Home Made BlinkM Units

May 15, 2011 by Caleb Kraft 33 Comments

[Stephen] wrote in to show us this fun LED wall he constructed in his house. He says he was inspired by this project, but found the cost of the BlinkM units from sparkfun to be out of his price range. He really liked how they worked though, so he downloaded the schematic and firmware and built his own. He was able to fabricate 130 of his own for roughly 250 euros as opposed to the 1,452 euro price tag his sparkfun shopping cart had. That’s not a bad deal at all if you’re willing to invest the time in making your own PCBs and assembling the units. You can follow along on his site to see the entire construction process, as well as some pictures of his glass wall in action. The videos, however, aren’t loading for us. Great job [Stephen]!

Optimizing Code For PWM Efficiency

May 14, 2011 by Brian Benchoff 36 Comments

For some projects, it’s okay to have a microcontroller twiddling it’s thumbs most of the time. When a project requires the cpu to do just one thing over and over, there’s no loss with inefficient code – it either works or it doesn’t. However, if a project requires a microcontroller to do several things at once, like reading sensors, dimming LEDs, and writing serial data out, cpu utilization can become an issue. [Robert] wasn’t happy with the code he used to control a string of LEDs, so he rewrote his code. With the old implementation, [Robert]’s code used 60% of the cpu time. With the new and improved code, the cpu was only busy 8% of the time.

The code works by using a hardware timer to trigger an interrupt. After calculating the next time it should run again, and changing the state of the data line, the code just sits quietly until it’s needed again.

It’s not a pretty hack, or even one you can hold in your hands, but [Robert]’s determination in getting a μC to do what he wants is admirable.

Japanese Maid Mods A Furby

May 14, 2011 by Caleb Kraft 49 Comments

This video has been floating around the web recently and we thought that some of you might enjoy it. After a quick google search, we found out that this is [Julie Watai], a singer/model who also enjoys hardware modification. In this video, she’s doing a tutorial on how to circuit bend furbies. No, we have no idea why she is dressed like a maid. This immediately brought to mind that Bjork video we saw a few years ago. Enjoy.

Bluetooth Media Remote In An N64 Controller

May 14, 2011 by Caleb Kraft 5 Comments

[Phik] wrote in to share his very first microcontroller project with us. He built a bluetooth remote in an old Nintendo 64 controller to control an audio application on his computer. He had been building up the individual modules with the controller in mind for some time, but initially had no idea what kind of enclosure to put it in. After a failed attempt at stuffing it into an XBox controller(surely there was enough space), he realized he had a broken N64 controller lying around that he cold use. We think he did a fantastic job of mounting it, it looks almost like a commercial product. He documented the construction and testing of each individual module. You can find each of those broken into their own post on his site by checking out the archives. Great job [Phik], especially for your first project!

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Emulating A Marching Band With Wearable Instruments

May 13, 2011 by Brian Benchoff 9 Comments

[Scott] is a design and technology master’s student who just came up with The Imaginary Marching Band – virtual band instruments you can wear on your hand.

Taking inspiration from Minority Report and the NES Power Glove, the system is able to emulate 6 instruments at this point – A trumpet, trombone, tuba, snare drum, bass drum, and cymbals. The glove itself reads data from a variety of sensors and passes that onto an Arduino Uno which sends serial data back to a computer. This data is then parsed by a Serial – MIDI converter, and can then be played back through a sampler, synthesizer or piped into your sequencer of choice. Happily, [Scott] will be designing custom PCBs for his gloves to cut down on space and weight, and he’ll also be making his project open-source eventually.

[Scott] has a kickstarter page for his project, and so far he’s been on track towards getting this project funded. Check out a demo after the break.

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Stress Testing Robots…with Baseball Bats

May 13, 2011 by Mike Nathan 39 Comments

robot_stress_test

When you are working on constructing ~~the first Cyberdyne Systems Model 101 prototype~~ a super-robust robotic arm, you’ve got to test it somehow, right?

You probably recognize the robot being abused in the video below, as we have talked about the construction of its hand once once before. The German Aerospace Center has been working on the DLR Hand Arm System for some time now, and are obviously really excited to show you how their design performs.

In case you are not familiar, the arm you see there uses 52 different motors, miniaturized control electronics, and a slew of synthetic tendons to behave like a human arm – only much better. The system’s joints not only provide for an incredible amount of articulation, they are specially designed to allow the unit to absorb and dissipate large amounts of energy without damaging the structure.

We think that any human would be hard pressed to retain their composure, let alone be able move their arm after suffering a blow from a baseball bat, yet the robot arm carries on just fine. It’s awesome technology indeed.

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USB Geiger Counter Hack

May 13, 2011 by Mike Nathan 17 Comments

usb_geiger

[Vic] bought a Kvarts DRSB-01 Geiger counter a few years ago, and recently dug it out of his electronics stash. The counter is a run of the mil no-frills unit. It lacks any kind of LCD display and it cannot be calibrated, so Sievert exposure ratings are out of the question. The unit essentially monitors background radiation and alerts the user to the presence of gamma and high-energy beta rays via audible clicks.

[Vic] wanted to make it a bit more useful, so he decided to interface it with his computer in order to take long-term radiation measurements. He dug up a schematic online and deadbugged a small circuit using an ATtiny44. The circuit allows him to enumerate the electrical pulses generated by ionizing particles striking the Geiger tube, passing them along to his PC over USB.

The counter seems to interface with the PC just fine, but [Vic] does say that he’s getting some odd readings. He thinks that he might have damaged the tube while messing around, but he’s all ears if you have any insight on the matter.