[Brad] has continued working on the Super Pixel Bros game. We saw a glimpse of this a few months ago but he’s added a lot since then. The game now has enemies; one type is similar to Bullet Bill, another type drops from the sky and walks toward you, kind of like a Goomba. Game play is quite responsive and it’s amazing what he has accomplished with such low resolution. In the video after the break [Brad] mentions that a friend is working on sound effects for jumps and block breaking. We’re assuming that the audio track in the background is already coming from the LEDBOY speaker.
Which reminds us, if you haven’t checked out the hardware, do so now. That enameled wire mess makes us shudder just a bit. There many be a kit version coming that will save you the point-to-point soldering madness. If that’s part of the fun for you keep an eye out for the forthcoming release of the hardware schematics.
These boxes, called Flexi Knobs, work like a wireless Atari paddle and mouse rolled into one. Each has a rotary encoder that can also be clicked like a button. On the inside is a wireless optical mouse which controls an on-screen cursor which matches the color of the knob. In the video after the break you can see these are being used as midi controls. Each cursor can be locked onto a virtual knob, giving it a physical interface. Because there are several units being used on one machine this creates something of an abstract multi-touch system. This would make a nice interface for other applications with a plethora of settings, like Blender.
[thetanktheory] sent us his glove mouse modification. He has gutted his mouse and mounted the parts on a glove. This is interesting, as he doesn’t have to place his hand on the mouse any more, he just plops it down on any surface and starts mousing. He claims that it is helping his twitch reactions in gaming as somehow it requires less force, but we still see the circuit and batteries mounted on the back of his hand, so we’re not sure how it is helping. Maybe if he moved the laser to his finger tips, he’d be more accurate.
This box will crush your cans and deposit them in the bin below. Branded the Cannihilator, [Jeff Walsh] built this with his two sons, [Jake] and [Ryan]. Early hacking eduction is important if they want their future projects to be regular Hackaday features.
The crushing power is provided by a solenoid pneumatic ram. As seen in the video after the break, the can goes in the door on the left, is crushed, then drops through a slot. [Jeff] had fingers and hands in mind when designing this and included a few safety features. The “crush” button is locate on the opposite end from the can slot, there is a kill switch to disable the solenoid, and a keyed switch to shut the whole apparatus down. A Basic Stamp 2 microcontroller handles the electronics with the help of a daughter-board to manage the load switching. This is a nice addition to the creative can crushers out there.
This no model, but a fully functioning RC jet. The Sukhoi Su-27 was the Soviet Union’s counterpart of the F15 and this 1/6.5 scaled version measures eleven feet long and is fully controllable. As if the 80-page build log wasn’t enough, the flight video after the break is nothing short of jaw-dropping. The test flights end in smooth landings but with all the time that went into the project that’s got to be nerve-wracking.
The folks over at NerdKits got a shiny new Smithy 1220xl lathe/ mill. They found, however that adjusting the Z axis wasn’t as accurate as they desired. They decided to resolve this by installing a digital caliper and an LCD interface to display the adjustments. The writeup is quite detailed and the results seem to work great.
This hoodie senses your heartbeat and uses it to control Life. Conway’s Game of Life, popular in all kinds of electronics projects, uses a grid of cells coupled with a set of rules to mimic the life and death of simple organisms. This iteration displays the game over your own heart, then taps into your heart rate, resetting the game at the beginning of each cardiac cycle. We guess you could say that Life goes on only if you do not.
The EKG circuit that detects the heartbeat is made up of an IR transmitter shining through the tip of your finger to a receiver. An ATmega168 running the Arduino bootloader controls the EKG circuit and resets an ATmega48 which is responsible for Life. [Joe] admits that this is overkill but he’s currently without an AVR programmer; he went this route to make it work. The stylishly-geeky hoodie is taken for a test run (er… test-hop?) after the break.
Hub motors put the power inside of the wheel. [Teamtestbot] goes deep into the hows and whys of building these motors, from parts, to windings, to the math behind the power ratios. The working example puts an electric motor inside the rear wheel of a Razor scooter. Past projects used belts to transfer the work of the motor to the wheel of the scooter. By integrating the motor and the wheel you end up with a much cleaner looking product. Check out the motor testing and the scooter test drive after the break.
For more tips on building your own electric motors take a peek at the Fly Electric page we covered back in November.
