Learning To Walk, A Tutorial On Making Bipeds Walk

October 11, 2010 by Caleb Kraft 9 Comments

[Robert Lam] has produced a number of video tutorials, his latest being a tutorial on how to make a biped robot walk. He is mainly covering the individual motions and actions. He doesn’t go into any specific programming, but rather breaks down the act of walking into several motions and discusses the reason you need them as well as some variations. For some this will seem like obvious observations, but we’ve seen plenty of biped robots that attempt to walk without shifting their weight.You can watch this video after the break, but be sure to dig around in some of his other tutorials for plenty of good stuff.

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Creepy HDD Activity Lights Just In Time For Halloween

October 11, 2010 by Caleb Kraft 23 Comments

We almost skimmed right past this spooky HDD activity light thinking it was just another set of LEDs wired to the motherboard. However, they explained right off that they didn’t want just another blinking light on their case. They wanted it to change its intensity smoothly based on hard drive activity. While there are a million ways this could have been over engineered, we think they did a pretty good job of simplifying the circuit. The bill of materials is pretty much just a handful of resistors, LEDs, an opto isolator, and a capacitor. The effect, is quite nice and can be seen in the video after the break.

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Blueberry Squishee? Mechanically-separated chicken? Nope! It’s Oogoo!

Oogoo, A Home-made Sugru Substitute

October 11, 2010 by Phil Burgess 48 Comments

If you follow Instructables.com, it might seem like every third article lately is about Sugru, the nifty air-drying silicone putty that’s good for all manner of repairs and custom parts. It’s fantastic stuff (and we love their slogan, “Hack things better”), but one can’t (yet!) just drop in on any local hardware store to buy a quick fix…so [mikey77] has cooked up a recipe for a basic Sugru work-alike. His “Oogoo” (a name likely inspired by oobleck) is a simple mix of corn starch and silicone caulk.

A two-ingredient recipe would hardly seem adequate material for an article, but [mikey77]’s left no stone unturned, providing an extensive tutorial not only on mixing the compound, but how to add colors, cast and carve custom shapes, and how his home-made recipe compares to the name brand product. As a bonus, the article then drifts into a little Halloween project where he demonstrates etching conductive cloth, how to make conductive glue, and other hands-on shenanigans.

Hackaday Links: October 10, 2010

October 10, 2010 by Mike Szczys 21 Comments

Old timey pics with a new timey camera

Update: We’ve already looked at this one… see the full article for all the details.

One way to get old-looking photographs is to use a vintage camera. Then again you can just connect a 1908 lens to a modern dslr with great results. [Thanks MS3FGX]

Cheap iPad mounting bracket

Need a way to hang your iPad but don’t want to spend some bucks? [Tumbleweed] used a $3 plate hanger to do the trick.

Hand engraving

You can get free laser engraving when you buy an iPhone but it won’t look as good as this does. [Viljo Marrandi] spent eight hours on this, but most of the time was spent resharpening tools dulled by the tough metal.

Let time prevent your computer from going idle

Want to keep your screen saver from running? No need to change settings, software, or use special hardware. Just set your mouse on an analog watch and let the moving hands jiggle it around. [Thanks Lovro]

Add-on Panel Brings Automated Vents Flaps To A PC

October 10, 2010 by Mike Szczys 37 Comments

[SXRguyinMA] built a replacement top bezel for his computer case. He wanted to add vents that would automatically open or close based on the cooling needs of the computer. With some careful measurements he modeled the parts in Sketchup and sent out for them to be cut from styrene with a water jet cutter. The parts came back looking great and the assembly of the shutters went swimmingly. The bezel also includes a lighted screen for temperature information, as well as the front USB ports, headphone and mic jacks, etc. Hidden underneath is an Arduino board and servo motor. The Arduino polls the temperature and drives the servo to adjust the fins accordingly. There’s even a supercap in the circuit that will close the vents when the PC powers down or when power is unexpectedly lost. See it in action after the break.

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New A4 Jailbreak Debacle Puts The Brakes On For IPad

October 10, 2010 by Mike Szczys 26 Comments

If you’ve been waiting in the wings for the next Jailbreak to be release you should know there’s been a bit of a speed bump. [ChronicDevTeam], which has been working on an exploit for A4-based iOS devices called SHAtter, tweeted last Thursday that the fully tested, untethered, and unpatchable package knows as greenpois0n would be released today. But on Friday [Geohot], who you may remember from the PlayStation 3 Hypervisor exploit, rolled out his own mostly untested and admittedly beta jailbreak called limera1n.

So where does that leave the situation? Because [geohot] used a different exploit, the [ChronicDevTeam] decided not to release greenp0ison. If they did, it would give Apple a chance to block two different exploits. Instead they are working feverishly to incorporate, test, and repackage using the same exploit as limera1n.

If you don’t want to wait, jailbreak now, but you risk problems with an unstable exploit method that is only available for Windows.

[via @ChronicDevTeam]

Human Theremin, One Step Closer To Cyborgs (not Really)

October 10, 2010 by Jakob Griffith 5 Comments

Oh [Humberto], what will you think up next? A human Theremin you say, and it’s for Halloween? Certanly this will blow last years creepy capacitance sensing jack-o-lantern out of the water right? Eh, not really, but still cool none-the-less. By using pairs of IR LEDs and IR photo-transistors, [Humberto] makes a simplistic distance sensor. Then its just a matter of converting that light value into sound, which is accomplished by using some very clever PWM square wave hacking to make a triangle wave. Also, [Humberto] goes over the process of using fast integers to represent slow floating point numbers. While none of the project is really a new concept, it certainly is put into an easy perspective so anyone can try their hand at it. All well worth the read, or you can catch a video after the jump.

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