SOT: Cool belated father's day gifts

[Tim Escobedo]

I'm a happy boy!!!

My wife came home with a package from Japan. She'd gotten a Japanese co-worker to send this parcel with two really nifty gifts: Denshi block set, and a DIY Gramophone.

The Denshi blocks are a kind of kid's electronic experimenter's kit. Instead of springs, it uses Lego-like plug-in blocks, each with a component or jumper of some type. This allows the blocks to be arranged and rearranged to make different circuits. The manual is all Japanese, but has pictograms and equivalent schematic for each circuit, to make a array of typical circuits: regenerative receiver, light detecting switch, code practice oscillator, RF transmitter, blinking lights, etc.

The DIY gramophone, AFAIK, seems to be a mechanical record cutter and player, using a unused CD as the recording disk, and a paper cup as the record/playback horn. Very cool!

http://www.geocities.com/tpe123/toys.html

[bwanasonic]

I hope this leads to a DIY Giant Robot thread in the near future, cuz I could really use one of those Giant Robots.

Kerry M

[Nasse]

:shock:

The DIY gramophone, AFAIK, seems to be a mechanical record cutter and player, using a unused CD as the recording disk, and a paper cup as the record/playback horn. Very cool!

Cool idea, you can "play" a CD on an ordinary recco player!!! Wonder if you can put the analog recording on the flip side so you can use it in both players...

I believe those Denshi Block products are exported for many many yearsl

[Elektrojänis]

Cool idea, you can "play" a CD on an ordinary recco player!!! Wonder if you can put the analog recording on the flip side so you can use it in both players...

The flipside idea will probably not work as the metal layer that stores all the digital data is quite close to the surface there. But... The data on a CD starts from the inner ring and the "data" on a vinyl starts from the outer ring. That could probably be abused...

Makes me wonder if those disks can really be played on an ordinary record player, as the discs are so small. At least the semi automatic players stop the playing when thr needle gets close enough to the center. Fully automatic players would give even more troubles ofcource...

Ok ok... It was a joke... But that kind of hybrid disk would be cool I think.

[Mark Hammer]

Crystal radio, here we come!!!    

Now you'll be able to get WWVA!

One of these days, I'll have to take a closer look at my older son's (now unused) Lego Mindstorms set.  I'll bet there has to be something in there that can be put to good musical use.

[casey]

im jealous  

[Tony Forestiere]

Believe it or not...I still have the Rat Shack 150-in-1 electronic project kit that I got for Christman in 1976! All components, wires, bulbs, the manual and the Morse code key are still intact!

Ah...the nostalgia

Tony