Fresh hacks every day
It’s neat how a project from 2004 can still be relevant if it’s done really well. This is the case with AVRcam. It uses an Atmel AVR mega8 and can do some pretty impressive things, like track up to eight objects at 30fps. The hardware and software is also open source, so it should be possible to build one … Read the rest
While some people can rely solely on memory and landmarks to find their way home, others need a bit more help. Consider Instructables user [_macke_] for instance.
Like other screenless GPS navigation devices we have seen, his “Find Home Detector” uses a GPS module to obtain his location, guiding the way home via a set of alternate indicators. In … Read the rest
We’re always fascinated by flying drones around here, and this latest creation by Japan’s Ministry of Defense is no exception. The spherical drone, which looks far simpler than this drone we saw several months back, looks pretty benign at first glance. Once it starts moving however, you can see just how slick it is.
Reports say that it can … Read the rest
The image above is a screen capture from a video clip where the black ooze gobbles up that rare-earth magnet. It’s actually a blob of Silly Putty which was slightly altered to add magnetic properties. [Mikeasaurus] grabbed some ferric iron oxide powder from an art supply store and donned gloves and a dust mask while massaging it into the … Read the rest
Although virtual reality was the wave of the future in the early 90′s, it hasn’t really taken off the way we would have liked. Sometimes a great idea just takes time for the technology to catch up to it (Aeolipile anyone?). Now that tiny projectors, realistic FPS games, and eye tracking systems have come down in price, this head-tracking … Read the rest
Autodesk aims to enter the hobby market with its offering of Autodesk 123d. If you’ve ever been spoiled by a nice CAD suite like Solidworks, Pro-E, or Inventor it becomes readily apparent that the free offerings don’t come anywhere close. At first Autodesk 123d seems to be entirely a Google Sketchup clone, and in some ways it is. Though, … Read the rest
Reader, [Michael Rubenstein], sent in a project he’s been working on. Kilobot, as stated in the paper(pdf), overcomes the big problems with real world swarm robotics simulations; cost, experiment setup time, and maintenance. The robot can be communicated with wirelessly, charged in bulk, and mass programmed in under a minute. Typically, robots used for swarm research cost over … Read the rest
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