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Hack A Day (30 unread)

Followup: Troll physics solved

Posted: January 27th, 2012, 4:29pm MST by Brian Benchoff

A month ago, we saw a marvelous demonstration of troll physics from YouTube user [Fredzislaw100]. In his video, we saw a circuit of three switches and three LEDs wired in series and but not acting like the should. A lot of the comments for this post elicited reasonable explanations like modifying the battery or pure camera wizardry via After Effects. Thankfully, [Alan] stepped [...]
DSLR performance measured with audio editing software

Posted: January 27th, 2012, 3:29pm MST by Mike Szczys

[Jaroslav's] camera didn’t have a feature to measure the speed of its response in different modes so he figured out his own method. Using the microphone on his webcam he recorded the sound made by the mirror and shutter movements, then used Audacity to analyze the camera’s performance. When you get right down to it, [...]
[Jackson Pollock] is now a robot

Posted: January 27th, 2012, 2:29pm MST by Brian Benchoff

Even though abstract expressionism died out several decades ago, robots are still chugging along dripping nihilistic pigment onto a cold, uncaring canvas. [Liat] and [Assaf] created a robot named The Originals Factory to create paintings in the style of abstract expressionism, a style of painting that is arguably best represented by [Jackson Pollock] and his ‘drip paintings.’ [...]
How to add flair to a webpage that shows your project data

Posted: January 27th, 2012, 10:58am MST by Mike Szczys

This temperature display may not knock your socks off, but it’s a simple demonstration of how you can used vector graphics as a web readout for data (translated). [Luca] wrote this four page tutorial to help others, he makes it look really easy, and the sky’s the limit on eye candy once you get he basics [...]
Synthesize with a hard drive

Posted: January 27th, 2012, 9:01am MST by Brian Benchoff

If you’d like a pseudo-mechanical way of producing a droning synthesizer sound, [gijs] is your man. He made a small synthesizer out of nothing but an old hard drive and a few components. Whenever a disk platter is spun manually, the spindle motor inside the drive produces a few out of phase sine waves on its [...]
@publictextbox is a Twitter enabled phone booth

Posted: January 27th, 2012, 8:01am MST by Brian Benchoff

In the interests of open communication in shared spaces, [dan] made a public text box that serves as a terminal to the @publictextbox twitter account. We could see something like this being useful in a hackerspace or other hang out to announce to the world the happenings of the resident makers and builders. The software setup [...]
Sixty4Racer an 8×8 Game

Posted: January 27th, 2012, 6:01am MST by Kevin Dady

[Pete] has a cool new tutorial creating a re-imagining of the Atari classic “River Raid” for the PIX-6T4 micro controller based game system. The PIX is a netduino on a larger board featuring 2 analog controllers, a speaker, an sd card and an 8×8 monochrome LED display. With a resolution that low, it may make [...]
Analog Joypad for your Retro PC

Posted: January 26th, 2012, 2:01pm MST by Kevin Dady

Part of the fun with old computers is playing some old school games, and while you could play them with a keyboard it is much more fun with a joystick. You can get old joysticks all day long on auction sites, but you have to watch out. Some are digital, which wont work for many [...]
Program a microcontroller over the Internet

Posted: January 26th, 2012, 12:36pm MST by Brian Benchoff

If you’ve ever wanted to program a microcontroller “in the cloud,” you might want to head over to Inventor Town, an online IDE that allows you to write and compile firmware for the MSP430 series of microcontrollers. After logging in with your Google account, you’re presented with a ‘My Projects’ page. From there, you can [...]
[Sprite_tm]‘s three-component FM transmitter

Posted: January 26th, 2012, 11:36am MST by Brian Benchoff

When the Regency TR-1 transistor radio came out onto the market in the 1950s, it was hailed as a modern marvel of microelectronics. With only four transistors and a handful of other components, the TR-1 was a wonder of modern engineering. [Sprite_tm] may have those old-timers beat, though. He built an FM transmitter with the lowest [...]
Jam a remote helicopter

Posted: January 26th, 2012, 6:01am MST by Kevin Dady

The Syma S107 IR is a popular little remote controlled helicopter. When a friend of [Michael]‘s started flying one around the office he decided to try and jam the signal, creating a no fly zone. Luckily some people on the internet have already decoded the IR signals used by the flying menace. From there, a [...]
Real-time depth smoothing for the Kinect

Posted: January 25th, 2012, 4:33pm MST by Mike Szczys

[Karl] set out to improve the depth image that the Kinect camera is able to feed into a computer. He’s come up with a pre-processing package which smooths the depth data in real-time. There are a few problems here, one is that the Kinect has a fairly low resolution, it is also depth limited to [...]
Rotary phone-light-amp could be filed under bizarre

Posted: January 25th, 2012, 3:33pm MST by Mike Szczys

[Samimy's] latest project is a little strange, but one man’s weird is another man’s wonderful so we’re not about to start criticizing his work. Nope, we’re here to praise the fact that his rotary phone turned reading light and audio amp is very well constructed. He started by removing the phone housing. Those old enough [...]
Very accurate clock can’t be read accurately

Posted: January 25th, 2012, 2:32pm MST by Mike Szczys

[Martijn] is showing off his new clock which he calls a Light Spectrum Clock. We like to look of it, using RGB LEDs in five squares that remind us of some of those LED coffee table builds. From left to right this shows the week, day, hour, minute, and second. Simple, right? We had to [...]
Modular controllers you can’t wait to show off to your friends

Posted: January 25th, 2012, 1:33pm MST by Mike Szczys

Let’s get this straight, [Alex] is going to show us how to make controllers like this one? Where do we sign up? Even without seeing it in action we want one, but the urge to build is even greater after he shows it off (check the clip after the break). He’s a design student who [...]
DIY shade finder tool takes the tedium out of solar surveys

Posted: January 8th, 2012, 9:00am MST by Mike Nathan

[Steven Dufresne] does a lot of tinkering with solar-powered applications, a hobby which can be very time consuming if done right. One process he carries out whenever building a solar installation is creating a sun chart to determine how much (or little) sun the target area will get. The process requires [Steven] to take elevation [...]
Rainbow board of many ping-pong balls

Posted: January 8th, 2012, 7:00am MST by Brian Benchoff

[George] just finished his first project: an 8×8 matrix “Board of Many Ping-Pong Balls” with 64 RGB LEDs. He started this project when he was 14 years old and finished the build over this last Christmas break. We won’t make any presumptions about [George]‘s age, but we couldn’t think of a better project to start [...]
Using 555 timers to add “free play” functionality to classic arcade machines

Posted: January 7th, 2012, 2:01pm MST by Mike Nathan

[John Zitterkopf] is in the middle of restoring a vintage Sega Star Trek Captain’s Chair arcade game for the upcoming 2012 Texas Pinball festival, though one prerequisite for the show is that the game supports some sort of free play mode. At this point he doesn’t have the option of tracking down a freeplay ROM [...]
Minimalist RGB LED cube has a very short BoM

Posted: January 7th, 2012, 1:01pm MST by Mike Nathan

[Asher Glick] wrote in to share a project he has been working on with his friend [Kevin Baker], a 4x4x4 RGB LED cube. The pair are students at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and also members of the newly-formed Embedded Hardware Club on campus. As their first collaborative project, they decided to take on the ubiquitous LED [...]
Ancient mouse teardown and repair

Posted: January 7th, 2012, 11:01am MST by Brian Benchoff

For a young geek in the 80s, the it computer was the IBM PCjr. On paper, it was a truly remarkable leap in technology. With a wireless keyboard, light pen, and optical mouse it was an impressive, if maligned, piece of hardware. There was a small problem with the optical mouse, though; it required a special [...]
Remove Function Lock Key with a 4016 and a 555

Posted: January 7th, 2012, 9:01am MST by Kevin Dady

Many companies today try to simplify life by over complicating the keyboard. Microsoft has been doing it since 2001. If you love your ergonomic keyboard, but hate that “function lock” key, there are plenty of options out there for you to try. The least complicated way is to either modify some XML or just set [...]
A bicycle built for… Siamese twins?

Posted: January 7th, 2012, 8:01am MST by Mike Szczys

This project really puts an end to arguing over who has to ride in the back of the tandem bicycle. We challenge you not to smile while viewing the maiden voyage that [Carlos] and his daughter take on this side-by-side bicycle. The video can be found after the break. It certainly makes a bit more [...]
Treaded robot modified for stair climbing

Posted: January 6th, 2012, 4:01pm MST by Mike Szczys

[Mike Li] is showing of his stair climbing robot. It’s a bot that cruises around on a pair of tank treads, but some interesting modifications gave him the traction needed to ascend a flight of stairs without slipping backward. The image above shows this process in great detail. You can see the unaltered treads leaving [...]
737 cockpit will satisfy even the most discriminating simulator afficiandos

Posted: January 6th, 2012, 3:01pm MST by Mike Szczys

This isn’t an airplane, it’s a simulator. But you won’t find it at a flight school as this labor of love is a home build of a 737 cockpit (translated) that has been going on for more than two years. It started off as a couple of automotive bucket seats in a room with two computer [...]
Running the numbers on a cheap PSU

Posted: January 6th, 2012, 2:01pm MST by Mike Szczys

[Mike] picked up a cheap USB hub for four pounds (about $6) including delivery. He wanted to know how it’s possible to get quality electronics for that price, and as you may have guessed it’s not possible. He cracked open the power supply that shipped with the hub and hooked it up for some testing. [...]
Need a Hand Drying Those Gloves?

Posted: January 6th, 2012, 1:01pm MST by Kevin Dady

While being caught out in the rain skiing, [Andrew] was left with a pair of soaking wet gloves. Leaving them to air dry did little good, as after 3 days they were still wet, and blowing a fan at them did little to nothing to help the situation. Luckily [Andrew] had been thinking about ways [...]
3D printing Minecraft worlds

Posted: January 6th, 2012, 12:01pm MST by Brian Benchoff

If you’ve ever wanted to build an awesome tabletop game or model train layout scenery, you probably couldn’t do better than printing Minecraft worlds on a RepRap. This guide comes courtesy of [Nudel] who figured out how to use Mineways with his RepRap. While [Nudel]‘s landscape print doesn’t have the full color of something from Shapeways, he only spent $3 [...]
GSM remote control with the TiDiGino

Posted: January 6th, 2012, 10:01am MST by Mike Nathan

If you’re looking to remotely control things around the house, but can’t do it over the Internet or via WiFi, the TiDiGino just might have what you’re looking for. [Boris Landoni] from Open Electronics sent some information on the TiDiGino our way, and it certainly looks like a useful device if you’re in need of [...]
A Little Simon Clone Named [Nomis]

Posted: January 6th, 2012, 8:01am MST by Jeremy Cook

[Chris] has been hard at work building his own version of Simon called [Nomis]. Although [HAD] has featured an ATiny Simon clone before, the article does an excellent job explaining how the system works. The ATTiny85 is used to control this game, which, for now is laid out on a simple breadboard. A PCB version [...]
OK, you might not be paranoid – perhaps that priority mail box IS spying on you

Posted: January 6th, 2012, 7:01am MST by Mike Nathan

[Thomas Renck] recently picked up a 1000mW wireless video transmitter that he ultimately planned to mount in an RC plane. Before he strapped it on a plane to potentially kiss it goodbye for good, he wanted to play with it a while to see what it was capable of. After a friend helped him determine [...]