If you’re a fan of biometrics this game is for you. It uses a homemade EEG to facilitate simple control. This is along the same lines as the Force Trainer hacks but this homebrew hardware is fun to look at. The success of the project can be seen in the video of a simple game they developed.
RF Camera Remote
[Jonny] wanted to trigger his Nikon camera remotely but was unhappy with the functionality of the IR remote. He hacked together an RF remote and receiver that still uses the IR functionality of the camera, but allows for the geographic freedom of Radio Frequency. Not as advanced as some we’ve seen but it meets his specifications.
CNC Mill
[Jan] tipped us off about a CNC mill that her friend made. The machine turned out beautifully even though very few tools were used to produce it. We love to pour over these builds so if you’ve done one, document it and send it in.
Neutering the On Demand Button
[Dan] hated his Comcast remote because the On Demand button could be hit by mistake. This was usually when trying to unpause live TV. The remainder of the show couldn’t be viewed just because the On Demand menu launched. Simplicity is king. He fixed this by placing two small paper rolls between the button and the circuit board. This way the button can still be used but only if you press pretty hard.
Christmas may be over, but we still have a couple of cool holiday related hacks for you. One being [Alpay's] Twitter based interactive Christmas tree ornaments.
We tried to dig up some more information, but it thus far appears a laptop running Processing searches Twitter for specific Christmas related words (like 1337, that’s Christmas-y), sends a buffer to one of three Arduinos which in turn light up a specific ornament. You can check out a live stream here.
[Mike] covers his car whenever he puts it into the garage because the top is always open. After years of this ritual he decided to upgrade his garage to automatically cover the vehicle. The car cover, made from a few bed sheets, attaches to the bottom of the garage door. At the front of the stall the cover has two half-pound weights sewn in with plenty of padding to protect the car’s finish. Ropes attach to these weights, travel through a pulley system, and connect to the garage door opener carriage. This $65 dollar solution makes sure [Mike's] car is always taken care of.
Unsuspecting office workers beware. You may already be in the cross-hairs of a ping-pong ball launching robot. This covert robot hangs out on the other side of a suspended ceiling, waiting for its operator to unleash the fury. When put into action a hatch in a ceiling tile is raised and balls are launched at a cowering cube-dweller.
It looks like the balls are launched at a reasonable speed and won’t hurt anyone. The next generation of this bot should do a better job of integrating the trap door and be quieter. This would be a lot more fun if the victim couldn’t figure out where the heck that ball just came from.
The question that pops to mind: how is this not an antitrust suit waiting to happen? Directory assistance is BIG MONEY that Google undercut when launching its free service. By shipping phones that have the number pre-programmed doesn’t that limit choice and competition in the same way that shipping Windows with Internet Explorer does? Perhaps the difference is that Microsoft has a near monopoly on the PC OS market while GE can’t say the same about cordless phones.
We’re not antitrust lawyers, and neither are you, but we’d still like to hear your opinions about this in the comments.
The controls use ultrasonic distance sensors that detect the proximity of the musician’s hands. This data is collected by an Arduino and sent to a computer for use with the sequencer. The controller body is an upside down salad bowl from Ikea; cheap, available, and creative!
We honestly thought [Jason's] VFD clock was some form of new terrorist attack when we came across the RSS. Thank goodness our relations with Russia aren’t as MAD as they used to be.
The main components are an IV-18 VFD with a MAX6921 driver, which to an untrained ear do sound surprisingly threatening. However an Arduino settles our hearts down and assures us this only has as much potential as blinking a VFD. While the main code, schematics, and CAD aren’t available (open source coming to a theater near you soon) at the moment – you can check out [Jason's] inspiration, the Ice Tube Clock, which runs many of the same components.
Enjoy a video of it in action after the break. We love the ‘countdown’ feature the most.
[Michael] got his hands on a refrigerator that he intended to store beer in but found that it ran constantly. Instead of buying a new thermostat he and his friend [Doug] set out to build an Arduino-based controller for the fridge.
The finished project will switch 240v so they’ve used a transformer to power the logic circuitry and a solid state relay to handle the load switching, with a Dallas 1820 for temperature data. Because the Arduino offers more capabilities than the average thermostat hack they also decided to tap into its potential by adding an Ethernet shield. We see the Arduino as a prototyping device and so do these folks. Once the bugs in their first PCB prototype are worked out the circuit will use the ATmega328 and do away with the Arduino.
