The nerd quotient of Silent’s project is nearly off the charts. The sound created by movement of the head, which is moved in steps with sufficient frequency. Interface description can be found, for example HERE. Simply activate the station by providing a low-to DRVSB0 or 1 (depending on whether we have the tape from the cross and to which the plug is connected to the station) and choose the direction of head movement (low \ high on DIR) and the trailing edge of the head movement will cause STEP one step. ATMega microcontroller controls the whole.
(Google translated from Polish) [Via Hacked Gadgets]  
Failing is the new winning. We’re not talking about not trying and failing, but rather having an idea, making it happen, and then having it not turn out as envisioned. This type of failure presents particularly ripe opportunity for learning, growing, and improving. There is not a maker in history who has not had their fair share of epic fails. Which is why when we were asked to devise an award to give out at the fantastic Handcar Regatta, we decided what better to celebrate than an honest, productive fail. Last weekend, we bore witness to the fourth annual Regatta in all its glory. This wonderful exaltation of maker spirit takes place on the defunct tracks of historic Railroad Square in Santa Rosa, Calif., with basic rules being that the race vehicle must be handmade, run on the tracks, and be human-powered by no more than four team members. Last year, our MAKE Most Spectacular Failure Award went to the Delirium crew and their Sac Toe Ghetto Blaster for their die-hard efforts despite a vehicle that kept falling apart, and for their tireless optimism and huge smiles. (This year they were a last-minute entry racing a little red cart just for the sake of solidarity.) This year, our award went to the Geometer team’s Insecta vehicle (team pictured above with the trophy, handmade by Make: Labs intern Daniel Spangler, who is at far right; Insecta pictured below). Insecta was an honest effort by a group of students from the Santa Rosa Junior College, led by instructor Michael McGinnis, inventor of Superplexus (check out his article on the making of Superplexus in MAKE Volume 20). Made as a class project, Insecta was a nice design, but one that hadn’t been tested on the tracks. Insecta ended up getting the slowest race time, revealing its engineering design fail, but presenting an awesome opportunity to learn and grow. 
Aside from the amazing handcars racing, there were plenty more handmade wonders, including Dan’s homemade cannon, which he fired off at the beginning of the awards ceremony. (I’d love to give peeps in the first two images below credit, but alas, I know not who they are. Let me know if you do.) Look for more of our photos, all taken by the talented Gregory Hayes, being added to the MAKE Flickr pool. 
 
News From The Future: Tiny GPS Sensors, In Everything… With a tiny-enough GPS sensor, it’s possible to track the location of anything from your lost keys to a runaway pet. That’s because the world’s smallest GPS receiver is now smaller than a penny and weighs only 0.3 grams. But that’s just the chip — what about all the electronics required to make it truly useful, like a system for remotely downloading the data it has logged? This GPS logger weighs 10 grams, most of which is battery. Custom-made by Telemetry Solutions of Concord, California, it’s small enough to attach to a fruit bat for research purposes. Data can be downloaded directly from the chip upon recapture, or it can be downloaded wirelessly from up to 500 meters away.
 
Here, automata guru Dug North rounds up four expedient methods for improvising a worm drive given an on-hand spur gear. Digging through our archives also reveals this interesting method for coming at the problem from the other direction, i.e. improvising a spur gear for an on-hand worm! [Thanks, Dug!]  
MIT students Andrew Carlson, Leah Alpert and Russell Cohen built this Tetris game that uses pads from dancing game Dance Dance Revolution to control the shapes. Each board is a 200-LED matrix. Tetris installation controlled by DDR Mats. Color Kinetic LEDs in laser cut acrylic tubes set in chip-board matrix. If one player clears two or more lines at once, one less than that number of lines appears on the bottom of the other player’s board. The bottom row of each board displays each player’s score (number of rows cleared) in binary. The row above that shows the level on the left, and time left on the right (one white dot per minute remaining). If neither player dies within the time limit, the player with the higher score wins.
Code on Github. [Thanks, Russell!]  
Josh Glenn alerted me to this photo of the library at Occupy Wall Street. A copy of MAKE is on the table. Josh is the co-author of another publication available to the folks at Occupy Wall Street: it’s called The Wage Slave’s Glossary, and is illustrated by Seth (who has also illustrated for MAKE!). (Image: Library, a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial (2.0) image from blaineo’s photostream)  | 
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