Roomba With Dustpan Style Grasper

May 9, 2009 by Caleb Kraft 12 Comments

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DCa8NeG3ypc]

Remember El-E, the service robot that would retrieve things that you spotted with a laser? The creators of El-E are doing research into other methods of making assistance robots. Their latest contraption is an iRobot Create, basically a Roomba, with a custom grasping hand. Instead of complex multi DOF assemblies, they have made something that works on the same principle as a dustpan. It has a thin wedge and a sweeping arm that loads items onto it. As you can see in the video, it is quite effective.

[thanks Travis]

Fart Intensity Detector

May 8, 2009 by Caleb Kraft 37 Comments

farts

When we ran the story about the office chair that twittered your flatulent activity, many people commented on the fact that it had no method of determining intensity. Well, here’s the solution to that problem(is this really a problem?). These students built a fart intensity detector for their final project in ece 476. It measures the sound and temperature, as well as the composition of each fart. They really added some bells and whistles on this project. Not only will it display your statistics on and LCD screen after a reading, it will beep and, if your fart was intense enough, blow it away with a little fan. You even have the option of playing back the audio recording of your most recent glory.

TouchKit Spark Released

May 8, 2009 by Eliot 14 Comments

touchkitspark

NOR_/D has just released their newest multitouch display system. The TouchKit Spark features a larger 35.4x23inch display surface than its predecessor, the Run. It uses ultrabright IR LEDs around the screen’s border for FTIR multitouch sensing. A high frame per second IR camera is included to increase tracking performance. The screen is fully assembled, but you need to provide your own projector and case. It can be built at table height or as low as 20inches. The device is designed to work with OpenFrameworks, but future software releases will have TUIO support.

WhereAVR APRS Tracker

May 8, 2009 by Caleb Kraft 8 Comments

WhereAVR_Board

We posted a story about someone doing some APRS tracking recently. This is old news to some, but new fresh stuff for others. If you want to build your own tracker, here’s a great writeup on one. The WhereAVR is low cost, low power and has plenty of I/O. With all of the schematics and PCB files available on his site, you should be able to get one working in quickly. He does need a little help building a nice simple configuration tool to work in windows, anyone want to volunteer?

WSPRing Across The Atlantic

May 7, 2009 by Eliot 30 Comments

wspr

Host of the Soldersmoke podcast, [Bill Meara], contributed this guest post.

WSPR is a new communications protocol written by radio amateur and Nobel Prize winner [Joe Taylor]. Like the very slow QRSS system described in a previous post, WSPR (Weak Signal Propagation Reporter) trades speed for bandwidth and allows for the reception of signals that are far below the level of radio noise. WSPR takes “low and slow” communications several important steps ahead, featuring strong error correction, high reliability, and (and this is really fun part) the automatic uploading (via the net) of reception reports — [Taylor]’s WSPR web page constantly gathers reports and produces near real-time Google maps of showing who is hearing who. The WSPR mode is very hack-able: [Bill Meara] is running a 20 milliwatt homebrew transmitter from Rome, Italy that features an audio amplifier from a defunct computer speaker pictured below. This contraption recently crossed the Atlantic and was picked up by the Princeton, New Jersey receiving station of WSPR’s esteemed creator, [Joe Taylor]. Continue reading “WSPRing Across The Atlantic” →

Make Your Own LEDs

May 7, 2009 by Caleb Kraft 19 Comments

diyled

Ever wanted to make your own LED? You might be tempted to after reading how easy it is. No, this won’t really be a practical LED that you would use to light a project, but it is very cool anyway. [Michael] picked up a box of Moissanite, or Silicon Carbide, on eBay for roughly $1. Making the LED is as easy as putting your positive lead to the crystal and touching it with a sewing needle attached to a negative lead. He has tips on how to get the best results as well as a little bit of history of LEDs on the site.

[thanks Andreas]

An Amazingly Professional LED Bike Light

May 7, 2009 by Caleb Kraft 15 Comments

light1

[Tom] sent us a link to this very professionally done project. He built a bike light that is a 540 lumen Luxeon light with a custom case. The LED, Lens, and driver were purchased first. Everything else was designed around it. The design is compact and good looking. You can download the CAD files on the site if you want to make your own. He is using an Atmel AVR ATTiny13 to control brightness.