August, 2009

If you've never heard of geocaching, you're in for a treat. Chances are that you have a few geocaches right in your own neighborhood. These mini-treasure boxes can be found with GPS coordinates downloaded from the geocaching website and can be a fun way to get outdoors and try something new. All you need is a GPS - even a capable smartphone will do the trick.

After you've found a few caches, it's a good idea to contribute to the sport by making one of your own. Geoaching.com offers a great tutorial on putting together your first cache and finding a good hiding place for it.

Sometimes you just want to do a little heart monitoring without going into debt for the rest of your life (yes, that's a not-so-subtle jab at our wonderful healthcare system). When you can't afford the real thing, this $1 home made electrocardiogram will allow you to monitor your heart as you go into cardiac arrest while opening bills from your previous hospital adventures. This is much simpler than our previously covered homemade ecg, and probably about as accurate (read: not very). [via]

Notice: This ECG cost less to make than an artery clogging burger from your local BK. Therefore, we do not recommend making medical decisions based off of the data received from it.

Here's a great MacGyver tip on how to make a remote (very remote) camera trigger using a couple of walkie talkies. This idea came from the desire to take nature photography from a remote location and a unique viewpoint (although we're pretty sure by "nature" the inventor means "women's locker room").

Anyway - a very cool project. Putting together some simple electronics is required. Go find out how to make your own walkie-talkie camera trigger. [via]