Bug Labs: DIY Dream Gadget
Posted on 21 December 2008, at 10:00 pm, by Joel McLaughlin
Ever since I have heard about Bug Labs I thought: Why hasn’t anyone thought of this before? What on earth am I talking about? Bug Labs is the maker of a device that is as flexible as you want it to be. You want a Camera? You can make a camera. You want to add a GPS to that Camera? You can do it. If you can dream it and program it, you can build it.
Word of warning: If your at all uncomfortable learning to program Java or using Linux, then you may want to wait until more code has been produced. With that in mind, there are some applications that can be downloaded. However, if your counting on having everything just work, this product isn’t for you. It also helps if you have some electronics knowledge.
What’s great is now, for a limited time, you can pick up a Bug Base for only $249 in the Bug Labs store for your favorite hacker’s Christmas gift. That’s a pretty good deal for something that can lead to whatever your heart desires.
The thing that makes the Bug Base cool isn’t the base itself, but the modules you can plug into it to make it do things. Bug Labs has just announced the availability of the BUGvonHippel which derives it’s name from Dr. Eric von Hippel of MIT. What is it you may ask? It’s a breakout board with a female USB 2.0 interface. It can be used to interface the Bug Base to sensors that aren’t from Bug Labs or anything that supports USB.
The BUGvonHippel provides, as you can see, a breadboard piece that lets you plugin switches and other things that you might want to use with your Bug Base. This reminds me of some of the stuff I used back when I was in College. It’s available for $79 in the Bug Labs store.
They already have a motion sensor, a LCD, a GPS and Camera modules. Bug Labs is also hard at work developing new modules and will be at CES with the Bug Labs Test Kitchen building applications for booth attendees. One module they will possibly be demoing is a 3G module. So your Bug Base can get on the internet! My mind boggles with the things you can do with the sensors and internet connection available with this future module.
Bug Labs is doing some seriously cool things and you should really check them out if your not afraid to get your hands dirty! Once you buy your Bug Bundle, you can join the new community site and contrubute to the Bug Labs community., Bug should be applauded for coming up with something that could possibly inspire the next generation of hackers.
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