ya know, I make and sell fake bombs, and I have never had a problem with customs. I think they just choose people at random.

Sparkfun has these 5v heating pads: https://www.sparkfun.com/products/11289

They may get warm enough to trigger some scented oils.

This is awesome.

I havn't lost any yet, which is worrying me. Every package that makes it to its destination increases the chance that the next one wont, lol.

Just got this email spam:

We want to put a great big grin on your face in 2009. You'll be to rejoice all year.

Massive fail for whoever took some boilerplate and didn't even bother to check the year in it.

Maybe they're serious and they invented an Aruino powered time machine?

You could also look into engine block heaters for vehicles if you need more heat. They get pretty hot, and go for about $20 on Amazon. Theres a bunch of different kinds, some are just heating elements that are made to go inside frost-plug holes, others are just large blocks with a magnet on one side to stick to the engine (usually the oil pan), and others are designed to mount in-line with the engine coolant system to heat it up directly.

[Still looking for code to read the PWM from the fan though....]

It would be a fan like so: http://www.frozencpu.com/products/15479/fan-968/Cooljag_Everflow_70mm_x_10mm_PWM_Fan_R127010BUAF.html

Pin 1 Black (GND), Pin 2 Yellow (PWR), Pin 3 Green (SGN), Pin 4 Blue (PWM)

I would hook the 12v (Yellow) to a power supply and ground (Black) to both the power supply and the arduino. Finally hook the PWM digital pin 7 to the PWM wire (Blue) on the fan. Do not know what to do with the signal (Green) wire?

Still looking for code to read the PWM from the fan though....

David

IIRC, the green wire is a tach signal, that you can use to determine the current speed of the fan.

School is pretty worthless for most intelligent people anyway. They train you to do what you are told, respond to the sound of a bell, and bog you down with busywork. Most of the knowledge that I did manage to scrape from my grade-school (and even early college) experience, was due to good instructors that went above and beyond their simple coursework.

My school was just starting to try this when I graduated. Too much emphasis is based on group work, when we need to be teaching students to think independently. You form your ideas, figure out your plan, and THEN seek out other people that can help you accomplish your goals, but only if the additional members will add something to the project. Forcing students to work in groups just adds extra overhead, encourages social loafing, and forces you to find uses for the people you are stuck with.

I know that constantly leaving laptops on the charger is bad for long term battery life, so it would probably be best to have one that disconnects after reaching full charge. My laptop has a "long term AC power" option that cycles the battery from 50% to 100%. When it reaches 100%, it makes the laptop run off battery power till it hits 50%, even if plugged in.