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https://hackaday.com/2012/10/25/lv0-encryption-key-cracks-current-and-future-playstation-3-firmware/ | LV0 Encryption Key Cracks Current And Future PlayStation 3 Firmware | Mike Szczys | [
"Playstation Hacks",
"Security Hacks"
] | [
"encryption",
"key",
"lv0",
"ps3",
"sony"
] | It looks like the security of the PlayStation 3 has been cracked wide open. But then again we’ve thought the same thing in the past and Sony managed to patch those exploits. The latest in the cat and mouse game is the release of
the LV0 encryption codes for the PS3 console
. The guys who discovered the magic strings of characters supposedly intended to keep them a secret, but have gone public after there was a leak and some black-hats now intend to use them for profit.
The keys are the bottom layer of security when pushing firmware updates to the PS3. With keys in hand, current and future upgrades can be unencrypted, altered, and repackaged without the gaming rig putting up a fuss. Our only real beef with the tight security came when Sony removed
the ability to install Linux on systems marketed with this option
. The availability of these keys should let you install just about whatever you want on your hardware.
[Thanks Kris via
Phys
] | 33 | 14 | [
{
"comment_id": "836074",
"author": "jay",
"timestamp": "2012-10-25T19:07:05",
"content": "this is good cuz the ps3 has yet to be fully utelized. more power i say and with the option of a posibul pc mod again yey for full out gaming on a power house console. lets make it just as good as our hacky fr... | 1,760,376,700.736482 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/10/25/fixing-a-first-generation-guruplugs-cooling-problems/ | Fixing A First Generation GuruPlug’s Cooling Problems | Mike Szczys | [
"hardware"
] | [
"GuruPlug",
"heat sink",
"lcd"
] | [Doragasu] had been using a hacked Xbox as his file server but upgraded to a single board Linux device when the GuruPlug was released. Unfortunately the first run of these devices had an overheating issue, which resulted in reboots even at moderate CPU load. The design was changed from a passively cooled heat sink to an internal fan, but that didn’t really help those who already had one of the early models. Above is [Doragasu’s]
method of cooling down the overheating computer
.
The original sink — which was really just a fin-less metal plate — was removed and replaced with a proper heat sink. This makes contact with the ARM, RAM, and Ethernet chips. They were all coated with thermal compound before installation and a silent fan was added to help whisk away the heat. This still fits inside of the original case, but to make way he did remove the original power source and cut a hole to allow for air movement.
The post also details an external LCD screen used to display system information. It’s along the same lines as
this USB LCD screen project
which inspired him to send us a link to the project. | 6 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "836020",
"author": "Hirudinea",
"timestamp": "2012-10-25T18:44:16",
"content": "That first picture on his site was the original heat sink!? No wonder it overheated. Nice work on the mods.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "836068",... | 1,760,376,700.563324 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/10/25/a-beautiful-pinhole-camera-takes-wonderful-photos/ | A Beautiful Pinhole Camera Takes Wonderful Photos | Brian Benchoff | [
"classic hacks"
] | [
"camera",
"film",
"photography",
"pinhole",
"pinhole camera"
] | With digital cameras in everything and film slowly disappearing from shelves, everyone loses an awesome way to learn about photography. Pinhole cameras allow anyone to build a camera from scratch and also learn about those crazy f-stops, exposure times, and focal planes that Instagram just won’t teach you. [Matt] put up
a great tutorial for building your own pinhole camera
, and the project looks easy enough for even those who are still playing around with their cell phone cameras.
For film, [Matt] used 120 film, a medium-format medium that is sill available for purchase and processing in some areas. Because [Matt]’s pinhole is relatively large and made out of very thin material, the camera could take very large pictures – much larger than standard 35mm fare. If you’re using a smaller camera projecting a smaller image onto the film, 35mm would be the way to go as it greatly decreases the difficulty of finding film and a processing center.
[Matt]’s camera is constructed out of laser-cut plywood. Because he’s producing extremely wide images with his camera (6 x 17cm), [Matt] needed to curve the film around the focal plane of the camera to keep the entire image in focus.
The mechanics of the camera are simple – just a pair of knobs to wind the film and a small metal shutter. [Matt] added a shutter release cable to open and close the aperture without moving the camera and had a wonderful camera perfect for capturing either sirs and madams or Civil War battlefields. | 20 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "835833",
"author": "atxinventor",
"timestamp": "2012-10-25T17:18:22",
"content": "Brian, focus has nothing to do with curving the film. By definition a pinhole camera has infinite focus for near and far. It’s about perspective: if film is not curved, the sides images get curved – ch... | 1,760,376,700.863202 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/10/25/rooting-a-neotv-set-top-box-from-the-couch/ | Rooting A NeoTV Set Top Box From The Couch | Mike Szczys | [
"home entertainment hacks",
"Linux Hacks",
"Security Hacks"
] | [
"neotv",
"root",
"set top box"
] | The NeoTV is a set top box built by Netgear to compete with the likes of Roku. It streams video from the usual Internet sources like Netflix, Hulu Plus, and YouTube. [Craig] recently cracked his unit open, and in the process discovered that
the NeoTV can be rooted using nothing but the remote control
.
He starts with a hardware overview. The box houses a single-board ARM design with a 128MB of NAND and 256MB of RAM. The serial port is easy to find, but it does not provide a root shell (which often is
one of the easiest ways to root a device
). He next turns to poking around the unencrypted firmware update to see what he can learn. That’s how he discovered that the SSID value when connecting to WiFi is fed into a system() command. This glaring security hole lets you run just about anything you want on the device by issuing commands as fake SSID names. It’s just a matter of a little Linux know-how and [Craig] now has root access on his device. | 19 | 13 | [
{
"comment_id": "835689",
"author": "anon",
"timestamp": "2012-10-25T15:51:50",
"content": "_LOL_",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "835727",
"author": "wretch",
"timestamp": "2012-10-25T16:18:28",
"content": "Very impressed.",
"par... | 1,760,376,700.469029 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/10/25/motion-sensing-fog-machine/ | Motion Sensing Fog Machine | Brian Benchoff | [
"Holiday Hacks"
] | [
"fog machine",
"halloween",
"pir",
"PIR sensor"
] | Our favorite holiday is just around the corner, so there’s no surprise in seeing a few builds to scare children turning up in the tip jar. [Greg] also loves Halloween and apparently puts on a good show – he always uses a fog machine on his porch on All Hallow’s Eve, but triggering it at the right time is always a pain.
This year, [Greg] decided to build
a motion-sensing fog machine
. His machine featured a wired remote with a light to signal when the fog machine is ready and a button to start the pump. This remote runs at 120V AC, but [Greg] figured he could stick a small USB phone charger in the remote and power an ATtiny85 microcontroller.
The actual circuit is just a piece of perfboard, a
large, old relay from Sparkfun
, and a PIR sensor [Greg] picked up last year. Whenever the PIR detects movement, the Tiny85 activates the fog machine for 5 seconds and disarms itself for another 10, until it sees movement again. Just the thing for a little interactive ambiance for [Greg]’s Halloween display.
Video after the break.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jfR2DZE90zY] | 1 | 1 | [
{
"comment_id": "835692",
"author": "XOIIO",
"timestamp": "2012-10-25T15:53:36",
"content": "Damn, another one of my ideas someone beat me to, all the way down to the attiny85 lol",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
}
] | 1,760,376,700.417799 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/10/25/typing-with-a-midi-drum-set/ | Typing With A MIDI Drum Set | Brian Benchoff | [
"Musical Hacks"
] | [
"chorded keyboard",
"drums",
"keyboard",
"midi",
"MIDI drum"
] | [Autuin] picked up the drums at the age of 18, but by his own admission he’s no [Bonzo], [Buddy Rich] or [Ringo]. Practicing always seems to fall off the end of his to-do list, and there really is only one way to Carnegie Hall. One thing [Autuin] is really fast at is typing, so he figured he could
improve his drumming skills by banging a few paragraphs out
.
The core of the build is a Yamaha DTX drum module, a MIDI-to-USB adapter, and little light coding. Basically, [Autuin] made a chorded keyboard out of his drums; by hitting one (or two, or three) drum heads at the same time, he can type characters in Open Office.
For going outside the comfort zone of a steady rock beat, we’re thinking [Autuin]’s build might just be useful. He’ll be displaying his Keyboard/Drum mashup at
Vancouver’s East Side Culture Crawl
alongside
a horrible device of artistic merit
. If you promise not to break anything, drop in on him in a few weeks.
Vidia after the break.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ERSP-g7Qr1c&w=470] | 8 | 3 | [
{
"comment_id": "835405",
"author": "Necromant",
"timestamp": "2012-10-25T13:24:50",
"content": "I can only imagine how will this stuff look when hooked to emacs, when one codes hard.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "835485",
"author": ... | 1,760,376,700.379365 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/10/25/electronic-demon-costume-is-surprisingly-unnerving/ | Electronic Demon Costume Is Surprisingly Unnerving | Brian Benchoff | [
"Holiday Hacks"
] | [
"halloween",
"led",
"led matrix",
"voice changer"
] | [Phil] over at Adafruit crashed last Sunday’s Show and Tell with an amazing demon costume that includes a voice changer and animated LED matrices for The Eyes and mouth.
He just posted how he built this costume
, but you’ve really got to
Watch the video
to see how awesome this build is.
Every demon needs a scary voice, so [Phil] repurposed his
Arduino-based voice changer
for this build. By being able to adjust the pitch of the demon’s voice with the turn of a knob, [Phil] goes from growling from the pits of hell to a demon with just a slightly annoying voice.
The Eyes make use of the
Adafruit I2C LED matrix backpack
. The eyes are wired to the same I2C address to prevent derping, but the three red mouth LED matrices are capable of displaying anything that fits on an 8×24 LED matrix.
The electronic portion of this build is mounted to a piece of plexiglas, which is in turn mounted to a mask [Phil] picked up from a craft store. Not really the best option considering the Halloween stores are now open for the year, but it does its job.
A Morphsuit – a spandex bodysuit – completes the build along with a few demon wings and horns. During Adafruit’s Show and Tell, [Phil] had electronic parts scattered all over his desk. To turn this into a costume, he’ll be mounting a small battery-powered speaker in a chest piece and stuffing all the electronics in a fanny pack.
It’s a very, very cool build that really steps up the game for Arduino-powered costumes. Check out the video after the break.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8HZFY4Xti7k&w=470] | 13 | 13 | [
{
"comment_id": "835295",
"author": "Jeff",
"timestamp": "2012-10-25T12:19:11",
"content": "Very nice!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "835386",
"author": "Jon",
"timestamp": "2012-10-25T13:15:38",
"content": "That’s super awesome!",
... | 1,760,376,700.335813 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/10/25/automatic-airsoft-turret/ | Automatic Airsoft Turret | Jeremy Cook | [
"Toy Hacks",
"Weapons Hacks"
] | [
"airsoft",
"gun",
"motion detector"
] | [Valentin] wrote in to tell us about his
automatic Airsoft turret
. What it lacks in accuracy, it more than makes up for with sheer volume of fire. The pellet container is able to hold 500 6mm bbs, so make sure to get out of the way after this device is armed.
The device itself is a great example of physical hacking, harvesting parts from a motion sensor as well as a G35 gearbox from Airsoft gun. For physical rotation, it uses a reversing platform reminiscent of the way a useless machine works (see
this [HAD] article
for more useless machine info). Even if you’re not interested in building a turret, this machine employs some very interesting concepts, so it’s worth checking out.
When live action Team Fortress becomes a fad, maybe these will make an appearance. Until then, check out the video of this turret after the break, or check out the
original article
for more pictures and video!
[youtube
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fUcjxT6nilU%5D | 8 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "835266",
"author": "tgb",
"timestamp": "2012-10-25T12:00:16",
"content": "I love that on this site an automatic turret is filed under the ‘toys’ category.ha",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "835277",
"author": "Eirinn",
... | 1,760,376,700.516801 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/10/24/ben-heck-builds-his-smallest-360-laptop-ever/ | [Ben Heck] Builds His Smallest 360 Laptop Ever | Brian Benchoff | [
"Xbox Hacks"
] | [
"ben heck",
"laptop",
"xbox",
"xbox 360"
] | [Ben Heck] is no stranger to building Xbox 360 laptops. Over the years he’s built dozens, but for this week’s episode of The Ben Heck Show he’s throwing down the gauntlet and building
the smallest Xbox laptop ever
.
The latest and greatest Xbox laptop build is based around the newest and smallest $199 4 Gig Xbox. A few compromises had to be made to turn this console into a laptop, though: The power that would have gone to a Kinect was repurposed to power the very thin 15.6″ LED LCD, while the port that would power a hard drive was used to drive a perfboard stereo amplifier. You can check out the official [Ben Heck] blog post
here
.
The final build is extremely compact and much smaller than [Ben Heck]’s previous Xbox laptop builds. At just 2.125″ thick and 16 ” wide and 9 ” long, it’s quite possibly the smallest Xbox that’s possible to build. Without a new hardware revision from Microsoft (which seems unlikely at this point), this is probably the smallest an Xbox 360 laptop can be. We tip our hat to [Ben], and wish him luck in the next season of The Ben Heck Show. | 39 | 14 | [
{
"comment_id": "834366",
"author": "matt",
"timestamp": "2012-10-24T21:28:18",
"content": "I understand the whole idea of hack something, but really? Whats the point of having the world thickest laptop which hardware wise is equivelent to a 2003 era PowerMac G5?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth"... | 1,760,376,700.81085 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/10/24/rasperry-pi-now-mostly-open-source/ | Rasperry Pi: Now Mostly Open Source | Brian Benchoff | [
"Raspberry Pi"
] | [
"arm",
"drivers",
"open source",
"raspberry pi"
] | If you’ve been following the developments of building Android, Chromium, and other OSes for the Raspberry Pi, you’ll come across a common theme. The drivers for the Raspi’s chip are closed source and protected by Broadcom with an NDA. This limits the ability of devs to take on projects that involve messing around deep inside the CPU.
Today,
this is no longer the case
. The CPU on the Raspberry Pi is now the first ARM-based system with fully functional, vendor-provided drivers.
Previously, the drivers for OpenGL ES, OpenMax, and other goodies inside the ARM chip have been closed source, available only to the Raspberry Pi foundation and those willing to sign a non-disclosure agreement with Broadcom. With this release, the drivers are open source, allowing the devs behind the Android, Chromium, Haiku, *BSD, and the RISC OS to dig deep into the Broadcom drivers and get their projects working.
The new files are available in the
Raspberry Pi git
, just waiting for devs to take a look at it. | 70 | 36 | [
{
"comment_id": "833887",
"author": "Zizzle",
"timestamp": "2012-10-24T16:54:29",
"content": "I feel like the tech press really dropped the ball on this and swallowed the hype from the Raspberry Pi Foundation.The drivers are not open source. The userspace stubs are.The stubs just use RPC to talk to ... | 1,760,376,700.664007 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/10/24/launching-a-balloon-and-not-landing-in-the-ocean/ | Launching A Balloon And Not Landing In The Ocean | Brian Benchoff | [
"Misc Hacks"
] | [
"balloon",
"flying hacks",
"high altitude balloon",
"yale aerospace"
] | In just a few short hours, the Yale Undergraduate Aerospace Association
will launch their 4th high altitude balloon project
into the rarefied air of the stratosphere and with any luck bring back pictures of the view high above Connecticut Long Island, Rhode Island, and Martha’s Vineyard.
Inside their surprisingly strong unibody chassis is two GoPro cameras and a triple-redundant telemetry system consisting of a custom radio system capable of transmitting over 40 miles, a cell-phone based comms system and a
SPOT satellite tracker
.
There is one very large problem the Yale Aerospace team has had to cope with; Because they’re launching their Skyview balloon from the eastern seaboard of the US, it’s very likely their payload could end up taking a drink in the Atlantic. To solve this problem, the team developed
a novel cut-down solution
: a piece of nichrome heater wire is wrapped around the line tying the payload to the balloon. If the hardware receives a signal from the ground, or has a software problem, or runs out of battery power, the nichrome circuit will release the balloon from its launch vehicle to hopefully return it to solid ground.
The Yale Aerospace team has also written a custom iOS app allowing the chase cars to track the balloon in real time – a great feature if you’re trying to communicate with several cars going down the highway. You can check out the live data from the balloon on the
Yale Aerospace tracking site
or just head over to
their twitter
to read the latest news about the flight. | 32 | 18 | [
{
"comment_id": "833575",
"author": "lrda",
"timestamp": "2012-10-24T14:12:27",
"content": "Nice project, but the nichrome wire cut down method isn’t novel. I used it in my school’s high altitude balloon project last year.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comm... | 1,760,376,701.048498 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/10/24/building-a-better-software-defined-radio-and-transmitting-as-well/ | Building A Better Software Defined Radio (and Transmitting As Well) | Brian Benchoff | [
"Radio Hacks"
] | [
"HackRF",
"RTL-SDR",
"sdr",
"software defined",
"software-defined radio"
] | By now most Hackaday readers should be familiar with this year’s latest advance in software defined radio. With a simple USB TV tuner dongle, it’s possible to receive FM broadcasts, GPS data from satellites, and even telemetry from aircraft flying overhead. There is one limitation to this setup, though: it’s receive only. Hacker extraordinaire [Michael Ossmann] is looking to make a better software defined radio called the
HackRF
.
The HackRF is an incredibly ambitious project – able to receive just about anything between 100 MHz and 6 GHz (this includes everything from the top of the FM radio band to cordless phones, cell phones, WiFi, and basically
any
radio technology that has been commercialized in the last 15 years), the HackRF is also able to
transmit.
Yes, with the HackRF it’s possible to build your own software-defined WiFi module, or just broadcast bogus GPS information.
Compared to the $20 TV tuner SDR dongles we’ve played around with, the HackRF isn’t exactly cheap. [Mossmann] figures he’ll be able to sell the device for about $300. A fair bit of change, but much, much less than professional, commercial SDR solutions.
A very cool advance in the state of SDR, but reason dictates we must suggest that everyone who wants a HackRF to start studying for their amateur radio exam now. Being a licensed radio operator won’t stop you from any sort of malicious intent, but with at least with licensing comes with the possibility of knowing what evil you’re doing.
You can check out the wiki for the HackRF
over on the gits
along with the
current hardware design | 39 | 19 | [
{
"comment_id": "833412",
"author": "S2H",
"timestamp": "2012-10-24T13:04:43",
"content": "Tres cool. I did some work in Uni developing some communications labs using the USRP2 SDR boxes, but their price made the lab setup a little too expensive. That coupled with poor support (this was 2010, mind y... | 1,760,376,701.122363 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/10/24/super-serious-garage-door-opener/ | Super Serious Garage Door Opener | Eric Evenchick | [
"Radio Hacks"
] | [
"ask",
"garage door opener",
"pic16",
"RF"
] | Tired of cheap plastic garage door openers? [Yetifrisstlama]’s is probably the most
serious garage door opener
that we’ve seen. The case is an old emergency stop switch, which has plenty of space for the circuitry and features a big red button.
This build log starts with details on reverse engineering the original door opener’s protocol. It’s an
amplitude-shift keying
(ASK) signal that sends a 10 bit code to authenticate. The main components inside are a PIC16LF819 microcontroller, a MAX7057 ASK/FSK transmitter, and some RF circuitry needed to filter the signal. There’s a mix of through hole and surface mount components mounted on a prototyping board, requiring some crafty soldering.
[Yetifrisstlama] says that the next step is to add a power amplifier to increase the range. The code and project files are also provided for anyone interested in working with ASK. While the hack looks awesome, it might make bystanders think you’re doing something more sinister than opening a garage door. | 18 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "833233",
"author": "Manuka",
"timestamp": "2012-10-24T11:29:12",
"content": "You may be better off getting some superior ASK modules ! At least consider a more powerful (but legal 25mW) transmitter? Check my recent insights into Dorji ASK modules => <a href=http://www.picaxe.orconh... | 1,760,376,701.645242 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/10/23/metroid-helmet-takes-halloween-costuming-to-a-higher-level/ | Metroid Helmet Takes Halloween Costuming To A Higher Level | Mike Szczys | [
"Holiday Hacks"
] | [
"halloween costume",
"Halloween props",
"helmet",
"metroid",
"planetfungi",
"samus"
] | Hackaday writer [Ryan Fitzpatrick], aka [PlatinumFungi], recently put together
this amazing Metroid Power Suit helmet
as a prop for a [
Mike n Gary
], on youtube. How amazing is it? This image is an actual photograph of the helmet! It’s being modeled by [Kelly Johnson], who built a power suit costume for a previous Halloween. But she never made a helmet, which makes sense to us. After all, how are you supposed to talk to anyone while wearing a helmet? Practicality aside, it is a delight to walk through the fabrication process.
[Ryan] started with a motorcycle helmet, making paper templates based on images from the game. After he had a reasonable road map for the work that needed to be done he started cutting away the parts which he didn’t need. The ‘beak’ on the front was then fabricated from paperboard, with the fins on the side sculpted from rigid foam. But there’s still a lot of work to be done from that point. Sure, the internal lighting and colored visor are necessary touches, but it’s the paint job and ‘distressing’ steps that make this look so realistic.
Looks like we’ve exceeded his bandwidth due to the tons of pictures he had of the process. Check out the video after the break. | 18 | 13 | [
{
"comment_id": "832241",
"author": "deadlyfoez",
"timestamp": "2012-10-23T22:27:53",
"content": "This is f*&^ing cool, I just wish that they added some functionality to it. I’m not talking about speed ball or spring ball, but maybe a ventilation fan and an arduino making some 8 bit sounds.Now I kno... | 1,760,376,701.748697 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/10/23/driving-an-lcd-character-display-using-custom-hid-codes/ | Driving An LCD Character Display Using Custom HID Codes | Mike Szczys | [
"Microcontrollers"
] | [
"18F2550",
"display",
"lcd",
"pic",
"usb"
] | Here’s an external display meant to help you keep track of your computer’s status. It connects via USB and is driven by a PIC microcontroller. It listens for a small set of commands, using those to implement
a simple control protocol to drive the screen
.
[Andrew Gehringer] designed the device around a PIC 18F2550, which offers native USB control. He’s using Microchip’s USB stack to enumerate the module as an HID device. It listens for commands 0x10 through 0x23. These clear the display, write strings to each of the four lines of the display, and switch the LCD backlight. Of course the project includes a program [Andrew] wrote to feed the display. It has a GUI which let’s him decide what information is displayed and how it is formatted. This helper app hangs out in the system tray for easy access. | 19 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "832109",
"author": "ODSFNI",
"timestamp": "2012-10-23T20:51:58",
"content": "the only thing useful in this project is the date and even that is a useless gadget cluttering your workspace if you have linux or windows 7 that show current time and date in the corner of a screen.",
... | 1,760,376,701.586282 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/10/23/hacking-facebook-to-remove-the-social-value-facade/ | Hacking Facebook To Remove The Social Value Facade | Mike Szczys | [
"firefox hacks",
"Lifehacks"
] | [
"add-on",
"chrome",
"facebook",
"facebook demetricator",
"firefox",
"metrics",
"safari",
"social",
"value"
] | We see [Ben Grosser’s] point that all the metrics found on the Facebook user interface make the experience somewhat of a game to see if you can better your high score. He thinks this detracts from the mission of having social interactions that themselves have a value. So he set out to remove the ‘scores’ from all Facebook pages with a project he calls
the Facebook Demetricator
.
You can see two UI blocks above. The upper offering is what a normal user will see. The lower is the page seen through the lens of the Demetricator. [Ben’s] feels it doesn’t matter how many people like something or share something, but only that you are genuinely interested in it. With the numbers removed you’re unlikely to follow the herd mentality of only clicking through to things that are liked by a huge number of people. He explains this himself in the clip after the break.
The Demetricator works much like the
Reddit Enhancement Suite
. It’s a browser add-on for Chrome, Firefox, and Safari that selectively strips out the metrics as the page renders. | 20 | 12 | [
{
"comment_id": "831970",
"author": "Karl",
"timestamp": "2012-10-23T19:20:32",
"content": "I still prefer the “antisocial” plugin for adblock:http://adblockplus.org/en/subscriptionsremoves all thise like,poke,share buttons completely.I’m not using facebook, so I prefer the web without their tags ev... | 1,760,376,701.806258 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/10/23/brute-force-used-to-crack-a-key-loggers-security-code/ | Brute Force Used To Crack A Key Logger’s Security Code | Mike Szczys | [
"Security Hacks"
] | [
"brute force",
"key logger",
"Teensy"
] | The USB device seen plugged in on the right of this image was found in between the keyboard and USB port of the company computer belonging to a Senior Executive. [Brad Antoniewicz] was hired by the company to figure out what it is and what kind of damage it may have done. He ended up
brute forcing an unlock code to access the device
, but not before taking some careful steps along the way.
From the design and placement the hardware was most likely a key logger and after some searching around the Internet [Brad] and his colleagues ordered what they thought was the same model of device. They wanted one to test with before taking on the actual target. The logger doesn’t enumerate when plugged in. Instead it acts as a pass-through, keeping track of the keystrokes but also listening for a three-key unlock code. [Brad] wrote a program for the Teensy microcontroller which would brute force all of the combinations. It’s a good thing he did, because one of the combinations is a device erase code hardwired by the manufacturer. After altering the program to avoid that wipe code he successfully unlocked the malicious device. An explanation of the process is found in the video after the break. | 29 | 13 | [
{
"comment_id": "831829",
"author": "mohonri",
"timestamp": "2012-10-23T18:17:02",
"content": "Interesting! However, I’m not sure what they might have expected to find on the keylogger. After all, the only thing stored on it would be the keystrokes of the executive.Since the device is useless unle... | 1,760,376,701.472367 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/10/23/scratch-built-motor-uses-a-clever-design/ | Scratch-built Motor Uses A Clever Design | Mike Szczys | [
"Misc Hacks"
] | [
"commutator",
"howtolou",
"motor"
] | [Lou] is on a hot streak when it comes to interesting builds.
This time around he made his own motor
using wood, PVC, some fasteners, and a bunch of enameled wire.
His method of building a commutator is intriguing. He first builds a rotor by cutting two opposing sides off of a PVC four-way connector and pushing a short galvanized pipe through what’s left. After adding two PVC nubs with caps and nails as pivot points he wraps the PVC and metal pipe with a continuous length of enameled wire. The enamel is then sanded off the windings around the PVC, and half is covered with electrical tape. The spinning rotor will cause the brushes to contact the bare wire during half of the rotation, and be insulated by the tape during the other half. The video after the break shows the motor in action, then walks you through each step of the build.
If you liked this video you should check out [Lou’s]
water bottle rocket launcher
, or his
automated Ping Pong table topper
which stores the game in the ceiling. | 17 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "831718",
"author": "Mike",
"timestamp": "2012-10-23T17:32:14",
"content": "Hang on, you would get better performance if your magnets were mounted on the OTHER side of the angle brackets. I know the reason you mount them on that side is to stop them flying off, but the metal in the ... | 1,760,376,701.528252 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/10/23/net-for-the-stm32-f4-discovery-board/ | .NET For The STM32 F4 Discovery Board | Mike Szczys | [
"ARM",
"Software Hacks"
] | [
".NET",
"c++",
"discovery",
"f4",
"stm",
"stm32",
"Visual Studio"
] | Here’s a technique that will let you
use the .NET framework on an STM32 Discovery board
. [Singular Engineer] was happy to learn that the .NET Micro Framework had been ported for STM32 chips. It’s doesn’t look like the port has hit a stable version yet, but these instructions will be enough to get you up and running. This lets you use managed code in the C# language to program an embedded device: the STM32 F4 Discovery board.
After flashing a new bootloader to the board a driver needs to be added for Windows to communicate with it. Above you can see that the board will enumerate as ‘STM32 .Net Test’. Once the driver is installed the rest of the firmware can be loaded on the board using a GUI supplied with the NETMF for STM32 package. That takes care of prepping the hardware, the rest is a painless process of configuring Visual Studio to use the board as a target. The ‘Hello World’ application then uses C# to blink an LED. | 29 | 16 | [
{
"comment_id": "831525",
"author": "Jeff Patton",
"timestamp": "2012-10-23T16:05:50",
"content": "Hot damn! When my boards eventually arrive, I will certainly give this a go!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "831576",
"author": "Necromant",
... | 1,760,376,701.410002 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/10/23/rewiring-a-free-carnival-sign/ | Rewiring A Free Carnival Sign | Brian Benchoff | [
"Arduino Hacks",
"contests"
] | [
"carnival",
"centrifuge",
"maker faire",
"red bull",
"relay",
"sign"
] | Late last September, Hackaday along with other hackerspaces including North Street Labs, 1.21 Jigawatts, Maker Twins, made their way to the NYC Maker Faire via the Red Bull Creation contest. The objectives of the contest were simple: build a game in 72 hours, have people vote on it, and join the Red Bull crew in Queens for a carnival-like atmosphere.
When the Maker Faire was over, Red Bull had some leftover props from their Midway at Maker Faire setup, including a few illuminated carnival signs. Without any use for them, they graciously gave Hackaday, North Street, Maker Twins and the Jigawatts the signs to their respective rides.
Now that things have settled down and the rides have returned to their home base, the folks over at North Street
decided to improve their sign
. At Maker Fair, these signs were illuminated by 50 incandescent bulbs, all wired on the same circuit. [Steve] over at North Street had the awesome idea of adding a persistence of vision aspect to the sign, so work began on wiring every fourth bulb in series.
To drive the light circuits, North Street repurposed the Arduino Relay shield originally used for the lights on the Centrifury, their competitive centrifuge
and spinning hell of a game
. In the video after the break, you can see the addition of POV lights really brings out the carnival atmosphere. A literally brilliant build, and a wonderful addition to the scariest game ever made.
[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uyM3Mzg3gkA&w=470] | 13 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "831523",
"author": "Tom the Brat",
"timestamp": "2012-10-23T16:05:25",
"content": "Nice improvement, but wouldn’t you have wired every 4th bulb in parallel?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "832040",
"author": "Justin",
... | 1,760,376,701.6934 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/10/23/graphing-the-efficiencies-of-led-light-strips/ | Graphing The Efficiencies Of LED Light Strips | Brian Benchoff | [
"hardware",
"LED Hacks"
] | [
"efficiency",
"led",
"led strip",
"light sensor"
] | After adding a few LED light strips above his desk, [Bogdan] was impressed with the results. They’re bright, look awesome, and exude a hacker aesthetic. Wanting to expand his LED strip installation, [Bogdan] decided to see if these inexpensive LED strips were actually less expensive in the long run than regular incandescent bulbs.
The results were surprising
, and we’ve got to give [Bogdan] a hand for his testing methodology.
[Bogdan]’s test rig consists of a 15 cm piece of the LED strip left over from his previous installation. A
Taos TSL2550 ambient light sensor
is installed in a light-proof box along with the LED strip, and an AVR microcontroller writes the light level from the sensor and an ADC count (to get the current draw) of the rig every 6 hours.
After 700 hours, [Bogdan]’s testing rig shows some surprising results. The light level has decreased about 12%, meaning the efficiency of his LED strip is decreasing. As for projecting when his LEDs will reach the end of their useful life, [Bogdan] predicts after 2200 hours (about 3 months), the LED strip will have dropped to 70% of their original brightness.
Comparing his LED strip against traditional incandescent bulbs – including the price paid for the LED strip, the cost of powering both the bulb and the strip, the cost of the power supply, and the time involved in changing out a LED strip, [Bogdan] calculates it will take 2800 hours before cheap LEDs are a cost-effective replacement for bulbs. With a useful life 600 hours less than that, [Bogdan] figures replacing your workshop lighting with LED strips – inexpensive though they are – isn’t an efficient way to spend money.
Of course with any study in the efficiency of new technology there are bound to be some conflating factors. We’re thinking [Bogdan] did a pretty good job at gauging the efficiency of LED strips here, but we would like to see some data from some more expensive and hopefully more efficient LED strips. | 35 | 18 | [
{
"comment_id": "831242",
"author": "Ren",
"timestamp": "2012-10-23T14:06:10",
"content": "What if the light sensor was also loosing sensitivity?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "831275",
"author": "Bogdan",
"timestamp": "2012-1... | 1,760,376,701.9264 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/10/23/controlling-a-cockroach-leg-with-your-mind/ | Controlling A Cockroach Leg With Your Mind | Brian Benchoff | [
"Medical Hacks"
] | [
"cockroach",
"eeg",
"neuron",
"neuroscience"
] | If one hack that controls amputated cockroach legs this week wasn’t enough for you,
we’ve got another
.
Earlier this week we saw two neuroscientists at Backyard Brains
put on a show at a TED talk
by connecting an amputated cockroach leg (don’t worry, they grow back) to a $100 electronic device called the SpikerBox. The SpikerBox allows students to explore the world of axons and action potentials by listening in on the electronic signals generated by the hair on the legs of a cockroach. For the finale for their TED talk, the SpikerBox guys attached an MP3 player to the cockroach leg, causing the now dead appendage to dance a little jig.
This new build – the
Salt Shaker
from Thinker Thing again allows students to amputate cockroach legs, pin them down with electrodes, and cause muscle contractions with the sound of science. Thinker Thing took this one step further than the neuroscientists at Backyard Brains; now you can control a cockroach leg with your mind.
The folks at Thinker Thing are using an off the shelf EEG system from
Emotiv
to capture the alpha, beta, and delta brainwaves of their new human test subjects. By interpreting these brain signals, they can convert these small variations in cerebral electrical activity to sound files. From there, it’s simply a matter of plugging in the Salt Shaker and moving a cockroach leg with your mind.
In the video after the break you can check out the folks at Thinker Thing playing around with their Salt Shaker and controlling a cockroach leg with a team member’s mind.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6UlkPZKPVLE&w=470] | 11 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "831336",
"author": "Greenaum",
"timestamp": "2012-10-23T14:42:09",
"content": "I’ve been controlling cockroach legs with my mind for some months now. But then, I am a cockroach.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "831413",
... | 1,760,376,701.853339 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/10/23/exploring-the-mandelbrot-set-in-real-time/ | Exploring The Mandelbrot Set In Real Time | Brian Benchoff | [
"hardware",
"Misc Hacks"
] | [
"fpga",
"mandelbrot"
] | The Mandelbrot set – the fractal ‘snowman turned on its side’ seen above – has graced the covers of magazines, journals, and has even been exhibited in art galleries. An impressive feat for what is nothing more than a mathematical function, and has become something of an obsession for [Chiaki Nakajima].
Even on modern computers, generating an image of a portion of the Mandelbrot set takes a good bit of time. When [Chiaki] discovered this fractal in the mid-1980s, the computers of the day took hours to generate a single, low-resolution image. Real-time zooming and scrolling was impossible but [Chiaki] made the best of what he had on hand and built Pyxis,
a Mandelbrot set generator made entirely out of TTL logic chips
(Google Translate
here
).
The original Pyxis connected to a desktop computer via a breakout box. while a special program toggled the bits and registers inside the Pyxis to generate pictures of the Mandelbrot set a thousand times faster than the CPUs of the day could muster.
Time marches on, and the original logic chip Pyxis is can be easily surpassed by even the slowest netbooks. There is, however, another way to build a hardware Mandelbrot set generator: FPGAs.
A few years ago, [Chiaki]
began work on the Pyxis2010
(
translation
), an FPGA-based Mandelbrot set generator able to dynamically zoom and pan around the world’s most popular fractal. Built around an Altera Cyclone III FPGA he picked up from Digikey for $600 (no, not a dev board, just a bare chip), [Chiaki] began
deadbugging his circuit directly onto the pins
of the hugely expensive FPGA. A man with a steady hand and no fear if there ever was one.
Instead of connecting his Mandelbrot generator to a computer and using it as a co-processor, [Chiaki] decided he wanted something more portable. He found an old Sony PSP, removed the LCD screen, and integrated it into his circuit. After a careful bit of dremeling and fabrication, [Chiaki] had a hand-held Mandelbrot generator that is able to display images of the world’s most famous fractal faster than any desktop computer.
It goes without saying this build is incredible. The technical skill to build an insanely fast Mandelbrot generator on an FPGA is astonishing, but basing it off a logic-chip based build reaches into the realm of godliness. You can check out a video of this amazing build after the break.
Props to [Ian Finder] for sending this one in.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aHp51yPUEaI&w=470] | 33 | 22 | [
{
"comment_id": "831002",
"author": "Michael Chen",
"timestamp": "2012-10-23T12:14:09",
"content": "PCB? Why the hell do I need a pcb? :)Just simply amazing. Mad soldering skills.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "831004",
"author": "steve",
... | 1,760,376,702.270154 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/10/23/traffic-camera-countermeasure/ | Traffic Camera Countermeasure | Mike Szczys | [
"digital cameras hacks",
"Transportation Hacks"
] | [
"flash",
"license plate",
"overexposed",
"red light camera",
"traffic camera"
] | Don’t get us wrong, we drive very carefully as it’s the most dangerous thing we do on a regular basis. But even a careful driver can get caught by bad traffic and a red light camera. These are devices that monitor intersections. If you get caught in the middle when the light goes red they take a picture and you get a ticket in the mail. Well, that’s the way it used to be. This traffic camera countermeasure puts it to an end. As you can see,
the noPhoto uses a flash of its own to overexpose traffic camera images
.
The image above shows the prototype. The foil is reflecting a flash on either side onto the license plate using a flash sensor which acts as the trigger. According to the demo video after the break, the system can even defeat the pre-flash, and dual-photo types of cameras.
There are pretty tight restrictions on using lights on your vehicles (colors, placement, etc.). We wonder if this passes muster?
[via
BoingBoing
] | 212 | 50 | [
{
"comment_id": "830885",
"author": "i20d",
"timestamp": "2012-10-23T11:17:03",
"content": "Damn clever! First anti photo-radar tech I see that could really work!It just need to be integrated and well hidden. I wonder if a version with hidden flash detectors and high intensity leds could work?",
... | 1,760,376,702.551292 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/10/22/a-ttl-timer-project-of-yore/ | A TTL Timer Project Of Yore | Mike Szczys | [
"clock hacks"
] | [
"7400",
"alarm clock",
"rectifier",
"timer",
"ttl"
] | [Viktor] just pulled out another one of his decades-old projects. This time around it’s
a timer he built using 7400 logic chips
. It was a great way for him to learn about electronics, and ended up serving as his alarm clock every morning.
Two pieces of copper clad board were cut to the same size. One of them was etched to act as the circuit board. The other was outfitted as a face plate. The same type of transfer sheets used to mask the traces of the circuit were also used to apply labels to the face plate. It was then coated with acrylic spray to protect it and stave off corrosion. The clock keeps time based on a half-wave rectified signal. The source is from a transformer which steps mains voltage down to a safe level for the 7805 regulator that supplies the clock’s power bus.
We’re glad [Viktor] has been showing off these old projects. We’ve also enjoyed seeing
a TV sleep timer he built
. If you’ve got something neat for yester-year why not dust it off, post the details, and
send us a tip about it
? | 6 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "830449",
"author": "Ryoku",
"timestamp": "2012-10-23T03:07:51",
"content": "I’m loving the fallout pitena of the built. age has done well for it in at least astetics. its like what you expect an eleivator face plate to be in close to 50-100 years. on the opposite side of the coin ve... | 1,760,376,702.594816 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/10/22/tinymatrix-derivative-uses-pic-instead-of-avr/ | TinyMatrix Derivative Uses PIC Instead Of AVR | Mike Szczys | [
"LED Hacks",
"Wearable Hacks"
] | [
"16f88",
"c++",
"matrix",
"pendant",
"pic",
"tinymatrix"
] | [Stu] has a teenage niece whose birthday is coming up and he wanted to give her something unique as a gift.
He’s working on an LED matrix pendant
that can display pixel graphics, play animations, and scroll messages.
He began the work after
drawing inspiration from the TinyMatrix project
. That clever design uses a DIP AVR chip soldered directly to the legs of a 5×7 LED matrix. It was powered by a coin cell with the power and ground wires acting as the necklace for the pendant. [Stu] is more comfortable developing using PIC chips, so he based his project on a 16F88. It will not run from a 3V source so he’s got a few issued to work out before the final design is finished.
One thing that’s quite interesting is his side project. After growing weary of hand coding the arrays for each frame of an animation he wrote a GUI in C# that let him design the image and output the code with a few clicks of the mouse. | 25 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "830050",
"author": "wifigod",
"timestamp": "2012-10-22T21:16:05",
"content": "I’m curious if his encoder is compatible with the AVR version? I’m still waiting for my ATTiny4313s to come in the mail (hopefully today) before I can start playing with them. Would be quite a time saver i... | 1,760,376,702.200501 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/10/22/battling-most-useless-machine-gets-an-expressive-upgrade/ | Battling Most Useless Machine Gets An Expressive Upgrade | Mike Szczys | [
"Robots Hacks",
"Toy Hacks"
] | [
"led matrix",
"most useless machine"
] | We suppose the only thing more useless than a most useless machine is giving it an emoticon face. But that’s exactly what has happened with this project. But you’ll want to seen the whole thing, as the presentation involves
much more than an angry box that can shut itself off
.
This is the second iteration of the angry box. As we saw about 18 months ago, it will eventually get fed up with you turning the switch on and
freak out by driving itself all over the desk
. This version starts off with a rather pleasant face drawn on the red LED matrix which takes up the front side of the enclosure. It will nonchalantly flip the switch to the off position after first being activated. But if you insist on turning it back on things get angry rather quickly. This is shown in the video after the break. But if you can get past the horrible machine translation there are
some build details to be had in this post
.
[via
Frivolous Engineering
] | 21 | 16 | [
{
"comment_id": "829963",
"author": "Nathanm",
"timestamp": "2012-10-22T20:16:46",
"content": "My brain almost exploded while watching this video. This has to be the greatest choice of music and special effects I have ever seen! I give it 12 out of 10 Micheal Bays!",
"parent_id": null,
"dept... | 1,760,376,702.74952 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/10/22/hackerspace-intro-skullspace-and-assentworks-in-winnipeg/ | Hackerspace Intro: Skullspace And AssentWorks In Winnipeg | Mike Szczys | [
"Hackerspaces"
] | [
"assentworks",
"canada",
"skullspace",
"tour",
"winnipeg"
] | The signs on the front door might be a little small, but the space which AssentWorks and Skullspace inhabit is anything but. [Matt] takes us on
a tour of the Winnipeg, Canada makerspace and hackerspace
.
The two spaces occupy one floor of the building but are partitioned for different purposes. AssentWorks, which is called a makerspace, is a business incubator. The tour shows it as a large and tidy area where small businesses can pool resources to maintain and stock the various shop and work areas. We can’t help but think of it as an OSB jungle as it seems all the interior walls have been built from Oriented Strand Board.
The second part of the video shows off the hackerspace: Skullspace. This is much less polished, but shows a lot of promise. There are several work spaces for electronics, machining, and woodworking. There is also an arcade room, a classroom, and a few other offerings. All in all there’s 8350 square feet of space between the two.
You can see the ten-minute tour embedded after the break. | 7 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "829828",
"author": "Gdogg",
"timestamp": "2012-10-22T19:04:37",
"content": "It’s Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "829835",
"author": "nizon",
"timestamp": "2012-10-22T19:06:37",
"content": ... | 1,760,376,702.642379 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/10/22/automate-your-tea-time/ | Automate Your Tea Time | Mike Szczys | [
"clock hacks",
"cooking hacks"
] | [
"egg timer",
"tea",
"timer"
] | There are a couple of things that go into a great cup of tea. One is to have the water at the correct temperature, the other is to steep for just the right amount of time. This offering solves the latter by
extracting the tea bag after a carefully timed steep
.
It’s hard to imagine how this could be more simple. The timing mechanism is a cheap egg timer which has been modified to include a paperclip which moves with the minute hand. When the timer hits zero that paper clip contacts a stationary electrode, which powers the motor. That motor is the laser sled from a dead CD-ROM drive. Since these usually die because of the lens (not the mechanism) this is a great re-use of the internals. The sled zips to one side until it hits a limiting switch which kills the power. At the same time, this motion uses the wooden lever to extract the tea bag. All of this is explained in the clip after the jump.
Since the egg timer already has its own bell, you’ll even be alerted that it’s tea time!
[via
Hacked Gadgets
] | 14 | 11 | [
{
"comment_id": "829727",
"author": "Funkdat",
"timestamp": "2012-10-22T18:11:05",
"content": "Needs a Scrotal adapter",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "829758",
"author": "ginsublade",
"timestamp": "2012-10-22T18:29:42",
... | 1,760,376,702.689603 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/10/22/portal-gun-hack-approaches-1-5-million-views-more-fun-hacks-to-come/ | Portal Gun Hack Approaches 1.5 Million Views. More Fun Hacks To Come! | Caleb Kraft | [
"News"
] | [
"projects",
"stunts",
"youtube"
] | The quick and simple
portal gun hack was published a little ver a week ago and has cleared almost 1.5 million views
. This is just a taste of things to come as we plunge into creating more fun original content for hackaday. If you haven’t yet, you should
go subscribe to our youtube channel
.
We have many more exciting projects planned for the near future. Projects involving high voltage, lasers, and thermite! We could always use more ideas though. What projects would you like to see done? Think big, we want to remind people just how awesome hacking can be!
We now have access to some high speed cameras, a wonderful and professional gentleman named [Jay] who is an astounding video editor, and quite possibly
the brightest readership in the universe
. Let us know your ideas for awesome projects! | 26 | 10 | [
{
"comment_id": "829545",
"author": "Guest",
"timestamp": "2012-10-22T16:21:24",
"content": "So, I already know that at 41 and a non-gamer, I’m a sort of hopeless troglodyte. Still, urbandictionary usually lets me keep up with all the newfangled lingo the kids keep coming up with. It has really neve... | 1,760,376,702.848981 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/10/22/were-this-close-to-a-real-pip-boy/ | We’re *this* Close To A Real Pip-Boy | Brian Benchoff | [
"Cellphone Hacks"
] | [
"pip-boy",
"wristphone",
"wristwatch"
] | Whether inspired by the vaults of
Fallout
or the mysterious wrist device worn by [Turanga Leela], we’re just glad to see someone finally
made a wrist-worn cellphone
,
The Ultimate Wrist Watch, as the creator [Rob] calls it, is based on his Motorola Defy smart phone, tucked inside a neatly modified iPod wrist band meant to hold a runner’s music player. Simply mounting a cellphone to a wrist would be a bit awkward and a huge drain on battery life, so [Rob]
wrote an app
to automatically turn on the display when the accelerometer detects the phone is in the correct watch-reading position, and turns it off when [Rob] lowers his arm once again.
Right now the Ultimate Wrist Watch only stands in for the functions of a standard wrist watch – time, date, a chronometer and stopwatch are just about the only features implemented so far. Still, this is dangerously close to the wrist-mounted computers we’ve been promised for so long.
You can grab the source for the Ultimate Wrist Watch
on [Rob]’s git
, or just download it off Google Play. Check out the video of the Ultimate Wrist Watch after the break.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LxUduZR78c0&w=470] | 47 | 24 | [
{
"comment_id": "829422",
"author": "agg23",
"timestamp": "2012-10-22T15:13:42",
"content": "I’ve been wanting to build a similar system for quite a while with the old iOS devices I have lying around. Any idea if a jailbreak app could do this same thing (access the accelerometer while sleeping)?",
... | 1,760,376,703.30681 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/10/22/add-an-arduino-to-a-google-hangout/ | Add An Arduino To A Google+ Hangout | Eric Evenchick | [
"Arduino Hacks"
] | [
"amazon ec2",
"google",
"google hangout",
"node.js"
] | Google+ Hangouts provide a group video chat with the ability to add apps. [RobotGrrl] created a Node.js
web app to control an Arduino
that can be added to a Hangout.
There’s a Javascript client that runs inside of the Hangout and communicates with the Node.js server running on an EC2 server over WebSockets. The server receives this client data and sends commands to Processing using TCP sockets. Processing deals with communicating with the Arduino, allowing you to control many things from the Hangout.
In this simple example, [RobotGrrl] demonstrates how to toggle an LED from the Hangout. This includes a tutorial on setting up your EC2 instance, full source for the server and client apps, the processing sketch to control an Arduino, and the code to allow the app to be added to a Hangout.
This example shows the basics, but there’s a whole slew of things that could be controlled with this system. [RobotGrrl] even demonstrates some robots that are controlled from a Hangout interface.
Check out an overview video after the break. | 3 | 3 | [
{
"comment_id": "829463",
"author": "addidis",
"timestamp": "2012-10-22T15:38:22",
"content": "That is pretty awesome work. Can’t wait to see it put to use mebe for halloween?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "829911",
"author": "zuul",
"t... | 1,760,376,702.791106 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/10/22/finally-turning-plastic-pellets-into-3d-printer-filament/ | Finally, Turning Plastic Pellets Into 3D Printer Filament | Brian Benchoff | [
"3d Printer hacks"
] | [
"extruder",
"filabot",
"filament extruder",
"printer filament"
] | Here’s the situation: a kilogram of 3D printer filament costs about $50. A kilogram of plastic pellets costs less than a tenth of that. Does anyone have a solution to this problem?
For years now, the general consensus was making your own 3D printer filament at home was nigh impossible, dealing with temperatures, pressures, and tolerances that home-built machines simply can’t handle. [Bradley] sent in
a filament extruder he made
because he was disturbed at this current mindset that desktop filament factories have huge technical issues that have yet to be overcome.
[Bradley]’s extruder is based on the
Lyman Filament Extruder
, a machine that has successfully demonstrated taking plastic pellets, forming them into a filament, and having this filament used in the production of 3D printed parts. [Bradley]’s improvements include a variable-speed motor, a larger hot end, and an automatic timing system to produce set quantities of printer filament.
Of course,
since Inventables threw $40,000 at the problem
of creating filament at home there were bound to be more than a few successful designs making their way out into the public. When we last covered the developments of home filament manufacturing,
the Filabot
seemed to be in the lead. Now with [Bradley] (and [Lyman])’s machines turning out usable filament, it’s only a matter of time before the 40 grand prize is snatched. | 47 | 19 | [
{
"comment_id": "829190",
"author": "Ren",
"timestamp": "2012-10-22T13:09:54",
"content": "So, is it just price gouging by the mfgr’s at this point?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "829215",
"author": "pelrun",
"timestamp": "201... | 1,760,376,702.931773 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/10/22/halloween-light-show-gets-an-upgrade/ | Halloween Light Show Gets An Upgrade | Eric Evenchick | [
"LED Hacks"
] | [
"halloween",
"light show",
"light-o-rama",
"rs-485"
] | This is [Dave]’s second year of putting on a
Halloween light show
(
cache
), and his latest production has received some upgrades over
last year’s
Christmas show. He’s switched from Christmas style bulb lights to high brightness LEDs, and upgraded to 48 channels of control.
The controllers are from
Light-O-Rama
, and each provides 16 output channels. They communicate over
RS-485
; the same type of network used for controlling professional theater lights with the
DMX512
protocol. The whole thing is powered by a 20 A DC supply from some Chinese retailer.
[Dave]’s show features light up pumpkins, tombstones, and faces mounted on his house. The lights are coordinated to a list of songs that he plays over an FM transmitter, allowing for cars to tune into the music that’s synced up with the lights.
If you happen to be in Estacada, OR, you might want to head over to [Dave]’s and check out the show in person. Otherwise, there’s two videos of the light show after the break.
http://youtu.be/1e2_6t4MlM4 | 6 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "829201",
"author": "ejfried",
"timestamp": "2012-10-22T13:13:54",
"content": "FIrst, kudos on an awesome build; that is amazing and I expect you’ll have people crowding around on Halloween and driving by all season.Second, really glad this isn’t in my neighborhood :)",
"parent_i... | 1,760,376,702.973491 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/10/22/giving-the-arduino-deques-vectors-and-streams-with-the-standard-template-library/ | Giving The Arduino Deques, Vectors And Streams With The Standard Template Library | Brian Benchoff | [
"Arduino Hacks",
"Software Development"
] | [
"arduino",
"AVR",
"c++",
"object oriented",
"software development",
"standard template library"
] | The Arduino IDE is extremely similar to C++, but judging from the sketches you can find on the Internet, you’d never know it. Simpler Arduino projects can make do with just toggling IO pins, reading values, and sending serial data between two points. More complex builds fall into the category of real software development, and this is where the standard Arduino IDE falls miserably short.
[Andy] saw this lack of proper libraries for more complicated pieces of software as a terrible situation
and decided to do something about it
. He ported the
SGI Standard Template Library
to bring all those fun algorithms and data structures to any AVR chip, including the Arduino.
Going over what’s included in [Andy]’s port reads just like a syllabus for an object-oriented programming class. Stacks, queues, and lists make the cut, as do strings and vectors. Also included is just about everything in the and headers along with a few Arduino-oriented additions like a hardware serial and liquid crystal streams.
With all these objects floating around, [Andy] says it will make an impact on Flash and SRAM usage in an AVR. Still, with all the hullabaloo over faster and larger ARM micros, it’s nice to see the classic 8-bit microcontroller becoming a bit more refined. | 20 | 13 | [
{
"comment_id": "829047",
"author": "Necromant",
"timestamp": "2012-10-22T11:45:20",
"content": "Somebody should have posted this link.http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.comp.version-control.git/57643/focus=57918Nevertheless, cool, but useless. I prefer using an adopted list.h ripped from linux kernel to... | 1,760,376,703.197835 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/10/21/hacked-kobo-becomes-a-weather-display/ | Hacked Kobo Becomes A Weather Display | Eric Evenchick | [
"Kindle hacks",
"Tablet Hacks"
] | [
"e-ink",
"pygame",
"python",
"weather display"
] | The Kobo e-reader has been hacked for a while now. It’s pretty easy to enable telnet access by modifying some files. Once [Kevin] was able to telnet into the device and draw to the display, he created the
Kobo Wifi Weather Forecast
. This hack was inspired by the Kindle weather display that we discussed
in the past
, but this version runs entirely on the Kobo.
The weather report software is written in Python using the pygame library. After loading the software package onto a Kobo, a few commands are run over telnet to set up Python and run the display. Since Python and pygame run on the Kobo, it allows for direct access to the e-ink display.
There’s a lot of possibilities for a internet connected e-ink device running custom graphics code. It’s asking to be turned into any kind of display you can imagine. What ideas do you have for a custom e-ink display? Let us know in the comments. | 28 | 12 | [
{
"comment_id": "828262",
"author": "gz",
"timestamp": "2012-10-21T19:52:25",
"content": "I was thinking this might make for an interesting site dashboard but based on price I’m better of using a cheap android tablet. The power use will be greater and the resolution lower but I get the secondary ben... | 1,760,376,703.677909 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/10/20/physical-orangered-notifies-you-of-reddit-messages/ | Physical Orangered Notifies You Of Reddit Messages | Brian Benchoff | [
"Arduino Hacks"
] | [
"message indicator",
"orangered",
"perl",
"reddit"
] | Anyone who has been around Reddit enough to anger the hive mind is familiar with the orangered, the envelope icon right next to your username that lights up in a beautiful orangered hue whenever you receive a new message. [Brad] wanted an orangered that was a little more visible, so he created
a standalone Reddit message indicator
to sit on his desk and light up whenever a new message has been delivered.
The case for [Brad]’s new orangered notifier was taken from a cheap thrift store clock. After dispensing of the mechanical movement, [Brad] loaded up the beautiful wooden case with an Arduino, a trio of LEDs, a speaker, and, of course, a small envelope logo reminiscent of Reddit’s message icon.
The Arduino is connected to a laptop running
this Perl script
. The script scrapes the JSON returned from the Reddit API and sends a command over the serial port to the Arduino if new messages have been received (
source for the Arduino
and the
notes.h header file
). When a new message is received, the Arduino lights up the envelope icon and plays a short sound on the attached speaker.
There are a few improvements [Brad] plans to add to his orangered indicator. First up is getting an Ethernet shield and discarding the server attached to the Arduino. Next up is different lights and tones for different types of messages (PMs, comment replies, and mod mail). Of course the top of our list for [Brad]’s future improvements is actually making the LEDs orangered, but it’s still a very awesome build to allow [Brad] to waste even more time on the Internet’s time sink.
Video after the break.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fz43V7B2zMY&w=470] | 11 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "827004",
"author": "joe",
"timestamp": "2012-10-20T15:35:53",
"content": "Am I the only one around here who doesn’t give two shits about stupid sites like reddit, pinterest and the like?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "827209"... | 1,760,376,703.362499 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/10/19/a-harpsichord-that-plays-itself/ | A Harpsichord That Plays Itself | Mike Szczys | [
"3d Printer hacks",
"Musical Hacks"
] | [
"harpsichord",
"midi",
"solenoid"
] | [Malcolm Messiter] is an Oboe player who loves to play pieces from the Baroque era. This often means playing with a Harpsichord and he managed to acquire one to call his very own. Unfortunately you can’t play both instruments at once so he set out to automate the keyboard. What you see here is a fully working version, but he soon went on to add solenoids to the upper rank as well. His story starts on
page 27 of this newsletter
(PDF).
He really went out of his way to make sure the instrument was not mistreated. A cabinet-maker built some brackets to mount the system above the keys. A friend drilled and tapped a sheet of acrylic to which each solenoid was mounted. The solenoid shafts have each been padded with felt to cushion the blow on the keys. We’ve embedded two demo video after the break that show off the first and second versions of the builds.
Harpsichords pluck the strings instead of hitting them with a hammer as the piano does. The mechanism that does the plucking had worn out on many of the keys so [Malcolm]
used a 3D printer to help replace them
.
[Thanks Chetchez] | 20 | 14 | [
{
"comment_id": "826185",
"author": "richnormand",
"timestamp": "2012-10-19T23:04:22",
"content": "Very nice.In particular the progress between mark 1 and 2!How about a video with you and Mk. 2 playing something together (oboe and harpsichord)?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies":... | 1,760,376,703.508485 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/10/19/halloween-props-spooky-eyes-light-up-the-bushes/ | Halloween Props: Spooky Eyes Light Up The Bushes | Mike Szczys | [
"Holiday Hacks"
] | [
"arduino",
"attiny85",
"diffuser",
"eyes",
"ping pong",
"spooky"
] | This is just one example of
several pairs of spooky eyes which light up
[Vato Supreme’s] bushes this Halloween. The quick and inexpensive build process make it a perfect diy decoration.
Each eye is made up of a ping-pong ball and an LED. But that alone won’t be very spook as the entire ball will glow rather brightly. So he spiced things up a bit by masking off the shape of a pupil and spraying the balls black. The vertical slit seen in white above will glow red like a demon in the night.
The LEDs are driven by an ATtiny85 running the Arduino bootloader. [Vato] found there was plenty of space two write code which fades the eyes in and out using PWM. This happens at random intervals for each of the four pairs he is driving.
We’ve seen a similar project that
used oversized LEDs as the eyes
. But we really like the idea of using a diffuser like this one. See it in action after the break. | 11 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "826108",
"author": "joe",
"timestamp": "2012-10-19T21:30:26",
"content": "“… space two write code …”Come on HAD editors, now you’re just fucking with us. You can’t seriously be that inept in the writing skills department…",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
... | 1,760,376,703.611682 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/10/19/snes-emulator-has-its-slot-sealed-shut/ | SNES Emulator Has It’s Slot Sealed Shut | Mike Szczys | [
"Nintendo Hacks",
"Raspberry Pi"
] | [
"emulator",
"RPi",
"snes",
"usb"
] | If you look closely you’ll notice there’s nowhere to put the game cartridge on this Super Nintendo system. That’s because this is
a Rasberry Pi based SNES emulator
that plays ROMs, not cartridges. Since the RPi board is used the only limit to what you can play is the board’s RAM and which ROMs you have on the SD card.
The case has basically been gutted and the unused cartridge slot was sealed with some Bondo before painting. In addition to the Rasberry Pi you’ll find a 7-port powered USB hub and a Teensy microcontroller board. The hub allows for the controllers to be connected via USB. The Teensy is recognized as a USB HID device and is used to connect the reset button to a functions on the emulator program. The power switch still works too. To make this happen [MIDItheKID] spliced a USB connector and a microB USB connector to the power switch. We think this draws power from the hub but we’re not 100% sure.
[MIDItheKID] mentions in
the Reddit comments
that he’s thinking of grabbing that
new RPi that has more memory
and doing some similar work on his dead PSX. | 24 | 10 | [
{
"comment_id": "826019",
"author": "Jac Goudsmit",
"timestamp": "2012-10-19T20:14:55",
"content": "Grammar nazi sez it’s “its” not “it’s”",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "826030",
"author": "Coda",
"timestamp": "2012-10-19T20:27:07",
... | 1,760,376,703.742014 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/10/19/robot-performing-a-tightrope-act/ | Robot Performing A Tightrope Act | Mike Szczys | [
"Robots Hacks"
] | [
"balancing",
"bicycle",
"bike",
"tightrope"
] | This
robot is able walk the tightrope
(
translated
). Well, it’s more of a shuffle than a walk, but still a lot better than we could do.
In the video after the break you can see the bot starting on the platform to the right. As it steps out onto the wire (which rides in a groove on the bottom of its foot) the robot spreads its arms to help maintain balance. When the other foot leaves the platform that is the last stride we will see until it reaches the other side. The rest of the act consists of sliding the feet a little bit at a time until it gets all the way across.
[Dr. Guero] has been working on at least one other balancer as well. Also embedded after the break is a robot riding a bicycle. It actually puts a foot down when stopped, and gives a stuttering push-off to get going again. This guy would be right at home riding past you in the hallways of the Death Star.
Tight rope:
Bicycle:
[Thanks Lern via
Robot Dreams
] | 21 | 12 | [
{
"comment_id": "825949",
"author": "DanJ",
"timestamp": "2012-10-19T19:22:28",
"content": "Amazing. I can’t imagine how many hours went into these projects. While I’m glad Had featured them, they certainly are no hacks. This is full-on engineering.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"r... | 1,760,376,703.563009 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/10/19/aprs-igate-built-using-a-raspberry-pi/ | APRS IGate Built Using A Raspberry Pi | Mike Szczys | [
"Radio Hacks",
"Raspberry Pi"
] | [
"APRS",
"aprs-is",
"multimon",
"RPi"
] | The hardware seen above is used to
bridge a local RF radio network to the APRS-IS network
. The APRS-IS is an Internet Service that uses a web connection to communicate between APRS networks in different parts of the world. The Raspberry Pi is perfect for this application because of its ability to connect to a network, and its native use of Linux.
On the software side the majority of the work is done by a Python script. It is responsible for setting up and monitoring a connection with an APRS-IS server. To connect to the handheld radio unit a USB sound card was used. The
Multimon
package is used to send and receive audio packets through this hardware.
[Sunny] has a few upgrades planned for the system. The device needs to report its location to the APRS-IS server and the plan is to add functionality that will look of the WiFi AP’s location automatically. It may also be possible to get rid of the radio all together and
use a DVB dongle as a software defined radio
. | 28 | 15 | [
{
"comment_id": "825875",
"author": "regulatre",
"timestamp": "2012-10-19T18:24:24",
"content": "YES!!!! Keep them coming!Also note that the RTL2832u (RTLSDR) SDR receiver works with Raspi too. In other words we could use the USB based RTL DVB stick to do the receive and actually have the receiver a... | 1,760,376,703.86683 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/10/19/red-bullet-cooking-stove-from-cans-fueled-by-gas-additive/ | Red-bullet: Cooking Stove From Cans, Fueled By Gas Additive | Mike Szczys | [
"cooking hacks"
] | [
"alcohol",
"heet",
"penny stove",
"stove"
] | A couple of beverage containers and a little bit of fuel additive bring together this
aluminum can stove project
. When lit it shoots flames out each of those holes around the top to heat the vessel resting upon it. [Peter Geiger] calls it the Red-Bullet because one of the stove pieces started as a Red Bull can and the other piece was a Coors (aka silver bullet).
This is basically an alcohol stove. We remember seeing
a very well designed version of the penny stove
several years back. This is different as it uses a side burner so the stove itself functions as the kettle stand. [Peter] started by cutting the Red Bull can just a bit taller than the final height. He then inserted the top portion of one of those aluminum beer cans that are shaped like glass bottles. The neck was lopped off and inverted. It is joined with the other can base using JB weld and by rolling the aluminum in on itself. After that has dried the holes are added and it’s filled with HEET from a yellow bottle. This gasoline additive is meant to sequester water and keep your gas line from freezing. The
yellow bottle is mainly alcohol, the red is methanol
so make sure you use the right one! | 25 | 16 | [
{
"comment_id": "825732",
"author": "Waffles",
"timestamp": "2012-10-19T16:52:43",
"content": "Been making and using these for over a decade for back packing. Guinness cans are a great size as regular soda/beer cans fit snuggly in side. With the Guinness can on top, you get the same side burner effe... | 1,760,376,703.801256 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/10/21/debugging-the-stellaris-with-openocd/ | Debugging The Stellaris With OpenOCD | Brian Benchoff | [
"ARM",
"Software Development"
] | [
"debugger",
"debugging",
"stellaris",
"Stellaris Launchpad"
] | It looks as though Texas Instruments are really reaching out to the hacker community with their new ARM-powered Stellaris dev board. On the Stellarisiti forums, a member
asked about the debugging options
for the Stellaris board. The Stellaris already features an
In-Circuit Debug Interface
(ICDI), but unfortunately it’s a little hard to get working in Linux-ey environments.
One of the devs for the
Open On-Chip Debugger
was already talking with TI to get the ICDI spec released for the Stellaris board. TI released the info, and after quite a bit of work,
everything is open for all to see
.
Right now, OpenOCD support for the Stellaris is still incomplete, but there is an project
up on the Gits
that allows for multi-platform development for TI’s new board.
Needless to say, getting everything up and running is still a chore. That’s not really a concern, though; the Stellaris has only been around for a few months and it takes devs time to put all the required tools into nice, neat packages. We’re just glad TI is being so forthcoming with the relevant documentation, lest development becomes a million times harder. | 19 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "828024",
"author": "stevo",
"timestamp": "2012-10-21T14:22:10",
"content": "I wish people would stop releasing shit without proper dev backup for the masses. This is what makes the Arduino win, they could’ve released the DUE last year, but noooo, they perfected it first.Now all thi... | 1,760,376,703.925022 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/10/21/4096-leds-means-the-biggest-led-cube-ever/ | 4096 LEDs Means The Biggest LED Cube Ever | Brian Benchoff | [
"LED Hacks"
] | [
"cube",
"led",
"LED cube"
] | Adaptive Computing, a cloud management and high performance computing outfit in Utah, needed something
really cool
to bring to their trade shows. Something that makes order out of chaos, and demonstrates their attention to detail in the midst of miles of wiring. They decided building the largest non-commercial LED cube would be a good project,
and thus the 16x16x16 All Spark Cube was born
.
The All Spark Cube
was constructed
using 10 mm RGB LEDs wired together with three-foot lengths of 16 ga pre-tinned copper wire.
In this video
, [Kevin] shows off the process of constructing a single row; first the LEDs are placed in a jig, the leads are bent down, and a bus wire is soldered to 16 individual anodes per row.
The hardware for the build
uses 16 Arduino Megas with a custom-made shield powering a 16×16 LED grid. The custom shields provide the 24V for the LEDs, 5V for the ‘duino, The Arduino boards communicate to each other through an RS485 connection, and the entire cube is connected to a computer through an RS232 serial connection.
The software is, admittedly, still a little janky. [Spencer] and [Thomas], the Adaptive Computing volunteers that are working on the control system, are still having a few problems getting logos and animations to display. They have managed to create a control app to draw individual pixels, as seen after the break.
Not bad for nearly a mile of wire and a summer’s worth of work, huh?
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O-4EQPauUCI&w=470] | 60 | 27 | [
{
"comment_id": "827964",
"author": "Tom Ods",
"timestamp": "2012-10-21T12:59:09",
"content": "From a comment to another post:http://www.seekway.com.cn/e/3D/ledsys28.htm",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "828155",
"author": "spuder",
... | 1,760,376,704.013512 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/10/20/rpi-video-with-pygame/ | RPi Video With Pygame | Eric Evenchick | [
"how-to",
"Raspberry Pi"
] | [
"pygame",
"RPi",
"Web IDE"
] | Adafruit has a new tutorial on
creating video with an RPi and pygame
. The goal is to create custom user interfaces on low cost hardware, powered by the easy to use pygame library. The tutorial walks through getting your RPi set up to run pygame, creating a basic pygame script that controls the framebuffer, and drawing an oscilloscope display on the screen.
This tutorial uses Adafruit’s
WebIDE
as a development environment. This is an excellent solution for working on video display, since you can develop the code on a networked computer and view the shell while running your graphical application. This is very useful for debugging, since you can just print information to your WebIDE console.
There’s a lot of potential for this setup. It would be ideal for creating any kiosk application. Maybe an announcement display, interactive kiosk, or even a programmable logic controller type user interface? What else could you build with a RPi attached to a LCD touchscreen?
Check out a video of Adafruit’s display in action after the break. | 15 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "827444",
"author": "nah!",
"timestamp": "2012-10-20T23:03:55",
"content": "i want that screen, where can i buy it?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "827886",
"author": "qwerty",
"timestamp": "2012-10-21T10:49:55"... | 1,760,376,704.068178 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/10/20/making-people-pay-for-their-beer-at-parties/ | Making People Pay For Their Beer At Parties | Brian Benchoff | [
"Beer Hacks"
] | [
"magnetic card reader",
"raspberry pi",
"vending machine"
] | A common problem at parties and get-togethers – although we don’t remember this happening – is regulating the amount of alcohol people consume. [Mike] came up with an interesting solution to make sure people don’t drink more than their fill by
building a vending machine out of a minifridge
that allows you to keep track of how many cans someone has taken.
[Mike] added a magnetic card reader on the side of a minifridge that allows any card with a magnetic stripe – a library card, credit card, or school ID – to serve as a unique identifier for each party guest. This card reader is connected to a Raspberry Pi which handles all the registration and eventual payment processing via
Venmo
The mechanical portion of the build is a series of ramps built inside the fridge. At the bottom of this series of ramps, a servo controlled by an Arduino dispenses one can at a time when commanded to by the Raspi. The vending machine has a capacity of only 24 cans, but [Mike] says that could be improved with some CAD designed ramps inside a more modern fridge. | 39 | 24 | [
{
"comment_id": "827305",
"author": "Tron9000",
"timestamp": "2012-10-20T21:03:51",
"content": "you know that there will be the overly agressive guy that nobody invited (or say they didn’t invite), who will just try to trash this to steal your beer!Best whip up a bouncer!",
"parent_id": null,
... | 1,760,376,704.29706 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/10/20/learning-neuroscience-with-cockroach-legs/ | Learning Neuroscience With Cockroach Legs | Brian Benchoff | [
"Medical Hacks"
] | [
"cockroach",
"neuron",
"neuroscience"
] | Neuroscientists [Tim Marzullo] and [Greg Gage] wanted a way to get kids interested in neuroscience. What they came up with isn’t terribly far from something found in Frankenstein’s lab; by amputating a cockroach’s leg and attaching electrodes,
they’re able to listen to the sound of neurons firing
. For an even cooler demonstration, they’re able to apply a little bit of current to the leg and make the leg dance to the beat of the Beastie Boys.
The guys published an article
in PLOS One
and
gave a TED talk
demonstrating their SpikerBox, as they call their invention, to the masses. The basic idea is to amplify the electricity generated by cockroach neurons firing. By listening in on the neurons with an iPad app, [Tim] and [Greg] can set the threshold of the recording to detect the action potential of an individual neuron, and listen in on exactly what happens when a single neuron fires.
It seems like a great tool to explain the very basics of what a nervous system – and a brain, both cockroach and human – actually is. In the video after the break, you can see [Greg] playing around with individual cockroach neurons. After that, [Greg] plays the Beastie’s
High Plains Drifter
into the leg making the muscles contract. Truly, The Sounds of Science.
[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tr4gWi9Jf6k&w=470] | 23 | 14 | [
{
"comment_id": "827269",
"author": "squeeks",
"timestamp": "2012-10-20T20:10:07",
"content": "Well, I am now pretty certain neuroscience isn’t my thing. At least not if you have to hack bits off creatures. If this demonstration used the likes EEG/ECG then I may have viewed it differently…",
"pa... | 1,760,376,704.414886 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/10/20/continental-europes-first-maker-faire/ | Continental Europe’s First Maker Faire | Brian Benchoff | [
"News"
] | [
"maker faire",
"Maker Faire Groningen"
] | Continental Europe’s first official sanctioned Maker Faire
is well underway
in the Netherlands, tucked away at the
Open Lab Ebbinge
in the city of Groningen.
Of course the Groningen Maker Faire will feature cool builds like
the bike-mounted workshop built by [Bertoa] we’ve seen
and a few wind-powered beach animals inspired by the work of [Theo Jansen]. Also on the schedule are a 3D printed zoetrope, delta robot pick and place, radio controlled submarines, and of course a fleet of electric go karts.
A few of the talks involve a mashup of Google Earth and 3D modeling from
[Ronald van Aalst]
[Dick Stadaand], and a very interesting talk on disability insurance for self-employed entrepreneurs from [Biba Shoemaker] and [Andre Jonkers].
[buZz] from the NURDspace hackerspace in Wageningen wrote in to tell us he’ll be participating in the Groningen Maker Faire’s
Scrapheap Challenge
, an awesome contest that pits teams against each other to build
something
in a setup very similar to the fondly remembered
Junkyard Wars.
Of course, Hackaday’s writers and editors are about 3,000 miles away from continental Europe’s first Maker Faire, so we can’t provide any live updates. If you have any pictures or video,
send them in
and we’ll put them up. | 21 | 13 | [
{
"comment_id": "827222",
"author": "TD-er",
"timestamp": "2012-10-20T19:15:34",
"content": "Too bad I only just read about this… It’s about 15 km from where I live.A bit strange I never read about this, not even in the local news-sites.So let’s hope next year’s edition will have better promotions."... | 1,760,376,704.357023 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/10/20/the-arduino-due-is-finally-here/ | The Arduino Due Is Finally Here | Brian Benchoff | [
"Arduino Hacks",
"ARM"
] | [
"arduino",
"Arduino DUE",
"arm"
] | After a years-long wait, an ARM powered Arduino is finally due. The Arduino Due
will finally be released this coming Monday
.
On board the Arduino Due is an Atmel-sourced ARM Cortex M3 microcontroller running at 84 MHz. The Due has an impressive list of features including a USB 2.0 host, compatibility with the Android ADK (lest
you still need an IOIO
), 12 analog inputs with 12-bit resolution, 2 analog
outputs
running at 12 bits, a CAN interface, and more input pins than you can shake a stick at.
For a full list of features, you can
grab this PDF
we picked up when we
saw the Due at Maker Faire NYC
This hardware update to the Arduino platform makes a lot of very cool builds very possible for even the beginner hardware hacker. Of course the Due will be used for controlling drones and UAVs, laser cutters and 3D printers, and playing WAV files from the analog outputs. The much improved hardware opens up a lot of other possible builds including making your own guitar pedals – DSP is a wonderful thing – and reading the telemetry from your car in real-time via the CAN bus.
Although it’s not available right now, you will be able to buy an Arduino Due for $49 USD this coming Monday at your favorite electronics retailers. | 81 | 24 | [
{
"comment_id": "826960",
"author": "niekblankers",
"timestamp": "2012-10-20T15:06:44",
"content": "3.3v operating voltage.. Does this mean ‘HIGH’ is 3.3v? :(",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "827037",
"author": "Hack Man",
"time... | 1,760,376,704.952634 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/10/19/building-a-raspi-case-in-true-hackaday-fashion/ | Building A Raspi Case In True Hackaday Fashion | Brian Benchoff | [
"Raspberry Pi"
] | [
"case",
"enclosure",
"raspberry pi"
] | [Ben] needed a case for his Raspberry Pi. Instead of going the usual laser-cut plastic or 3D printed route, he took a path far more familiar to us here at Hackaday.
His case is built out o
f
aluminum found in his basement
, providing a neat reuse for some old aluminum extrusion he had lying around.
Part one
of [Ben]’s thoroughly documented build goes over the process of acquiring some of this very handy aluminum extrusion. Part two
covers a very neat feature
of [Ben]’s scrap of aluminum: because of a pair of internal chamfers, [Ben] was able to mount his Raspi and USB hub to a separate piece of PVC and slide the whole assembly in.
The final assembly
included dremeling a piece of aluminum plate for the Raspi and USB hub ports and wiring the whole thing together.
Right now the newly enclosed Raspi is working happily as [Ben]’s home server. Not exactly the use case a rugged aluminum case would see the best use from, but it looks great all the same. | 12 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "825571",
"author": "fartface",
"timestamp": "2012-10-19T15:12:52",
"content": "Note: the aluminum and sheet metal found in your basement is called “ductwork” and should not be re-used for making project enclosures.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
... | 1,760,376,706.97301 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/10/19/stacking-gps-gsm-and-an-sd-card-into-an-arduino-shield/ | Stacking GPS, GSM, And An SD Card Into An Arduino Shield | Brian Benchoff | [
"Arduino Hacks",
"Cellphone Hacks",
"gps hacks"
] | [
"arduino",
"data logger",
"data logging",
"GPRS",
"gps",
"gsm",
"shield"
] | A few years ago, [Phang Moh] and his compatriots were asked by a client if they could make a vehicle tracking device for oil tankers all around Indonesia. The request of putting thousands of trackers on tanks of explosives was a little beyond [Phang Moh]’s capability, but he did start tinkering around with GPS and GSM on an Arduino.
Now that tinkering has finally come to fruition with [Phang]’s
TraLog shield
, a single Arduino shield that combines GPS tracking with a GSM and GPRS transceiver. There’s also an SD card thrown in for good measure, making this one of the best tracking and data logging shields for the Arduino.
The shield can be configured to send GPS and sensor data from devices attached to an I2C bus to remote servers, or a
really cool COSM server
. [Phang] is selling his TraLog for $150, a fairly good deal if you consider what this thing can do.
Seems like the perfect piece of kit for just about any tracking project, whether you want to know the location of thousands of oil tankers or just a single high altitude balloon.
Tip ‘o the hat to [Brett] for finding this one. | 18 | 11 | [
{
"comment_id": "825483",
"author": "icehoot",
"timestamp": "2012-10-19T14:11:24",
"content": "He didn’t sell his clients Arduinos + shields I hope.The SIM548C is a pretty cheap GPS+GSM/GPRS combo as well. Comes in SMT versions as well, and can be really cheap depending on how much Chinese you speak... | 1,760,376,706.926467 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/10/19/hackaday-retro-edition-roundup-2/ | Hackaday Retro Edition Roundup | Brian Benchoff | [
"classic hacks"
] | [
"macintosh",
"Powerbook",
"PPP",
"PPPD",
"Psion",
"retro edition"
] | It’s time for another update chronicling the adventures and misadventures of getting really old computers to load
our retro edition
!
First up is [Andrew Hull] and his brilliant use of a Raspberry Pi to get
an old Psion 5mx PDA
on the Internet. The Raspi served as a wireless bridge, taking in Internet from a WiFi dongle and sending it back out via a serial port.
Here’s a great guide
for enabling PPPD on the Raspi, and giving just about anything with a serial port an Internet connection.
It may push the limits of being a retro submission, but [Glen]’s
use of a modem
to get on the Internet calls to us like a siren song.
Did you know Corel made computers? Well, [Victor] has one, and it’s actually a pretty interesting machine. ARM processor, an actual hard drive, and dual Ethernet ports. It was built in the late 90s and the hard drive has since died, but [Victor] booted it into Red Hat over his network and
loaded up our retro site.
Finally, we come to [Greg]’s submission. He could have sent in a Mac SE/30 submission, but figured that was old hat (do you see one on there, [Greg]. No. And it’s the best computer Apple will ever make). Instead, he had an old
Powerbook Duo 2300c
with a Duo 230 screen lying around.
Powerbook Duos are pretty weird; they only had two ports – a single DIN-8 serial port and a dock connector. [Greg] had a Powerbook Duo dock that surprisingly had an Ethernet port. Third-party peripherals to the rescue, it seems. After plugging his Duo to his network and launching iCab, [Greg] was able to browse both the retro and main Hackaday editions. Picture Not bad for the smallest laptop Apple made before the Air.
Oh, [Greg] was also cool enough to write a tutorial for getting just about every Macintosh on the Internet. We’ve put that up on
the retrocomputing guide portion
of our retro site, and we’re always looking for new submissions.
You can check out the pics from all these submissions in a Web 2.0 WordPress gallery after the break, or
head on over to the retro site
and view them the way the gods of HTML intended.
[slideshow] | 13 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "825412",
"author": "Josh Malone",
"timestamp": "2012-10-19T13:24:48",
"content": "I remember those Corel ARM boxes. Cool machines – very inexpensive if memory serves, but I don’t think they made very many.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comm... | 1,760,376,706.75384 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/10/19/hacking-beer-cans-for-fun-and-publicity/ | Hacking Beer Cans For Fun And Publicity | Jeremy Cook | [
"Arduino Hacks",
"Beer Hacks",
"Raspberry Pi"
] | [
"arduino",
"beer",
"raspberry pi",
"Staropramen"
] | Although beer is generally a good way to get people to come to your trade show booth,
[Robofun.ru]
decided to put a new spin on things. Instead of (or possibly in addition to) giving out beer, they decided to turn
40 Staropramen beer cans into a keyboard
.
This was done using an Arduino hooked up to four Sparkfun MPR121 Capacitive Touch Sensor Breakout Boards, allowing them to act as keys. These inputs are translated via the Arduino into a standard output (we assume USB) that can be plugged into any computer. Additionally, a Sparkfun MP3 trigger board was used to control the sound effects. Rounding out the build, a Raspberry Pi computer was used to run the human machine interface, a large plasma display.
Be sure to check out this keyboard in action after the break. If this isn’t enough alternative input fun, why not check our post about how to make a
banana piano and giant NES controller
.
[vimeo
http://www.vimeo.com/51526148
w=470&h=300] | 3 | 3 | [
{
"comment_id": "825871",
"author": "Alin",
"timestamp": "2012-10-19T18:21:28",
"content": "*Robofun.RO:D",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "825903",
"author": "echodelta",
"timestamp": "2012-10-19T18:42:03",
"content": "Emoticons for s... | 1,760,376,706.653406 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/10/19/iphone-hack-isnt-sold-by-adafruit/ | IPhone Hack Isn’t Sold By Adafruit | Jeremy Cook | [
"iphone hacks"
] | [
"iphone",
"light up"
] | [Becky] wrote in to tell us about
her latest hack
for Adafruit Industries. This hack will allow you to light up the Apple symbol on the back of your phone, and as she notes, it will definitely void your warranty. From the looks of the video, it requires some extremely good soldering skills, and optionally mid-level tape skills. If you’re up to the challenge, and have the stomach to see your iPhone on the operating table, the results are quite good.
One other challenge of doing this hack is that it uses a kit that Adafruit isn’t going to sell since it uses knock-off Apple parts. They exist somewhere, but where to source them would be a challenge. On the other hand, from a purely experimental/engineering point of view, the video after the break is quite interesting. Many of us would be very hesitant to take apart a several hundred dollar phone, much less solder to a power supply on it!
[youtube
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JR6a-7xlFxg%5D | 36 | 11 | [
{
"comment_id": "825258",
"author": "Mulvane",
"timestamp": "2012-10-19T11:22:52",
"content": "I would totally do this just to let my apple friends see it and question me about it and be like “Oh, its a special limited edition with a few upgrades” or something..And would TOTALLY go into an apple sto... | 1,760,376,707.043993 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/10/18/the-inner-workings-of-servo-motors/ | The Inner Workings Of Servo Motors | Mike Szczys | [
"how-to"
] | [
"pwm",
"servo",
"servo motor"
] | Servos seem to be the go-to option when adding motors to hobby projects. They’re easy to hack for continuous rotation for use in a robot, but with the control board intact they are fairly accurate for position-based applications. But do you know how the hardware actually works? [Rue Mohr] recently published
an article that looks at the inner world of the servo motor
.
As you know, these motors use a voltage, ground, and signal connection for control. The position of the horn (the wheel seen on the servos above) is dependent on that control signal. The duty cycle of a 20 ms pulse decides this. Inside the housing is a control board capable of measuring this signal. It’s got a chip that monitors the incoming PWM pulses, but that’s only half of the equation. That controller also needs feedback from the horn to know if its position is correct or needs to be changed. Integrated with the gear box that connects the motor to the horn is a potentiometer. It’s resistance changes as the horn turns. Knowing this, it is possible to fine tune a servo by altering that resistance measurement. | 19 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "824512",
"author": "gmcurrie",
"timestamp": "2012-10-18T21:33:58",
"content": "Anyone know what happened to the ‘SuperModified’ servo project – seemed to stall/go offline sometime in 2010 -are they available to buy anywhere?http://forums.parallax.com/showthread.php?138269-Supermodif... | 1,760,376,706.709528 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/10/18/27-mhz-transmitterreceiver-pair-made-with-555-timers/ | 27 MHz Transmitter/receiver Pair Made With 555 Timers | Mike Szczys | [
"Radio Hacks"
] | [
"555",
"crystal",
"receiver",
"RF",
"transmitter"
] | Get your feet wet with radio frequency transmitters and receivers by working your way through this pair of tutorials. [Chris] built the hardware around a couple of 555 timers so you don’t need to worry about any microcontroller programming. He started by
building the transmitter
and finished by
constructing a receiver
.
Apparently the 27 MHz band is okay to work with in most countries as long as your hardware stays below a certain power threshold. The carrier frequency is generated by the transmitter with the help of a 27.145 MHz crystal. The signal is picked up by the receiver which uses a hand-wrapped inductor made using an AL=25 Toroid Core. We’d say these are the parts that will be the hardest to find without putting in an order from a distributor. But the rest of the build just uses a couple 555 timer chips and passive components, all of which will be easy to find. The video after the break shows the project used to receive a Morse-code-style message entered with a push button. It would be fun to interface this with your microcontroller of choice and implement your own one-way error correction scheme. | 33 | 17 | [
{
"comment_id": "824403",
"author": "rasz",
"timestamp": "2012-10-18T20:09:45",
"content": ">Apparently the 27 MHz bandyeah, there was this thing called CB radio or something ? …",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "824410",
"author": "Rico... | 1,760,376,706.817538 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/10/18/open-source-finger-prosthesis/ | Open Source Finger Prosthesis | Mike Szczys | [
"Medical Hacks"
] | [
"finger",
"prosthetic",
"thumb"
] | Here’s a project that is striving to develop
a set of open source finger prosthesis
. They are aimed at patients who have partial amputations. This means that part of the digit remains and can be used as the motive force behind a well designed mechanical prosthesis like you see above. This uses levers, pulleys, and wire to move a gripper in much the same way the pad of a pointer finger works. There’s even a video (embedded after the jump) which shows it being used to grab a toothpick from a dispenser… pretty impressive. This is similar to
the prosthesis we saw in August
which managed to work without pulleys and wire.
This isn’t limited to fingers. The same posts that shows off the unit seen above also includes a prosthetic thumb. The leverage for that design is provided by a woven nylon strap which attaches to a bracelet on the wrist.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PkmHfT_rDf8
[Thanks Michael] | 9 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "824312",
"author": "Waffles",
"timestamp": "2012-10-18T19:14:03",
"content": "Very cool! I always enjoy seeing very directed and useful builds.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "824433",
"author": "wretch",
"timestamp": "2... | 1,760,376,706.867862 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/10/18/hackaday-links-october-18-2012/ | Hackaday Links: October 18, 2012 | Mike Szczys | [
"Hackaday links"
] | [
"capacitance",
"inductive charging",
"pcb",
"pumpkin",
"wii"
] | Capacitive touch plants
Here’s a proof of concept for
using plants as a capacitive touch sensor
. The sensor is simply a hunk of double-sided copper clad board attached to a microcontroller. But it seems to be able to sense what part of the plant is being touched. [Thanks Fabien]
Adding wireless charging to a Nokia N900
This hack is quite common, but it’s still fun to see what hardware is being outfitted with an inductive charger. This time it’s
a Nokia N900 that’s ditching the charging cables
.
Wii carrying suitcase from a plastic tackle box
This Wii carrying case
(
translated
) looks great and cost just a few bucks. It started as a tackle box for carrying around your fishing lures. But a bit of creative cutting and there’s a place for everything.
Browser based schematic and board layout
There’s a new kid on the block when it comes to circuit design. Circuits.io offers
in-brower schematic design and board artwork layout
. [Thanks ADIDAIllinie (and a few others)]
Bender-o-lantern
Halloween rapidly approaches and we hope that [Tim’s]
carving of Bender in a pumpkin
will inspire you to
send in your own Halloween projects
. | 5 | 2 | [
{
"comment_id": "824348",
"author": "Stu",
"timestamp": "2012-10-18T19:35:41",
"content": "A plant capacitive sensor? FOUL!Disney Research!? FOUL x2!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "824618",
"author": "Jake of All Trades",
"timestamp": "... | 1,760,376,706.564628 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/10/18/unlocking-silk-for-uses-as-an-optical-digital-biological-or-food-storage-device/ | Unlocking Silk For Uses As An Optical, Digital, Biological, Or Food Storage Device | Mike Szczys | [
"green hacks",
"Medical Hacks"
] | [
"biodegradable",
"dissolve",
"drugs",
"pharmaceutical",
"silk",
"ted"
] | [Fiorenzo Omenetto] gave a TED talk early last year to illustrates a lot of intriguing uses for silk. Before watching his presentation we would have been hard pressed to come up with a use for silk other than in clothing. But it turns out that
investigating how silk worms create the material has led to a range of other applications
. You can see the full talk embedded after the break.
One of the first things he shows off is a transparent film made of silk. The material looks almost like cellulose film, and can function in a similar way. [Fiorenzo] shines a laser through a silk slide that has a micro-dot of words embedded in it. the result is a clearly readable message projected on the wall. The film can also be used for holographic images.
But it’s the biodegradable aspects that are clearly the breakthrough here. A slide of silk can be doped with pharmaceuticals and programmed for a very specific time release. This way the drugs no longer need to be stored under refrigeration, and can be reclaimed using only water. The same properties allow one to manufacture disposable objects that will quickly and completely degrade. But there’s even more, if you dope the material with a conductor like gold it becomes a disposable circuit.
[ted id=1142]
[via
Hacked Gadgets
] | 10 | 3 | [
{
"comment_id": "824119",
"author": "Haku",
"timestamp": "2012-10-18T17:07:45",
"content": "Don’t tell Apple about disposable circuits, can you imagine what they’ll do with it??“You have violated the terms and conditions of this electronic device, it will now self destruct in 5…4…3…2…1…”",
"pare... | 1,760,376,706.611411 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/10/18/most-useless-machine-building-elevator-edition/ | Most Useless Machine: Building Elevator Edition | Mike Szczys | [
"Misc Hacks"
] | [
"art",
"elevator",
"exhibit",
"installation",
"most useless machine",
"niklas roy"
] | [Niklas Roy] calls it his Perpetual Energy Wasting Machine, but we know it for what it truly is:
a building-sized most useless machine
. You’ll remember that a most useless machine is a bobble that uses clever design to
turn itself off once you have turned it on
. This does the same thing with the elevator of the WRO Art Center in Wroclaw, Poland. The one difference is that it continually turns itself on
and
off.
He rigged up a pulley system that travels through the stairwell of the building. Whenever the elevator door on the top floor opens it causes the call button on the bottom floor to be pressed. The same thing happens when the elevator reaches the ground floor. But he didn’t stop there. Since the device is just wasting electricity whenever the elevator moves without passengers in it, he added a meter to track the loss. It’s the guts of a printing calculator strapped to the inside of the car. Every time the doors open it adds to the total.
You can see the installation in the video clip after the jump. | 41 | 18 | [
{
"comment_id": "823896",
"author": "Salomon",
"timestamp": "2012-10-18T15:00:25",
"content": "Useless and boring.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "824005",
"author": "velli",
"timestamp": "2012-10-18T15:50:41",
"content... | 1,760,376,707.238142 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/10/18/creating-a-midi-synth-from-a-commodore-sid/ | Creating A MIDI Synth From A Commodore SID | Brian Benchoff | [
"classic hacks"
] | [
"chiptune",
"Commodore SID",
"Pocket Mini Computer",
"propeller",
"sid"
] | The Commodore SID was the audio chip in the venerable Commodore 64 and in the 30 years since release has attained classic status and become one of the best ways to get your chiptune on. Designed by famous synthesizer designer [Bob Yannes], it was only a matter of time before we saw
a real, homebrew MIDI synth based on the Commodore SID
.
Because real SID chips are rare as hen’s teeth nowadays, [Jeff Ledger] built his SID synth around an emulated system running on a
Pocket Mini Computer
. This very cool microcontroller platform runs on the Parallax Propeller.
An emulated SID
runs in one of the Propeller’s 8 cores, with the remaining cores kept open for reading MIDI notes and displaying info on a display.
The hardware portion of this build is amazingly simple; just an optoisolater, a few resistors, and a diode connect a MIDI keyboard to the Pocket Mini Computer. The buttons and dials on [Jeff]’s MIDI keyboard control the waveforms, filters, and envelope controls. A very neat setup if we do say so ourselves, and just perfect if you’re needing more chiptunes in your life.
You can check out [Jeff]’s video after the break.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XQNfLsm7iEY&w=470] | 24 | 11 | [
{
"comment_id": "823583",
"author": "noouch",
"timestamp": "2012-10-18T12:17:43",
"content": "Neat project, but this has been done tons of times before:MIDIBox SID is a PIC based SID synth that goes into incredible depth, and has been around since 2002-ish:http://www.ucapps.de/midibox_sid.htmlAnd th... | 1,760,376,707.503786 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/10/18/android-debug-bridge-released-for-the-raspi/ | Android Debug Bridge Released For The Raspi | Brian Benchoff | [
"Android Hacks",
"Raspberry Pi"
] | [
"adb",
"android",
"android debug bridge",
"ioio",
"raspberry pi"
] | Over on the XDA developers forums,
something really cool is happening
. Android hacker extraordinaire [AdamOutler] has managed to port the Android Debug Bridge to the Raspberry Pi.
The Android Debug bridge allows hardware tinkerers full access to their Android device. This feature has been used to build everything from
telepresence robots
to
connecting a MIDI keyboard to a phone
. With this port of the Android Debug Bridge, anyone can take advantage of the existing hacks and hardware written around the ADB to build something completely new.
Of course, the port of the Android Debug Bridge is only useful if your Raspi is running Android. Current Android builds for the Raspberry Pi are
janky at best
, but the current rate of progress does look encouraging. Hopefully with the most useful Android tool ported to everyone’s favorite credit-card sized computer, the progress of the Raspi/Android builds will pick up their pace. | 12 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "823500",
"author": "kay",
"timestamp": "2012-10-18T11:22:32",
"content": "Neat, but the RasPi has GPIOs and serial ports… the interfacing is kinda taken care of, no?(Incidentally, I’d like to point out that we did the whole android telepresence robot thing first, in 2010 — it was ev... | 1,760,376,707.388462 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/10/17/tank-tread-robot-build-aims-for-a-smooth-ride/ | Tank Tread Robot Build Aims For A Smooth Ride | Mike Szczys | [
"Robots Hacks"
] | [
"cordless",
"drill",
"suspension",
"tank",
"tread"
] | There’s all kinds of interesting things going into
this tank robot build
, but that beautiful suspension system immediately caught our eye. It helps to protect the body of the robot from being shaken apart when traveling over rough surfaces. Make sure to check out the four parts of the build log which are found on the left sidebar at the post linked above.
This a Master’s thesis project and has been built from common parts. The motors for the treads are pulled from a pair of cordless drills, with some capacitors added to help combat the draw when they start up. The treads themselves are each made from a pair of bicycle chains connected with numerous PVC pipe segments. The curved section of each PVC piece goes toward the chain, leaving the edges toward the ground for great traction. The tree wheels which support the middle of the tread each have a hinge and spring to absorb the shock of running full speed into concrete sidewalk corners like we see in the video after the break. | 23 | 13 | [
{
"comment_id": "822652",
"author": "Mark",
"timestamp": "2012-10-17T22:13:56",
"content": "What an awesome project for a master’s thesis. Mine was a steaming pile of crap next to this.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "822695",
"author": "re... | 1,760,376,707.444114 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/10/17/gd-rom-drive-emulated-to-use-sd-cards-instead/ | GD-ROM Drive Emulated To Use SD Cards Instead | Mike Szczys | [
"home entertainment hacks"
] | [
"dreamcast",
"emulator",
"gd-rom",
"sd",
"sega"
] | This board is the prototype which [Deunan] has been working on in order to
use an SD card in place of a GD-ROM drive
. The idea is to fully implement the hardware protocol used by a
GD-ROM
drive so that it can be completely replaced. The end goal is to do away with the optical drive on a Dreamcast game console.
As these game systems age, the optical drive is the most likely part to fail first as it involves moving parts and a lens that may degrade over time (we’re basing that assumption on our experience with DVD-ROM and RW). This may sound like a way to play pirated games, but [Deunan] makes it clear in
his question and answer post
that the firmware for his prototype is written to only play proper disc images and will probably not play the rips which are found in the darker recesses of the interwebs.
He’s been at this for quite a while. Here’s
an earlier project he did that uses an FPGA
board for the hardware.
[Thanks Walt] | 58 | 35 | [
{
"comment_id": "822555",
"author": "DanAdamKOF",
"timestamp": "2012-10-17T21:03:34",
"content": "Bout time! The Serial interface on the Dreamcast is so damn slow lol.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "822563",
"author": "Pollo",
"timesta... | 1,760,376,707.697993 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/10/17/reverse-engineering-solari-soft-flap-displays/ | Reverse Engineering Solari Soft Flap Displays | Mike Szczys | [
"Misc Hacks"
] | [
"display",
"reverse engineer",
"soft flap",
"solari"
] | This is a side view of the guts of a one character Solari soft flap module. This is the type of mechanical display used in some transportation hubs that have a flap for each letter. The motor turns the flaps through the alphabet until it gets to the target letter. Recently [Boz] had a client approach him who needed
a custom controller for a 20-character soft flap display
. (Link fixed in 2022. Thanks Wayback Machine!)
The process started out with a magnifying glass and multimeter which yielded a rather complicated hand-drawn schematic. An optical encoder is used to judge which character is currently displayed. After analyzing the output using an oscilloscope [Boz] designed a PIC based driver board which is controlling the display seen in the clip after the break.
The great thing about these displays is that they don’t use any electricity except when they change letters. This sounds like the predecessor of ePaper and makes us wonder if there are any companies developing high-contrast ePaper to replace soft-flap digits? | 25 | 17 | [
{
"comment_id": "822441",
"author": "hspsoftware",
"timestamp": "2012-10-17T19:48:09",
"content": "Nice work!Always love seeing someone reverse engineering stuff…As of the thing with the companies doing high-contras ePaper…. I would REALLY miss that awesome flipping sound!!!",
"parent_id": null,... | 1,760,376,707.758645 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/10/17/nebulophone-microcontroller-synthesizer-project-sounds-great/ | Nebulophone Microcontroller Synthesizer Project Sounds Great | Mike Szczys | [
"Arduino Hacks",
"Musical Hacks"
] | [
"arduino",
"atmega328",
"nebulophone",
"opamp",
"stylophone",
"synthesizer"
] | Judging from the video (found after the break) the Nebulophone is one of the best sounding DIY synthesizers we’ve seen. Especially when you consider the simplicity of the hardware design. It uses an AVR chip and an OpAmp. The rest of the parts are just a few handfuls of inexpensive components.
The device was developed by Bleep Labs, and
they sell the synthesizer kit seen on the left
. But since it’s an open source project you can follow their design to fabricate your own, which is what [BlinkyBlinky] did with
his offering seen to the right
.
An ATmega328 drives the device, which is the chip often used in the Arduino Duemilanove. The keyboard is a set of traces hooked to the microcontroller. These are tinned pads on the kit PCB, but the DIY version simply uses some adhesive copper foil with a jumper wire soldered to it. The keys are played with a probe that makes the electrical connection, a common practice on these
stylophone type designs
. Chances are you have everything on hand to make this happen so keep it in mind for that next cold winter weekend that’s making everyone a bit stir crazy.
[Thanks Wybren] | 11 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "822205",
"author": "jimstiernberg",
"timestamp": "2012-10-17T17:18:38",
"content": "“New Sequencer” at 0:52 sounds awesome!!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "822346",
"author": "n0lkk",
"timestamp": "2012-10-17T18:52:36",... | 1,760,376,707.857673 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/10/17/traffic-light-cufflinks/ | Traffic Light Cufflinks | Mike Szczys | [
"Wearable Hacks"
] | [
"attiny45",
"cufflinks",
"rtc",
"stop light",
"touch sensor",
"traffic light"
] | [Brendan Sleight] has been hard at work on this wearable piece of tech. He doesn’t wear much jewelry, but a wedding ring and some cufflinks are part of his look. To add some geek he designed
a set of cufflinks that function like traffic lights
. Since he still had some program space left he also rolled in extra features to compliment the traffic light display.
That link goes to his working prototype post, but you’ll want to look around a bit as his posts are peppered with info from every part of the development process. The coin-sized PCB hiding inside the case plays host to a red, amber, and green surface mount LED. To either side of them you’ll find an ATtiny45 and a RV-8564-C2. The latter is a surface mount RTC with integrated crystal oscillator, perfect for a project where space is very tight.
The design uses the case as a touch sensor. Every few seconds the ATtiny wakes up to see if the link is being touched. This ensures that the coin cell isn’t drained by constantly driving the LEDs. The touch-based menu system lets you run the links like a stop light, or display the time, date, or current temperature. See a quick demo clip after the break.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GpnWxmfzyew | 11 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "822096",
"author": "Brendan Sleight",
"timestamp": "2012-10-17T16:06:26",
"content": "Wow – I made it on to hackaday. :)",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "822142",
"author": "Steve",
"timestamp": "2012-10-17T16:37:07",
... | 1,760,376,707.809117 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/10/17/reproduce-3d-printed-models-by-making-your-own-molds/ | Reproduce 3D Printed Models By Making Your Own Molds | Mike Szczys | [
"3d Printer hacks",
"Misc Hacks"
] | [
"casting",
"mold",
"mold making",
"resin",
"silicone"
] | Need fifty copies of that 3D printed whirligig you’re so proud of? It might be faster to just cast copies by
using the 3D printed model to make a mold
. [Micah] found himself in this situation and managed to cast one copy every 10-12 minutes using the mold seen above.
With the object in hand, you need to find a container which will fit the mold without too much waste. The bottom half of the mold is then filled with modeling clay, a few uniquely shaped objects to act as keys, and the model itself. After getting a good coating of release agent the rest of the mold is filled with a silicone rubber product which is sold for mold making. This creates one half of the mold. After it cures the clay and key objects are removed, everything is sprayed with the release agent, and the other half of the mold is poured.
Now your 3D object can be copied by pouring two-part resins in the to shiny new mold. | 36 | 12 | [
{
"comment_id": "821958",
"author": "Drake",
"timestamp": "2012-10-17T14:30:19",
"content": "Looks sweet, I am in the process of making a thermoplastic version (using different molding materials)",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "821972",
"aut... | 1,760,376,708.004823 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/10/17/moulding-new-gears-for-a-micro-helicopter/ | Moulding New Gears For A Micro Helicopter | Jeremy Cook | [
"Toy Hacks",
"Transportation Hacks"
] | [
"gear",
"micro helicopter",
"mould"
] | So you’ve got a broken gear for you model helicopter, and don’t have a 3d printer handy. If you need your little helo flying right away, [James] wrote in to tell us
about his solution
. As you may have guessed from the title, he made a tiny mould and produced a copy of the gear he needed with it. Given the complications of printing or some tiny subtractive method, this little gear turned out really nicely!
The video after the break shows all the steps for doing this procedure. If you’d rather just skip to the results, check out around 10:00 to see the finished gear, and eventually the little guy in flight. As noted, he did have to drill a hole in the middle of the gear after the mould process, but this was the only machining operation.
The helicopter gears worked out nicely, but be sure to check out some of the other really interesting
projects on the [xrobots]
, some of which we’ve featured here!
[youtube
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YTjZOLSYXZY%5D | 36 | 17 | [
{
"comment_id": "821699",
"author": "jaqen",
"timestamp": "2012-10-17T11:17:19",
"content": "first thought (havent watched the video):if your gear is broken, where do you get a working one to make a mould from? Last time a gear broke in a RC heli i had, it was a broken tooth, and that would be copie... | 1,760,376,707.930127 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/10/16/reading-an-n64-controller-with-a-microcontroller/ | Reading An N64 Controller With A Microcontroller | Brian Benchoff | [
"Microcontrollers",
"Nintendo Hacks"
] | [
"n64",
"N64 controller"
] | We’ve seen NES, SNES, Sega, and just about every weird controller Atari put out connected to microcontrollers, but connecting the N64 controller to a project has remained one of those seldom-seen, rarely copied endeavors, not often tackled by makers around the globe. [Pieter-Jan] decided to throw his hat in the ring and give
reading an N64 controller with a PIC
a try, and we’re pleased to report he’s been completely successful.
One of the difficulties of reading an N64 controller is simply the speeds involved; with only three pins on the controller port, the N64 controller uses a serial protocol to send 32 bits of controller data at a fairly fast rate. Armed with a PIC18F ‘micro, [Pieter] realized that programming in C would be too slow, he needed to go all the way down to the bare metal and program his micro in assembly.
Every time the N64 controller data needs to be read, the console sends out a 9-bit polling request. The controller responds in turn with a 32-bit sequence informing the console of the status of all the buttons and joysticks. Once [Pieter] got his micro sending the correct polling response, it was only an issue of parsing the data returned from the controller.
Right now, [Pieter] has a small demo board rigged up that flashes a LED whenever the A, B, or Z buttons are pressed. This can be expanded to the remaining buttons and joystick, but for now we’ll just enjoy [Pieter]’s demo after the break.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AbpkrEaDG2Y&w=470] | 29 | 16 | [
{
"comment_id": "820908",
"author": "cknopp",
"timestamp": "2012-10-16T21:07:41",
"content": "I wonder if this is the reason that Killer Instinct Gold has always felt like the most responsive fighting game to me…I always thought it was the KI software, but it may just have been the N64 hardware all ... | 1,760,376,708.073299 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/10/16/tiny-oled-oscilloscope-gets-a-fancy-case/ | Tiny OLED Oscilloscope Gets A Fancy Case | Brian Benchoff | [
"Crowd Funding",
"Tool Hacks"
] | [
"logic analyzer",
"oled",
"osciloscope",
"xprotolab"
] | [Gabriel Anzziani] has just unleashed a newer, more convenient version of his Xprotolab portable oscilloscope, logic analyzer, and function generator. It’s
up on Kickstarter
, and the price is actually very nice for a tool of this caliber.
We first saw the Xprotolab
early last year
and
ran into [Gabriel]
at this year’s World Maker Faire in New York. On both occasions we were impressed with the size and capability of this very, very small OLED-display oscilloscope and general breadboarding Swiss army knife.
The Xprotolab features a two-channel, 200 kHz oscilloscope, 8-input logic analyzer, and an arbitrary waveform generator that should be good enough for all your breadboarding adventures. On top of that, the Xprotolab can sniff SPI, I2C, and UART protocols, and even has a small spectrum analyzer tucked away in a device small enough to lose in your pocket.
The updated-for-Kickstarter Xprotolab features an enclosure with a LiPo battery good for 12 hours of use per charge. Sure, it’s not a bench full of old HP and Tektronix gear, but for the budding maker, this seems like a very useful tool indeed. | 15 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "820806",
"author": "FrankenPC",
"timestamp": "2012-10-16T19:32:31",
"content": "This would be great for a self contained ESR/curve tracer device.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "820955",
"author": "Ralph",
"timestamp": "... | 1,760,376,708.124559 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/10/16/directing-an-alarm-system-straight-to-the-internet/ | Directing An Alarm System Straight To The Internet | Brian Benchoff | [
"home hacks",
"Wireless Hacks"
] | [
"alarm",
"alarm system",
"Electric Imp"
] | [Scott] has a pretty nice alarm system at his house – it will give the operator at his alarm company enough information to determine if it’s a fire alarm, burglary, or just a cat walking in front of a sensor. [Scott] wanted to cut out the middle man and receive notifications from his alarm system on his phone.
He did just that
, with the help of a trusty Arduino and the very cool Electric Imp.
[Scott]’s build began with an
Arduino attach to a Raspi
to monitor state changes in the alarm system. Because the designers of the alarm system included a very helpful four-wire bus between the alarm panels and the part connected to the phone line, [Scott] found it fairly easy to tap into these lines and read the current alarm status.
Dedicating a Raspberry Pi to the simple task of polling a few pins and sending data out over WiFi is a bit overkill, so [Scott] picked up an
Electric Imp
Arduino shield to transmit data over WiFi. We’ve
played around with the Imp before
, and [Scott] would be hard pressed to come up with a cleaner solution to putting his alarm monitor on the Internet.
Now [Scott] has a very tidy alarm monitor that sends updates straight to his cell phone, no middle man required. A very neat build, and an excellent use of a very cool WiFi device. | 23 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "820684",
"author": "Dan",
"timestamp": "2012-10-16T18:08:55",
"content": "Man. I wish we could get that Imp without the cloud crap. The cost is just amazing for the device.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "820696",
"aut... | 1,760,376,708.286022 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/10/16/storing-user-data-on-your-fpga/ | Storing User Data On Your FPGA | Brian Benchoff | [
"hardware"
] | [
"fpga",
"rom",
"serial flash"
] | We’ve seen FPGAs used to recreate everything from classic arcade games to ancient computers, but with each of these builds a common problem arises. Once you’ve got the hardware emulated on an FPGA, you’ve also got to get the ROMs into the project as well. In a very interesting hack, [Mike] figured out that the serial Flash chip that stores the FPGA settings has a lot of space free, so
why not store user data there?
[Mike] got the idea from seeing a recreation of the classic BombJack arcade game
we featured last month.
In that build, [Alex] needed to store 112Kb of game data stored in 16 ROM chips. Unfortunately, [Alex]’s FPGA only had space for 40Kb of data. After realizing his FPGA had a 512Kb SRAM chip, [Alex] decided to put all the sprites, sounds, and levels of BombJack in the SRAM.
Impressed with [Alex]’s build, [Mike] set to work generalizing the hack to work with other projects. [Mike] notes that only a few FPGA boards are capable of storing user data next to the configuration bitstream; the hack is impossible on the Digilent Basys2 board, but it works wonderfully on a Papilio One 250K.
As a very cool build that makes FPGA-related builds even easier, we’ve got to tip our hat to [Mike] for writing up a great tutorial. | 14 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "820641",
"author": "draeath",
"timestamp": "2012-10-16T17:30:09",
"content": "Why not just use a discrete storage chip and save yourself the hassle? Then you wouldn’t need to take care to save the data when you rewrite the FPGA, since it’s stored separately.",
"parent_id": null,... | 1,760,376,708.426126 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/10/16/weird-processing-unit-only-has-4-instructions/ | Weird Processing Unit Only Has 4 Instructions | Brian Benchoff | [
"hardware",
"Misc Hacks"
] | [
"instruction",
"microcontroller",
"One instruction computer",
"weird processing unit"
] | [Tomáš], a.k.a. [Frooxius] is playing around with computational theory and processor architectures – a strange hobby in itself, we know – and has
created the strangest CPU we’ve ever seen described
.
The Weird Processing Unit, or WPU, isn’t designed like the Intel or ARM CPU in your laptop or phone. No, the WPU is a thought experiment in computer design that’s something between being weird for the sake of being weird and throwing stuff at the wall and seeing what sticks.
The WPU only has four instructions, or
attoinstructions
, to change the state of one of the 64 pins on the computer – set to logical 1, set to logical 0, invert current state, and halt. These instructions are coded with two bits, and the operand (i.e. the wire connected to the computer) is encoded in another six bits.
These 64 wires are divided up
into several busses
– eight bit address and control busses make up the lowest 16 bits, a 32-bit data bus has a function akin to a register, and a 16-bit ‘Quick aJump bus’ provides the program counter and attocode memory. The highest bit on the WPU is a ‘jump bit’, implemented for unconditional jumps in code.
We’re not even sure the WPU can even be considered a computer. We realize, though, that’s probably not the point; [Tomáš] simply created the WPU to do something out of the ordinary. It’s not meant to be a real, or even useful, CPU; it’s simply a thought experiment to see what is possible by twiddling bits around.
Tip ‘o the hat to [Adam] for sending this one in. | 34 | 17 | [
{
"comment_id": "820422",
"author": "Ren",
"timestamp": "2012-10-16T14:26:52",
"content": "I still don’t have my head around this concept, but wouldn’t a 4 instruction processor, have an advantage over a 1 instruction processor? Advantage in programming (less jumps? more control) yet, not as, oh ho... | 1,760,376,708.358342 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/10/16/lipo-powered-stellaris-launchpad/ | LiPo Powered Stellaris Launchpad | Eric Evenchick | [
"ARM"
] | [
"launchpad",
"lipo",
"stellaris"
] | Want mobile power for your Stellaris Launchpad development board? [Philipp] was looking to add some
lithium power for the Launchpad
. He used an off the shelf single cell LiPo battery and connected it to the 5V rail of the Launchpad board. It didn’t work.
So [Philipp] started looking through the schematics and noticed that the regulator was working fine, but the Stellaris wasn’t starting up. He tracked down a voltage supervisor connected to the Stellaris reset pin. After some investigation, it was clear that this supervisor was holding the device in reset.
The solution is a quick and dirty hack: cut the trace that connects the reset line to the voltage line. With this modification, the device starts up from the LiPo without any issues. [Philipp] does note that you should be careful about battery under-voltage and over-voltage. This hack doesn’t handle charging the LiPo battery, but we’ve discussed that
in the past
. | 20 | 10 | [
{
"comment_id": "820334",
"author": "holden",
"timestamp": "2012-10-16T13:21:23",
"content": "would be a good idea to get a protection pcb for the battery and a usb charger board from sparkfun or make ur own. thats how i have my xbox 360 wireless controller setup with a LiPo battery and i can charge... | 1,760,376,708.637267 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/10/16/magic-finger-input-device-is-a-camera-on-your-finger-tip/ | Magic Finger Input Device Is A Camera On Your Finger Tip | Mike Szczys | [
"Peripherals Hacks",
"Wearable Hacks"
] | [
"camera",
"finger",
"fingertip",
"magic finger",
"mouse",
"thimble"
] | What if we could do away with mice and just wear a thimble as a control interface? That’s the concept behind Magic Finger.
It adds as movement tracking sensor and RGB camera to your fingertip
.
Touch screens are great, but what if you want to use any surface as an input? Then you grab the simplest of today’s standard inputs: a computer mouse. But take that one step further and think of the possibilities of using the mouse as a graphic input device in addition to a positional sensor. This concept allows Magic Finger to distinguish between many different materials. It knows the difference between your desk and a piece of paper. Furthermore, it opens the door to data transfer through a code scheme they call a micro matrix. It’s like a super small QR code which is read by the camera in the device.
The concept video found after the break shows off a lot of cool tricks used by the device. Our favorite is the tablet PC controlled by moving your finger on the back side of the device, instead of interrupting your line of sight and leaving fingerprints by touching the screen. | 35 | 24 | [
{
"comment_id": "820203",
"author": "Zee",
"timestamp": "2012-10-16T11:29:40",
"content": "Wow that is the tiniest camera I’ve ever seen. Where can I get one? :)",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "820207",
"author": "Zee",
"timest... | 1,760,376,708.90364 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/10/15/face-tracking-with-an-android-device/ | Face Tracking With An Android Device | Mike Szczys | [
"Android Hacks",
"Software Hacks"
] | [
"android",
"face recognition",
"face tracking",
"ioio",
"opencv"
] | This
Android device can recognize faces and move to keep them in frame
. It’s a proof of concept that uses commonly available parts and software packages.
The original motivation for the project was [Dan O’s] inclination to give the OpenCV software a try.
OpenCV
is an Open Source Computer Vision package that takes on the brunt of the job when it comes to discerning meaning from images. To give the phone the power to move he designed and printed his own mounting brackets for the phone and a couple of hobby servos. An IOIO board connects to the Android device in order to control the motors. On the software side all [Dan] needed to do was write some code to interface the output of the OpenCV face tracking modules with the input of the IOIO. See the finished project demonstration after the jump.
This system can easily be implemented with other hardware, like
this Arduino-based version
we looked at earlier in the year. | 7 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "819881",
"author": "rasz",
"timestamp": "2012-10-16T04:33:41",
"content": "it will also track a fist with taco flavored lips painted on two fingers",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "819974",
"author": "slowJim",
"timestamp... | 1,760,376,708.575493 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/10/15/mirage-2-0-lights-up-the-desert-with-4024-leds/ | Mirage 2.0 Lights Up The Desert With 4,024 LEDs | Jesse Congdon | [
"LED Hacks"
] | [
"burning man",
"LED display"
] | Registering a mutant vehicle at the Burning Man Department of Mutant Vehicles (DMV) is rough. To be allowed to operate at night, wacky rolling creations have to have a certain degree of lighting presence. This keeps vehicles from blending into the scenery. Unfortunately Mirage 1.0 was built specifically with this in mind, using reflective surfaces to turn a van into a semi-invisible shiny slab. Not even EL wire, an illuminated dance floor, and spot lights could placate the DMV. The solution? Wrap the entire friggen vehicle in
a netting of 4,000 LEDs
! Take that officials!
Most of
the hardware
is Phillips display stuff, digital LED fixture controllers are used to interpret HDMI data and then pipe out color data to addressed chains. All this mapping and addressing means that the entire setup functions like a 168×24 pixel monitor. Split chains of LEDs also happen to allow the crew to operate the doors and get in and out of the vehicle.
The underlying car was built on the same sort of principal that hid the wheels of Skywalker’s landspeeder, only in this case the idea was to cover an entire car with mylar and mirror. An interesting side effect of this mirror wrapping is that a sheen of desert dust helps reflect the ambient LED light quite well, blurring pixel colors together. It sort of makes us wonder about picking up a bucket of Mylar for some of our spaced out displays.
The Mirage crew has plans for next year, and have videos of several ideas on the site (portions of the test
videos
are NSFW). Check out the video of Mirage 2.0 in action after the jump! Thanks [erland]!
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ac9MZ1Cc4JI&w=470] | 17 | 12 | [
{
"comment_id": "819524",
"author": "karl",
"timestamp": "2012-10-15T21:18:50",
"content": "It’s nice, but it’s been done, and on Broadway, at that – Priscilla, Queen of the Desert’s main prop was a bus that had several times as many LEDs on it.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies"... | 1,760,376,708.968005 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/10/15/arduino-parking-lot-attendant/ | Arduino Parking Lot Attendant | Mike Szczys | [
"Arduino Hacks",
"Toy Hacks"
] | [
"arduino",
"gate",
"matchbox",
"parking lot"
] | Here’s
an automatic parking gate for toy cars
. There’s no need to press a button, the electronics detect the presence of a vehicle on either side of the gate, raising it after verifying that the lot is not already full. It’s the same idea as
counting how many people enter a room in order to switch the lights
but the hardware is just a bit different.
The system is controlled by a pair of sensors in the paper which serves as the parking lot. There are three sheets of heavy stock, the top and bottom both have aluminum foil on them, with the center layer as a separator. There are holes cut in the separator where the hash marks are seen above. By adding a little pressure to the car when you drive it up to the gate this completes a circuit instructing the Arduino that there’s a vehicle in position.
You can see a demonstration, as well as the guts of the build, in two videos after the break.
[via
Reddit
via
Freetronics
] | 25 | 17 | [
{
"comment_id": "819568",
"author": "b",
"timestamp": "2012-10-15T22:05:23",
"content": "I suppose it makes me an asshole, but whats next, someone blinking an LED with an Arduino?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "819735",
"author": "Col... | 1,760,376,708.820267 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/10/15/singing-pumpkins/ | Singing Pumpkins | Mike Szczys | [
"Holiday Hacks"
] | [
"animatronic",
"ghostbusters",
"halloween",
"Halloween props",
"pumpkin"
] | This
Halloween table will sing a sweet serenade to spook your guests
. Each of the animatronic pumpkins were quite easy to build, but you may end up spending a bit more time choreographing the performance.
Inside each Jack-o-lantern you’ll find a custom Arduino compatible board called a Minion board. These include a wireless connection which lets the system sync with the computer playing the audio. The pumpkins are fake, which means that can be reused year after year (unlike
our LED matrix inside a real pumpkin
). The mouth is connected to a servo with a short piece of bent wire, allowing it to flap along with the words of a song. You can see a performance of the Ghostbusters theme in the clip after the break.
A custom GUI was written in C# to aid in the choreography. It handles the playback of the song, with a few buttons that can be used to record the light and mouth effects. This ‘recording’ is then used to drive the pumpkins during a performance. | 6 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "819412",
"author": "Hirudinea",
"timestamp": "2012-10-15T19:26:17",
"content": "Cool, don’t cross the streams.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "819441",
"author": "Justin Grover",
"timestamp": "2012-10-15T19:48:21",
"... | 1,760,376,709.018622 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/10/15/repairing-a-junked-signal-generator/ | Repairing A Junked Signal Generator | Mike Szczys | [
"Repair Hacks",
"Tool Hacks"
] | [
"capacitor",
"power supply",
"signal generator",
"switch mode"
] | We must be walking past the wrong dumpsters because we certainly haven’t encountered equipment like this just waiting to be salvaged. [Shahriar] found an HP 8648C Synthesized Signal Generator while he was ‘dumpster diving’ and
set out to fix the malfunctioning lab equipment
. He posted a 1-hour video on the project, which you can find embedded after the break. The actual fix happens in the first half, the rest of the video is spent testing the resurrected device.
The back corner of the case has been dented, which may be the reason this has been thrown out. When it is first powered it emits an unpleasant screeching noise and the user interface doesn’t do anything. [Shahriar] says he recognizes the sound as a malfunctioning switch-mode power supply. Sure enough, when disconnected from the main board it still makes the noise. It turns out there’s a huge electrolytic capacitor the size of a stack of poker chips which has come loose from the PSU board. When it’s resoldered the device fires up as expected.
Now how are we going to find a digital capture oscilloscope that just needs to have its PSU reassembled? | 21 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "819328",
"author": "hospadar",
"timestamp": "2012-10-15T18:35:52",
"content": "My method to fix old electronics:1) Open Thing2) Find bad capacitor in Thing3) Replace bad capacitor in Thing4) Did it work? Done.5) Still not working? Wait for someone smarter to show up.",
"parent_... | 1,760,376,709.085258 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/10/15/7400-project-encrypts-and-decrypts-data/ | 7400 Project Encrypts And Decrypts Data | Mike Szczys | [
"Microcontrollers"
] | [
"7400",
"cypher",
"decryption",
"encryption",
"logic",
"rule 30"
] | [Nakul], [Nikilesh], and [Nischal] just finished posting about their entry in the 2012 Open 7400 Logic competition. It’s
an encryption system based entirely on 7400 logic chips
. The device operates on 8-bit binary numbers, which limits its real-world applications. But we bet they learned a lot during the development process.
The encryption algorithm is based on a the concept of cellular automaton. This is a something with which we’re already familiar having seen
many Conway’s Game of Life projects
around here. What we’re not familiar with is this particular wing of the concept called ‘
Rule 30
‘. It works well with this project because a complex pattern can be generated from simple beginnings.
After conceptualizing how the system might work the team spent some time transferring the implementation to the chips they had available. The end result is a quartet of chip-packed breadboards and a rat’s nets of wires, but the system is capable of both encrypting and decrypting data. | 8 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "819225",
"author": "YT2095",
"timestamp": "2012-10-15T17:38:52",
"content": "their chip marked 74154 should be 74138 by the look of the pinout and truth table.just sayin` ;)Great work though! love the ZIF breakout unit, did you make it or buy it?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth"... | 1,760,376,709.135558 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/10/15/controlling-a-robot-with-your-mind/ | Controlling A Robot With Your Mind | Brian Benchoff | [
"Robots Hacks",
"Toy Hacks"
] | [
"eeg",
"mindwave",
"neuroflex mindwave",
"robot"
] | For [Ern]’s MEng group project, his group had to develop a robotics platform capable of achieving some end goal. Because innovation is a large part of the grade, [Ern] convinced his team members to work with a brain controlled interface and build a
mind controlled robotics platform
.
For wont of having an easy build, [Ern] and his team chose a
Lynxmotion Tri-Track robot
capable of moving around the classroom while receiving commands from a computer. The mind-control portion of the build comes from a
NeuroSky MindWave Mobile
, a cheap and fairly open EEG system that reads alpha, beta, and delta waves generated by a user’s brain and sends that data over to a computer for processing.
After a bit of testing that included an Arduino to move the robot forward if the MindWave’s ‘attention’ value was over 60%, [Ern] and his team looked for a way to implement multi-directional control.
In order to get the robot moving left, right, and backwards in addition to moving forwards, the team looked at the included ‘blink detection’ abilities of the MindWave to cycle through a few commands. This technique turned out to be far too sensitive – the blink detection of the MindWave is simply too good. To get around that problem, the team used the signal strength of the received EEG signals. The theory being when a user blinks their eyes, the EEG contacts will move slightly, degrading the signal received by the hardware.
The team finally got a reasonable mind-controlled robot up and working, as demonstrated in the video after the break. Check out how each blink allows [Ern] and his colleagues to cycle through driving modes. Pretty neat for controlling something with your mind.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0-YuF9z5-uI&w=470] | 16 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "819185",
"author": "Coda",
"timestamp": "2012-10-15T17:17:44",
"content": "MEng, as in Master of Engineering?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "819392",
"author": "freax",
"timestamp": "2012-10-15T19:14:17",
"content":... | 1,760,376,709.196318 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/10/15/%ce%bcj-a-java-virtual-machine-for-microcontrollers/ | μJ, A Java Virtual Machine For Microcontrollers | Brian Benchoff | [
"Software Development"
] | [
"java",
"JVM",
"μJ"
] | [Dimitri] sent in a project he’s been working on that
implements a Java Virtual Machine purely in C
, and is easily portable between microcontrollers such as the AVRs and PICs we normally see, ARM devices, and even the lowly 386.
Before going into the ‘how’, [Dimitri] first covers why he wanted to run Java bytecode on a microcontroller. Basically, he found existing solutions like the Arduino environment too complex for people just wanting to program a chip. Arduino and PICAXE require C-like syntax and pointers; not the easiest thing when everyone and their mother can program in Java.
As for how [Dimitri] managed to pack a JVM into a microcontroller, that’s another story entirely. Everything in the JVM, from double, long, and float data types to exceptions, neat thread-related functions such as ‘synchronize’ and even methods such as String.charAt() and String.length() are completely optional. If your microcontroller is too small, just disable the functions you don’t need.
As for how well – and how fast – μJ is able to run, [Dimitri] threw up a demo of an ATMega644 and PIC24 running his JVM and a small Java app. You can check those videos out after the break, or just download the source for μJ on [Dimitri]’s site.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-gaXtCXLrxk&w=470]
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iFzg9y2saac&w=470] | 78 | 38 | [
{
"comment_id": "818954",
"author": "MrX",
"timestamp": "2012-10-15T15:08:39",
"content": "Quite pointless actually. What is the purpose of a uC? To control other electronics, isn’t it? If the person using a uC has the knowledge to assemble a simple electronic circuit around the uC, then why wouldn’... | 1,760,376,709.321461 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/10/15/raspis-with-double-the-ram-in-the-wild/ | Raspis With Double The RAM In The Wild | Brian Benchoff | [
"Raspberry Pi"
] | [
"ram",
"Raspi",
"update",
"upgrade"
] | There is buzz all over
the reddits
and
Element 14
discussion boards about an updated version of the Raspberry Pi that bumps the amount of RAM from 256 MB to 512 MB.
This new update comes after the announcement of an upgraded version of the yet-to-be-released Raspi Model A (from 128 MB of RAM to 256 MB), and
a few slight modifications to the Model B
that include fixing a few hardware bugs (nothing serious) and adding mounting holes.
After perusing the
Element 14
and
Raspberry Pi
discussion boards, a few things become apparent. Firstly, it appears this new upgrade to double the amount of RAM was initiated by manufacturers. It seems 512 MB RAM chips are cheap enough now to include in the Raspi without impacting the cost of components. Secondly, 512 MB seems to be the upper limit for the Raspberry Pi, at least for this iteration of hardware. Not enough address lines, they say, but you’re welcome to try and hack your own RAM to a Raspi CPU.
So far, attentive Raspi enthusiasts have found Raspberry Pis with double the amount of RAM on the
UK Farnell site
and the
Australian Element 14 site
. Nothing so far on the US Element 14 site, although we’ll gladly update this post when a Hackaday reader finds the relevant link.
EDIT: Here’s the link for
the US version of Newark
. No, there aren’t any in stock. Also, Hackaday beat the official Farnell/Element 14/Newark press release and the
Raspberry Pi blog
to the punch. Woo, go us. | 33 | 18 | [
{
"comment_id": "818711",
"author": "Necromant",
"timestamp": "2012-10-15T13:06:04",
"content": "Who needs these underpowered thingies, when there are Allwinner A10-based devices in the wild./me looking forward to somebody kicking the source for RK3066 out of rockchip.",
"parent_id": null,
"... | 1,760,376,709.39628 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/10/15/cheap-spark-detector-for-alpha-particles/ | Cheap Spark Detector For Alpha Particles | Jesse Congdon | [
"how-to"
] | [
"high voltage power supply",
"radiation detector",
"radioactive"
] | [JAC_101] wrote in to let us know that the Truely Mad Scientist’s LVL1 Splinter Group just built a simple
Alpha Particle detector
. The detector is a high voltage DC spark gap that is triggered by ionizing radiation. Making one of these detectors involves gutting a cold cathode power supply for some high voltage AC, then bumping that source up to crazy high voltage DC with a
Cockcroft-Walton generator
. Once the spark gap distance is carefully adjusted it will light up brilliantly with the introduction of a radioactive source, we are told. There are no videos, or even pictures of the thing running, but we found
this one
that is pretty darn cool. Maybe all that spark-gap related RF killed their camera or something, their page at least promises videos soon.
In the mean time check out Truely Mad Scientist’s LVL1 Splinter Group’s ionizing
cloud chamber
for more radioactive fun. | 14 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "818643",
"author": "John U",
"timestamp": "2012-10-15T12:27:33",
"content": "Presumably one could make a low-voltage “sense” output by monitoring the current draw, or possibly by a small induction coil w/ smoothing circuit.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
... | 1,760,376,709.523287 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/10/15/our-first-election-hack-that-doesnt-involve-e-ballots/ | Our First Election Hack That Doesn’t Involve E-ballots | Brian Benchoff | [
"Misc Hacks"
] | [
"election",
"voting"
] | Because some of Hackaday’s readers aren’t from America, let us fill you in on the US election process from the point of view as a voter. Over the next few weeks, political campaigns will dump millions of dollars into advertising, get-out-the-vote and canvassing efforts across the country. The airwaves will broadcast still more ads and political analyses until November 6th, when voters will go to the polls and pull the lever for whoever earned their vote back in July.
Despite how effectively public opinion can be swayed, there are still a lot of problems with the election process in the United States. A first-past-the-post, winner take all system guarantees there will only ever be two realistic choices for voters, but a group of philosophy students (and teachers)
may have a solution to this problem
.
The idea is fairly simple, really: take dissatisfied members of one party and match them up with dissatisfied members of another party. Normally, these voters would be inclined to vote the party line and not their conscience, for fear of throwing their vote away. After matching these voters up, they make a gentleman’s agreement with each other (either with a handshake or by mailing in their ballots together) to
not
vote the party line. The balance of power between (D)s and (R)s remains, but third-party candidates get a much-needed shot in the arm.
It’s an interesting idea with far more potential to effect some change than the
numerous e-voting hacks
that will pop up after the election. Sure, it may not be as effective as other voting systems such as the
Condorcet method
, but save for elected officials abdicating powers granted to them, this might be the best shot we’ve got. | 47 | 19 | [
{
"comment_id": "818597",
"author": "Ren",
"timestamp": "2012-10-15T11:56:00",
"content": "As a USA voter, I prefer “our” two-party system over the multi-party mix-mash (my perception) that some other countries “endure”; which leads to coalition governments that collapse and re-coalesce at a random ... | 1,760,376,709.616151 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/10/14/have-a-baby-build-another-one/ | Have A Baby? Build Another One! | Brian Benchoff | [
"Robots Hacks",
"Software Development"
] | [
"ai",
"machine learning",
"robot",
"Stochastic Learning"
] | Ever since his daughter was born, [Markus] has been keeping logs full of observations of human behavior. Despite how it sounds, this sort of occurrence isn’t terribly odd; the field of developmental psychology is filled with research of this sort. It’s what [Markus] is doing with this data that makes his project unique. He’s attempting to use
stochastic learning to model the behavior of his daughter
and put her mind in a robot. Basically, [Markus] is building a robotic version of his newborn daughter.
The
basics of stochastic learning
(
PDF with more info
) is that a control system is modeled on an existing system – in this case, a baby – by telling a robot if it is doing a good or bad job. Think of it as classical conditioning for automatons that can only respond to a 1 or 0.
[Markus] built a robotic platform based on an Arduino Mega and a few ultrasonic distance sensors. By looking at its surrounding environment, the robot makes judgments as to what it should do next. In the video after the break, [Markus] shows off his robot finding its way around an obstacle course – really just a pair of couch cushions.
It’s a long way from crawling around on all fours, paying attention to shiny things, and making a complete mess of everything, but we’re loving [Markus]’ analytical approach to creating a rudimentary artificial intelligence.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PglT76lA9D0&w=470] | 26 | 16 | [
{
"comment_id": "817946",
"author": "Hirudinea",
"timestamp": "2012-10-14T21:14:23",
"content": "In three or four years this kid’s friends will make fun of her because of her weird looking “sister”.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "818075",
... | 1,760,376,709.471673 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/10/14/parts-storage-for-all-your-components/ | Parts Storage For All Your Components | Brian Benchoff | [
"Parts"
] | [
"components",
"parts",
"storage"
] | When [Steve] saw that we requested reader’s solutions to storing hundreds of different components, he had to
send in his solution
to storing bunches of ICs, resistors, transistors, and other components.
Like most of the suggestions we’ve seen, [Steve]’s solution relies on #10 envelopes stored in boxes
specifically designed
for holding envelopes. While there’s nothing new about storing handfuls of ICs in envelopes, we really like [Steve]’s method of organization.
On the top of each envelope, [Steve] printed a bunch of very useful information including the type and kind of part, the tolerance, speed, voltage, and package information. Also included are the manufacturer and vendor part numbers, making reordering a breeze.
Of course printing out hundreds or thousands of envelopes with this information would be a pain. [Steve] got around that by
automating the process with iWork
, typing in the values for each field in a spreadsheet app and using Mail Merge to print them all on envelopes.
It’s a very neat system that forced [Steve] to have all his parts on a spreadsheet, inching ever closer to a complete inventory management system. He’s thinking about adding QR codes to the envelopes to make reordering parts trivial, but after figuring out how to send hundreds of envelopes through a printer, we can understand if [Steve] wants to be a little lazy from here on out. | 16 | 11 | [
{
"comment_id": "817878",
"author": "K!P",
"timestamp": "2012-10-14T19:37:24",
"content": "this is great! Nice and expandable/ reorganisable. And cheap! why din’t i think of this. Also: finaly a way to make good use of the envelop feeder on my printer.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"r... | 1,760,376,709.701249 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/10/14/using-stellarisware-with-the-launchpad/ | Using StellarisWare With The Launchpad | Eric Evenchick | [
"ARM",
"how-to"
] | [
"launchpad",
"stellaris",
"stellarisware"
] | In our last
Stellaris how-to
we got the board working and set some registers to turn on the LED. This time we’ll start using StellarisWare Driverlib, which provides drivers for the microcontroller’s peripherals including GPIOs, UARTs, ADCs, and so on. These libraries make it easier to control the peripherals. We’ll build the Driverlib project, create a project from scratch to use the library, and run a simple LED blinking example.
Build Driverlib:
First, we’ll add the Driverlib project to our Code Composer Studio Workspace:
Project -> Import Existing CCS Eclipse Project
Click browse and select the StellarisWare\driverlib folder
Check driverlib-cm4f
Click Finish
We’ll have to build the Driverlib project so we can include it as a library:
Right click driverlib-cm4f project in project explorer
Click Build Project
Creating a Project:
Next, we’ll need to create a project with the correct includes and library references. Create a new project with the correct settings:
File -> New -> CCS Project
Family: ARM
Variant: Stellaris LM4F120H5QR
Connection: Stellaris In-Circuit Debug Interface
Select “Empty Project (with main.c)” under “Empty Projects”
Click Finish
Start by adding the Driverlib library:
Project -> Properties
Build -> ARM Linker -> File Search Path
Click add next to “Include library file or command file as input”
Click Workspace…
Choose driverlib-cm4f/Debug/driverlib-cm4f.lib
Click OK
Now add StellarisWare to the include search path:
Project -> Properties
Build -> ARM Compiler -> Include Options
Click add next to “Add dir to #include search path”
Click File system…
Choose StellarisWare install directory (ie, C:\ti\StellarisWare)
Click OK
At this point, the project should be set up to use Driverlib. Lets try a simple example to make sure it’s working.
Using Driverlib:
This example will just blink two colors of the LED. This is similar to TI’s
Project 0
, except our project will be built from scratch. This main.c file will include the required libraries, initialize the peripherals, and blink the LED:
#include "inc/hw_gpio.h"
#include "inc/hw_memmap.h"
#include "inc/hw_sysctl.h"
#include "inc/hw_types.h"
#include "driverlib/gpio.h"
#include "driverlib/sysctl.h"
#define LED_RED GPIO_PIN_1
#define LED_BLUE GPIO_PIN_2
#define LED_GREEN GPIO_PIN_3
void main(void) {
// configure system clock to run at 50 MHz
// use external crystal (16 MHz) and PLL
SysCtlClockSet(SYSCTL_SYSDIV_4|SYSCTL_USE_PLL|SYSCTL_XTAL_16MHZ|
SYSCTL_OSC_MAIN);
// Enable PORT F GPIO
SysCtlPeripheralEnable(SYSCTL_PERIPH_GPIOF);
// set LED pins as outputs
GPIOPinTypeGPIOOutput(GPIO_PORTF_BASE, LED_RED|LED_BLUE|LED_GREEN);
// loop forever
for (;;) {
// set the red LED pin high, others low
GPIOPinWrite(GPIO_PORTF_BASE, LED_RED|LED_BLUE|LED_GREEN, LED_RED);
// delay
SysCtlDelay(2000000);
// set the green LED pin high, others low
GPIOPinWrite(GPIO_PORTF_BASE, LED_RED|LED_BLUE|LED_GREEN, LED_GREEN);
// delay
SysCtlDelay(2000000);
}
}
Let’s build and run the project:
Click Run -> Debug
Click Run -> Resume
Hopefully, the LED will be flashing red and green. Now that the library is working, you can access drivers for all of the peripherals. See the
Stellaris Peripheral Driver Library User Guide
for full documentation on Driverlib. You can also check out TI’s
Stellaris Launchpad Workshop
. | 20 | 13 | [
{
"comment_id": "817883",
"author": "roliver",
"timestamp": "2012-10-14T19:46:18",
"content": "Yeah, but the licensing of driverlib is absolutely horrific though… not a fan!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "817897",
"author": "bear24rw"... | 1,760,376,709.881591 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/10/14/waterfall-swing-set/ | Waterfall Swing Set | Jeremy Cook | [
"computer hacks",
"Toy Hacks"
] | [
"swing set",
"water",
"waterfall"
] | [Doped Boron] wrote in to tell us about
this waterfall swing
by [Dash 7]. Naturally, we had no idea what a “waterfall swing” was. Shown at the World Maker Faire in 2011, the device is a swing set capable of accommodating one or two people using it at a time. What makes it interesting, is that water comes out of the top support bar, forming a wall of water for the riders to pass through. This wall is then broken when the swing user flies through it making for a dry experience.
According to the article, 273 solenoid valves are used to control the wall of water. These solenoids are controlled by a computer with sensors that detect where the riders are in the air and what speed they are going. As with most good hacks, it may not serve a “grown-up” purpose, but a set would definitely make a trip to the park more interesting!
Be sure to check out the videos after the break. The first shows the swing in its traditional role, but the second may be even more interesting, showing full control of the swing solenoids for water writing!
[youtube
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p1uwQVtHHOQ%5D
[youtube
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-_XqAP0k1yw%5D | 21 | 13 | [
{
"comment_id": "817713",
"author": "t&p",
"timestamp": "2012-10-14T15:26:14",
"content": "I think the water writing was the best and words can not describe how impressive it was!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "817759",
"author": "Thopter",... | 1,760,376,710.019507 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/10/14/diy-tin-plating-for-bus-bars/ | DIY Tin Plating For Bus Bars | Eric Evenchick | [
"chemistry hacks"
] | [
"bus bars",
"electrochemistry",
"electroplating"
] | Copper bus bars are commonly used instead of wire for carrying high currents. [Dane] needed some bus bars for a project, but he was worried about corrosion. His solution was
tin electroplating
the bus bars to lower the risk of corrosion while keeping the conductivity high.
The process requires only two chemicals: hydrochloric acid and tin. The electrolyte solution is made by dissolving tin into the acid. Then the bus bar is placed in a diluted solution and a 1 A current is run through it. The result is a fine coating of tin on the copper, which will not corrode in water.
[Dane] mentions that he’d like to try the process with silver solder in the future, since it is easier to find than tin. He also wants to find a way to measure the amount of tin deposited onto the bus bars. This process could be helpful for anyone who needs some corrosion resistant high current conductors.
Check out a video of the plating process after the break. | 37 | 16 | [
{
"comment_id": "817619",
"author": "firefightergeek",
"timestamp": "2012-10-14T13:20:29",
"content": "This may be a dumb question, but why not just carefully weigh the bar before and after coating?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6166124",
... | 1,760,376,709.960746 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/10/13/artemis-synthesizer-kit/ | Artemis Synthesizer Kit | Eric Evenchick | [
"Musical Hacks"
] | [
"atmega328p",
"kit",
"phototransistor",
"synthesizer"
] | The
Artemis Synthesizer
was created as a kit for Boston University’s
Artemis Project
. This project aims to teach female rising high school freshmen about computer science with hands-on activities. [Chris] based the kit on a ATMEGA328P microcontroller and a MCP4921 digital to analog converter. It can be used in a keyboard mode, where the buttons toggle various notes of the scale, or in a sequencer mode, where the buttons are used to toggle pre-programmed sequences.
[Chris] wanted the kit to be usable by the students after the workshop, so he used an optical link dubbed the “Optoloader” to program new sequences and waveforms into the device. A web based application allows for waveforms and sequences to be built in the browser, then programmed by holding a phototransistor up to a blinking square. The square flashes black and white corresponding to a
Biphase Mark Code
encoded message. This is decoded by the microcontroller on the synthesizer and stored in memory. As a result, no special hardware is needed to play new waveforms and sequences.
[Chris] has a thorough write up for the project, including feedback surveys from the students. He plans to add more specific information about the Optoloader in the future.
Check out a video of the kit in action after the break. | 14 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "817248",
"author": "Ren",
"timestamp": "2012-10-14T00:58:27",
"content": "I was going to leave some comment about having such a tough time getting a girlfriend he’s now trying high school freshman, but then I thought the better of it…",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"re... | 1,760,376,710.180248 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/10/13/touchit-fabulously-with-other-people-on-the-internet/ | TouchIt Fabulously With Other People On The Internet | Brian Benchoff | [
"Microcontrollers"
] | [
"internet",
"Internet-connected"
] | [John] from MIT is working on a project to bring a little bit of interactivity to the hacks he does. Because his hacks receive much more attention on the Internet than in real life, [John] made it so clicking a button in your browser can change something in the real world. He calls his creation
TouchIt Fabulously
(check out that URL!), and it allows a queue of people on the Internet to take part in a real-world hack.
The basic idea of [John]’s build is very simple: a microcontroller connected to the Internet and a 7-segment display receives button presses from random people on the web. [John] did a lot of work to make sure everything is ‘fair’ when a lot of people are hitting his server by including per-IP queuing and rate limiting.
Right now, it’s just a 7-segment display connected to the Internet with a live video stream. With each press of a button, the counter decrements by one, and the person to take it all the way to zero gets to put their comment up on the web site.
If this build receives a lot of interest, [John] plans on turning it into a much bigger build that will control the lights in his office, shoot ping-pong balls at him, and an interactive display where people can draw graffiti in one of MIT’s many hallways.
Now that [John]’s build is up on Hackaday, we look forward to the stress testing our readers will graciously provide.
Thanks go to [Steve Baconmeister] for sending this in and having the best fake name ever. | 15 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "817138",
"author": "gonzih",
"timestamp": "2012-10-13T21:30:00",
"content": "Comments should be in real time too. But really great idea!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "817175",
"author": "Saul_Goode",
"timesta... | 1,760,376,710.126 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/10/13/making-a-game-boy-color-louder/ | Making A Game Boy Color Louder | Brian Benchoff | [
"classic hacks",
"Nintendo Game Boy Hacks"
] | [
"game boy",
"game boy color",
"nintendo"
] | When [Anton] picked up an old translucent purple Game Boy Color, he noticed a nearly complete lack of sound coming from the speaker. This simply would not do, so [Anton]
replaced the speaker and soldered in a 2 Watt amp
, making his Game Boy very loud indeed.
After cracking open his Game Boy, [Anton] noticed the speaker was rusted. He replaced it by soldering in a speaker from a Motorola cell phone, fixing the most immediate problem. After plugging in a few batteries, he still noticed a nearly complete lack of sound.
Turning to his electronics junk drawer, [Anton] pulled out a
TI TPA2000D1 Class D amplifier
. This tiny amplifier is able to provide 2 Watts to a speaker and is very power efficient given it’s Class D pedigree.
After making a PCB and wiring up his amp to the Game Boy’s circuit board, [Anton] spent a little time tracking down the source of some high-frequency hissing. As it turns out, the power regulators and converters on a 15-year old Game Boy aren’t of the highest quality, but after adding a few capacitors [Anton] got everything under control.
Now [Anton]’s Game Boy has very loud, crystal-clear sound. Considering the lengths chiptune artists take modifying old ‘brick’ style game boys for use with
Little Sound DJ
or
nanoloop
, [Anton]’s build could become a worthwhile modification for musicians looking for a little more
oomph
to their performance. | 11 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "817214",
"author": "rj",
"timestamp": "2012-10-13T23:56:15",
"content": "Motorola at least used to be putting these funny speakers in their phones that had a physical resonant mode around 100-150Hz (so they wouldn’t need a separate vibrator motor). Any idea if this is one of them?",... | 1,760,376,710.068719 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/10/13/digital-marker-communicates-with-touch-screen/ | Digital Marker Communicates With Touch Screen | Brian Benchoff | [
"ATtiny Hacks",
"hardware"
] | [
"Crayola",
"marker",
"touch screen"
] | In an effort to be more relevant to children that just aren’t impressed with crayons and markers anymore, Crayola released the ColorStudio HD pen. Instead of ink, this pen is filled with electronics that communicate with a tablet to draw different colors in the Crayola ColorStudio app.
[Rob Hemsley] had done some work with capacitive touch screens before, so when he heard the clicking of a tiny relay inside the pen, he automatically knew how it worked. Of course this meant
tearing apart the Crayola marker
to look at the electronics, but [Rob] also went so far as to replace the microcontroller, allowing you to craft your own ColorStudio HD pen.
The digital Crayola marker communicates with the app by switching a relay on and off very quickly. This completes a circuit between the user’s hand and the touch screen, allowing the tablet to interpret the desired color by measuring how many touches are received per second.
Inside the pen, [Rob] found an RGB LED, a relay, and a PIC microcontroller. Not having any experience with PICs, [Rob] changed out the ‘micro to an ATtiny44 and started writing some firmware with the help of the
Arduino IDE
.
[Rob]’s updated version functions exactly like the stock version, communicating with the Crayola app by pulsing the relay to indicate the selected color. Even though the Crayola app only has three possible colors, [Rob] says it’s feasible to program the digital pen to send an RGB color value to a tablet, allowing you to choose what color to draw with on the pen.
You can see a video of [Rob]’s updated pen after the break. | 27 | 10 | [
{
"comment_id": "816956",
"author": "denis",
"timestamp": "2012-10-13T18:08:05",
"content": "Pardon my ignorance, but why a reed relay? Is there no solid state way of doing this? Assume there is a good reason!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8... | 1,760,376,710.243603 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/10/13/open-source-android-thermostat/ | Open Source Android Thermostat | Mike Szczys | [
"Android Hacks",
"home hacks"
] | [
"ioio",
"phone",
"thermostat"
] | Put that old Android phone to good use by
mounting it on the wall as a smart thermostat
. This open source hardware and software project lets you replace your home’s thermostat with an Android device which adds Internet connectivity and all that comes with the increase in computing power.
The brunt of the hardware work is taken care of by using an IOIO board which makes it easy to interface any Android device with the simple hardware which switches your HVAC equipment. We’ve been waiting for the launch of
the new IOIO design
and if it comes in at a lower price as has been rumored that makes this project in the price range of the least expensive of programmable thermostats (assuming you already have an Android device to devote to it). Simply etch your own board to host the relays and voltage rectifier and you’re in business.
There is a client and server app, both free in the Play Store. The server runs on the wall-mounted device with the client offering control via a network connection. The features of the system are shown off quite well in the video after the break.
This sounds like a perfect use for
that phone you ripped out of the pages of a magazine
. | 39 | 10 | [
{
"comment_id": "816836",
"author": "slowJim",
"timestamp": "2012-10-13T15:35:56",
"content": "Very cool! I love it!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "816847",
"author": "leeahart",
"timestamp": "2012-10-13T15:56:29",
"content": "*PLEA... | 1,760,376,710.317764 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/10/13/cellular-vehicle-information-and-control/ | Cellular Vehicle Information And Control | Mike Szczys | [
"Android Hacks",
"Arduino Hacks",
"Transportation Hacks"
] | [
"arduino mega",
"celluar",
"gps",
"odb-ii",
"relay",
"shield"
] | This hardware, which was built as a Computer Engineering project by [Bryon] and his classmates, gives you
feedback and control of a car though a cellular phone network
. It uses text messages to communicate with a control device. This can be pretty much any cellphone, but in the clip after the break they show off an Android app which puts a pretty GUI in front of you and abstracts away the tedium of specially formatted messages.
At the heart of the system is an Arduino Mega board. It has a cellular shield with an external antennae for connectivity. A GPS device, relay board, and ODB-II module provide feedback and control to the system. The relays allow the car to be started and the doors to be locked. The GPS and ODB-II module can send back location and vehicle information (anything available from the car’s sensors). There were some issues with the text messages being blocked during testing. The team thinks that the automated back-and-forth triggered some kind of spam filter from the telecom.
There’s still more work to be done if they want to actually
drive the car via remote control
. | 14 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "816771",
"author": "jsr",
"timestamp": "2012-10-13T14:11:43",
"content": "i am so glad to see a cellular ol’ dirty bastard interface, usually these guys just put together something that plugs into the on-board diagnostic port but now we have control of big baby jesus II",
"paren... | 1,760,376,710.370133 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/10/12/electric-vehicle-peripheral-controller-for-the-masses/ | Electric Vehicle Peripheral Controller For The Masses | Mike Szczys | [
"green hacks",
"Transportation Hacks"
] | [
"can-bus",
"car",
"controller",
"electric vehicle"
] | This juicy hunk of printed circuits is
an open source controller for the peripherals of an electric car
. It’s the product of a capstone project working on a vehicle aimed at urban commuting. There wasn’t a suitable non-proprietary module for controlling a car’s peripherals so the team built their own.
As far as we can tell this is not responsible for driving the vehicle itself. We assume there’s another piece of hardware which reads from the accelerator pedal, drives the motors accordingly, and handles things like regenerative braking. But there’s a lot of other things in a modern vehicle that need to be taken care of as well. Head, tail, and turn indicator lights must be switched. All of the dashboard controls (like the turn signal lever and the wiper blade speed settings) need to be monitored. Something needs to drive the door locks, and a system that reads the door ajar sensors and switches the dome light on and off must be handled. This is where the controller pictured above really shines.
The team has released all of the hardware information. The code is not yet available, but will be as soon as they’ve cleaned it up enough to package the first release candidate. | 66 | 18 | [
{
"comment_id": "816285",
"author": "mohonri",
"timestamp": "2012-10-12T21:09:15",
"content": "Forgive me for being a luddite, but I have a few quibbles with the use cases cited (turn signals, dome light, wiper blades). These are all very simple functions, for which a controller is needlessly compl... | 1,760,376,710.477336 |
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