[Daniel] wrote up a quick tutorial on interfacing with the MQ-3, or better known Breathalyzer from SparkFun with Arduino. While we would have used perhaps an op-amp/comparator based system and kept it in a much smaller package, the idea was so quick and simple and enjoyable we hoped an article might keep some hackers from drinking and driving.
[Thanks CletustheYokel for pointing out our silly category mistake.]
137 years of the magazine Popular Science are now being hosted online by Google. You can peruse at your leisure, though you’ll have to search by keyword. We don’t see a date or issue browsing option. The cover art alone is worth your time, even if you’re not a fan of the articles. Many of us have fond memories of our childhood being influenced by the contents of these pages.
[via BoingBoing]
Ever accidentally left your front door ajar and had a pet escape? [BlackCow] came up with a simple solution to this problem. The circuit is fairly rudimentary but a great example of using the basics to get the job done. Now, instead of having an alarm that sounds as soon as the door is open, he has a 30 second delay. This helps avoid the “boy who cried wolf” effect also known as the “vista security warning” effect of being bothered too many times for a non issue. We also have to say that we like his taste in blog layouts.
[via Hacked Gadgets]
Strobeshnik is a somewhat different twist on the hard drive clocks we’ve seen in the past. Though still technically using a POV effect, the Strobeshnik displays the numerals instead of a line. By altering strobe timing of an LED behind a platter with the numbers cut into it, he can display whichever number he wants. We think this is pretty slick.
When we saw [merkz] use of an Arduino to produce lucid dreaming we were quite shocked. Unlike typical setups that just flash a light through sleep, his system monitors eye movement through electrodes and is able to send the data to a computer for graphing and analyzing. The only problem being we couldn’t find a circuit diagram or code.
Not ones to be shot down so quickly, a Google revealed this thread on making ‘Dream Goggles’, which was really a Brain-Wave Machine based on the parallel port. Some modifications of an ECG collector’s electrodes using sound cards, and you could have your own lucid dreaming.
[Thanks Phil]
[H. P. Friedrichs], the creator of the Static Bleeder has created his own diodes. Using household chemicals, a film of cuprous oxide was made on a copper pipe cap. Cuprous oxide has been one of the first known semiconductor substances, has a low forward drop but is an otherwise asymmetrical conductor, odd V-I curves, and some neat photovoltaic action. The apparatus seen above is used to bring a piece of lead (in this case, solder) into contact with the salmon-colored cuprous oxide while electrical connections can be made to the binding posts at the front. What are your thoughts on this device?
[Michael] sent us a link to his RC robotic platform. He started with the same RC toy as the iPhone Robot (CAR) but ended up with a blank slate waiting for more features. What he has is an Arduino with a motor driver, three bump switches for the front and rear, and a XBee module. On the other side of things he used a SparkFun USB to FTDI connector to interface another XBee module with a PC in order to use Processing.
In the clip after the break you can see the motor control needs to have more fine-tuning done so the beast isn’t just out of control when running. But there’s a ton of potential here. It should not be a problem to add at lease rudimentary video feedback from the device. The Arduino is currently only being used marginally, leaving plenty of space to add on-board sensing such as IR, proximity, or light.
It’s a clean start, we expect to see updates! Continue reading “RC Truck Source For Robotics Platform”
