Embedded Games: Rogue

December 12, 2009 by Mike Szczys 10 Comments

Here’s a handheld version of Rogue. Rogue is one of the first graphical computer games and takes the player through a dungeon-exploring adventure. [Manuel] built this around a PIC 16F876 microcontroller and a KS0108 graphic LCD screen.

Hot on the heels of the pixellated Mario game, these embedded handhelds make for fun projects and great gifts. There are few parts used and [Manuel] etched his own PCB. Take a look at the schematic, this is a great platform to start with but the sky’s the limit on writing your own games.

FPGA Driver For PSP Screen

December 12, 2009 by Mike Szczys 20 Comments

Friends are constantly giving us their old electronics. We love it because our junk box is a never-ending pile of possibilities. We’re really starting to amass a collection of LCD screens that are not easily interfaced and this project gives us some hope for the future. [Philip] has been posting about using an FPGA as a driver for a replacement PSP LCD screen.

Many projects source cell phone LCD screens that have their own driver chip that can be addressed over SPI for use with a simple microcontroller. More complicated screens need a more involved control scheme and this is where the Field Programmable Gate Array takes over. [Philip] lays out the steps he’s using to implement his controller, from setting up the correct voltage levels, to planning for coordinate addressing, and even some of his follies with reverse current. We think this would be a great way to introduce yourself to FPGA projects.

The Harlequin Project

December 11, 2009 by Caleb Kraft 15 Comments

This impressive little mod is quite fantastic really. [pakkei] has constructed the Harlequin, a home-made version of the Microsoft courier. This was a stock Dell mini9. Now, coupled with a display link touch screen monitor that happens to be identical in size and resolution to the original, it has become a new device. He has loaded Windows7 and is currently working on a case that can hold all the bits a little more organized than what you see above. We can’t wait to see this finished.

[via engadget]

Remote Bike Mountain

December 11, 2009 by Caleb Kraft 18 Comments

The Remote Bike project, caught our eye today. Inspired by “cliff hangers” on the tv show “The Price Is Right”, [atduskgreg] has built his own version. In this version, the bike on the mountain makes progress, or slides back down the mountain based on the speed you pedal. If you maintain your target speed long enough, you make it to the top of the mountain and win. The RPMs are gathered from a stationary bike using a hall effect sensor, then piped to an Arduino that controls the bike via a stepper motor and string. That seems fun, and a decent alternative to biking through google maps or something. We have to wonder how long this would be amusing though. Then again, when you’re on a stationary bike you are usually just using a timer or a heart rate monitor anyway, so this is pretty cool.

[via flickr]

Advanced In Car Computer System

December 11, 2009 by Caleb Kraft 35 Comments

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xqZj4ArrlhA]

[Jonathan] sent us a pretty in-depth writeup of his car computer system. This isn’t your typical quasi navigation/media system as you would usually expect with this title. What he has done is made a remotely accessible monitoring computer that can tell him everything from engine data to physical location of the car on a google map. He can start, stop, lock, and unlock the car as well, as long as the car is within a 3g network. This is pretty impressive and we see tons of uses for this, from analyzing your own data to keeping an eye on those pesky teenagers when they borrow the car.

Bender Keg Cooler

December 11, 2009 by Caleb Kraft 5 Comments

What? Another Bender project? This almost went in the trash since it looks so much like the bender brewer from earlier this week, we thought it was the same tip. This isn’t a brewer though. This is a keg cooler, made to look like Bender. You can follow the build process to see exactly how they constructed it. They did a great job, the tap is in his cigar, and the keg resides in his body. Fantastic job guys, now you need some Benderbrau to dispense.

[thanks hexmonkey]

Perspective Tracking With Only A Web Cam

December 11, 2009 by Caleb Kraft 19 Comments

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tdqk6fedeGY]

[Johhny chung Lee], eat your heart out. Check out what these guys are doing with face tracking and immersive 3d as their final project in class. They’re using a singe camera and an FPGA to produce the demo you see in the video. Facial tracking is done by skin color, so that might have some issues in some environments, but being able to have perspective shift with you, without rigging up some more hardware is fantastic.

We realize that this is completely different that what [Johnny] is doing. We love [Johnny]’s work and think it is ground breaking to be able to pull this stuff off with a cheap game controller. We just couldn’t help but draw the parallel from the end result.

[thanks Bruce]