Beginner project: Color Sensing with RGB LEDs and a photocell

IMG_0590

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3n2sH22EiFM&feature=plcp I've seen the concept art for "real world eyedroppers" several times. I haven't noticed any of the products come to market though. It isn't the technology stoping them, color sampling can be done a million ways. I picked one of the easiest ways and tossed something together pretty quickly. … [Read more...]

70 watt amp uses an ATtiny

amp

If you're looking for a DIY amplifier project made with a minimum of parts, this is the build for you. [Rouslan] created a 70 watt class D amplifier using an ATtiny45 and just a few dollars worth of additional components. A class D amplifier simply switches transistors of MOSFETs on and off very rapidly. By passing the signal produced by these MOSFETs through a low pass filter and … [Read more...]

Hackaday Links: June 3, 2012

cat

When pigs fly.... close enough. There are too many jokes to be made about this one. It's a quadcopter made out of a dead cat. [Bert Jansen], the artist behind this, calls him Orville. He died from natural causes, and what better way to remember a feline friend that liked chasing birds? Refurbishing an Apple ][ That thirty year old computer in your parent's attic isn't going to clean … [Read more...]

Do anything with the help of lucid dreaming goggles

lucid

In the world of your dreams, you can build an entire world, an entire universe, an entire society governed by your every whim. While lucid dreaming you are a god in your own mind, free to create or destroy at will. You can train yourself to recognize when you are dreaming, but sometimes a little technological help can speed you towards the path of becoming an old testament god. [Will] over at … [Read more...]

Emulating ARM on an 8-pin AVR

attiny

Falling on the heels of some fabulous 'lets see what we can emulate on an AVR' builds we've seen, [Dimitri] emulated an ARM Cortex-M0 on an 8-pin ATtiny85. The emulator is written entirely in AVR assembly. Unfortunately, the instruction set of ATtinys don't have a multiply instruction, so that had to emulated in a separate piece of code. Even with this addition, the emulator is very small; … [Read more...]

Poking machine

poke

We may be showing our age here, but we have no idea what a 'poke' on Facebook actually means. Whether it's the passive-aggressive manifestations of online stalkers or an extension of  the 'like' button, all we know is [Jasper] and [Bartholomäus] built a machine that translates virtual pokes into our analog world. The "Poking Machine" as [Jasper] and [Bart] call it, syncs to your phone … [Read more...]

Monitoring home electricity usage via a tidy wall display

power-meter-display

[Janne Mäntyharju] wanted to get an idea as to how much electricity he consumed in his new home, mainly to see if using his fireplace for additional heat had any effect on his bill. Luckily his power meter was mounted in the utility room of his house, making it easy to keep tabs on his usage. His meter features a small LED that blinks a fixed number of times per consumed Kilowatt hour, so he … [Read more...]