Going to Chicago

A more travel-suited version of our iPhone car will be on the road soon to Embedded Systems Conference Chicago. Why not the full car, you ask? It turns out it's incredibly expensive to ship a car across the country and apparently the car in its current form isn't exactly "street legal."

So we made a beautiful smaller version that plays a freeware racing game instead by controlling pedals and the steering wheel of a PlayStation driver station using the same motors, wrenches, and code as our original car. If you are already going to ESC, come try out the controls for yourself at the National Instruments booth. Tickets to the expo are free, so if you are in the area be sure to swing by.

Move Over 13 Year Old Tom Hanks...

...you and your piano playing boss have some competition. We have just wrapped filming on a quick video about how to make an uber-cheap piano staircase (like under $25 cheap). Basically we set the whole thing up in one of the stairwells at work... and watched everyone avoid stepping on it. A bunch of people walking up stairs while not playing the piano made for a pretty boring video, so we moved the whole thing to a much smaller stairwell. That way people would be forced into having fun on our pile of yardsticks blocking the fire exit. And boy did they ever, you'd be surprised at the number of engineers who know how to play the piano, or juggle, or juggle while playing "The Saints Go Marching In" backwards on a staircase.

Watch for the video to come out later this week (and of course instructions on making your own)!