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— Customized Uselessness
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The Most Useless Machine, like Claude Shannon's original, is a desktop or tabletop conversation piece. I went with a minimal aesthetic that leaves it most open to interpretation, but you can dress it up by labeling the switch positions, using a recognizable object like a doll's arm for the arm, or otherwise decorating it.
Try painting your machine with MAKE's custom stencils by illustrator Rob Nance. Download the PDF in the Files section above.
On a much larger scale, Swiss artist Hanns-Martin Wagner built a version that used an old wooden trunk as a box, a weathered prosthetic arm, and an air compressor. See an animation here.
I was amazed at the response to my original Instructable. Everyone wants one of these boxes, and wants to share details of their own build! Its social appeal was also shown this past spring, when the Birmingham, U.K., hackerspace FizzPop hosted a Useless Machine-making workshop led by Nikki Pugh (seen here).
Edit Step 11
— The Machine That Broke Stephen Colbert's Heart
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On June 8, 2010, MAKE editor-in-chief Mark Frauenfelder was a guest on The Colbert Report, where he presented the Most Useless Machine (the very one you see here) to a delighted if slightly puzzled Stephen Colbert. Colbert liked it so much that Frauenfelder made a gift of the machine, which now pursues its single-mindedly futile existence in Colbert's excellent company.
To see the Most Useless Machine in action on The Colbert Report, check out makezine.com/23/uselessmachine.
The original viral video: The Most Useless Machine EVER!!!
More than 50 people have uploaded videos of their Useless Machine. You should, too:The Most Useless Playlist EVER!!!
For all things useless, check out Brett's Blog:FrivolousEngineering.com
This guide has been completed 21 times.
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Guide
There's a circuit diagram in the Instructables.c
http://www.instructables.com/id/The-Most...
Direct image link: http://d37i651vg1sd88.cloudfront.net/FM4...
R1 is the motor/servo
Oh, one last thing. After searching for ever to scrounge a microswitch that would do the job, I found 3 under the buttons in an old Dell mouse. Old mice are easy to find (I have 4 in a drawer). I found it easier to snap the mouse's circuit board than de-solder the 3-pin switch, then I just soldered wires to the pins as normal. I used the wires from the mouse cord.
You can rotate the design so the box opens normally, but you have to watch out for space/clearance issues. I did this and then realized that I liked it even better upside down:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IyIDDnlH6...
I hacked off a Barbie's arm for style points and used boiling water to soften and reshape it (cooling in ice water fixes it pretty well) so it had a good curve to open the lid and hit the switch. You'll need a ramp up to the lip of the lid so the moving arm will open it. Everything used was found or scrounged, so it only cost me time and sanity.