A Dynomometer measures actual horsepower and torque output at the wheels of a vehicle. Aside from racing, it’s long been the way to test out engine modifications. [Steve] built his own. It uses a Basic stamp for data acquistion, and a custom machined drum for the physical interface.
Day: May 9, 2008
Maker Faire 2008: Puzzlemation
[John Peterson] showed us his Puzzlemation, animated tile puzzle at Maker Faire. It was originally designed for the Microchip 16-bit Embedded Control Design Contest. The puzzle is made from multiple modules each with an 8×8 LED grid. The tiles are battery powered and each one has PIC24FJ64GA004 microcontroller. They sit on a tray with flat copper strips as a serial bus. The tray controller broadcasts the animation to the tiles. Each tile waits for its unique identifier and saves that portion of the animation. The tiles don’t actually know what order they’re in so once the animation is in motion you can figure out their proper order; rearranging them so the animation is correct. We’ve got a video of it in action after the break.
Hackers Needed, Los Angeles
Hack-A-Day is looking for fulltime contributors in the the Los Angeles area. The details are in this Craigslist ad.
Our friends at Mahalo are also looking for a Systems Engineer, Los Angeles.
Maker Faire 2008: RoboGames And Warships
Today’s episode of BoingBoing TV comes straight from Maker Faire. The first segement is about RoboGames arena combat. The second segment covers a favorite exhibit of mine. Western Warship Combat Club brought their 1/144th scale battleships to fight it out in a large pool. The RC boats fire ammunition up to 1/4-inch ball bearings and the even feature bilge pumps to keep them afloat. Scoring is based on where on the hull the strike happens. Here’s a direct link to the mp4.
