Beach stereo
[Adam] wanted a stereo that could stand up to rain and keep sand out. He ended up building this beach stereo out of a cooler. The cooler’s already made to be water tight. He cut holes in the front and back for marine speakers and added a water-tight bezel and cover for the controls on the deck. Inside you’ll find a marine battery to power the unit. Now he and his friends can rock-out even in poor weather thanks to this portable and rugged unit.
Posted on 12 March 2010 | 4:00 pm
Easy IM-ME flashing
[Travis Goodspeed] wrote a guide to firmware flashing for the IM-ME. He’s using a GoodFET open-source JTAG adapter that he designed to do the programming. This is really taking [Dave's] work on the device and running with it. The end goal being to develop an operating system for the device. If you haven’t read the past articles, once hacked this becomes a development board for the Chipcon CC1110 processor with keyboard, LCD screen, and wireless communications included.
Posted on 12 March 2010 | 3:00 pm
Steam powered tank
This steam-powered tank is really something of a steam-electric hybrid. Steam provides the locomotion, but an electrical system provides the remote control and steering. A full boiler will provide 10-15 minutes of operation which you can see in the video after the break. Before you leave a nasty comment: Yes, we realize this project is from several years ago. It’s new to us and the completion date doesn’t diminish the novelty of this well-executed build. This is the quality and uniqueness we’re used to seeing from [Crabfu].
[via Gizmo Watch]
Posted on 12 March 2010 | 1:30 pm
Sponge music
[Aaron] calls this project “Stochasticity”. It uses two sponges as a musical interface. The performer wears a wrist strap and then draws on the table with water from the sponge to play different notes. You really need to watch the video to fully understand what’s going on here.
We’re guessing that this is Arduino based since some of his other projects are as well. You can try out another quick project of his, an Arduino electromagnetic field detector. Check out video of that after the break.
Arduino EMF detector
[Thanks Juan]
Posted on 12 March 2010 | 12:32 pm
Low Cost Killer Robot
One of our most prolific commenters, [mrgoogfan], shared with us his working BattleBots style robot. Built for under $500, it is capable of zipping around at 25 miles an hour under load. Chances are, this robot would be just as much fun as a Bar Stool Racer as it is with all the weapons attached. The bill of materials also includes a good number of links as well as prices to get the blossoming roboteers in the audience started. We cant wait for the microcontroller automated version, because the idea of a big angry killer Roomba is just the kind of thing that makes us happy. Oh, and we might have a couple suggestions for weapon packages…
Check out the video after the break to see [mrgoogfan] zipping around on the top of his robot and showing off the weapons systems.
Have any of you built your own BattleBot or similar platform? We would love to hear from anyone willing to show off a cheaper, faster, smarter, or stronger build, or any tips for people looking to get started in building their own.
Posted on 11 March 2010 | 2:12 pm
DIY scratch controller
There’s something viscerally pleasing about simple solutions. [Kip] came up with one in the form of a scratch controller. The spindle from an optical drive is used to hold a CD in place, which acts as the LP for scratching. The sensor from an optical mouse is mounted upside down below the CD and detects the rotation of the disc. From there it’s just a matter of setting up your software to get the reading from that mouse. He’s had some trouble finding disc surfaces that the mouse sensor will read reliably. We’d recommend trying some of those stick-on inkjet CD labels.
This is similar to a scratch controller we saw in 2008. That one was actually repurposing the IR encoding from inside of a mouse. We’re not sure which method would work better, but either controller will make a nice addition to a Flexi Knob setup.
Posted on 11 March 2010 | 1:00 pm
Update: Nintendo DS camera control
All of the juicy details needed to control a camera from your Nintendo DS are now available at the Open Camera Control project. This is the descendant of [Steve Chapman's] setup from a few years ago. The system has been polished up and has seen many feature additions. It’s been used in movie production and works with a wide range of cameras.
Start by building your own interface cable using an AVR microcontroller running the Arduino bootloader. Finish up by loading some open source software onto the DS to add a cornucopia of shot options.
[Thanks Pops Macgruder]
Posted on 11 March 2010 | 12:00 pm
Hardware jailbreak eases reboot pains
This device can jailbreak an iPhone. It doesn’t require a computer and it can either reboot a phone that was one-time-boot jailbroken using the blackra1n exploit, or jailbreak a factory fresh unit. We wouldn’t say this solves the tethering problem caused by blackra1n (needing to return to a computer to reboot the phone), but it certainly does ease the pain. We saw some info about the board layout but no parts list or firmware. See the demo after the break and leave a comment if you have more information on the parts or code.
[Thanks Juan]
Posted on 11 March 2010 | 10:35 am
Coffee powered Car-puccino
We can only imagine how amazing this coffee burning car smells at it speeds down the highway at a maximum of 60mph. Don’t jump out of your seat so quick to get your own, while the idea sounds fantastic, the mileage will bring you back to earth rather quick. At 3 miles per kilo of coffee, it can turn that £36 210 mile trip into one between £910 and £1,820 with a stop to re-bean-fill every half hour!
Still, the Car-puccino is an amazing conversion, and we’re getting closer and closer to Back to the Future’s Mr. Fusion
[Thanks Tim]
Posted on 10 March 2010 | 4:29 pm
50MHz to 100Mhz scope conversion
[Ross] is the proud owner of a 50 MHz Rigol DS1052E oscilloscope. He’d like to have the 100 MHz version but the $400 difference in price puts it out of his reach. After some extensive poking around on the PCB and pouring over datasheets, he managed to reverse engineer the design and upgrade to a 100 MHz version. This is as easy as desoldering one capacitor to deactivate a high-pass filter present in the lesser model of scope, unlocking the faster potential of its bigger brother.
Posted on 10 March 2010 | 3:00 pm
Jeri makes integrated circuits
[Jeri Ellsworth] made this silicon inverter at home, by hand. It took her two years to get the process figured out and achieve something we didn’t think was possible. The complexity of manufacture, and the wide range of tools and materials needed seem insurmountable but she did it anyway. Her home chip fab Flickr set is well commented and details her work area and part of the processing. If you’re hurting for more check out her 40 minute Metalab talk which we’ve embedded after the break.
If her name sounds familiar but you just can’t place it you may know her from The Fatman and Circuit Girl. We’ve also featured some of her hacks, such as her Pinball challenge against [Ben Heckendorn], and her giant Etch-a-Sketch.
[Thanks Deyjavont]
Posted on 10 March 2010 | 1:25 pm
Noisy Super 8
[Matt Kemp] remade this super 8 film camera into a synthesizer. Inside you’ll find a light sensor pointed through the lens. This way, zooming, focusing, and pointing the lens elsewhere will change the sound. He also refit the original controls to monkey with the output. Turn your speakers up when you watch this, your co-workers will love you for it.
Posted on 10 March 2010 | 12:25 pm
Game glove learns your weakness
[Steve Hoefer] pulled together a great hack for the friendless. This glove will play a heated game of rock-paper-scissors against you. [Steve] realized that the middle and fourth fingers are all that need to be monitored to decide which of the three signs you are making. He used flex sensors on the back of these fingers as an input. There is also an accelerometer to judge the three shakes that lead up to the shoot.
The small screen you see displays what the glove chose and is a hack in itself. This idea adapts from an Evil Mad Scientist project, using three sheets of acrylic etched with the different icons and edge-lit with LEDs. All of this, along with a speaker and scoreboard, connect to an Arduino. The icing on the cake? [Steve] coded an adaptive learning algorithm that observes your playing style to gain an advantage.
See this in action after the break. Once you’ve mastered rock-paper-scissors you should consider building other glove-based peripherals.
[Thanks Zokier]
Posted on 10 March 2010 | 9:43 am
R2D2 build video
Follow along with [Victor] through the journey of building a life size replica of R2D2. While you may not be able to scrape too many specific details from the video, it is still great to see the project progress from his first cut to the finished product as well as some fun little outings. His R2 looks absolutely impeccable and he deserves dome credit for taking it to places to show kids. We would have probably just found interesting ways for it to bring us beers.
[via Makezine]
Posted on 10 March 2010 | 8:30 am
Will this mouse get me kicked out of the coffee shop?
This [Dwight Shrute]-esque project will let you try out your taxidermy skills. Apparently you can acquire a ‘wetware’ mouse fresh or frozen from pet stores. We just need to wait until fall when our pantry is visited by the less-domesticated variety.
A travel-sized optical mouse acts as the replacement guts. Some creative dremeling brings the plastic housing down to a more acceptable shape. The furry bits need to be processed using the mouse taxidermy guide before they are fit over the electronics. What you end up with is a creepy peripheral that nobody wants to use.
Posted on 9 March 2010 | 6:00 pm