I recently recorded two videos about the Gakken kits available in Japan, in particular, I show off the Gakken steam engine.

Just a short late night post: I have been thinking about all those fun sci-fi and educational games I played as a kid..

Thought I should start making a list of modern educational games.

So, here is the Space sim list. I have not played most of these yet, but am checking them out.

Another article passed along from the Tokyo HackerSpace. (Read the full article at Low-tech Magazine.)
This one is all about wheelbarrows. In specific, the Chinese center wheel barrow.

A few weeks back, I was fortunate enough to see the solar eclipse while in Japan.

Unfortunately, the timing of the eclipse put it early in the morning, right in the middle of my long commute to work. With my trusty eclipse viewing glasses in hand, I was able to catch glimpses of it while dashing between trains in the station. I fortunately got up extra early, so I could spend some time at each stop to take a look.

Its been a while since I last posted. What with finishing up one school year, going home for vacation, then coming back and jumping right into a new year, it has been supreemly busy. I will say that I have a few posts related to the STB project in the works, as well as a a new prototype sensor node which I will unveil soon. I have also been working on several projects with THS, including a top secret(?) server power management system.

One of the first hacks required for the Set Tob Box Data Sink project is to add the VGA option to the main board.
The original unit came with S-Video installed, which makes it great for a small video player thin client, but poor for reading text. I still may utilize the S-video output for a local visual interface. The idea being that I could switch to the S-video input on my TV and get a quick look at my data. I could implement some simple remote control UI with a few buttons and visualizations.

Here is a really good article on how to prepare chemestry lab gear from an article in the February issue of Modern Mechanix.
The article may be old, but the procedures and tools are still very useful today. I found the methods of cutting glass tubing to be rather interesting, if not quite kid friendly ;)