While driving on US 101 along the southern Oregon coast with family, we stopped by a very unique attraction – The Darligntonia Wayside,  a few miles north of Florence. This is a small park that you can find to your right immediately as you drive into the marked side-road off the highway. There is a sign-board with directions to the park. A short walk along a wooden structure leads you to an unusual concentration of the carnivorous plant called the California pitcher plant or the cobra-lily, with the biological name Darlingtonia Californica.

These strange serpent-shaped plants have an appendage below the curved hood where insects are attracted by the nectar, which  leads them inside the hood. Once inside the hood, the insects get trapped as they are confused by the many transparent “windows” that they mistake to be exits. The insects  fall into the lower part of the hood where downward pointing hairs prevent them from going back up, and eventually into the lower part of the stak at the bottom where they are digested by bacterial action. But what you can observe from outside is limited to the insects seeking nectar below the curved hood and entering the hood.

This is also a nice picnic stop if you are looking to take a little break while driving along the Oregon coast.

Darlingtonia Wayside Pictures

On my recent 1-week family road trip, I decided to try the Electromate-400. This handy travel companion can save you a lot of hassle in an emergency, but is quite useful even otherwise. Here are some of its neat features:

Power pack – My primary reason to buy the Electromate-400 was to use it as a power pack. I have been using the 12-Volt to 120V AC inverter to run the portable DVD player for kids on long drives. But one of the annoying problems with this is that whenever I stop the car for taking a little break on the wayside or to fill gas, etc, the power from the inverter gets turned off and so does the DVD player. So I have been looking for an inverter with a power-pack for a while, and this one seemed like a good choice, with its built-in rechargeable battery. But the Electomate-400 does more than that –  it provides two 120V AC outlets, along with two 12V DC outlets. So many of the gadgets that you would run off the “cigarette lighter outlet” in the car can go on this directly.  So you really have two choices: plug in  120V AC appliances to the inverter output, or 12V DC appliance to the DC output. The nice thing about the DC output is that is comes off directly from the internal battery, and so does not require the inverter to be running. The power pack can be charged from the car’s 12V outlet while it is being used, or from a 120V AC household outlet when at home (or your hotel). Having this in the car made it very convenient for passengers to use the portable DVD player without being interrupted by minor stops for filling gas, etc.

The power pack can be quite useful at home too. There was a general power outage recently in the neighborhood where I live which lasted a few hours.  I used the Electromate to power a flourescent lamp that lit up our family room adequately until the power got restored.

 Jump starter – If your car battery got drained for some reason and you needed a jump start, this feature may be able to get you back on the road without having to wait for AAA or someone else to give you a jump start. This also includes an alternator voltage check and polarity check feature. I did not have to use the jump start feature on this trip.

Air compressor – Have low air pressure on your tires? You can use the air compressor with the built-in pressure gauge to set your tires to correct pressure if you are far from a gas station. This can be handy to check your tires every morning before starting your drive for the day. This can also be used to pump up sports equipment such as basketballs, inflatable tents, floatation devices and so on.

Built-in LED light – Although not very big, the built-in light can be useful if you need an emergency light or work light. For example, if you are trying to pump air into the tires in the dark, the light can be very useful.

Handy portable unit – Built like a boombox, the Electomate-400 is easy to carry with you, so you can move it from your car to our home or hotel room without a sweat. If you are camping or having fun in a park or a beach, this can serve as a very useful power source to run your lights, music players, small TVs or notebook computers.

Priced at around $99, the Electomate-400 is a useful gizmo to have in your car when you go on long road trips. It is very compact, portable and quite easy to use. It is a very handy power-pack that can make your trip more fun, and can give your car a jump start or pump air to your tires in an emergency.

Here is an interesting creation using Mindstorms NXT, a Rolling-Orbital-Bluetooth-Operating-Thing (ROBOT) as its creator calls it.

Spherical Robot 02 (YouTube)

This project uses two NXT controllers: one inside the “thing” and an external one that acts as the remote control. The two controllers communicate via Bluetooth. The external controller is also uses NXT motors that are very cleverly used as joystick controllers (the NXT motors can also be used like generators).

This is a great example of how multiple NXT controllers can be put to work in tandem.