Nerds! I’m so excited I can barely contain myself!
Why? I’ve been catching up on the various feeds in my reader and finally got to reading a couple weeks worth of Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories posts. The first thing you need to know about these cats (note: not real cats) is that they’re awesome. The second thing to know is roughly 40% of their posts go right over my head – but the ones that don’t are pretty wicked cool.
They just got back from the 2011 Bay Area Maker Faire where they debuted this baby:
To me, this is the definition of nerdy: it’s a large-scale reproduction of a childhood educational toy. IT DOES NOT GET BETTER THAN THIS, PEOPLE!
Okay, I’ll calm down. I’m sorry I yelled.
Normally I wouldn’t link you to something you couldn’t build yourself, but I think it’s safe to assume most of us don’t have loading docks or tons of free space available to build a giant Digi-Comp II. Don’t despair, this does bring to mind a few cool projects:
- Learn to count in binary from Zach Bacon. Awesome name, clear instructions. (Also, the final video of my post goes well with Zach’s instructions.)
- Build a binary clock, using a kit or this Instructable, which was sourced from this post.
- Build a wooden binary adding machine like this one:
Also, I think this binary counter looks really cool, but I couldn’t find any plans for it. That said, it looks pretty simple. The little swinging gates are the key:
For more background and resources about the Digi-Comp II, please go check out the full posts over at Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories:
http://www.evilmadscientist.com/article.php/dcii
http://www.evilmadscientist.com/article.php/dciivid
You can find Mindy on Twitter at HolaMindy.
That is epic geekery at it’s finest. Anyone else happy that they solved that minus about 5minutes and 11seconds – hours sawing, drilling, and gluing – trip to the hardware store – several trips to different sporting goods stores looking for that many 8 balls… that 3×13= SPOILER ALERT! …39!? Maybe it’s just me. 😉
Kinda disappointed it’s not real cats…
If they could invent a lavaliere microphone I’d be able to hear them over the parade of 8-balls.
I love EMS Laboratories!
You also may know them from their “Candy Fab” sugar-based 3D printer and the “Kindling” portable wooden reading device. They are the people who are making the things that no one else is making.