[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!
Halloween is this weekend. If you still have some time and parts available, you might be looking to spice up your Jack-o-lantern. We’ve found a few projects that we thought might be nice to share. None of them would merit a post on their own, so we thought we would just round them up and share them all at once. They all appear to be powered by the Arduino, which we know will bring some comments. Just to clear up some questions, they don’t pay us to advertise Arduinos. People just do a lot of projects with them.
First, the silly string shooting Jack-o-lantern which you can see above. He’s using a single servo hooked to an Arduino and a motion sensor. When it detects motion, it lets out a short squirt of silly string. You can download the code from the project page. We might suggest you arrange this in a manner to avoid spraying directly into some kids eyes.
[isotope] must really hate himself. He has built a torture device of pure evil. Mr. Wake, his alarm clock robot, should be considered a torture device. This cute looking little bot, with its bright and colorful clock and neat plastic tube frame is an alarm clock. As soon as it’s alarm goes off, Mr. Wake starts watching for you. If it detects your presence, it takes off, only to wait for you to stumble, bleary eyed, to its current location. Do you know what it does when you catch up to it? It takes off again. Why would you build a robot that you know you are just going to destroy in a groggy fit of animalistic rage?
We actually like Mr. Wake more than clocky, simply for its hackish feel. If you really really have problems getting up, you may want to consider something a little more drastic.
If you’re wanting to spice up a Jack-o-lantern, why not give it some spooky eyes that will look around? [todbot] shows us how to set this up using an Arduino and 3 servos. His rig uses a hobby servo to control the entire head’s orientation and a smaller servo for each eye’s movement. Their motion is random, but quite convincing. He has them all stuck together with popsicle sticks, but you would probably move the location of the large servo to rotate the entire pumpkin, or whatever other prop you put it all in. You can download the Arduino sketch and give it a try your self. We might suggest building a simple rack and pinion rig to rotate both eyeballs with a single servo.
[creatrope] sent in this slick Alien costume that he made for his son. The costume does look decent, but not professional. For something tossed together from parts around the house, it looks fantastic. The real kicker, is the fact that it has the retractable inner mouth. The retractable mechanism is constructed from Legos and extends when his son opens the mouth. We think he did a fantastic job with this costume, but if you’re looking for something a little more polished, check out this Alien made by [Asy0uw1sh ] you can see a little more detail on how it works here.
We’re not sure why [Roteno] prefers to have his TV and cable boxes not face him when he’s sitting on the couch, but to each their own. You may already see many problems with this setup: discoloration from LCD viewing angle, difficulty playing Wii, oh and most importantly – not being able to change the channel with his IR remote. [Roteno] was lucky enough, however, to have an IR remote input on the back of his cable box. All it took was a 3.5mm jack and a spare IR receiver and he was back in business. Sure it’s not as technical as some of our cable or IR hacks and we would like to see someone try this who doesn’t have as easily accessible IR input on the back of their cable box. But either way, here’s one more step to never having to leave that couch.
[Richard] combined creative carving with vacuum tube electronics for a unique pumpkin offering. He used the stencil-and-cut method of carving, making use of an inexpensive carving kit for great results. He salvaged an LED module from a flashlight to provide the internal illumination, but it’s the center feature that we like the best. [Richard's] used a glow-transfer counting tube, or dekatron, which provides something like a circular cylon eye to the project. There’s a video of this after the break.
You might not have access to a wicked-looking dekatron but we’re guessing you’ve got a microcontroller and some LEDs lying around that can serve as a stand-in for one night. We’d love to do a reader jack-o-lantern roundup, so if you build something, send us a picture!
[Tony's] trying to scare the kids again this Halloween. This year’s creation is a skeleton that springs up from a coffin. His creepy coffin is built from plywood and in the classic style it gets narrower at each end. Inside, there’s a full-sized rubber skeleton affixed to a 2×4. Pneumatic rams are used to lift the lid and spring forth the skeleton from the dead.
He’s planned his performance well. The finished system uses a fog machine and looped audio for ambiance. A motion sensor detects innocent victims approaching, kills the music, opens the coffin lid, and adjusts the lighting. The coffin is right next to the door so when the doorbell is pushed and the skeleton springs upright this should scare the bejesus out of you. See how effective this in the video after the break. Read the rest of this entry »
Analog clocks now a days get no respect. Everyone is digital this, or binary that, and we admit it is nice to look over and see the time promptly displayed. But there’s something about the quiet ticking and ominous feeling you get when around a large intricate clock that you know some serious time has been invested.
Nostalgia feelings aside, [Alan] from Hacked Gadgets introduced us to his Gear Clock. While it’s not a new idea, and in fact we have a few around the office, his concept really inspired us. His clock is driven via stepper motor and a PIC, allowing for the time to be fairly accurate. The only small problem he mentions is the poor paint job, but we think it looks amazing regardless.
[John Boiles] introduces us to dimlet, his portable network controlled light dimmer. Inside the box is a fonera 2100 router that is running openWRT connected to an unnamed AVR microcontroller. Right now, he’s controlling the unit with his iPhone. It has three modes of control; a manual “slider” mode, an accelerometer controlled “dance” mode, and a programmable “tap” mode. You can download all the source code and schematics on his site.
