RFID Tracking System

February 20, 2010 by Mike Szczys 42 Comments

[Nicholas] built an active tracking system using RFID tags. The system’s tags operate in the 2.4 GHz band and are used to track either people or assets. The readers are on a mesh network and can triangulate the location of any tag for display on a map. His system is even set up to show the travel history of each tag. [Nicholas] shared every detail in his writeup including some background about available hardware options and how he made his final decisions on what devices to use for the job. His conglomeration of software that ties the whole project together is also available for download.

Sausage Gun 19mm

February 20, 2010 by Caleb Kraft 39 Comments

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=frtQXzt1_E0]

If you are anything like us, you find yourself needing, on occasion, to fling sausages at high velocity. [F00] sent in his solution, the SG19. While the details are glazed over pretty quickly, we get the point. This is basically a smaller diameter spud gun, meant to shoot sausage. While it may not be remarkable in its design, we have to wonder who came up with the idea to use sausage as the ammunition.

Rube Goldberg FTW

February 20, 2010 by Mike Szczys 29 Comments

This video was on its way to a links post until we saw the game of chess right in the middle of it (bishop to H5). [Tom] and [Ben] put their Master of Manufacturing Engineering degrees to use by jam-packing every conveyance method possible into a Rube Goldberg machine. There’s violin bows, a polo mallet, a rolling candle, a ball-popping umbrella, texting cell phones, toppling jewel cases, and plenty of ball-on-tracks implementations. All of that setup and all that the device does is… well, you’ll have to see for yourself.

[Thanks Phil via DVICE]

High Speed Video From Cheap Digital Camera

February 19, 2010 by Mike Szczys 36 Comments

Some researchers from Oxford University have come up with a way to produce high-speed video from a one mega-pixel camera. They’re calling the method Temporal Pixel Multiplexing. This method adds a digital micromirror device in line with the camera lens. These chips house over a million mirrors and can be found in home theater projectors. By placing one in front of the digital camera, a longer exposure can be used while the DMD redirects the light. This way, one high-resolution image actually contains multiple frames of lower-resolution video. The video is still decent quality and, at a far lower cost than common high-speed video equipment, this is a worthwhile trade off.

[Thanks Andrew via NewScientist]

Basement Fusion Reactor

February 19, 2010 by Mike Szczys 103 Comments

Do you ever wonder what projects your neighbors have going on in their basements? [Will Jack’s] neighbors might be surprised to find he’s building a fusion reactor. The first step toward completing a Farsworth-Hirsch Fusor is up and running. The picture above shows heated plasma contained in a magnetic field. Next he just needs to up the voltage and inject some deuterium.

Yeah right! Deuterium, aka heavy water, is extremely rare and very difficult to refine. If you’re not familiar with the substance, you should get your hands on the NOVA episode: Hitler’s Sunken Secrets.

We’re glad to see that [Will Jack] is donning a lead vest for protections. [Will O’Brien] cautioned us about the stray X-rays these things produce when he covered fusors back in 2007.

Update: Most Interesting Game In 64 Pixels

February 19, 2010 by Mike Szczys 25 Comments

[Brad] has continued working on the Super Pixel Bros game. We saw a glimpse of this a few months ago but he’s added a lot since then. The game now has enemies; one type is similar to Bullet Bill, another type drops from the sky and walks toward you, kind of like a Goomba. Game play is quite responsive and it’s amazing what he has accomplished with such low resolution. In the video after the break [Brad] mentions that a friend is working on sound effects for jumps and block breaking. We’re assuming that the audio track in the background is already coming from the LEDBOY speaker.

Which reminds us, if you haven’t checked out the hardware, do so now. That enameled wire mess makes us shudder just a bit. There many be a kit version coming that will save you the point-to-point soldering madness. If that’s part of the fun for you keep an eye out for the forthcoming release of the hardware schematics.

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Flexi Knobs

February 19, 2010 by Mike Szczys 14 Comments

These boxes, called Flexi Knobs, work like a wireless Atari paddle and mouse rolled into one. Each has a rotary encoder that can also be clicked like a button. On the inside is a wireless optical mouse which controls an on-screen cursor which matches the color of the knob. In the video after the break you can see these are being used as midi controls. Each cursor can be locked onto a virtual knob, giving it a physical interface. Because there are several units being used on one machine this creates something of an abstract multi-touch system. This would make a nice interface for other applications with a plethora of settings, like Blender.

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