Reverse geocache puzzle

posted Oct 19th 2009 6:00am by Zach Banks
filed under: arduino hacks, classic hacks, gps hacks

fig1-6471

[Mikal] wanted to create an awesome electronic wedding gift for his friend who was moving to France. After experimenting with a few things, he settled on creating a puzzle box that would only open in a certain location. Since his friend introduced him to the Arduino, he fittingly used one in the design, along with a serial GPS module and a mini character LCD. The box itself is locked using a servo-controlled chopstick, which could theoretically be snapped if [Mikal] really screwed something up. To save battery life, he used a small Pololu module to provide power that uses only 0.01 microamps in standby, and can be shut off by the Arduino.

The box was designed to be mysterious yet self-explanatory. When the button on the front is pushed, the box comes to life for 3 minutes, displaying the distance away from secret location. Additionally, it warns how many tries are left: the button can only be pushed 50 times before it is sealed “forever”. In order to open the box, you have to be within 2km of the destination. Theoretically, you can narrow down the location to one of 2 points after 2 readings, but a less scientific approach would probably be a lot more fun.

This seems like an amazing gift, and the same concept could be repurposed into hundreds of other devices. For extra fun, he could have placed it at a geocache location.

Alzheimer’s victims fitted with LoJack

posted Oct 18th 2009 2:01pm by Mike Szczys
filed under: gps hacks

alzheimers-tracking-watch

First it was for finding stolen cars, then keeping track of criminals, now Alzheimer’s sufferers are being fitted with tracking devices. This has been going on for some time now, but unlike the old tracking devices we’re seeing an update in technology to take advantage of the cell network for communications. The person wearing the device can be located using Uplink Time Difference Of Arrival or U-TDOA. This is the same technology that is used by 911 services to calculate the location of a cell phone.

Alzheimer’s is a frightening disease. The thought of a loved one wandering off with nothing to identify them and no recollection of who they are is a fear of every family dealing with the illness. There’s no doubt that this is a cost-effective solution that really works.

But from our perspective, can someone hot-glue a $3 Seiko to this thing? If you were designing this, would you even consider something that straps to your wrist and doesn’t have a clock on its face?

Update: Andrew corrected an error in the original post.  This system uses U-TDOA for location, not GPS.

Update: Jeremy works for LoJack and has informed us that the product in the post and the technology used have nothing to do with the LoJack brand of products.




External GPS for iPod and iPhone

posted Oct 9th 2009 2:00pm by Mike Szczys
filed under: gps hacks, iphone hacks, ipod hacks

ipod_touch_gps

Ever wish your iPod touch or older generation iPhone had GPS capability? Now it can by using a Bluetooth GPS module along with the roqyGPS app.

In April we saw a pretty creative way to add GPS to an iPod by using a homebrew accessory. The new app is a better solution because it utilizes the larger screen and more functional UI of the iPod touch. We’re glad to see this come along because we’d rather not upgrade to the iPhone 3G just to get GPS support. roqyGPS has a fairly long supported hardware list, which should make it relatively inexpensive to pick up a GPS module either on sale or second-hand.

We’ve got a video of the release candidate after the break. As always, we’d like to hear from anyone already using this so please leave your thoughts in the comments.

Read the rest of this entry »

Farm hacking: 7 amazing corn mazes

posted Sep 30th 2009 1:00pm by Mike Szczys
filed under: gps hacks

scott_skelly_corn_maze

If there’s one thing we’ve got a LOT of here in America, it’s corn. In the past few years Corn Mazes have become a wildly popular fall activity for all ages. We’ve enjoyed many ourselves and part of what we like about them is that they’re a hack. Whether made by the farmer down the road or a professional company most now use GPS to ensure a fun, challenging, and cool looking corn maze.

We spoke with [Scott Skelly] who owns Corn Mazes America, read the interview after the break. Read the rest of this entry »

Build a Google-style panorama rig for $300

posted Sep 29th 2009 4:57pm by Phil Burgess
filed under: classic hacks, digital cameras hacks, gps hacks, transportation hacks

PhotoTrail

As part of a “disruptive technologies” course at the United States Military Academy, [Roy D. Ragsdale] produced a working prototype of a Google Street View-like system called PhotoTrail. Like its corporate-backed inspiration, the system captures georeferenced 360-degree panoramas that can be viewed interactively in a web browser…but at a hardware cost of only around $300. [Ragsdale’s] prototype is based entirely on consumer-grade off-the-shelf components and open source software, all tied together by the yin and yang of DIY: foam core board and a few Python scripts.

This article from IEEE Spectrum magazine provides some background on the selection of parts and construction of the system, including a hardware shopping list and a list of links to all of the open source packages used.

The PhotoTrail prototype is surprisingly small and lightweight. A vehicle isn’t even required; the camera array can be carried overhead by a single person, making it possible to capture remote locations. But [Roy] expects future revisions to be even smaller and less obtrusive, perhaps mounted to a headband. Mount Everest awaits!




GPS USB port repair

posted Sep 17th 2009 9:00am by Jakob Griffith
filed under: gps hacks, transportation hacks

IMG_0524

[Jair2k4] learned the hard way not to lend out your expensive GPS to untrustworthy people. His Garmin 200 was returned with a broken USB port and unable to charge. Luckily, all it took was some inventive thinking and he had it repaired in no time. By breaking open a Nokia cellphone car charger, he had a source of 5 volts. After that, it was only a matter of soldering the connections. However, not content with the design he pulled out a Dremel and mounted it in his 1991 Suzuki Sidekick. Quick, dirty, and actually working afterwords, just the way we like it.

Pictures from space for $150

posted Sep 13th 2009 12:35pm by Jakob Griffith
filed under: cellphones hacks, digital cameras hacks, gps hacks

prelaunch

Ever wanted to be able to launch a balloon into space, track its location via GPS, take some photographs of the curvature of the earth, and recover the balloon, all for the low low cost of $150? [Oliver Yeh] sent in his teams project, Icarus, which does just that. The group of MIT students found that they could use a weather balloon filled with helium to reach heights of around 20 miles above the earth;  their particular balloon achieved 93,000 feet (17.5 miles). Then, utilizing only off the shelf components with no soldering, conjured up a GPS tracker using a Motorola i290 Prepaid Cellphone. They then used a Canon A470 loaded with the chdk open source firmware to take pictures. After seeing the results of their launch, the team hopes that this could rejuvenate interests in science and the arts.

Harry Potter Marauders map realized

posted Sep 5th 2009 2:25pm by Jakob Griffith
filed under: gps hacks, handhelds hacks, wireless hacks

21nokia-booklet-3g-group

After reading about cheap wireless for microcontrollers, [Leigh] left a comment about his Marauders map. Much like the Harry Potter version, whoever holds the ‘map’ is able to see the location of the ‘marauders’ within certain bounds. Unlike the magical version however, each person being tracked needs to hold a PICAXE 08M, GPS, and 433.92MHz transmitter: while the map needs a computer running his Python script and a receiver of the same frequency. It has the potential for locating people, but we feel it might be better off in a swarm robotics setup.




Google Maps adds arterial traffic monitoring

posted Aug 25th 2009 3:00pm by Matt Schultz
filed under: cellphones hacks, google hacks, gps hacks

google_maps

Traffic monitoring has been available on Google Maps for some time, but has been limited to highways and major roads. According to the Google LatLong blog, traffic tracking support is now available for smaller surface roads in select cities. The data is gathered through mobile phones running My Location. Anybody wishing to help out can sign up their phone and opt into My Location to participate in the anonymous data collection. Now you won’t have to gamble on whether or not your back road alternative route is congested when there’s construction on the freeway. Dash tried something similar with their two-way traffic reporting, but we’re guessing that Google’s version will have even better performance thanks to a rapidly increasing install base.

Keychain GPS finder

posted Jun 25th 2009 11:30am by Steve Watkins
filed under: gps hacks, home hacks, wearable hacks

gps keychain navigation

With a user interface consisting of two buttons and a three digit display, the GPS finder guides the user back to a saved location. Nine locations can be saved for navigation recall. Press a button to save location and press another button to recall. Each switch has a secondary function, for management purposes such as memory indexes and power features. An AarLogic GPS 3A module and AVR microcontroller make up the guts. With the popularity of Geocaching, this would make an impressive trinket; Leading the hunter to an undocumented treasure.

Hack a Day serves up fresh hacks each day, every day from around the web and a special How-To hack each week.

Send us your hacks