America is a litigious country.  Without any subjective opinion, many of our founding fathers were lawyers and many of the rights and benefits that we enjoy today are the result of court cases.  In terms of intellectual property, it can be a double-edged sword. While intellectual property and the protection that it affords to companies in the U.S. is invaluable to producing great products, many have bastardized the protection that a patent affords. Companies have often been sued over patent infringement by no-practicing entities who abuse the system (as was done in a small East Texas district). Regardless, it is imperative to patent your new product idea as soon as possible.…

Most designers and engineers already know that Arduino is a powerful and versatile platform for creating electronics projects. Yet, knowing where to dive into learning about the powerful little computer isn’t quite so easy. From building robots to adding a little IoT intelligence into weekend projects, the Pay What You Want: 2018 Arduino Enthusiast E-Book Bundle is the perfect place to begin broadening your horizons in the world of Arduino. The project-based approach presented in the course teaches users how to create everything from DC motor controllers operated by a web page, slide switch, or touch sensors to constructing electronic operating status displays for just about anything. Best of all,…

We may have never gotten the chance to build the robots of our dreams as kids (tears), but that doesn’t necessarily mean our children of this generation should also miss out. The STEMI Hexapod is a brilliant do-it-yourself robot. And before you go saying it looks like a mechanical spider, take note this robot only has six legs. Each of those six legs (count ’em!) has three motors which work with the other appendages to give it lifelike movements. These connect to the body of the bot which serves as the housing for the main operating electronics. The legs are programmed on a computer using various lines of code, which…

Ever since we saw Matt Denton’s LEGO Technic Go-kart, we’ve been keeping an eye on his YouTube channel for what’s next. He’s gone through phases of small hexapods, large hexapods, animatronics, Arduino controlled hydraulics and, most recently, massive 3D printed LEGO kits. After completing two other giant LEGO builds, we were pretty sure it was going to be… ANOTHER GIANT LEGO BUILD. When we saw it was the 1979 LEGO Bulldozer (Kit 856)… well, we ran outside, started making construction sounds and crashing into random people, spreading THE JOY. Yeah, we see what a cool uncle you are Mr. Matt. This build is 372 pieces (!) printed on a Lulzbot…

With over 14 million vinyl LPs sold in the United States alone in 2017, it’s no wonder that some artists and hardware manufacturers are putting their lossy MP3 files on the backburner to take a closer look at physical media—including cassette tapes— all over again. But for some extreme audiophiles, nothing beats going straight to the source. And when it comes to analog music, that’s a reel-to-reel tape deck. Last week, for the first time in decades, Germany’s Roland Schneider Precision Engineering introduced four Ballfinger reel-to-reel machines for audiences that prefer warm-sounding analog harmonies to compressed and overly-processed digital files. While rare outside of the homes of true audiophiles, reel-to-reel…

Get that stretch out of your system with this week’s Spotify-powered SolidSmack Radio Playlist. It’s fashioned up, ready to make you pull your shoulder blades back and knock out another week of meaningful work while you bob your head to the beat. Whether you’re in the shop milling aluminum, sketching the latest product prototypes or modeling up a 3D storm, consider these tracks as a tool for your process. This week o SolidSmack Radio we’ll get the groove going with “Thorns” from (Sandy) Alex G before diving into sweet melodies from Jerry Paper, Night Moves, Real Estate, Tennis and others before wrapping up with “Magic” the Coldplay. Rock! Have suggestions?…