Fresh hacks every day
Sometime the hacking topics come in waves. For instance, we were tipped off about this pair of automatic fish feeders just an hour apart from each other. Maybe it's that time of year when people are about to go on Holiday and want to make sure their marine pets don't go hungry? The feeder on the left is a true hack. It's built from a pair of servos and a pill bottle. An ATtiny85 drives the … [Read more...]
I have often sat, gazing at my aquarium, wondering what life is like for those critters I keep captive. Are they bored and yearning to be set free? Are they content with their gluttonous lifestyle and constant pampering? This is a question that is often raised with animals of a higher order, like pachyderm in the zoo, or chimpanzee. Those are easier to personify and to debate, but those are … [Read more...]
[Eric Maundu] is farming in Oakland. There are no open fields in this concrete jungle, and even if there were the soil in his part of town is contaminated and not a suitable place in which to grow food. But he's not using farming methods of old. In fact farmers of a century ago wouldn't recognize anything he's doing. His technique uses fish, circulated water, and gravel to grow vegetables in … [Read more...]
If you happen to visit the Spanish port of Gijon, you may notice some giant yellow robotic fish swimming around. These 5 foot long swimmers are part of a proposed sensor network to detect pollutants in the water. Equipped with an array of sensors, the fish can test for general water quality, or swap out the sensors for specific testing. They communicate with each other to keep from straying too … [Read more...]
Anyone who owns a fish tank knows that a good amount of care is required to keep fish happy, healthy, and most of all - alive. [Vicente Jiménez] usually has no problem keeping up on the day to day maintenance such as feeding and switching the tank light, but he wanted to automate these processes for times when he can’t be home to take care of the fish (Translation). His aquarium automation … [Read more...]
When you have a virtually unlimited budget, you can pull off some amazing things. This has become most evident recently as the CIA has been showing off some of its old tech. That dragonfly you see above is near life-size and actually flies. They hired a watch maker to build a tiny internal combustion engine to run it. That alone is pretty amazing, but this thing was actually flying in the 70's. … [Read more...]
[Ken] found that using traditional tweezers is a good way to lose tiny surface mount parts and so set out to make his own vacuum tweezers (PDF). He already had a small aquarium pump that he used as a bubbler for etching circuit boards. After opening up the case he found it was possible to connect tubing to the input of the pump to use as the source for the vacuum. The business end of the device is … [Read more...]
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