[yellowduck] took some fantastic initiative with this home made PCB drill press. Many people have a rotary tool already. Just add some scrap wood and four hinges. The drill press isn’t perfect; it pivots a little as it lowers. This shouldn’t be a problem for drilling printed circuit boards though. The PCB should be thin enough for the pivot to have little effect. After some test runs, he added a lamp for better lighting and intends to add a return spring and foot switch. It’s definitely a better solution than drilling multiple holes with a hand drill.
Month: July 2008
Annoy Your Friends With High Pitched Noise
[Hungry_Myst] has put together this fantastic device to annoy your friends. It randomly emits high pitched sounds, then stops for a while to make it very hard to locate. He has added an extra level of annoyance by putting the noise in vicinity of 17KHz thus making it almost undetectable by people over the age of 30. The fact that not everyone in the room can hear it makes people go even crazier trying to find it.
The parts list is fairly short, and the directions concise. One thing that is fantastic about this article is that he encourages people to improve it. That alone is not a huge deal, but he mentions in several areas specific additions that would make it more user friendly: on/off, pitch control, and delay control.
Related: [jay]’s Picaxe based Brain Assailant
1-wire Barometer
[David] put together this rather nice 1-wire barometer. An MPX4115 measures the pressure while an SMD DS2438 mounted to an 8 pin DIP socket provides the 1-wire interface. The writeup includes a nice description of the board layout and wiring, making this project accessible to just about anyone with a decent tip on their soldering iron.
ReWalk Suit For Paraplegics
We here at Hack a Day are really interested in power suits, so the ReWalk suit for paraplegics immediately caught our attention. By using unique robotic control algorithms, the suit works with the user rather than for the user. This allows the user to experience the sensation of walking autonomously and a chance at a normal life. Argo, the design company, also claims that a suit like this will end up saving the user money considering the high price of medical and transportation equipment. The core design is not entirely new. It has a batterypack and DC motors placed at the joints. The wearer uses crutches and the sensors and software monitor upper body movement to predict when and where the user wants to move their leg.
[via Medgadget]
Hackit: Designing A Web Tablet For $200
TechCrunch is asking its readers to help them design a web tablet costing just under $200. They claim that there does not yet exist a cheap and usable web tablet designed for things like browsing, web conferencing, mail, chat, and VoIP. Here are some of the specs they are asking for:
- thin as possible
- touch screen (except for power button)
- WiFi
- video camera and low-end speakers
- 4 Gigabyte hard drive
- 1/2 Gigabyte of RAM
- Linux and Firefox (in kiosk mode)
- no desktop interface
We are not completely sure that this device does not exist in some form. Tablets have been around for a while and many cover most of these features. Consider the Nokia N800 or the Pepper Pad.
We also think the TechCrunch readers, who generally concern themselves with what they can buy rather than what they can make, are not really the best crowd for this job. Considering our reader’s abilities to do things on the cheap, we thought we would pose the question ourselves with our own spin. What old and cheap hardware could you re-purpose to create this product?
NES Crammed Into A Light Gun
[GonzoMPM-1] Has gutted an NES knock off called Super Joy III and crammed it inside of a light gun. Inspired by a daughter that loves duck hunt, he wanted to consolidate the package and make it more portable. He’s managed to pull off some nice finish, it look almost professional in the picture above. The unit is powered by 3 AAA batteries in the handle. The game system works just fine, and he claims that the controls are actually more responsive now. The light gun works as well if you have a CRT television around.
You many notice that there is no cartridge slot. There really isn’t a need for one in this mod. The Super Joy III comes equipped with 76 games on the board. He notes that he can make an external cart at some point, but may leave it off in favor of the compact design.
While he acknowledges that this is not a completely self contained gaming device, we feel it earns honorable mention for being cool.
[via technabob]
Fun With Radiohead’s Data From ‘House Of Cards’
Radiohead recently released the 3D data that was used to create the video for their song ‘House of Cards‘. [Micheal_z] sent in some of the results of his groups playtime with the data. The first effort involved some data translation. Then they created an atomizer of the head and put it up on their ungodly huge 8160×4000 pixel multi-touch display.
The video below was created by tracking the background image to orient and overlay the projection.
Continue reading “Fun With Radiohead’s Data From ‘House Of Cards’”
