[Shingo] shared his implementation of a stationary bike as a virtual reality interface. This is similar to the Google Street View setup we covered a week ago but goes a few steps further. They patched into the bike computer to pick up rotation of the bicycle wheel and added an accelerometer for directional control. This setup can navigate through Street View but the video after the break also details an interface with Google Earth and even the ability to navigate through Second Life, following your avatar as it bikes along with you. The use of a wearable display is far superior to something like the SurfShelf and really gives you a goal other than just some cold-weather exercise. So take this idea, patch it into a wearable computer and you’ve got the exercise setup worthy of the future world we’ve been promised.
[Pcmofo] has shared a well-built, well-explained example of how to implement an RFID key system for a door. We call this the right way because it is well thought out and functional. In the past we’ve seen doors that unlock via a secret knock, keypads, and RFID, but they are all non-permanent solutions capable being transplanted from one door to another. Rather than building a mechanism to turn the door handle, this implementation uses an electric strike mounted in the framing of the door to allow access. These are used for security doors in buildings and are built to keep your door secure.
The hack in this case is the electronics. Using an AVR ATmega168 running the Arduino boot-loader, [pcmofo] has prototyped a two-part design. An RFID reader is mounted outside the door with data wires running to the inside where the microcontroller resides. A hard-coded RFID card is used as a “master” to train any number of tags for entry. The master puts the device in training mode and the next tag to be read is added to the list of tags authorized to open the door.
We like messy wires and quickly thrown together devices but this is built to last and will look great once mounted in an appropriate enclosure.
[Taufeeq] sent in his “Circle of Light” bulbdial clock. You may remember when we showed you Evil Mad Scientist’s version a while back, and [Taufeeq] did use it as a base but he’s added some of his own little touches. Some of the changes include using a PIC with an RTC chip instead of AVR, which allowed him to shrink the board down small enough to fit behind the clock face, rather than on front. He’s even zipped everything up conveniently to help you build your own.
[Johndavid400] built this incredible looking R/C lawnmower. After spending some time repairing broken R/C cars, he wanted to move on to something a little more useful and powerful. He decided to build a mower. He’s using a transceiver set from ebay, with an Arduino interpreting the signal and outputting to his custom motor board. In the video after the break, you can see that the mower looks responsive and quick. He does note, however, that he had some glitches early in the process that left him with a runaway mower. We covered a very similar mower ages ago that used a wheelchair as the base.
AWE is an interesting project, where your office wall is a helpful robot. That’s the goal anyway. The wall is articulated and can reconfigure its shape to fit your needs. You can see in their video that they have come up with several specific uses for AWE at different positions. We want to like AWE, we see that there is potential there. The video hasn’t won us over, there just wasn’t enough added benefit over a simple setup like a projector mount. We think the real benefit just isn’t as obvious. When we saw the girl stand up, and the wall back away intuitively, our attention was regained. What potential uses do you guys see?
[Andrew] built a light box for an exhibition last year that displayed different colors statically. After showing it off, it went unchanged but future improvements remained in the back of his mind. Recently, he pulled it out again and hacked together a controller to drive the colors individually.
He’s actually reusing some of the hardware he built for a different project. At its core is a PIC 16F628 that actuates the lights using relays. In this case, only four of the eight on the board are used to control red, white, blue, and green cold cathode tubes. The video after the break shows the device randomly rotating through different patterns. This is a nice start to making the piece more interactive and we can image adding web-controlled color changes, or perhaps some Daft Punk inspired functionality.
Ever annoyed by those pesky stickers on your fruit? They never seem to pull off in one piece and they always leave a little glue behind. Well, the industry might be moving away from them in favor of laser etching each piece of fruit. They are using a low energy carbon dioxide laser to etch the skin. The FDA is in the final stages of approval for using this in the states. It is already in use in New Zealand. We might find this a bit weird, but we’ve seen weirder.
We’ve featured several different ways to roast coffee beans over the years. This is the next logical step. [Nightlife31] shows us how to use an Arduino and a popcorn popper to create a fully automated coffee bean roaster. You’ll have to modify your popcorn machine to be controllable. This means installing your temp sensor and relays. You can see a basic schematic for that in the project page. The rest involves making a fairly simple circuit on an Arduino protoboard attachment. The end result is quite nice. We wouldn’t mind waking up to some freshly roasted coffee beans in the morning. We’ve seen these done with PID controls, and directly controlled by a computer. There’s even this one that has a much more involved build with a convection oven mounted on top instead of a popcorn popper.
[Taufeeq's] Grandmother needed to be able to call her family members but due to ailing eyesight and memory this was a difficult task. He decided to help her with this by building a telephone that will auto-dial a number at the push of a button. [Taufeeq] built a case to hang on the wall which houses a hook for the receiver and two auto-dial buttons. The buttons are lighted and loosely based on the LED push buttons we covered in January. Housed in a separate box are a microcontroller and a dual tone multiple frequency IC used to dial the numbers. These are patched into a PCB from a standard telephone.
The result looks great and makes using the phone much easier with the simplified controls. We’ve included the demonstration video after the break.
[Cyberspice] informs us she likes snakes. Hey, who doesn’t? She’ll soon be adopting a lovely ball python and wanted to keep close tabs on the sensitive creature’s environment. To that end she assembled a network-enabled vivarium monitoring system based on Adafruit’s Boarduino (a minimalist Arduino clone), a TMP36 analog temperature sensor, Saelig’s WIZ810MJ Ethernet interface, and a common LCD screen. The Arduino rig periodically issues updates to a web server, which can then generate informative graphs using a set of PHP scripts (what, no Python?).
Okay, so we could probably count on one hand the number of readers in need of fancy reptile monitoring and still have fingers left over. There are countless other applications where networked sensor monitoring of this sort is a frequent necessity, so the article could be a good starting point for your own projects. There’s lots of source code to work with, on both the Arduino and web server sides. And the parts list demonstrates serious frugality: the Boarduino, the generic LCD, and especially the Ethernet interface; even with the breadboard adapter, this unit is about half the cost of the usual Arduino Ethernet shield, leaving more funds available for the snake food budget!
