If you're worried about EMF radiation, then worrying about hybrids might make a degree of sense. After all, just about any electrical device, including a car, creates EMF as part of its function, which is why (for example) running a microwave tends to play havoc with pre-N WiFi hardware.

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Spinout, by Colin Berry
Author: Mark Frauenfelder

My friend Colin Berry (above right, circa 1970) wrote a touching, tragic story about his older brother, Kevin, who competed in the Soap Box Derby and lost against a kid whose dad was found to have rigged his nephew's car with an electromagnet. His story first ran in MAKE, Vol. 7 and I'm glad it will be read by a new audience.

Bobby Lange won in Akron, too; the Boulder Daily Camera printed a picture of him, smiling and waving and wearing the white jacket. Kevin’s racer went up on blocks.

We didn’t pay much attention at first, but the next year, 1973, Bobby Lange’s cousin, Jimmy Gronen, also won the Boulder race and went on to win Akron as well. Yet officials had noticed a strange lurch as Gronen’s car came off the metal starting blocks, and the next day, they x-rayed it and discovered a powerful electromagnet hidden inside the nose of the car. It was wired to a switch Jimmy’s head activated as he lay back in his headrest, and gave him a jump off the line.

The scandal rocked the Derby. Gronen was stripped of his title, his winnings given to the second-place finisher. But the real blame fell on Jimmy’s guardian uncle, ski-boot magnate Robert Lange, Sr.  Bobby’s father. In legal documents and public statements, the elder Lange took full responsibility for the magnet’s idea (though not its construction), pointing out with indignation that cheating was endemic to the Derby. At some point, officials asked to x-ray Bobby’s 1972 car, too  the car that had beaten my brother’s  which the D.A. found during his investigation had been built with $10,000 to $20,000 worth of engineering expertise. This was clearly beyond the rules. Though Derby cars are usually preserved for promotion, Bobby’s car was nowhere to be found, and remains so today.

Spinout, by Colin Berry

Published: 2010-08-06 21:12:24

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txtBomber
Author: Mike Szczys

The txtBomber is a high-tech graffiti printer developed by [Felix Vorreiter]. Details are a bit scarce but the video clip after the break proves that this works quite well. [Felix] admits this is Arduino powered but we’re going to have to guess at the rest of the setup from the pictures. He says there are built-in-pens so we’d bet there’s a felt-tip type of thing going on and those look like seven solenoids that actuate them. He posted a picture of the handle side of the device and we can make out two wheels that are connected to LEGO gears. This tracks movement of the txtBomber across a surface in order to synchronize the printing process. There’s no sign of an LCD so it looks like you have to pre-program the messages before you go out into the field.

This is akin to the Chalkbot, but the messages that leaves wash away with the rain. This one seems like it might get you into some trouble if you get caught leaving permanent tags around the neighborhood.

[Thanks Kermit M]

Published: 2010-08-05 14:00:51

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