Outré USB Gadgets

PreacherTom writes, "We've all connected a myriad of useful things to USB ports: flash drives, printers, webcams. How about a vacuum cleaner? Pair of heated gloves? Anti-cubicle missile system? Joseph Pisani offers a listing of some of the most creative USB-controlled gadgets available, and includes a slide show of the most popular."

Comments

USB controlled or USB powered?

[Matt Perry]

Pisani offers a listing of some of the most creative USB-controlled gadgets available

Only the little missles look like they could be USB controlled. The rest just seem to be drawing power from the USB port.

I've got the missile launcher, it's okay.

[phillymjs]

I wanted to up the ante in a rubber-band-gun arms race in my office, but I couldn't find it available from any online vendors in the U.S. I see ThinkGeek now has a listing for them and they're expected in stock there in October. Anyway, I ended up picking one up on eBay from a guy in Australia for a decent price, about a month and a half ago.

It takes AA batteries to actually power the launcher motors, with a switch on the underside of the base. The part of the missile that locks into the spring mechanism is actually heavier than the the rest of it, so it doesn't always fly nose-first like you'd think. It also doesn't have much in the way of range. If I could find extra missiles for it I'd experiment a bit with weighting the tips to try to address those issues.

I haven't used the included (Windows-only) control app yet, but a guy wrote a control app for it for OS X that's not too bad. You can find it on Versiontracker, I'm too lazy to hunt it down and make a link right now.

~Philly

Re:USB

[Cyno01]

The missile launcher is aimable and fireable through windows.

Re:USB Powered != USB Gadget

[saider]

Go to Sparkfun and search for USB. Lots of cheap (less than $30) dohickeys for doing all kinds of electronics projects.