Magic Mouth: Arduino Speech Shield

Ready to talk the talk? Give your Arduino the power of speech. This easy-to-build circuit includes a voice synthesizer and amplifier.

Bike Basket Hack

The affordable panier, seen wherever there are students in Philadelphia.

Old MacDonald Hacked A Farm

My kids have a plastic farm toy. It neighs, it baas, and frankly, it grates. But since I tricked it out with a microcontroller brain, at least it can play Simon.

October Swag Bag: Web Platform

Dangerous Prototypes sent me a web server from their "Scratch and Dent" drawer. The circuit board was small enough to fit in the palm of my hand — but just how dinged was it, and could I get it working?

Bug Shaped Solar Robot

Powered by a solar panel, this miniature robot shuffles towards the light.

Animated LCD Name Tag

While we are on the subject of calculators, this one has been ever so slightly -- what is the word? -- doctored for use as an animated name plate. The perfect desk toy for a nutty scientist.

Chip Off The Old Block

Digikey have frequent competitions and giveaways advertised on their twitter feed, and this week I was a lucky winner. So what happens when you give your kid a Cui Inc. branded pen and some Digikey post-its to play with? She draws a calculator. :-)