Motorcycle Turned Chicken Launcher

April 25, 2011 by Mike Szczys 19 Comments

Those who frequently work with them will tell you that rubber chickens are actually pretty heavy. You’re not going to do much damage chucking them by hand and that’s why you need your own rubber chicken launcher. This most-excellent magazine-fed foul-flinger was built by artist [Sean Pace] as a senior project while working toward his fine arts degree at UNC Asheville. He reused the rear end of a motorcycle, purposing the spinning wheel to grab the birds out of an in-feed channel and fling them much like a mechanical football launcher would. It kind of makes us wonder if you could do the same thing with a pneumatic football launcher?

[Sean’s] contraption is built on a stationary base, but in the video after the break you can see it firing from a flatbed truck. Seems somewhat like a whimsical warthog if you’re a Halo fan.

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Can Crusher Keeps Track Of Your Recycling Efforts

April 25, 2011 by Mike Nathan 27 Comments

arduino_can_crusher

Instructables user [MRHint] was inspired by his friends’ recycling efforts, and decided to start recycling as well. The one thing he noticed was that they typically had no idea how many cans they had stored up, nor how much their bags of cans weigh. He figured that he could somewhat automate the crushing process while keeping an accurate can count using a handful of electronics and some elbow grease.

He started by designing a can crushing rig that would use an old windshield wiper motor he had sitting around the house. The motor is connected to a pulley, which drives a set of threaded rods connected to his movable crushing panel. When the motor is started, the panel is drawn against a stationary board, crushing the can.[MRHint] also had an unused Arduino hanging around, so he used it to control the crusher as well as keep track of how many times the crusher had been run.

From what we hear the whole setup works pretty well, but as with any project he sees plenty of room for improvement. Future changes may include a more powerful motor and a chain/sprocket setup in place of the belt and pulley he currently uses. Do you have any other suggestions for [MRHint]? Let us know in the comments.

DIY Resin Cast Project Box

April 25, 2011 by Mike Nathan 26 Comments

resin_casting

[Rhys] wrote in to share a custom project box he built from scratch using polyester resin. He states that in New Zealand, he tends to have problems finding the perfect project box. They are typically too big or small to get the job done, so he figured he might as well just build his own to spec.

Using Google SketchUp, he designed his ideal project box, then got busy building wooden molds. He scored some free melamine scraps from a local company, which he used to build the base of his molding rig. Once the inner and outer molds were built, he secured them to his base and mixed up some polyester resin.

A few hours later, he pulled apart his molds and smoothed out his project box with some sandpaper. He drilled and tapped screw holes, then prepared to make a lid and base for the box.

He admits that the process is quite involved, but there is something to be said for building yourself an enclosure made specifically for the project it is going to house. If you are looking to do something similar be sure to check out his blog – he offers up some sound resin casting tips, as well as some pitfalls to avoid.

Location Tracking? ‘Droid Does

April 25, 2011 by Mike Nathan 40 Comments

i_spy

Last week, the Internet was alight with stories of iPhone location tracking. While this wasn’t exactly breaking news in security circles, it was new information to many people out there. Lots of blogs were full of commentary on the situation, including ours, with many Android users chiming in saying, “Android doesn’t do that”.

Well, that’s not entirely true – the playing field is far more level than most people would like to admit.

Android does have the same tracking capability, as do Windows Mobile phones for that matter. Both companies also monitor the cell towers you have connected to, as well as which Wi-Fi hotspots you have passed by. All three companies anonymize the data, though they do assign a unique ID to your location details in order to tell you apart from other users.

Where things really differ is in regards to how much information is stored. Microsoft claims that they only store the most recent location entry, while Andriod systems store the 200 most recent Wi-Fi hotspot locations as well as the most recent 50 cell towers.

At the end of the day each vendor does allow you to opt out of the tracking services, and if you are seriously concerned about the data they are tracking, you can always periodically wipe the information from your handset, should you desire.

[Image via TheTelecomBlog]

Portal Turret Plushie Is Cute And Harmless

April 25, 2011 by Mike Nathan 16 Comments

turret_plushie

As many of you are probably aware, Portal 2 was released last week, and gamers have been going crazy over it. Over the years, people have constructed replicas of their favorite in-game items and “characters”, including portal guns, companion cubes, and turrets.

After playing Portal 2 for a bit, [Jonathan] wanted a turret of his own quite badly. Rather than construct it from hard plastics and resins however, he decided he wanted to construct a cuddly turret that talked.

With the assistance of his friend [Leigh Nunan], he is now the proud owner of a plushie turret. It’s a bit smaller than you might expect, but it is packed full of turret personality. The plushie plays audio from the game, can sense motion near its face, detect if it has been tipped over, and also knows when it has been picked up. [Jonathan] added all of these features by stuffing an Arduino inside the turret, along with a wave shield for playing sounds. Proximity and motion sensing are provided via a trio of different sensors, enabling the turret to behave in the same way its in-game brethren do (minus the machine guns).

It really is a neat little toy, one we would no doubt be glad to have around. Keep reading to see a short video of his plushie turret in action.

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Adding A Pedal To A Yamaha DD35 Drum Kit

April 24, 2011 by Caleb Kraft 3 Comments

[Paul] Wrote in to tell us about a quick project that might be useful to others out there. He was having some problems with the DC jack on his Yamaha DD35 portable drum kit. Naturally, he did what most of us would do and just broke out the soldering iron and prepared to solder it back in place(hot glue it afterwards, that always helps too). That part isn’t a big deal, we’ve all seen it a million times. However, while inspecting the DC jack, he noticed something silk screened on the board right next to it. As it turns out, that was a kick pedal jack. After a few minutes hunting for a victim around the house that would be sacrificed for its plug, he got his hands on one. A few moments later he was jamming away with a kick pedal.

We absolutely love these super quick upgrades. [Paul] thought maybe this feature was left out at the last minute, and we’ve seen this type of thing for a number of reasons. Maybe that was a feature kept aside for a more expensive model, maybe there was some other reason it was left off. Frankly, we don’t care, we just think it is awesome that it works!

Stay with us to see a quick video demonstration.

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The Vibrotron

April 24, 2011 by Caleb Kraft 18 Comments

Behold the Vibrotron! Constructed by the Carnegie Melon University robotics club, the vibrotron is a piece of a larger project called the robOrchestra. The mechanics in action here are quite simple. You have two reservoirs of small steel balls. One at the bottom, one at the top. The bottom ones are fed to the top ones using an Archimedes’ screw. Once at the top, they are dispensed through some tubing down to plink off of a vibraphone key. All of the timing is done via solenoids mounted at the end of the tubes. The final product reminds us of the Animusic animations that were put out a few years ago.

For this system, since they wanted this to be an automated and reconfigurable bot, they are using an Arduino to control the solenoids. This way they can change songs as they please. We have to admit though, we’d love to see one where the timing for the song was all done through tube length or some other passive system allowing it to be hand cranked and purely mechanical.

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