First Responder Call-In Using Google Voice

May 9, 2014 by Brian Benchoff 12 Comments

fire

Firefighters and firehouses are not as glamorous as your kindergarten self would lead you to believe. Most firefighters in the US are volunteers, and most firefighters don’t live in the firehouse. Instead of hanging out at the fire house all the time, they use a call-in system that displays a list on a web page saying, ‘Joe is coming to the fire house’ or ‘Jack will meet you at the scene’. It’s highly efficient given the budgets they’re working with, but as [Andy] discovered, this same system can be replicated with Google Voice.

The system relies on a Google Voice account that’s set to have all calls go straight to voicemail. The missed call sends off a voicemail notification to the Gmail inbox, effectively turning the Gmail inbox into a call-in system for free.

In testing, [Andy] noticed the Gmail inbox doesn’t quite refresh fast enough for his purposes, so he whipped up a simple webpage with a little bit of PHP to parse the emails and display everything automatically. The idea being that this webpage could just be displayed on a monitor in the station, waiting for the next call.

Another improvement [Andy] points out could be setting up several numbers, each for different status codes. It’s an astonishing simple system, and now something that can be replicated for free.

Quadcopter Built From Recycled Motherboards

May 9, 2014 by Adam Fabio 18 Comments

A quadcopter built from a motherboard

[Eric] has figured out a great way to build quadcopters out of recycled computer motherboards. Multicopters come in all shapes and sizes these days. As we mentioned in the last issue of Droning On, they can be bought or built-in a multitude of materials as well. Drones have been built using materials as varied as wood, PVC pipe, carbon fiber, and aluminum.

One of the more common commercial materials is G10 fiberglass sheet. It’s stiff, strong, and relatively light. Printed circuit boards are generally made of FR-4 fiberglass, G10’s flame resistant cousin. It’s no wonder [Eric] had quadcopters in his eyes when he saw a pile of motherboards being thrown out at his university.

[Eric] used a heat gun and a lot of patience to get all the components off the motherboard. With a bit of care, most of the components can be saved for future hardware hacks. This is one step that’s best performed outside. Hot melting plastics, metals, and resin fumes aren’t the greatest things to inhale.

Computer motherboards being cut on a shopbot Clean PCBs in hand, [Eric] headed to his local TechShop. He drew his dead cat style frame in SolidWorks and cut it out on a ShopBot. While a high-end CNC cutter is nice, it’s not absolutely necessary. The fiberglass sheets could be cut with a rotary tool or a jigsaw. No matter how you cut it, be sure to wear a mask rated for fiberglass resins and some protective clothing. Fiberglass plate is nasty stuff to cut.

Once the upper and lower frame plates were cut, [Eric] completed his quad frame with some square wooden stock for arms. The final quad is a great flier, and spare parts are easy to source. Nice work on the recycling, [Eric]!

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[Bunnie]’s Laptop Gets A 900MHz Scope Addon

May 9, 2014 by Brian Benchoff 30 Comments

Scope

Now that [Bunnie]’s open hardware laptop – the Novena – is wrapping up its crowdfunding campaign, it only makes sense that development around the Novena project would move over to the more interesting aspects of a completely hackable laptop. The Novena has a huge FPGA on board, with 2 Gbit of very fast memory hanging off it. Also, every single signal pin of the FPGA is broken out on high-speed connectors, making for some very, very interesting possible add-on boards. [Bunnie] has always wanted a portable, high-end oscilloscope to carry with him, and with the new oscope module, he has something that blows out of the water every scope priced below a thousand dollars.

The oscilloscope module [Bunnie] is working on has either two 8-bit channels at 1 GSPS or one 8-bit channel at 2 GSPS with an analog bandwidth of up to 900MHz. The module also has 10 digital channels, so if you need a logic analyzer, there you go.

Being a fairly high-end scope, the hardest part of engineering this scope is the probes. The probes for fast, high-end scopes cost hundreds of dollars by themselves, so [Bunnie] looked for a clean-sheet redesign of the lowly oscope probe. To connect the probe to the module, [Bunnie] realized a SATA cable would be a great solution; they’re high bandwidth, support signals in the GHz range, and are rated for thousands of insertions. These active probes can be combined with a number of front ends for application specific probes – digital probes, ones for power signature analysis, and ones for capturing signals across small loops of wire.

The module itself isn’t quite ready for production yet, but by the time the Novena crowdfunding campaign starts shipping, [Bunnie] will probably be working on the next add-on module for his crazy awesome laptop.

Hackaday At Maker Faire

May 9, 2014 by Mike Szczys 17 Comments

If you are planning your trip to Maker Faire Bay Area — May 17th and 18th — why not hunt down the Hackaday crew? We’ll be packing a ton of swag to give out to anyone who asks for it. But ideally we’d like to show off the best hardware we can find so don’t come empty-handed!

Want your Maker Faire stuff featured on Hackaday? You can Tweet in advance to let us know when you’ll be there and what you’re bringing. You can also track us down during the weekend as we’ll be frequently Tweeting our locations. Here is the contact list and information on some festivities we’re planning:

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Floreo: E-textililes And Moving Clothing

May 9, 2014 by Brian Benchoff 28 Comments

pedul [Alica] and [Jerika] are seniors in the Digital Culture program at Arizona State University and for their capstone, the wanted to take something that is traditionally male dominated and make it more female friendly. They chose e-textiles, which are most commonly extremely avant garde and nearly unapproachable with a lot of LEDs and zany mechanisms. Their initial designs reflected this, with multiple LED strips and huge shoulder pads. Then they discovered Flexinol shape memory actuator wire, and found this could be a much ‘softer’ integration of technology with haute couture.

[Jerika] and [Alica] chose to create an electronic flower, able to bloom with the help of a shape memory alloy. When a current is applied to the Flexinol wire, it contracts. Sewing these wires into laser cut fabric petals, the girls created a fabric flower that booms with the help of an LiliPad Arduino.

While they weren’t able to complete their dress due to electronic weirdness and burning out the wire too soon, they did succeed in creating a flower pin that demonstrated the intended effect.

Videos below.

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DIY Arduino Cases You Never Knew Existed

May 9, 2014 by Rich Bremer 23 Comments

There are sure a lot of varieties of Arduinos out there but there may even be more of a variety when it comes to Arduino Cases. Let’s take the most popular Arduino form factor, the Uno. Below are a handful of unique cases for the Uno-sized boards.

by [Megaduty], Arduino Protection Box

We’ll call this one robust. Although it is 3D printed, its intent is to be extremely protective of the inhabitant. Some extra thought went into this case, no tools are needed! After the Arduino snaps into place, so does the cover. There is an access door to get the input/output wires to the free world. [Megaduty] suggests that this contains $0.10 of plastic. Not a bad deal.

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Hackaday Meetup With HeatSync Labs And The Tymkrs

May 9, 2014 by Todd Harrison 11 Comments

hackaday-meetup-tymkrs-hsl

We know a lot of hackers will be heading to Maker Faire next weekend. If you find yourself passing through Mesa, AZ on your way or you’re a local hacker enthusiast then please feel compelled to drop by HeatSync Labs on May 15th between the hours of 5pm and 9pm for an informal gathering. You will get to meet HeatSync Labs hackerspace members and The Tymkrs (Whiskers and Addie) who are founders of The Rabbit Hole hackerspace in Rochester, Minnesota. Sorry for the late notice, I thought it would be a great opportunity to organize an impromptu hacker meetup in order to include The Tymkrs as they pass through town on their epic summer road trip.

If people have a project or photos of a project they’re working on I would enjoy hearing all about it and I’m sure others would as well. I’m looking forward to visiting everyone that can attend!

For those who show up early there should be plenty of pizza, soda and Hackaday swag to go around. I’d like to thank the members of HeatSync Labs for kindly letting me schedule a Hackaday style meetup at their hackerspace on such short notice. There will be some food and drink so don’t be too late or you might go hungry.

Meetup address: HeatSync Labs 140 West Main St. Downtown Mesa, AZ