Day: August 16, 2010

Brain Wave Skimming On The Go

August 16, 2010 by 16 Comments

Mentok: The Mind Taker

Master EEG hackers [MOG] and [Tim] over at the Makers Local 256 have been working on creating a Bluetooth EEG listener made from a Mattel Mindflex. This build is based on an earlier build of a group called [Frontier Nerds] (thanks for the heads up [Nathan]!), but this version ditches the Arduino in favor of a basic serial to bluetooth adapter for the sake of power efficiency (as well as not having to keep an Arduino strapped to you head). We have covered a few Mindflex hacks before, but this seems to be the most useful in a practical sense. They have included the code for a Bluetooth serial data logger, and the earlier build shows a good example of captured data visualization.

Using Videotape Tape As A Controller

August 16, 2010 by 25 Comments

Behold the Bodystick, an instrument built and demonstrated by [Erich Lesovsky]. It’s a bit like a string bass but instead of strings there is a strip of VHS tape. Apparently not all VHS tape will work, but if you have the right kind you can run voltage through it and then change the resistance with a touch of your finger. It seems that the hand not touching the tape needs to be touching a conductive pad, completing the circuit. The resulting resistance changes the oscillator values on a CD40106 CMOS chip. This project is a bit out there (just like [Erich’s] Mega-Tape-O-Phone), and in keeping with its peculiarity is the demo video after the break. Enjoy!

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Home Claw Game Delights The Little Ones

August 16, 2010 by 9 Comments

After seeing Toy Story [Will Gorman’s] son wanted to play the Crane Game. Rather than hanging out in the lobby of the pizza parlor, [Will] built one at home using Lego. The skill crane as he calls it has a large gantry to travel over the top of the treasure box. The claw can move side to side on the gantry, dropping for a chance at some loot once it’s in the right place. See a successful run in the video after the break and if you can’t help yourself, there’s build instructions that will have you up and running in no time. But you don’t have to build it out of Lego, sometimes you just need some junk to pull one of these together. Continue reading “Home Claw Game Delights The Little Ones” →

Robot Follows The Rules Of The Road

August 16, 2010 by 15 Comments

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y6R0wO1o01g]

This is a fantastic high school project. [Shmendrik213] built and robot a programmed it to follow common traffic rules. The robot drives itself with a DC motor, using one servo for steering and another to pan a webcam back and forth. The netbook that comes along for the ride is running a VB.NET program that can detect an upcoming intersection, read the street sign, and react based on other cars currently at the intersection.

The hardware is running on an Altera processor using firmware programmed in VHDL. We remember building a tissue box holder for one of our high school projects. Looks like the times have changed since then.

Androidome: Monome For Android

August 16, 2010 by 10 Comments

[Ewan Hemingway] tipped us off about his new Android app, Androidome. This is the first one he’s turned out after going through our Android development tutorials. It combines an app running on his Android 2.1 device with a computer running Max/MSP 5. The two don’t needed to be tethered, they just need to be on the same wireless network. This won’t be the best solution if you’re doing live performances, as the buttons on the screen end up being quite small. But as you can see after the break, it’s a great way to get into working with the Monome interface and decide if you want to build a dedicated physical version of the tool.

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GameBoy Analog Meter

August 16, 2010 by 30 Comments

Boring game.

Here’s an interesting setup using a GameBoy Advance as an interface and power supply for a PIC microprocessor. He’s got the PIC connected to the serial port of the GameBoy Advance and is able to pass and retrieve data for display on the screen. You can see above that he is showing two analog values from the pic. You can download the schematic and source code and see a few more pictures, but that’s about it.

[via HackedGadgets]