BuffaloFeeds » Hack A Day

Hack A Day (30 unread)

Home made BlinkM units

Posted: May 15th, 2011, 9:16am MDT by Caleb Kraft

[Stephen] wrote in to show us this fun LED wall he constructed in his house. He says he was inspired by this project, but found the cost of the BlinkM units from sparkfun to be out of his price range. He really liked how they worked though, so he downloaded the schematic and firmware and [...]
Optimizing code for PWM efficiency

Posted: May 14th, 2011, 1:52pm MDT by Brian Benchoff

For some projects, it’s okay to have a microcontroller twiddling it’s thumbs most of the time. When a project requires the cpu to do just one thing over and over, there’s no loss with inefficient code – it either works or it doesn’t. However, if a project requires a microcontroller to do several things at [...]
Japanese maid mods a furby

Posted: May 14th, 2011, 10:42am MDT by Caleb Kraft

This video has been floating around the web recently and we thought that some of you might enjoy it. After a quick google search, we found out that this is [Julie Watai], a singer/model who also enjoys hardware modification. In this video, she’s doing a tutorial on how to circuit bend furbies. No, we have [...]
Bluetooth media remote in an N64 controller

Posted: May 14th, 2011, 8:40am MDT by Caleb Kraft

[Phik] wrote in to share his very first microcontroller project with us. He built a bluetooth remote in an old Nintendo 64 controller to control an audio application on his computer. He had been building up the individual modules with the controller in mind for some time, but initially had no idea what kind of [...]
Emulating a marching band with wearable instruments

Posted: May 13th, 2011, 4:21pm MDT by Brian Benchoff

[Scott] is a design and technology master’s student who just came up with The Imaginary Marching Band – virtual band instruments you can wear on your hand. Taking inspiration from Minority Report and the NES Power Glove, the system is able to emulate 6 instruments at this point – A trumpet, trombone, tuba, snare drum, [...]
Stress testing robots…with baseball bats

Posted: May 13th, 2011, 3:21pm MDT by Mike Nathan

When you are working on constructing the first Cyberdyne Systems Model 101 prototype a super-robust robotic arm, you’ve got to test it somehow, right? You probably recognize the robot being abused in the video below, as we have talked about the construction of its hand once once before. The German Aerospace Center has been working [...]
USB Geiger counter hack

Posted: May 13th, 2011, 10:31am MDT by Mike Nathan

[Vic] bought a Kvarts DRSB-01 Geiger counter a few years ago, and recently dug it out of his electronics stash. The counter is a run of the mil no-frills unit. It lacks any kind of LCD display and it cannot be calibrated, so Sievert exposure ratings are out of the question. The unit essentially monitors background [...]
Adding MIDI to a very old drum machine

Posted: May 13th, 2011, 9:10am MDT by Brian Benchoff

Long before drum machines played samples from an SD card or EPROM, drum sounds were analog – just filtered waveforms and noise. To the modern eye, these are very primitive machines, but for [Andrew], they’re the inspiration for this brilliant hack. [Andrew] took a Roland CR-68 drum machine from 1978 and added MIDI input with the [...]
Using Google’s ADK on standard Arduino hardware

Posted: May 13th, 2011, 7:09am MDT by Mike Nathan

When we heard that Google’s open accessory development standard was forthcoming, we were pretty excited. However once we heard that the reference hardware kit was going to cost nearly $400, our thoughts changed to, “Surely you can’t be serious.” Well, Google is dead serious (and we hear they don’t take kindly to being called Shirley [...]
Monitor your home’s power usage on the cheap

Posted: May 13th, 2011, 5:09am MDT by Mike Nathan

[Paul] was pretty sure that he and his family used a lot of electricity throughout the day. Admittedly, he enjoys his creature comforts, but was wiling to try living a little greener. The problem was, he had no idea how much electricity he was using at a given time. While some power companies offer devices [...]
chipKIT Max32, an Arduino Mega upgrade with a PIC32 under the hood

Posted: May 12th, 2011, 2:08pm MDT by Jesse Congdon

For those of you who are looking to put some power behind your Arduino shields, Digilent just released their chipKIT Max32 prototyping platform. The board features a Pic 32 microcontroller, USB programmer and all the things you would typically expect from a development board. The PIC32MX795F512 is a 32-bit MIPS processor core running at 80Mhz, [...]
Plastic Plate Capacitors

Posted: May 12th, 2011, 1:08pm MDT by Kevin Dady

We have been featuring some home made capacitors this week, and [Mike] wrote in to share his with us. While rolled capacitors are nice, they can be somewhat difficult to construct and grow to unwieldy sizes as capacitance and voltages increase. His solution is to stack the layers up using plastic plates. In this forum [...]
Papercraft flowers teach kids about batteries

Posted: May 12th, 2011, 11:37am MDT by Mike Nathan

[Emily Daniels] has been teaching interactive electronics workshops geared towards children for some time now, recently holding a session that demonstrated how batteries work in a pretty novel fashion. She wanted to keep things safe and simple due to the class size, so she didn’t want to rely on using soldering irons for the demonstration. [...]
Macetech is looking for a few good Processing programmers

Posted: May 12th, 2011, 10:30am MDT by Mike Nathan

[Garrett Mace] wrote to us in hopes of finding a few good programmers to help him out with a project he’s been working on for Maker Faire Bay Area 2011. More specifically, he is looking for Processing programmers who are also pretty decent with graphics. Macetech’s big project for this year’s Maker Faire is a [...]
Adding a tachometer to the SX2 Mini mill

Posted: May 12th, 2011, 9:17am MDT by Mike Nathan

[Jeff] recently bought an SX2 mini milling machine with plans to eventually automate it for use as a CNC mill. After paying nearly $700 for the mill, he decided there was no way he was willing to pay for the $125 tachometer add on as well. Instead, he reverse-engineered the mill and constructed a tachometer [...]
Bringing the game of tag into the digital age

Posted: May 12th, 2011, 4:57am MDT by Mike Nathan

How long has it been since you’ve played a game of tag? [Sylvia Cheng, Kibum Kim, and Roel Vertegaal] from Queen’s University’s human media lab have concocted a fun twist on the classic game that just might compel you to start playing again. Their game, called TagURIt, arms two players with Lumalive LED t-shirts which [...]
Automating Rock Band vocals

Posted: May 11th, 2011, 4:01pm MDT by Mike Nathan

When it comes to Rock Band, our friends suck at singing. No, really. We’re cool with them beating on the drum set completely off-time, but the sound of them trying to sing “Tom Sawyer” makes us want to cut out our eardrums. We’re willing to bet that Cornell students [Gautam Kamath and Dominick Grochowina] have [...]
Google? In my lightbulbs? It’s more likely than you think

Posted: May 11th, 2011, 3:01pm MDT by Mike Nathan

With the recent announcement and release of their ADK, it was only a matter of time before Google started invading your home in a big way. From the looks of it, Google will be jumping into the home lighting market very shortly, which could prove to be quite interesting. Partnering with Florida-based Lighting Sciences, Google is [...]
GSM-to-Skype bridge lets you lose those roaming fees

Posted: May 11th, 2011, 2:15pm MDT by Mike Szczys

Here’s the scenario: you’re going to be traveling somewhere and you’ll be charged roaming fees if you use your cellphone. But there is free WiFi available in this place. You can save yourself money by leaving your SIM card at home and using a GSM-to-Skype bridge to take calls on your phone via WiFi. [Trax] [...]
Touch-based synthesizer is a wiring nightmare

Posted: May 11th, 2011, 1:30pm MDT by Mike Szczys

[Jane] wrote in to let us know about the touch-based synthesizer she and her classmates just built. They call it the ToneMatrix Touch, as it was inspired by a flash application called ToneMatrix. We’re familiar with that application as it’s been the inspiration for other physical builds as well. A resistive touch screen in the [...]
Adding power trim to a boat

Posted: May 11th, 2011, 12:44pm MDT by Mike Szczys

[Matt's] boat had a trim plate that could be adjusted by hand. The problem with this setup is that the trim angle of a boat changes as you speed up or slow down. Last year he never really went over 35 MPH because of this issue, but he set out to correct that by adding [...]
DIY hidden bookshelf speakers

Posted: May 11th, 2011, 10:01am MDT by Mike Nathan

[Steve] was tired of looking at the speakers in his workshop and began searching around for something a little more aesthetically pleasing. Having recently received a set of hollowed out books used for hiding things as a gift, he thought that he might be able to solve his speaker issue in a similar fashion. He [...]
I2C 101

Posted: May 11th, 2011, 9:06am MDT by Kevin Dady

Embedded Labs has come out with a very detailed I2C 101 tutorial, that you should check out if you have any questions on the system. I2C is a short distance serial interface that only requires 2 bus lines. Keep in mind that as wires go down complexity goes up. While there are more than a [...]
Official android open accessory development kit – it’s an Arduino

Posted: May 11th, 2011, 8:03am MDT by Brian Benchoff

A new development kit for android was unveiled at the Google I/O 2011 developer conference that officially supports the Arduino. It looks like Google took a cue from Circuits@Home, because the interesting part of this dev kit is the fact that the shield can be put into USB Host mode. That’s great for phones and [...]
Machining replacement parts with hand tools

Posted: May 11th, 2011, 6:01am MDT by Kevin Dady

Jeff is a huge music fan, and like many of us likes old technology, so it seemed a bit silly (to him) that he did not have a turn table. His dad had a spare in the basement. A neat old Braun model from the 1970′s that was broken. Opening the unit up he found [...]
Arduino magnetic core memory shield

Posted: May 11th, 2011, 4:59am MDT by Mike Nathan

Magnetic core memory turns 60 years old today, and as a tribute [Ben North and Oliver Nash] have created a 32-bit magnetic core memory board for the Arduino. Magnetic core memory was used from the 1950s through the 1970s, and provided a non-volatile means for storing data, as each magnetic core retained its orientation, even [...]
Cheap open-source pace clock keeps your practice on schedule

Posted: May 10th, 2011, 4:11pm MDT by Mike Nathan

Pace clocks are used in a variety of sports, from swimming to track. The systems are typically expensive however, often beyond the reach of smaller organizations and underfunded programs. For their electrical and computer engineering final project, Cornell students [Paul Swirhun and Shao-Yu Liang] set out to build a much cheaper alternative to commercial pace [...]
DIY sound localization sensor

Posted: May 10th, 2011, 3:10pm MDT by Mike Nathan

Sound localization is very popular in law enforcement circles due to its accuracy and ability to quickly separate gunshots from other similar noises. These systems don’t come cheap, and after trying to build one himself, [Fileark] knows why. He thought it would be neat to build a sound localization sensor based on how the human [...]
Open Source Linear Bearing System

Posted: May 10th, 2011, 1:01pm MDT by Mike Nathan

While we normally don’t make it a habit to feature Kickstarter projects, we couldn’t pass this one up. [Barton Dring] from BuildLog.net is putting together a project called MakerSlide that we’re sure will interest many of you out there. Through his various CNC builds, he has found that one of the more expensive and frustrating [...]
DIY portal turret is… looking pretty good.

Posted: May 10th, 2011, 12:01pm MDT by Jesse Congdon

[Ryan Palser] wrote in to tell us about his Portal Turret. [Ryan] set about making this Portal 1 style turret by first carving a Styrofoam form, bondo and waxing then casting molds of the various components. Anyone interested in mold making (like us) should check out all the pictures and comments in the stream. The [...]