Making a line-following toy into a programmable robot

[Eric Gregori] picked up this little yellow robot as a kit build. It has a single PCB inside that has a pair of IR emitters and detectors pointed downward at the front of the robot. It is able to follow a dark line on a light surface based on how the infrared beam reflects back to the detector. But it’s … Read the rest

Reading a digital caliper with a microcontroller

[Maris] wanted a way to read measurements from a digital caliper electronically. He ended up using the TI Launchpad to accomplish this, but not all of the necessary hardware is seen above. The calipers cost him about $7 on eBay, and they have four interface pins which made this hack quite a bit easier. After a bit of probing … Read the rest