Tape decks are fertile hacking ground. In this offering from [Erich] the speed of the motor has been turned into a MIDI instrument. Drive it faster and the pitch rises, slower and it falls. There are all kinds of other magnetic tape hacks around here, this tape delay is a classic.
[Dbever] needed a reason to use a big 7-segment display module. He opened up the drill press at his Hackerspace, Pumping Station One, and added a sensor which shows the RPM of the drill on the display. Hackaday was lucky enough to be invited for a tour of the space last fall.
There’s a lot of hype about 3D printing… and rightly so since it’s the radest; which is even better than being “the most rad”. But if you don’t have access to one that shouldn’t stop you. Here’s an example of making robot parts using polymorph instead of 3D printing (or laser cutting) them.
If you’re living in the east-coast metroplex and are unable to travel to Maker Faire Bay Area this Spring you can still get in on some live hacking. Check out MassHack which takes place the same May weekend but in Boston instead of San Fran.
Blimps; not as cool as quadcopters but orders of magnitude less likely to go down in flames (as it were). Draw some inspiration for your own build from silent_runner. The graceful travel of these lighter-than-air-craft make for an interesting camera platform. Here’s a POV video inside of a church, and some shots from the ground while in the woods. [Thanks Oliver]
We try not to pimp crowd-funding campaigns just for the sake of getting them to the goal. But we hope you’ll agree that the Gamebuino we saw a few months back makes a strong argument for backers. Their Indiegogo for the Arduino-compatible handheld gaming rig is over half-way there after just a couple of days.
Raddest has two Ds.
And asshole has two Ss. How about let the first post be something constructive and not a jab at the HaD writers.
While blimps are cool, my only fear is that a failure causes a much less favorable outcome for recovery. I’d rather give gravity a shot at a quadcopter.
Maybe some failsafe where the moment power/control is lost the bladder deflates. that way it will immediately go down in stead of drift away?
Actually, most “lighter than air” vehicles are slightly heavier than air. The heavier it is, the more work the motors will have to do to keep it airborne. If you loose controll, the blimp will just drift down and crash gently.
Huh… hadn’t thought of that aspect. I fear the the sudden meeting of concrete and quadcopter in case of a failure. But having your blimp tangled with the nearest tree would be similarly annoying.
Come on, blimps are cool. Those micro blimps (uses a regular latex party ballon) with a pin on the front make great indoor RC jousting battles. We run 5 at a time (max the cheapy rc radios allow), put $20 each in a hat, last blimp floating wins the kitty. Almost (almost) has become more popular then poker night.
That would probably rank as one of the fastest ways I’ve “blown” (pun intended) a Twenty…
The tape deck hack reminds me of the Mellotron
Link:
http://hackaday.com/2009/12/04/melloman-tape-looping-keyboard-2/