Ryan McFarland

It was pretty excruciating waiting for the results of the Instructables and Readymade Magazine mash-up contest. We were in Vietnam and everyone was relaxing on the beach and i just wanted to be refreshing the Instructables blog to see if they had posted results. They announced the date that they would announce the winners and i was finally able to quit my addictive search for internet access. When the mash-up contest results were posted we were in Bali. My submission won the grand prize - a Coby Personal Media Player, a $250 Michael’s Gift Card, and an Instructables robot t-shirt.  I am still pretty stunned.  I was hoping for one of the two first place prizes (sewing machines) and having looked through many of the other 180 entries figured that i had a good chance of winning one of the 10 second prizes (Black & Decker tool sets).  The media player has a 30 gig hard drive and a 4 inch color screen.  It has a memory card slot that uses the same cards as my Treo.  It plays music and video as well as displaying images.  If i buy an adapter for my digital camera i could use this device to store images on a long trip instead of hauling my laptop.  It has an AV output so it can play content on home stereo or video equipment and can record audio or video from AV sources also.  It even has an FM receiver.  There’s a microphone for voice recording and speakers built in.  I’m sure that i’ll find stuff at Michael’s (perhaps even a sewing machine?) to fuel my crafting needs.  And another Instructables t-shirt?  Great!  I wear my charcoal one often - this one is tan colored.  I hope i have not worn out my good fortune.  The Instructables contest that the top prize is a $13,000 laser cutter (just plug into your computer and it acts like a printer that can cut paper, cloth, or thin wood or engrave plaques or other materials) had the deadline extended.  Now i have the time to get a project completed and submitted.