Figuring which way is 'up' for any one of the various IC packages may be second nature to circuit veterens, but getting acquainted with all possible indicators is definitely an important step for newcomers - and it can be a tad tricky at times. Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories posted a detailed photo guide on the subject, even going over orientation tips for seven-segment and LED matrix displays - good stuff!

Mythretirer Adam Savage has a post up this morning on that one Boingy blog about the latest in his lifelong series of personal replicas of Deckard's handgun from Blade Runner. There's more shots of the build as well as pictures of the original prop and two of Adam's earlier replicas. The very first one uses the famous contoured handgrip from Italian toymaker Edison Giocattoli's TG-105 'Super Thur' ray gun, which also appeared in a prop from Joss Whedon's Firefly.

LEGO MINDSTORMS hacker Akihiro Uehara built an interface between an AlphaRex and a Wii Balance Board.

User can control the robot's leg motors speed and direction by changing the vector connecting user's center of balance and center of the board. I have designed this application for elementary school kids in a science museum exhibition.

Don't forget to leave a comment on our Facebook fan page to participate in our Lego Mindstorms NXT 2.0 giveaway. [Thanks, Akihiro!]

Julia Tsao's Curious Displays thesis project proposes swarms of half-inch pixelbots, which could form into a TV or perform other robotic tasks.

Each block operates independently as a self-contained unit, and has full mobility, allowing movement across any physical surface. The blocks operate independently of one another, but are aware of the position and role relative to the rest of the system. With this awareness, the blocks are able to coordinate with the other blocks to reconfigure their positioning to form larger display surfaces and forms depending on purpose and function. In this way, the blocks become a physical embodiment of digital media, and act as a vehicle for the physical manifestation of what typically exists only in the virtual space of the screen.

Julia even provides a prototype remote control, made improbably gigantic by such buttons as NEEDY, MELANCHOLY and ZEN which would activate pre-pogrammed pixelbot behaviors. Part of the project even includes simulated instructions for dealing with rogue pixels that are hiding under the couch! [via Fast Company]

Have you ever wondered what exactly is involved in building a working, radio-controlled R2-D2 robot replica? This vid documents the two-year process of Victor Franco, of Southern California, and his friends building an R2, mainly from scratch-built parts of varying materials, including wood, styrene, resin, and aluminum. He also used some parts provided by members of the R2 Builders Club. Nice work! [Thanks to Chris James and Michelle Iva Cook Hlubinka!]

Victor Franco's Blog

More:

• Building clubs for your favorite movie and TV robots
• R2-D2 builders at WonderCon
• MAKE Audio: DIY R2-D2!

Guilherme Martins wanted a simple Arduino-compatible board that he could use as a robotics platform, so he designed one. Called the Motoruino, he took a standard Arduino board and added an H-Bridge chip so that it can control two motors directly. Of course, you could certainly get the same functionality using an add-on board such as the MotorShield (or even by making your own on a breadboard). If you know you are going to be making a robot, though, I can certainly see that having everything together on a single piece would help make your project smaller and more reliable.

He is working on some final tweaks, and plans to release the project under the Creative Commons license. Cool stuff! [via Lets Make Robots]

In the Maker Shed:

MotorShield for Arduino Kit

Hackyhack is a fun project by Dustin Jessen and Chanika Remest that packs an Arduino mini, an LED, a speaker and a piezo knock sensor into a hacky-sack ball. The LED flashes and the speaker emits a sound with every kick, and thirty successful kicks causes a song to be played.

More:

• HOW TO - Make your own hacky sack / footbag

Stewart McCullough sent us this stop-motion music video he did for some friends, The Bran Flakes. He used (and recommends) Dragon Stop Motion software. He says it's "very well done... stable, with a good user interface, and lots of good features specifically for doing any kind of stop-motion animation." It costs $275.

The Bran Flakes
Dragon Stop Motion