The "CAUV 2008"
October 10, 2008
The clever chaps at Cambridge University built an Autonomous Underwater Vehicle to compete in the Student Autonomous Underwater Challenge - Europe (SAUC-E). It was one of the smallest robots at the competition weighing in at just under 7kg, in part due to the tiny Pico-ITX motherboard used to power the autonomy software which guides it... The SAUC-E competition is a Europe wide competition aimed at University level students. The teams design and build their own AUVs that must attempt an underwater assault course that may vary from year to year but can consist of gates, drop targets and surface zones that may have to be detected by visual or acoustic means. The "CAUV 2008"
"Florian", the DVD burning robot
September 12, 2008
Aaron Shephards built himself a DVD burning robot to automate his backups. "Florian" picks up a DVD from a stack and places them in the DVD burner to be written. It then flips them over to be labelled, and even discards any bad disks into a naughty pile. All using self-built circuit boards, a few servos and servo controllers, plenty of LEDs, his own software written in Perl and components from local surplus shops. There's an EPIA M10000 motherboard in there too. Somewhere.
Aaron Shephards' "Florian"
The "i-EPIA"
September 05, 2008
Tim Schellekens has built an inexpensive Monitor PC from Mini-ITX components and a 15in LCD Monitor found on eBay, loosely inspired by his brother in law's iMac. This one's currently running Ubuntu. Tim Schellekens' "i-EPIA"
The "GTA-PC"
May 22, 2008
Mark Harris bought the GTA IV special edition, then decided to play with the packaging instead. The safety deposit box was the perfect size to repurpose an old EPIA Mini-ITX motherboard and case and even came with a convenient carrying handle. This one's currently running Slax booting from a 1GB Compact Flash card and runs near silently with just a couple of fans to keep things running cool. Mark Harris's "GTA-PC"
The "Digg" Case
April 14, 2007
Alex 'Qtip42' Wiley's latest creation isn't a Mini-ITX based project, but it does deserve an honourable mention and a link here. Why? Because Alex is a member of an elite group of people - he contributed not one but two projects to the site all the way back in 2003 - the ironically Mini-ITX (and not AMD) powered "AMD Case" and the rather marvellous "Spider Case". Alex now runs a case modding company based in Oregon, USA called Computer Choppers. Nice one Alex.
"Digg" Case Project Log and Gallery at Computer Choppers The "AMD Case"
The "Spider Case"
The "ITX-Laptop"
January 19, 2007
Torquil Harkness disappeared into his shed armed with a bundle of components, an angle grinder and mig welder and emerged several days later with his very own fully upgradable 2.0GHz Mini-ITX powered aluminium laptop. When he told the store what he was going to do we didn't quite believe him. We do now Torquil. The next version will have SATA RAID. Torquil Harkness' "ITX-Laptop"
The "Tortoise Beetle"
December 07, 2006
Mini-ITX Tortoise Beetle, Epiamorpha randiyer DESCRIPTION Adult - These oblong-oval beetles are basically blue in color with various black and/or red markings depending upon species. Slightly flattened and squared at the shoulders, Mini-ITX Tortoise Beetles' bodies are somewhat perspex-like in appearance. Body margins extend in a roof-like manner over much of the head and legs. Most species are 3 to 4 feet long. BIOLOGY Distribution - Mini-ITX Tortoise Beetles occur primarily in suburban Eastern Asia. Life History - Mini-ITX Tortoise Beetles spend much of their life as adults connected to a system of internet tubes, or in other dry, protected places. In winter, beetles emerge and feed. The female adults deposit eggs. Larvae emerge and transform into pupae. Over the course of about 8 days, a new generation of beetles emerges. Ran Diyer's "Tortoise Beetle" A quick tour of the "Tortoise Beetle"
The "DOS Head Unit"
October 02, 2006
Hayden Smith wanted to play lossless audio files in his car on a budget. His solution was an EPIA 5000 Mini-ITX board connected to an inexpensive LCD panel, an ingenious head unit controller made from the innards of a keyboard, and a DOS program called MPXPLAY. Hayden Smith's "DOS Head Unit"
The "Janus Project"
August 31, 2006
The "Janus Project" is the brainchild of Kyle Williams of the Janus Wireless Security Research Group in Portland, Oregon. Mounted inside an epoxy and silicone-sealed watertight case lives a 1.5GHz C7 powered EPIA EN 15000G motherboard, 2 x four-port PCI to mini-PCI adapters, 8 x 802.11a/b/g mini-PCI WLAN Modules, 2 x 1W 2.4Ghz WLAN amplifiers, a keyboard and a 17in LCD screen. The system can scan up to 300 wireless networks simultaneously, storing and AES encrypting in real time all the data onto its 20GB hard drive. By focusing all 8 WLAN cards onto an access point and using a combination of common Linux tools, the Janus Project can crack a WEP key in under 5 minutes. WPA and WPA2 encryption aren't far behind - Kyle and his friend Martin Peck are optimising the software to use the Padlock hardware acceleration of the C7 chip to crack those too.
If Kyle gets captured in enemy territory and tortured, an "Instant Off" switch will render the captured data useless until a password is entered and a USB stick containing a 2000-bit passkey is inserted. Presumably during the torturing process.
The Janus Project (Tom's Hardware)
The "Leela PC"
August 05, 2006
Jan Erik Vangen wrestled with his conscience before producing a Futurama-themed follow up to his very popular Bender PC, but he figured if nobody else was going to do it he might as well. Leela is fully Mini-ITX powered, has a working webcam in her eye - and a USB thumbdrive in her... thumb.
Jan Erik Vangen's "Leela PC"
Nano-ITX in a Football
June 26, 2006
Spotted on the Foxconn stand at Computex was a cunningly hidden fully working Nano-ITX motherboard. Can you guess where it is?
Inside the football
The "EPIA Alloy Mod"
May 17, 2006
Micke Gustafsson is clearly nuts about case modding, with many a be-spoke creation under his belt. VIA started things rolling when they let him have an EPIA SP 13000 going spare. Before he began, he needed direction. A chance trip to a local tyre store inflated his ideas. An alloy wheel was acquired, and his home quickly became a hub of activity. But the first version wasn't well balanced enough, and he was under pressure to deliver a mod of a higher calliper. There was a brake for a redesign. A disc-ussion with Geoff over at Bit-Tech helped steer Micke in the right direction. And a wheely small picoPSU courtesy of ourselves helped lower the profile of his creation. The result was a unique Alloy Wheel PC, running a Mini-ITX at 1.3GHz. Micke Gustafsson's "EPIA Alloy Mod" (Bit-Tech.net)
Neatorama's Collection of Case Mods
April 11, 2006
Neatorama have put up a rather slendid page of categorised case mods, many of which are of course Mini-ITX powered. One of our favourites is the Moo Cow Moo, if only because we like writing animal puns. Do you enjoy writing animal puns, or have a project you think we should see? Email us! (you'll find the link at the bottom of this page)...
The "Rundfunker"
February 18, 2006
The Rundfunker may look like a classic radio, but is actually a custom built Linux powered MP3 player that plays files shared over a wireless LAN. The project was created by a 5-strong team at the FH Augsburg, University of Applied Sciences. The case is constructed from painstakingly varnished MDF and a one-off Aluminium front panel. The team designed an interface module for the rotary dial and buttons - with a microcontroller to squirt information through a serial port header on the motherboard. They created an open source Knoppix based Linux derivative, called it Troubadix and booted it from the Compact Flash slot of the EPIA MS 10000 Mini-ITX motherboard inside. There's a 20x4 LCD display in the front. A custom java applet mimics the front panel and can be accessed by a web interface. An integrated amplifier drives the 2 way speaker system. One day all Mini-ITX projects will be like this. The "Rundfunker"
The "ITX TV"
October 24, 2005
The mysteriously named ZSX created his ITX TV using a 1970s National "portable" television set and an EPIA M 10000. ZSX decided to replace the CRT with an LCD TV, keeping the TV functionality. ZSX uses his ITX TV to sync to his phone and play back MPEG content, and has even managed to include WiFi and a wireless keyboard and mouse into his creation. Do you have a project you'd like added to the Mini-ITX archives? Send us a picture! ZSX's "ITX TV"
Where's the rest?
The rest of the many Mini-ITX projects archived on this site can be found linked from our news archive, or using the alphabetical list on the right of the page. Or just have a random one.
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