Gently Stroke This Drum

April 19, 2010 by Mike Szczys 16 Comments

The silent drum is played with your hands. It acts as a midi device by analyzing the movement of the rubbery black drum head. As you can see in the photo, one side of the body is clear and the other is white. A light shines up into it to boost the contrast and a camera picks up the black head as it moves past the white side of the shell. [Jaime Oliver] has provided an interesting look at the analysis method used with this instrument and there’s also a system of notating a composition for future performance. See and hear it played in the demo after the break.

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Build Your Own RFID Reader

April 19, 2010 by Mike Szczys 25 Comments

We asked for it and our readers delivered. [Klulukasz] left a comment pointing to this diy RFID reader that was a final project in 2006 for a class at Cornell University. It is well documented and includes not only a schematic and code, but an explanation of the design considerations used during the build. The project uses an ATmega32 and the parts list priced out at about $50 at the time. There were plenty of responses to the RFID spoofer post pointing out that there are readers available for $40, but we want the fun of building our own.

A bit more vague with the details but no less interesting is this other simple RFID reader design. Thanks to [Chuck] for his comment which pointed to that link.

Toaster Web Interface

April 19, 2010 by Mike Szczys 25 Comments

Within a ten-hour window [Wes Brown] threw together this toaster with a web interface for one of his classes. He sourced the WIZnet embedded webserver for the project but this could be pulled off with a homebrew webserver as well. When you point your browser to the correct address you’re greeted with images of bread that have been charred to various degrees. This greatly complicates the act of making breakfast while at the same time presenting a possible fire hazard. Check out the video after the break.

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Augmented Reality Glasses

April 19, 2010 by Mike Szczys 28 Comments

Augmented reality is a pretty neat thing but we don’t want to live our lives staring at a smartphone as we walk around. [F00] didn’t either so he built these augmented reality glasses. You can see a hole in the middle of the glasses where he added a webcam. The camera captures the image in front of you, processes it through augmented reality software, then sends the image to the wearable display that makes up the body of this hack. Integrate this into the head-mounted Linux hack and you’ll be able to ride your bike around the real world with your blast shield down instead of being tethered to your trainer in a virtual universe.

Makerbot Clone

April 19, 2010 by Mike Szczys 9 Comments

This table-top extruder was modeled after the Makerbot. Instead of laser-cut wood this is built from acrylic, uses salvaged rods from laser printers, some inexpensive stepper motors, and a homemade extruder. All said and done, [Peter Jansen] figures this build came in somewhere around $200-300. It may not look as nice, but at half the price of the Makerbot base kit you also get the fun of building from scratch. Hopefully your fabrication skills are up to the challenge. If so, you’ll be printing useful items soon enough.

Arduino RFID Spoofer

April 18, 2010 by Mike Szczys 36 Comments

An Arduino, a spent roll of toilet paper, magnet wire, and a few passive components are what’s needed to build this RFID spoofer. It’s quick, dirty, and best of all, simple. However, [SketchSk3tch’s] creation is not an RFID cloner. You must already know the hex code of the tag you want to spoof. That may or may not be as easy as using a separate tag reader.

We’ve seen some very simple RFID tag concepts. What we want is a DIY reader that is easy to build from cheap and readily available components. If you’ve got one, make with the details and tip us off about it.

Hackaday Links: April 18, 2010

April 18, 2010 by Mike Szczys 19 Comments

Remote motion control

This project walks though a method of controlling motors with an accelerometer when the two are physically separated. Two Arduinos are used, with the user interface and the motor control connected via Ethernet. This must be useful for something; maybe it should be the next step once you get your accelerometer up and running.

CNC machine build

[Lucassiglo21] is doing a great job documenting his CNC build. The project has been ongoing for several months. He’s seeing some success with milling simple PCBs along with other millwork projects.

Condom starts a fire

Ever needed to start a fire and had nothing on you but a condom? Yeah, we haven’t either but that doesn’t diminish the fun of this whimsical ‘Condom Hack Pack‘ video. See the uses you never thought of for those rubbery package protectors.

Solderless PCB

Print your component locations on a piece of card stock and populate the board without any soldering? This is quick and convenient for a circuit that doesn’t need to last very long. It uses wire wrapping to connect the components, completing the circuit. [Thanks Frogz]