Matthias Wandel is an engineer at Research in Motion (RIMM), the company that makes the Blackberry. He's also a wood worker and a very clever problem solver. According to his webpage, a few years back RIMM were testing the reception of one of its 900MHz devices, which varied by angle and orientation. What did RIMM turn to?

LEGO machines. In my books, Research in Motion gets props for its industrial application of LEGO! :-)

According to Matthias; "I wanted to devise a systematic method for measuring how well the pager did in a certain environment. Because there are always variations as the pager is moved, I decided to average this out by moving the pager through a predefined pattern. The machine rotates the pager about a horizontal axis, as well as a vertical axis. The vertical axis rotation is accomplished by having one side of the machine drive around a central pivot on which the other side of the machine rests. The machine drives a full circle every couple of minutes."