We might have to add a category of “stuff made to twitter”. The latest installment is an office chair that twitters whenever it gets farted on. The author has a smart sounding description as to why he decided to make this, and he has a pretty good point about twittering interrupting the things you’re twittering about, but it all boils down to the fact that he wants to twitter his farts. We can’t say that we didn’t expect something along these lines. He has mounted a natural gas sensor in his chair, along with a squidbee wireless transceiver. You can download all the code as well as see the construction in the instructable. You can also follow his flatulent adventures on the twitter account of the office chair.
that is just a bit silly
i cant wait for this twitter phase to end
I was at the dorkbot-nyc last month, where they had a talk on the lilypad zigbee . . . my buddy and I decided if we were ever to make a project with it, it would likely be a twittering underwear which reports the temperature and relative humidity. This would be an excellent addition to these sensors.
I don’t mind the idea of twitter (a central place for tiny updates and tracking) so much as the stupid name. Its amazing its gained so much acceptance despite it.
Just wait until the Obama administration passes global warming legislation. He’ll start getting a tax bill for his methane emissions, since he’s conveniently documented them.
this totally needs a three axis accelerometer and pressure sensor. it could guess your weight when you sat down, and if you don’t move for a long time, it’ll ask if anyone can come poke you to ensure you’re alive.
the sensors also allow for it to make snide remarks such as “Careful, fatso” each time you tip back.
props to the original designer.
God I hate Twitter.
why cant someone do something useful with twitter…. like a fire alarm, or car alarm etc.
In the year 5023 this will be considered 21st century man’s greatest achievement ever.
oh god i lol’d
i normally hate on twitter, but not right now.
why not?
this device seems to pass information more valuable than the average twitter.
To all those who post negative comments on hackaday (to the tune of “this isn’t a hack” and “twitter sucks”), I’d just like to point out that when someone subscribes to someone else’s twitter feed, they *want* to hear what that person has to say.
Nobody wants to hear your negative comments here. So stop bitching, bitches.
(Yes, I know I just added myself to that group by putting this here. :) )
Dunno, I rather appreciate the negative comments.
eric, agreed. twitter is nauseating name.
I’m also getting fed up with the world’s apparent obsession with twitter.
I wouldn’t be suprised if some “everyone look at me!” type person rigs up a heartrate monitor to tweet ever heartbeat, if it hasn’t already been done.
I agree with daryl…have a pressure sensor under a doormat/carpet to trigger, if a weight is 50 lbs or more, twitter your system to activate wireless webcam at door to feed video to lcd and remote wireless mike/speaker so you don’t have to leave your chair to see who it is…a lot better than measuring/making a fart chart!!!
To all the people who keep asking for someone to do something useful with twitter…you ever consider that may be impossible?
hate twitter
@fluxster
you don’t need twitter to do any of that.
that why I dislike Audrino. before Audrino people had to learn micro controller and during learning stage they get some useful ideas and implement it in useful projects instead of silly farts counter or blinking leds
seems like an rfid sensor tag would be better suited to the task
Every time I see something like this, i say to myself, “There’s no way hackaday will accept anything worse then this, so maybe the worst is behind me.” Then, on a regular basis, I am proven very wrong. I’m not ripping on hackaday, because overall, it has a ton of good stuff. But seriously. Every time I think society has outgrown its pathetic twitter fetish, more shit like this pops up to tell me that it is only getting worse. So please, feel free to make a “stuff that twitters” category, but only if you plan to include a greasemonkey script that silently removes any entry tagged with it. :P
P.S. I agree with [therian]. The Audrino may have lowered the barriers to entry for the microcontroller scene, but it has also lowered its collective IQ.
I don’t like the elitist attitude towards microcontroller programming – in lumping everyone in the “make some crap that’ll tweet” group you’re also including those who do have good ideas but don’t have the knowledge to program a microcontroller from the ground up.
I’ve recently started working with PICAXE’s and think they’re wonderful chips, my first project with one is a bike light setup, sure you may think it could be done with a single switch or two but my setup will include a rear light, lights on the pegs of the wheel axles and a front light made using 300 3mm LEDs pulling 24 watts. The PICAXE 18X gives me the ability to use 4 input switches to easily set the brightness level of the front light (PWM rocks) and the side+back lights (including a highbeam that turns on all 300 LEDs), something I couldn’t have easily achieved with just switches alone.
The next big project I want to do with a PICAXE is a DIY thermal imaging device using a thermopile heat sensor mounted on two servos for X-Y scanning, which the PICAXE has the control mechanism for the sensor & servos built-in, along with serial out for dumping data to a PC for saving pixel information & creating an image out of it.
So please don’t dismiss all Arduino/PICAXE type users in the same category – there are good ideas out there.
outright genius. this made me visit twitter for the very first time, and I will proudly tell my grandchildren, time come.
Even this specific example looks not very useful in the first place, it is a very good example of integrating different parts to a working “thing”. This could easily be used to do other types of measurements (temperature, wind speed etc.) and display the values on a web page.
this thing is a total failure – the natural gas sensor won’t trigger on pure-air farts from puffy foods such as popcorn.
“twitter support” is the new LED
I’m waiting for this thing to malfunction, or for him to develop a natural gas leak in his home.
[name] broke wind (about 5 seconds ago)
[name] broke wind (about 6 seconds ago)
[name] broke wind (about 7 seconds ago)
[name] broke wind (about 8 seconds ago)
…
…
It seems that even those silent but deadly ones won’t escape from the chair’s nose…
@Haku
I certainly didn’t mean to go riping on beginners. New minds and ideas are always good, especially here. I’m just a little tired of the audrino’s overinflated popularity and the bulk of “meh” protects that seem to go along with it. But nothing personal. Sorry if I offended anyone. :)