Max from Zedomax made a cool Green Laser Light Show device and in true DIY style there is an abundance of parts that are available from your local hardware store.

"This simpler green laser projector was made so I could use it for my next party and I always wanted to make this. Although this laser projector only does one animation, 2 whirpools, I planned to improve upon after making this very basic version."

Laser Simon is a twist on the original game that we have all played. Anything that uses old NES controllers is a winner in my book!

"The game involves two players and a SimonBoard, consisting of five target points. The goal for each player is to hit as many points as possible in the given orders in each of the 10 levels. Players alternate turns with each successive level, ultimately completing all 10 levels. At the start of a player’s turn the board is illuminated to indicate the pattern of sensors to be hit in that round. The player must memorize the pattern and repeat it by aiming and firing the laser at the indicated targets. At the completion of the 10th level, the SimonBoard then calculates a winner; the SimonBoard, the controllers and the computer monitoring the system then display the winner."

Sylvain Calinon is a postdoctoral fellow who is working on humanoid robot and imitation learning at the Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne in Switzerland in the Learning Algorithms and Systems Laboratory . There is also a long version of the video available.

"A humanoid robot learning to cook an omelet by whipping eggs, cutting ham and grating cheese.  Through the use of a probabilistic model, the robot progressively learns to generalize the skill to various situations."

Thanks Sylvain

Bruce Land is showing off the hard work of his students in his Cornell University ECE 4760 Designing with Microcontrollers class. I hope you have a long lunch hour since it will take you a long time to go through all 35 projects. I found this Mechanix Motorized Guitar Tuner real interesting. Nice thing about all of these projects is the great documentation.

See the full list of projects 

"The Mechanix is a motorized guitar tuner for a standard 6-string electric or acoustic fixed bridge guitar. Named in honor of Megadeth guitar legend Dave Mustaine, the Mechanix is a unique and innovative product which has numerous patent possibilities. Our project may not be the coolest or most unique, but it is certainly the most metal. Traditional handheld guitar tuners are passive; they tell the user whether the guitar string is in tune, sharp, or flat, but the actual adjustment of the tension in the string has to be done by the user. This requires a fair amount of dexterity from the user, particularly when fine tuning is required. Thus, to increase both the convenience and the precision of the tuning process, we designed an active, motorized guitar tuner. The Mechanix responds to the user plucking one of the strings by turning the tuning knob until the string has reached its Standard Tuning note."

Looks like the creators of Printball trust their machine. Watch the video to see how much they trust the system! This could make some cool graffiti.

"The PrintBall is like an Ink-Jet printer using a PaintBall Gun as printhead. The gun is mounted on a custum made pan & tilt unit which is connected to a Max/Msp based software through an Atmel chip [programmed in Basic]. The software allow the users to load and analyze images. The resolution of the image and the space between the point [definition the image] can be ajusted. Because the document is printed from a central point the number of steps by points send to the pan & tilt, which is moved by two stepper motors, one for each axe horizontal and vertical, determine the space between each point."

This PCB Drill looks to be good workhorse of a design. You can buy one ready made but there is no fun in that.

"Made from Dremel drill and drill press. I removed the bottom plate & mounted the column to the back with U-bolts. Acrylic is so easy to work with. It can be cut, drilled milled & glued and it’s very strong, doesn’t warp or break easily. The design is the same as the big PCB drills, the table moves, not the drill head. With the exception the real machine tables I’ve worked around ride on air. Like the old air hockey tables Important note: These NEMA teen motors don’t have enough torque to drive the table (no bearings)."

This table is an electronic masterpiece in disguise. The Da Table has a large number of LEDs in a grid pattern just under the surface of the top. This allows the LED to be invisible when off but emits a nice glow when it is turned on.

UPDATE. Big thanks to Menkesdriek for sending in some pictures of the table during construction!