Fun Slide Whistle Synth Toy

February 28, 2011 by Mike Nathan 11 Comments

slide_synth

[Dino] recently sent us some info on his latest project, a 555 timer-based slider synthesizer. The synth was built to emulate the sound made by playing a slide whistle, and also as an entry into the 555 Design Contest, which is quickly coming to a close. If you’re not familiar with a slide whistle, just spend a few minutes on YouTube looking for clips of Sideshow Bob – it’s ok, we’ll wait.

The circuit is pretty simple, though the implementation is quite clever. While traditional slide whistles require the user to blow in one end, this electronic version operates using a LED and photo cell. When the main switch is closed, the 555 timer is activated, and a tone is produced. The pitch of the tone is controlled by the LED as it slides in and out of the tube. The more light that hits the photo cell, the higher the pitch, and vice versa.

Continue reading to see a quick demonstration of [Dino’s] slide synth, and be sure to check out his other 555 contest entry we featured a short while back.

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Web-enabling Your Smoke Breaks

February 28, 2011 by Mike Szczys 21 Comments

If you’re going to freeze your butt off smoking in the middle of winter you might was well have company while you’re out there. [Zach’s] company wanted to crunch some data about smoking breaks and worker productivity. Instead of just meeting the bland data collection needs he decided to add functionality.

He took time to explain the different parts of the system. Above you can see the web interface that lets you know which of your coworkers are smoking right now. It also lets you click to check in and out from your breaks. After this was up and running he found that often the smokers forgot to ‘clock out’ before a break. As a backup system he build a physical interface on the way out of the office. Each smoker has their own button with a corresponding LED. If the light’s on you’re having a break and when it’s off you’re working. This controller is Arduino based and uses a Perl script to monitor the input and sync both that physical display and the web interface. [Zach] posted a few pictures if you want to take a look at the rest of the system.

Giant Oscilloscope Music Display

February 28, 2011 by Mike Nathan 9 Comments

oscilloscope_wall

[Andrew] sent us a video of his home made oscilloscope wall, which he uses to visualize different audio tracks he has created. The wall is made up of nine old broadcast monitors he wired together in his studio. At first it appears that the monitors are split into two sets of four, with the center monitor running separately, but upon further inspection it looks as if he can control the display of each monitor independently.

We’re pretty sure he is not using an actual oscilloscope to generate the visuals, but rather visualization software that can approximate the output of an O-scope set in X-Y display mode. Though the screens run independently, it would be great to see all nine screens working in concert to display one large visualization. [Andrew] mentions that an high-def version is in the works, so perhaps we’ll see more features added in that iteration.

Stick around to watch a video of his oscilloscope wall in motion.

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Crank-arm Style Hexapod

February 28, 2011 by Kevin Dady 1 Comment

The latest robot out of Nolebotic is Al.I.S.E, or Aluminum, Infrared Scanning Entity. Don’t let the name fool you, its a pretty simple take on the classic hexapod walking platform using a crank arm and leavers made into the legs.

The body of the robot is made out of aluminum which is pretty easy to work with at home, lightweight, and sturdy. Bolted to the body are a pair of beefy gear head motors, a 9.6 volt rechargeable battery pack, along with a basic stamp 2 and its own 9 volt supply, and a Solarbotics 1198 CMD driver board.

Obstacles are handled right now with rudimentary infrared detectors and emitters, but it seems to work pretty good avoiding some library books in the demo. Combine that with clean mechanics and a pretty good stride and this thing can get up and move pretty quick.

Quick And Easy DIY Kegerator

February 28, 2011 by Mike Nathan 17 Comments

diy_kegerator

I think we can all agree, there are few things that go better with ~~hacking~~ everything than beer. [Tom] has taken his love for beer and building things, fusing them together in a DIY kegerator. Using an off the shelf mini fridge and some easy to find beer serving components, he walks us through the conversion step by step. When everything is said and done, the kegerator should hold two 5-gallon kegs along with the CO2 tank required to serve the beer.

The process is admittedly pretty easy, but it’s probably the quickest way to go from zero to kegerator. [Tom] has this down to a science, knowing exactly what needs to be altered and removed, so following his tutorial should save you time and headaches, should you attempt this conversion yourself.

It would be great to see this project expanded to include precision temperature controls, a method of determining how much beer remains in the kegs.

Santa-pede Contest Winners

February 28, 2011 by Caleb Kraft 15 Comments

We received several fantastic entries. We laughed, we cried, we stared at our monitors in confusion, it was fantastic. Now we’re here to announce the winners of the Santa-Pede contest.

If you recall, the rules were pretty simple. Aquire a dancing santa (or other holiday dancing annoying toy thingy in the same fashion), tear it apart, build something that walks out of the pieces. We were aware that most of these have a very similar setup with one or two servos and a bit of plastic. That way everyone has a similar starting point. We were amazed at what was done with so little.

Keep reading to find out who one each of the three categories: Most over-done, best walker with no extra parts, and best presentation.

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A Trio Of Last-minute 555 Timer Projects

February 28, 2011 by Mike Nathan 5 Comments

[Bob] has been busy lately putting the finishing touches on three different projects that he plans on entering into the 555 Design Contest.

His first entry is a low-power H-bridge, which can be used to drive small servos. While he admits that it is a bit odd to build use a 555 timer to construct an H-bridge, they are cheap and plentiful enough to justify their use. Check out the video below to see the simple H-bridge controlling a servo.

[Bob’s] second entry is quite a bit more complex than his H-bridge. His secret knock detector listens for a pattern of knocks, triggering a relay if the proper cadence is detected. If a knock is heard, the first 555 timer starts, listening for another knock within a specific time range. If a knock is heard during this period, the next timer is triggered, and the process is repeated. Subsequent knocks must be timed correctly, or the circuit halts, waiting for a reset timer to expire before listening is resumed. It’s a bit hard to get the knocks just right, but that should be fixable with a few small tweaks.

The third entry he sent us is a project that is pretty common, though with a somewhat uncommon implementation. Class D amplifiers are often built as low-power headphone amps for personal audio applications. He liked the idea of a Class D amplifier, but wanted to build something with enough power to listen to his music in a small room. To accomplish this task, he looked over the internal block schematics of a 555 timer and constructed a pair of high-power 555 timers himself, using discrete components to mimic those usually found in the 555 package. His results were decent, though admittedly not of the highest quality, and could be tweaked a bit to provide better sound fidelity.

Continue reading to see videos of each project in action.

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