Gum Ball Maze Updated… Now With Robots!

November 11, 2010 by Mike Szczys 5 Comments

In what is surely becoming an ever-growing Rube Goldberg machine, [Dan] updated his gum ball dispenser to include a robot arm. We looked in on this human lab-rat experiment that rewards successful maze navigation with bubble-gum just about a year ago. As you can seen in the video after the break he’s added several new features to delight users. The original had a maze actuated by an accelerometer and that remains the same. But when the device fires up, the wooden ball is moved to the start of the maze by a Lynxmotion robotic arm. That arm is mounted on rails so it can also move to deliver the gum ball after a successful run. There’s also an anti-jamming feature that shakes the gum ball dispenser to ensure you don’t come up empty.

Whether playing chess or being controlled by a mouse the Lynxmotion has been quite popular lately. [Dan’s] solution uses a vacuum pump to grab onto the spheres (both wooden and gum), similar to the method used with the CNC pick and place from a while back.

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Dungeon Crawler Game For IM-ME (and Linux)

November 11, 2010 by Mike Szczys 14 Comments

[Joby Taffey] takes the prize for the first completed homebrew game for the IM-ME. Over the last few weeks we’ve seen [Travis Goodspeed] working with sprite graphics, and [Emmanuel Roussel] developing game music for the pink pager. But [Joby] didn’t really use either of those.

[Travis’] sprites were using a framebuffer that fills up a lot of valuable RAM. [Joby] decided to draw the room screens (all of them have been stitched together for the image above) as a one-time background image to keep the memory free. From there, the screen is updated in 8×8 blocks based on cursor movement. He also decided not to add music as he feels the high-pitched piezo is not capable making sound without driving everyone crazy.

Source code is available and for those of you who don’t own this pretty handheld, the game can also be compiled in Linux.

Moving A Resistor For EvalBot Power When Programming

November 11, 2010 by Mike Szczys 24 Comments

[Riley Porter] posted a picture of his EvalBot USB power hack. In the photo above we’ve put a box around D6 and D7. The development board ships with a 0 Ohm resistor in the D7 location, patching in power from the USB-B connector labeled USB DEVICE. He found that by moving that resistor to D6 he can power the board from the USB-B connector labeled ICDI.

That connector is the In-Circuit Debug Interface. TI sent us an EvalBot bundle so we pulled it out and tried it ourselves. If you plug in the ICDI it doesn’t power the board, and no USB devices register. Shorting the D6 pads changes this and the following USB device registers:

Bus 002 Device 062: ID 0403:bcd9 Future Technology Devices International, Ltd Stellaris Evaluation Board

So it looks like you need to have two USB connections or be using batteries in order to program the board via USB. The uC/OS-III hardcover book that ships with the EvalBot bundle includes board schematics. We took a look and were surprised to see that they show diodes installed on both pads. Rev A of the online schematics have been corrected, showing an omitted diode on D6 and the 0 Ohm resistor on D7. Images of both schematics are included after the break.

It would have been nice to see a selector switch installed here to give you a little more flexibility when prototyping.

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Open Source Kinect Contest Has Been Won

November 11, 2010 by Caleb Kraft 25 Comments

Adafruit Technologies has announced the winner of the Open Source Kinect contest. [Hector], who we mentioned yesterday has won, providing both RGB and depth access to the device. Some of you were asking at that time, why the contest was not over yet. Well, Adafruit had to verify. The image you see above are of another user[qdot], verifying the drivers on his machine.

What is interesting is how Adafruit has chosen to close this contest. Not only are they giving [Hector] his prize money, they are also donating an additional $2,000 to the EFF who fight for our right to legally hack and reverse engineer our own equipment.

[Hector] is being generous as well, using his prize money to help pay for gadgets to hack with some teams he is involved with, mainly the iPhone Dev Team and the Wii hacker team “Twiizers”

Japanese Micro Planes

November 11, 2010 by Chris Nelson 27 Comments

Some very well engineered micro planes(translated) have been buzzing around the net. The goal here is ultra light weight. These suped-up paper planes have a remarkable target weight of around 10 grams (translated). The lighter the micro plane is the slower and more maneuverable it will be leading to some pretty interesting and scary applications. For controls it looks like many of the planes are using infrared receivers/transmitters (much like you would find in a TV remote hint hint). Getting the lightest plane possible has forced the designers to come up with some pretty ingenious tricks. For example, instead of using packaged servos they use a coil of wire wrapped around a rare earth magnet to control the flaps. You can see these home made “servos” in action after the break.

Some have taken a more classic approach and used rubber band power instead of a li-po/motor combo.

[via Make]

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Fixing The Future

November 10, 2010 by Joseph Thibodeau 59 Comments

[iFixit] (who we’ve posted about many times before) has launched a passionate manifesto promoting the skills and knowledge of repair as a solution to technological consumerism and waste. They use powerful footage of electronic waste dumps in Ghana to make the point that we must collectively change the way we use and relate to our high technology–take a look after the break.

The manifesto rallies against the practice of withholding repair knowledge such as manuals, error codes and schematics–putting responsibility in the hands of manufacturers–but also makes it clear that it is up to every one of us to inform ourselves and to value functionality over novelty.

Considering the many-faceted resource crisis that we are headed towards, any efforts to push our behavior towards a sustainable and considerate way of life should be considered. As hackers we repair, reuse and rethink technology as part of our craft–but we are also privileged by our enthusiasm for technical challenges. The real battle is to disseminate the kind of knowledge and skills we possess into the general population. This is where the heart of [ifixit]’s message comes into play: the creation of an open, editable online repair manual for every electronic device. If you have something to teach, why not pop over and help expand their database?

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Carbon Fiber Part Fabrication Guide

November 10, 2010 by Mike Szczys 38 Comments

If you’re thinking of working with carbon fiber this guide should be a big help. The example is aimed at the automotive crowd but the principles transfer quite easily. Carbon fiber parts are constructed in a similar manner as fiberglass parts. A mold is covered in a release agent, the fibers are put in place and covered in epoxy. With fiberglass the fibers are often sprayed on but carbon fiber components use woven mats of the material to build up multiple layers. Vacuum bags are used to hold the layers together, removing air and impregnating the fibers with the epoxy. This guide even outlines the construction of a vacuum pump needed for that step.

The benefits of carbon fiber are many, including strength and weight reduction. This makes it a great material for adding parts to weight-sensitive hacks such as quadcopters. But the mesh also has an interesting look which is why it shows up in custom electronics cases. The one real drawback is that when this material fails it is a catastrophic failure, tending to crumble across the entire structure rather than limiting damage to a small area. That means that a rough landing might be the end of your new parts.

[Thanks MS3FGX]