Heath C. Ice

I decided that I needed a small, simple point-and-shoot camera to take with me to TAM, PAX Prime, and other conventions. I wanted something that would take good video and pictures but be small enough to always carry around. I settled finally on the Canon Powershot ELPH 300 HS. It wasn’t supposed to arrive until tomorrow, but when I got home from work tonight it was at the door!

I’ve had a chance to play with it a little and so far I am really impressed with it. Here are some pictures and a short video I took to test it out.

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I finally got around to making another big ThinkGeek.com order. Here is my loot! Click on the images to go to ThinkGeek.com.

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Circuit Board Business Card Holder

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Doctor Who (11th Doctor) Sonic Screwdriver that is an actual screwdriver

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Doctor Who (10th Doctor) Sonic Screwdriver prop

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Many iPhone, Blackberry, and Android smartphones are now equipped with high definition video cameras. Most smartphones, however, lack a standard tripod mount connector.

Camera Tripod Mount

GorillaPod Flexible Tripod

I recently needed to mount my iPhone to a tripod to help a friend shoot a show. This made me remember the GorillaPod Flexible Tripod I had seen at the store. For approximately $17, I was able to create a tripod mount for my iPhone 4 that worked great for stationary filming. Granted, this mount is not suited well for a moving camera. All you need is a a GorillaPod Flexible Tripod and a 1/4-20 Coupling Nut. The nice thing about this mount is that it will hold most any smartphone or camera.

Here’s my iPhone 4 mounted using this quick and easy rig.

I recently found the files from my Senior Design Project at the University of Missouri – Rolla. Unfortunately, this was in 2005, before the era of cheap high-definition cameras. I really wish I had a better video of all of this! I will be posting a fair amount about it in the next few days. We attempted to create an autonomous surveillance aircraft. Here are a couple of videos of the flight.

Here’s the video we put together for our final presentation. The first few minutes are spent testing out all of the electronics before flight.

Here is the raw video from the onboard camera.

I hope to post a lot more about this project soon.

I just ordered this from ThinkGeek. Like I mentioned a few days ago, this site has too many goodies that I want!

I went to ThinkGeek yesterday for the completely mature and normal purpose of buying myself a Magic Wand TV Remote.  I have been wanting one of these for a while.  Partially for the novelty and partially for the actual convenience of having one remote that is easy to carry around the house and will control my Roku, television volume, and power to a couple other devices.  I made an unfortunate discovery while at ThinkGeek though; they have a large number of things I fear I cannot live without.  Here is a short list of such items.

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