Year: 2009

Coil Gun Speed Meter

October 1, 2009 by 28 Comments

_DIY_bullet_speed_meter (Custom)

One of the best parts of building a coil gun is seeing just how fast you can get that slug to move through the air. [Daniel] built this speed meter to be able to see exactly that. It is comprised of two optical sensors, one at each end of a barrel. As the projectile passes them, its speed is calculated using an Atmega16. Since the distance between the sensors is pre determined, its only some simple math to figure out the speed of an object passing between them. The result is then displayed on a nice looking blue LCD.

If the blue accent lighting and acrylic stylings look familiar, that’s because we’ve seen [Daniel] before. He’s the one that built the portable coil pistol.

[via HackedGadgets]

Solar Tracking, Without Overkill

October 1, 2009 by 56 Comments

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ATnnMFO60y8]

We saw this pretty smooth solar tracker run by an Arduino. There aren’t many details, but we can see that it works well, and is in fact, run by an Arduino. We knew if we posted this that people would be commenting that the Arduino is overkill. We agree.  So this post is to ask, how would you do it? Give us links to the more efficient designs you have come up with. It doesn’t have to be a fully documented project, a schematic will do. We would probably go with something like a phototropic suspended bicore for simplicity and low power consumption.

[via littlebirceo]

Homemade Bokode

October 1, 2009 by 11 Comments

[vimeo http://vimeo.com/6803291%5D

We’ve recently been getting a lot of new comments on our Bokode post from a while back, and with good reason.  [M@] has managed to find a way to replicate Bokode at home, using $0 worth of equipment (before the price of microprint). To accomplish Bokode at home, it seems all you need is and old webcam lens assembly and an LED.  Of course the his version is not as thin as a regular barcode so it probably wont be replacing anything in the near future, but the concept of from MIT to home within such a short period of time is amazing.

Farm Hacking: 7 Amazing Corn Mazes

September 30, 2009 by 33 Comments

scott_skelly_corn_maze

If there’s one thing we’ve got a LOT of here in America, it’s corn. In the past few years Corn Mazes have become a wildly popular fall activity for all ages. We’ve enjoyed many ourselves and part of what we like about them is that they’re a hack. Whether made by the farmer down the road or a professional company most now use GPS to ensure a fun, challenging, and cool looking corn maze.

We spoke with [Scott Skelly] who owns Corn Mazes America, read the interview after the break. Continue reading “Farm Hacking: 7 Amazing Corn Mazes” →

Dean Kamen’s Prosthetic Arm

September 30, 2009 by 26 Comments

luke

60 minutes has covered [Dean Kamen]’s modular robotic arm.  This thing is light weight, adjustable for different body frame sizes, modular, and eventually thought controlled. The system is currently functioning quite well, as you can see in the video. Current testers are controlling it with buttons under their toes, but the thought control is in the later stages of development. Sounds like science fiction right? You can see a monkey using a thought controlled arm to feed itself grapes, though we don’t think it is [Dean]’s arm.

Another cool feature of this arm is the fact that it changes its grip on your body depending on how much weight you are lifting. Lift something heavy and it grips harder.  Though it has a lot of the same information, there is a little bit of different footage in [Dean]’s TED talk about the arm.

It seems to us, with microcontrollers becoming so cheap and accessible that we should be seeing more home made contraptions in this area. Are any of you working with prosthetics?

Multi-camera Rig Makes Trees Say Cheese

September 30, 2009 by 42 Comments

redwood_camera_rig

[Nick Nichols] set out to take a photograph of a full redwood tree. Here’s the catch, these redwoods are over 300 feet tall and they’re not just standing in the middle of a vast desert. If the photo is taken from a distance, you will only capture the top part of these majestic beauties. How can you take the shot from close up? Build a custom rig to take multiple shots and stitch them together for a composite photo.

[Nichols] built the rig to hold three cameras focused to the left, middle, and right of the tree. The frame includes a gyroscope to keep the cameras steady. By lowering the cameras from the top to the bottom of the redwood they were able to capture 84 pictures to assemble the final shot. The result is featured in the October edition of National Geographic magazine. We’ve included the final picture and embedded a video of the rig in action after the break. Continue reading “Multi-camera Rig Makes Trees Say Cheese” →

Arduino Powered Singing Table

September 30, 2009 by 23 Comments

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vc4PSgXDp64]

This musical Lazy Susan, or “Crazy Adam” was brought to us by students from MIT.  It basically plays [Soul II Soul]’s “Back to Life”  as it turns.  In their words: “Through the interaction with the Singing Lazy Susan, we found the eating patterns and behaviors unique to each person, which reflect our personalities and interests. The dining experience expands to a new domain.”  Are we the only ones who think this is silly? Not only is an Arduino overkill for this, how does this help reflect our personalities and interests? We know, someone will say that art doesn’t need to make sense, but  this would just get annoying really fast. Good job coming up with an idea and making it happen. Please don’t bring that to our next office party. It is also worth noting that musical Lazy Susans aren’t exactly a new idea.