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Hack A Day (30 unread)

Augmented reality ex nihilo

Posted: December 28th, 2011, 1:14pm MST by Brian Benchoff

[David] sent in a nice project to demonstrate augmented reality with ARtoolkit and discuss the deep philosophical underpinnings of the meaning of nothingness. The good news is he was able to create a volume control button on a sheet of paper with a marker. The bad news is the philosophical treatment is a bit weak; [...]
Repairing a commercial-grade pick and place machine

Posted: December 28th, 2011, 12:14pm MST by Brian Benchoff

It looks like Null Space Labs has a new pick and place machine. This immense repair job began when [Charliex] and [Gleep] found a JukiPlacemat 360 pick and place machine. The idea of having their very own pick and place machine proved intoxicating, possibly too much so because the didn’t return the machine when they found out [...]
Phone-controlled light display is simple and fun

Posted: December 28th, 2011, 9:14am MST by Mike Nathan

[Ytai Ben-Tsvi] wrote in to share a little holiday project that he and friend [Al Linke] put together, a dynamic light display that takes its cues from his Android-powered smartphone. The display fits in a vase that sits in [Ytai’s] family room, and while it wasn’t exactly cheap to build, it sure looks nice. The [...]
Video series shows how to build your own solar-charged R/C lawnmower

Posted: December 28th, 2011, 7:15am MST by Mike Nathan

As winter is officially upon us, we’re pretty sure that the last thing most of you are thinking about is mowing your lawn. We would argue that it’s actually the ideal time to do so – that is, if you are interested in automating the process a bit. [Robert Smith] has spent a lot of [...]
A Little Tweeting “Ewok”

Posted: December 27th, 2011, 1:30pm MST by Jeremy Cook

Tweet Receiving, that is. This Ewok model, named “Ewen the Cheerlight,” is able to rotate its head left and right as well as show expressions. The most interesting feature of this hack, however, is that the little Ewok actually wakes up each time one tweets a “colour” to @cheerlights and lets it’s owner [Joel] know [...]
Leaking water detector from an old smoke alarm

Posted: December 27th, 2011, 11:36am MST by Mike Szczys

[Thomas Clauser] had his basement flood last year when a hurricane swept over New England. The problem with flooding or leaking water is that chances are you won’t notice until it’s too late. He decided to protect against this in the future by building his own leaking water detector. It’s a simple device that sits [...]
Rooting a Motorola Actv (Android wristwatch)

Posted: December 27th, 2011, 9:01am MST by Mike Szczys

[Chris'] family made the mistake of giving him a hackable Christmas gift. We’d bet they didn’t see much of him for the rest of the day as he set about rooting this Android wristwatch. This thing has some pretty powerful hardware under the hood. It’s sporting an OMAP3 processor running at 600 MHz along with [...]
Self-balancing unicycle only for those with good balance

Posted: December 27th, 2011, 7:01am MST by Mike Szczys

The only problem with this self-balancing unicycle is it’s inability to balance itself. You see, it automatically balances along the axis that is parallel to the line of travel. But since there’s only one wheel the rider is responsible for balancing perpendicular to travel. This is really not too much different from a bicycle; balancing while in [...]
A Robot… That Can See Through Walls!

Posted: December 26th, 2011, 3:56pm MST by Jeremy Cook

Robots on four wheels are fun on their own merits, but one thing that most lack is the ability to see through walls. With it’s onboard radar system, this bot is equipped to see objects that a person couldn’t normally detect on the other side of the wall. Although some of the more “nuts and [...]
Arcade cabinet that doesn’t monopolize your space

Posted: December 26th, 2011, 2:55pm MST by Mike Szczys

We’re guessing that if you ever though of buying an arcade cabinet it was only briefly, and you decided against based on the difficulties of moving and finding a place for such a large and heavy item. You could go the opposite way and build a controller for a MAME box, but for some, there’s [...]
StripInvaders puts colored lights everywhere

Posted: December 26th, 2011, 11:01am MST by Brian Benchoff

There’s not much to be gained by living in a discotheque but colored lights are awesome, especially when they’re as well implemented as [michu]‘s StripInvaders. The StripInvaders project takes a gigantic 5 meter LED strip with WS2801 controllers and turns it into an Ethernet-enabled 24 bit display with the new Arduino Ethernet. While the Ethernet-enabled may seem a [...]
Ammo Tin ][

Posted: December 26th, 2011, 9:01am MST by Brian Benchoff

Ammo crate PCs have been around since Unreal Tournament LAN parties, but this one goes further back than that; [Simon] put an Apple II in an ammo crate. It’s a fitting anachronistic build from the same guy that built the TARDIS MAME cabinet. Thankfully, [Simon] didn’t tear apart an Apple IIc for this build. A [...]
IP over LEGO train carrier

Posted: December 26th, 2011, 8:01am MST by Brian Benchoff

[Maximilien] sent in a networking protocol built out of a LEGO train set. Unlike IP over Avian Carrier this system won’t be killed by plate-glass windows or birds of prey, but we’d hate to step on [Max]‘s work in bare feet. The system uses a USB flash drive to carry data around to different nodes. At each node, [...]
Counting down to the New Year

Posted: December 26th, 2011, 6:00am MST by Mike Szczys

[Rod] is in a position to provide a community service on New Year’s Eve. He spends the evening at a relative’s house next to the beach. There are fireworks at midnight, but the crowd has no communal way to count down to the deadline. This year, he build his own count-down display so that everyone [...]
Using an ATmega8 to program PIC24FJ chips

Posted: December 25th, 2011, 12:00pm MST by Mike Szczys

[Fezoj] likes to play around with microcontrollers and decided that he wanted to try a Bus Pirate as a new tool in his adventures. Since it’s open hardware he had his own board made and populated it himself. The trouble is, he works only with AVR chips and doesn’t have a PIC programmer. No problem, [...]
Reduced-cost Braille display for use with computers

Posted: December 24th, 2011, 12:00pm MST by Mike Szczys

Apparently a Braille computer display can cost several thousand dollars. That’s why [David Pankhurst] is working on a low-cost alternative. His offering is an open source version he calls the Audrey Braille Display. The concept is quite good. This prototype has one line of six Braille characters. Each character is made of two sliding strips [...]
We’re on an Atari Jaguar kick, apparently

Posted: December 24th, 2011, 10:00am MST by Brian Benchoff

We don’t know why, but the Atari Jaguar is getting a lot of attention this week. [10P6] just came up with this Jaguar/CD combo that reminds us what Atari could have come up with in 1993. The build itself is relatively simple once you get past [kevincal]‘s ‘April Fools’ type joke he played on the Atari [...]
DIY solution does PoE on the cheap

Posted: December 24th, 2011, 8:00am MST by Mike Nathan

Depending on the scope of your requirements, Power over Ethernet (PoE) components can get pretty pricey. [Fire] wrote in to share a 4-port PoE solution he put together for under 20 euros (Ignore any SSL errors – we’ve checked it out, it’s safe). The most expensive part of the build was the 8-port patch panel he [...]
Digital synth for the non-chiptune inclined

Posted: December 24th, 2011, 6:00am MST by Brian Benchoff

Chiptunes are great, and we can’t imagine a world without the Mega Man 2 soundtrack, but sometimes we all like a more 70′s style synth. This is where the Roninsynth steps in. It’s an Arduino shield that puts the basic components of a wall of synth into your pocket. Unlike the analog oscillators of yore, the Roninsynth [...]
[Scot] whips up breakout board for his ARM breakout board

Posted: December 23rd, 2011, 1:30pm MST by Mike Szczys

[Scot Kornak] got his hands on the new STM32 Discovery Board. He got his as a free giveaway, but at only $18 he probably would have picked one up anyway. His one complaint about the device is that he dual pin-headers which break out the ARM processor’s pins are not the most convenient for hooking [...]
A vacuum chamber from a pressure cooker

Posted: December 23rd, 2011, 12:30pm MST by Brian Benchoff

[Allan] needed a small vacuum chamber to get all the air out of clear casting resin. Degassing is a simple step in casting that improves the finished product immensely. The problem, though, is building a vacuum chamber. [Allan]‘s chamber seems easy enough to build, and pulls enough air out to get to 0.1 atmospheres. After [...]
Snap together boombox great for taking your music on the go

Posted: December 23rd, 2011, 11:30am MST by Mike Nathan

[Matt Keeter] wanted to take his music on the go, and wrote in to share a great looking boombox he built for under $100. His goal was to put something together that could be made in pretty much any hackerspace/fab lab, so his boombox was made using simple materials. He first modeled the boombox using [...]
Animated LED buckyball

Posted: December 23rd, 2011, 10:30am MST by Mike Szczys

This animated LED buckyball has little to do with modeling a carbon molecule but a lot to do with adding some excitement to your party decor. [Tim] felt that the LED cube hacks had run their course, so took on the challenge of a sphere made out of pentagonal and hexagonal components instead. As with [...]
Make any scrap of paper sticky with 2000 volts

Posted: December 23rd, 2011, 9:30am MST by Mike Szczys

Who needs chemistry when a little bit of physics will do? Instead of brewing up a batch of weak adhesive to make his own post-it notes, [Valentin] built this handheld device to add an electrostatic charge to bits of paper. Just give them a couple of seconds to charge and they’ll stick to the wall [...]
Bitbuf delivers some of the best chiptune effects around

Posted: December 23rd, 2011, 8:30am MST by Mike Szczys

Wow. And furthermore, WOW! Just looking at that clean prototype you know that a lot of work has gone into the project, but when you hear this chiptune MIDI device you’ll really be impressed. We know what you’re thinking, but really, you’ve got to hear this to appreciate the quality [Linus Akesson] achieved in this [...]
Xbee Wireless Servo Control

Posted: December 23rd, 2011, 7:28am MST by Jeremy Cook

Servo control is good, but wireless control is even better. This hack by [PyroElectro Tutorials] shows you how to do this wirelessly using two Xbee modules. There’s also a great example in the video after the break of this “hacking platform” used to control an animatronic head’s eyes. (we’ve featured the eyes here before). In [...]
MAMEing a CNC router

Posted: December 22nd, 2011, 2:50pm MST by Brian Benchoff

[Ed] is pretty old school. He loves the functionality of old industrial shop tools that have their own dedicated systems. With huge candy-like buttons, who wouldn’t? [Ed] decided to replicate this aesthetic by building a MAME controller for his Mach3 controlled router. [Ed] had a bunch of MAME buttons and joysticks sitting around from a forgotten [...]
Keeping Christmas present hunters guessing with QR code gift tags

Posted: December 22nd, 2011, 11:01am MST by Mike Nathan

[Thadd Brooks] is a geeky dad of the highest degree. His kids are constantly trying to figure out what mom and dad bought them for Christmas, while he continues to think up ways to stymie their progress. He certainly could have put a few prank presents under the tree, but he opted to go a [...]
Microcontroller comm with a computer monitor

Posted: December 22nd, 2011, 10:01am MST by Brian Benchoff

Prolific Hack a Day author [Mike S] has been playing in his lab again and he’s come up with a neat way to talk to microcontrollers with an LCD monitor. The basic idea behind [Mike]‘s work isn’t much different from the weird and/or cool Timex Datalink watch from the 1990s. Despite the fancy dev board, the [...]
Tannenbaum ticker, even though the markets close for Christmas

Posted: December 22nd, 2011, 9:01am MST by Brian Benchoff

Maybe we’re a little bitter because we held on to our pumpkin futures well into November, but we’ve got to respect [Nick]‘s stock ticker ornament. It’s an Internet-connected Christmas ornament that queries stock prices and displays the change with an RGB LED. The build uses a Propeller Platform USB and the Propeller E-Net Module to pull stock [...]