1wire attic cooling

posted Jul 31st 2009 10:01am by Steve Watkins
filed under: Uncategorized, home hacks, misc hacks, pcs hacks

blower

[RagingComputer] built this 1-wire attic cooling fan. He’s using an Ubuntu server loaded with OWFS to control everything. The 1-wire temperature sensor is interfaced using USB while a serial x10 module sends out commands to be received by another x10 module near the fan. Back in the day we had covered a linux home automation project. We also covered HVAC hacks such as the smart attic fan and a 1-Wire HVAC monitoring system.

Clever stair climbing robot

posted Jul 2nd 2009 11:26am by Gerrit Coetzee
filed under: Uncategorized, robots hacks

Stairs are one of the most commonly faced mobility challenges for a robot. This robot’s design eliminates the need for a complex drive train or computer, and instead uses a clever mechanical design to climb stairs. Version three of the robot uses five servos modified for continuous rotation, a Picaxe28, sharp IR sensors, and bump sensors.

[via BotJunkie]




Pressure sensor tutorial

posted May 20th 2009 2:18pm by Caleb Kraft
filed under: Uncategorized, misc hacks

FSR402_MED

[Ladyada] has released this tutorial on using pressure sensors. They cover everything from the basics of their construction through how to connect and read data from them. The elegant sensor pictured above is available through the adafruit store, but you could always build your own.

[thanks pt]

Face tracking in Opera

posted Apr 30th 2009 10:49am by Caleb Kraft
filed under: Uncategorized, misc hacks

Inspired by this year’s april fools day joke from Opera, [Jason] has made facial gesture recognition actually work. While this may seem like a silly project, it could seriously help some people out. This could be a great accessibility tool for people with motor control limitations.He states that it has some problems right now, most notably a performance issue with extended use, so he’s hoping to get some input from some bright minds.

[thanks, Jordan]

Twittering toots, a chair’s perspective

posted Apr 13th 2009 12:24pm by Caleb Kraft
filed under: Uncategorized, tool hacks

twit

We might have to add a category of “stuff made to twitter”. The latest installment is an office chair that twitters whenever it gets farted on. The author has a smart sounding description as to why he decided to make this, and he has a pretty good point about twittering interrupting the things you’re twittering about, but it all boils down to the fact that he wants to twitter his farts. We can’t say that we didn’t expect something along these lines. He has mounted a natural gas sensor in his chair, along with a squidbee wireless transceiver. You can download all the code as well as see the construction in the instructable. You can also follow his flatulent adventures on the twitter account of the office chair.




Mobius circuit

posted Feb 4th 2009 2:32pm by Caleb Kraft
filed under: Uncategorized, led hacks, misc hacks

We don’t want your brains to explode, so just trust us that this is a truly one sided circuit. Being a mobius strip means that this circuit has uber geek bragging rights. Beware, your friends who have never heard of a mobius strip will argue until they are blue in the face that there are two sides to it. The circuit they chose was fairly appropriate, an LED “chaser”.

Road sign hacking

posted Jan 24th 2009 5:31pm by Caleb Kraft
filed under: Uncategorized, tool hacks

zonbix

We’ve all seen these on the side of the road and wondered how we could change the message. It turns out that it is actually pretty easy. There’s a keypad inside for programming that is often still set with a default password of “DOTS”. Even if the password has been changed, you can reset it right there pretty quickly. We shouldn’t even need to warn you that it is illegal to tamper with these, so unless there really are zombies ahead, you probably shouldn’t mess with it.

[via Neatorama]

Leyden jar of DOOM.

posted Jan 24th 2009 4:25pm by Caleb Kraft
filed under: Uncategorized, classic hacks

layden

A leyden jar is basically just a simple home made capacitor. We’ve shown you how to make them before. This, however, is how you make a ridiculously large one. [Nickademuss] used a five gallon bucket to make his leyden jar. That’s five whole gallons of lightning. The video, which you can see after the break, shows it light up the entire room when it lets out a fairly formidable spark. This is dangerous folks, be careful.

Read the rest of this entry »




Automated shooting range

posted Jan 22nd 2009 7:23am by Caleb Kraft
filed under: Uncategorized, arduino hacks, classic hacks

targets

[Steve] was discussing airsoft with a friend when he came up with this idea. His friend was lamenting the lack of “action” style targets for their airsoft hobby. [Steve] took this as an opportunity to make his own automated target system. The targets themselves are made from Construx, a paper target and a piece of cloth to stop the airsoft pellets. Controlled by an Arduino and an ioBridge module, it has a web interface so he can switch programs from up range. You can see a video example of him shooting some targets after the break. Next,he should make it twitter where each target was hit.

Read the rest of this entry »

Refillable CO2 cartridges

posted Dec 31st 2008 7:37am by Caleb Kraft
filed under: Uncategorized, tool hacks

co2

For those who use these little cartridges, you know how quickly the price can add up.  [steve] takes us through the process of adding a valve to a spent cartridge so it can be refilled. Over all, it doesn’t seem too difficult, and [steve] offers lots of tips to increase longevity and reliability. It isn’t very often that we show a hack here that doesn’t involve some kind of electronics, so take a break from the resistors and microprocessors for a moment and enjoy.

[thanks Wolf]

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