[chris] sent in this inexpensive personal radar project. It uses a servo mounted IR range finder to locate and display the distance to an object. (Lake a parked car as shown in the demo video) The project is destined for some robotics projects – and who doesn’t love LED display proximity sensors. It makes me think of the direction finders in every other 80’s action movie. It’s gotten some attention on Digg, but I like it for the inexpensive build and the excellent use of a PIC 18F452.

[Dane] sent in his sweet AVR hack. He used the PWM output to play pre-recorded audio output. It’s not very high quality, but it could be useful for adding low cost audio feedback to your projects.

[Jeff] sent in this nice how-to on gutting the 2.5″ LCD from a $20 mini dvd player. After removing the player hardware, he shows where you’ll need to tap the circuit to feed it composite video. Looks like just the thing for those portable console projects.

Look ma, it’s my retina. Here’s a short collection of hacks to make yours happy.

[Brian] sent in this odd collection of information he calls the open source biohack kit. The info is interesting, but everything is inside a giant zip file. I think it could benefit from a better online presentation.

[insomartin] sent in a simple design to create a USB piezo drum pad controller. The parts count is pretty low and the drum pads are created using the usual DIY piezo speaker sensor.

[Emilio] sent in his Nokia phone turned SMS remote control project.

[Ian] over at diylife put together a handy USB analog gauge interface.

[Jock] sent in something similar, but this time the project uses gauges from a car for driving games.

In order to continue mocking Boston, [doug] sent in his moononite project.

[Derek] sent in this electric ball valve he built for his bio-diesel reactor. If you haven’t checked, the commercial versions are pretty expensive. His solution was to mate a salvaged saturn wiper motor (sans control board) with a polypropylene bolted ball valve.

Oh, and happy birthday to me.