About 7 years ago I was reading an article on Claude Shannon and came across one of the funniest ideas I had ever heard. Claude, you see, was one of these incredibly brilliant engineers with an obviously great sense of humor. As I understand it, he, along with Marvin Minsky came up with an idea they called the "Ultimate Machine". Basically a plain box with a switch on the top. When you flip the switch, a hand comes out of the box and flips the switch off. Thats it.
Well, after reading the article, and laughing out loud, I decided that I HAD to build one of these boxes. So simple, and yet so funny.
A plastic box I had lying around, a couple of hobby servos, a PIC Microprocessor, and a little code was all it took.
- Michael
Video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RMGJB410Ccs