

DIY gadgetry - jefffoster
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/8107803.stm

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danw
At the London hackspace we are mostly software people who want a space to hang
out and hack away on projects. The BBC turned up on the night that tinker.it
had donated a bunch of arduinos and various hardware bits such as leftovers
from their toy-hacking workshop. It seems the beeb jamp to the conclusion that
we are a group of garbage scavengers rather than social hackers and crafters.

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Tichy
"a colour-changing lamp that shows the weather."

Nice, but not that useful. I'd like to learn more electronics and probably
will have to go through the "blinking LEDs" stage, too. Coming up with more
useful stuff to create (on amateur level) doesn't seem so easy, though. Even
Adafruit seems to mostly sell gimmicks or modules for other gimmicks, which
worries me a bit.

Even musical instruments don't excite me much: couldn't everything they do be
done in software instead?

Maybe it is time to start thinking in some completely new directions? For
example I have been wondering if it would be at all feasible to create one's
own e-ink display?

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HeyLaughingBoy
Here's the thing, though. When you're a beginner in just about any field, the
first few things you build aren't very useful. They are good for learning, but
that's it. Once you get beyond a certain point, you can build stuff that can
actually be used for something.

These days I'm mostly into high power LEDs (just built a small battery-powered
light for my tent and now I'm working on an LED headlamp). LEDs are fun to
play with, and even at a beginner level are quite useful -- an exception to
what I said above!

Probably going to put this stuff on a new site, and move my LED tutorials
there with a few simple projects. If you want a heads-up when it's ready,
contact me through my profile.

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Tichy
Not sure, for example with JavaScript it seems one could create some useful
Greasemonkey Scripts with very few lines of code. But then I am not a beginner
in web technologies, so maybe for a complete beginner it looks completely
different.

The LED stuff definitely sounds interesting!

