Kalman filter keeps your bot balanced

If you’re looking to improve the stability of your self balancing robot you might use a simple horrifying equation like this one. It’s part of the journey [Lauszus] took when developing a sensor filtering algorithm for his balancing robot. He’s not breaking ground on new mathematical ideas, but trying to make it a bit easier for the next guy … Read the rest

Monitoring a clothes washer with an accelerometer

[Viktor's] washing machine did a good job of cleaning his clothes, but it kept a bit too quiet about it. The machine doesn’t have an audible alert to let him know the cycle has finished. He decided to build his own alarm which can just be slapped on the side of the machine.

You can see that a couple of … Read the rest

Printing and programming a self-balancer

The Hackaday staff isn’t in agreement on 3d printers. Some of us are very enthusiastic, some are indifferent, and some wonder what if they’re as widely useful as the hype makes them sound. But we think [Jason Dorweiler's] self balancing robot is as strong a case as any that 3d printing should be for everyone!

Don’t get us wrong. We … Read the rest

Pocketwatch retrofit takes input from accelerometer

A friend of [CNLohr's] used the mechanism from an old pocket watch in an art piece, but left him with the enclosure. It’s an interesting looking object that feels great in your hand so he decided to fill it with his own electronics, thereby giving it a new life. He’s showing off an early version of the hardware in … Read the rest

Arduino tells you how rough your last mountain bike ride was

If you want to see what kind of abuse you’re causing your body when out on those single-track rides this system is just the thing. It’s an Arduino data logger that [Wdm006] takes along on the rides with him. When he gets back home, a Python scripts captures the data dump and graphs it. It may sound like a neat … Read the rest

The Engineer Guy explains how MEMS accelerometer chips work

There’s a good chance that you use a MEMS accelerometer every single day. It’s the small chip that let your smart phone automatically adjust its screen orientation. They’re great chips, and since they’re mass-produced you can add them to your projects for a song (if you can abide the tiny packaging). But we have no idea of how they are … Read the rest

Accelerometer may help make you a sharpshooter

[Chris Suprock] is interested in using technology to improve your accuracy with a firearm. To that end, he’s using an Accelerometer mounted to a gun to gather feedback about each shot.

The hardware setup is pretty simple. We don’t have specific details, but it looks like he’s using a QFN accelerometer chip like you would find in a cellphone. The … Read the rest