Giving The Pi Zero USB, Ethernet, And Serial Over USB

February 25, 2016 by Brian Benchoff 55 Comments

Just as the USB port on your phone can serve as a serial connection, mass storage device, and a network connection, the Pi Zero can do the same. We’ve seen a few people turn the Zero into a single USB gadget, but what about turning the Zero into a USB HID device, network connection, and serial port all at the same time? That’s what [Tobias] did, and his method is even easier than the old one.

The old method of turning the Pi Zero into a USB device required the user to modify and recompile the kernel. Obviously, this isn’t an ideal solution. [Tobias]’ implementation fixes this by putting everything into userland. Everything is configurable through a script and a few tweaks to how the Pi starts up.

The result is a Raspberry Pi Zero that will appear as any USB peripheral. [Tobias] goes through the usual examples: setting the Pi up as a serial device for hacking and code cracking in a terminal, as an Ethernet device to give the Pi Zero networking capabilities, as a keyboard to send keypresses to another computer, and as a mass storage device so that other computers can read a small portion of the Pi’s SD card.

There are plenty more USB gadgets the Pi can emulate, from printers to audio devices to MIDI adapters to webcams. If you can wrap your head around what a Pi Zero could do when configured as one of these devices, drop a note in the comments.

Picture Frame Mashup Taps Subreddits For “Deep Thoughts”

February 24, 2016 by Dan Maloney 17 Comments

Remember “Deep Thoughts by Jack Handey”? We do, and we always enjoyed the quirky mix of soothing music, soft-focus nature images, and random absurd thought scrolling across the screen as bumpers between segments on Saturday Night Live. Clearly, [tvm78] remembers them, because his picture frame mashups of the r/EarthPorn and r/ShowerThoughts subreddits could have been written by Jack himself.

While [tvm78] shares no photos of his build and offers no tutorials, he makes it clear that this was his first build of any kind. He does offer a few details, like the fact that he’s driving a display with a Raspberry Pi, and he handily references a similar build that includes the code he borrowed to make his frame happen. While we feel that the original mashup works well, several helpful redditors offer suggestions for other combinations, like r/ArchitecturePorn and /r/nocontext, or r/abandonedporn and r/onelinehorror. Of course a straight grab from r/demotivational could be fun too.

We’ve seen tons of web-enabled picture frames before, and plenty of “magic mirror” builds that display useful information on a two-way mirror. But this one appeals to the cynic in us, and would make Jack Handey proud.

Add A Slide Show To Your Fish Tank

February 24, 2016 by Anool Mahidharia 11 Comments

Once in a way we get a hack that makes us wonder – why didn’t we think of that ? [hydronics] tore apart an old LCD monitor and built a fish tank around it. Not sure if the fish notice that they are swimming on the Moon, but it sure makes for an interesting fish tank display.

He starts by ripping apart an old 19″ LCD monitor and built an acrylic fish tank around the display. The backlight of the panel is fixed at the rear side of the fish tank, along with the rest of the electronics from the old monitor.

For an earlier version, he built his own back light, but the second version with the original back light turned out much better. The fish tank pieces were joined together using acrylic glue and left over night to dry, although he still needed to use some silicone to plug leaks.

A Raspberry Pi connected to the monitor’s HDMI input provides the background slide show. [Tony Rieker] helped add bubble animations via some OpenCV code running on the Pi. A live feed of the fish is overlaid on the slide show, adding a level of inception to this tricked up fish tank. The project was recently shown off at the Portland Winter Light Festival.

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Plastic Battlebots Might Bite Your Hand Off

February 24, 2016 by Sonya Vasquez 22 Comments

The folks at Fetch Robotics do love a good game of combat robots. Time is tight these days, however, so putting together a good ol’ 220-pounder for Robogames is a dream few of us can realize. Instead, the Fetch team hosted their own Plastic fantastic battlebots competition to blow off some steam, and the results are in!

Battlebots enter the ring built from a frame of entirely plastic parts and weighing a humble 3lbs. Just like Battlebots and Robogames, they’ll follow a 2-minute episode of hack-and-slash after which judges determine the winner. Bots were forged from everything you might see in arms reach of your local hackerspace: pvc pipe, acrylic sheets, and a few 3D-printed components. On the menu of shredded plastic we have everything from classic wedges and spinners to a giant spinning rubber pterodactyl strapped onto the body of an RC car. (Time is tight, right?)

While 3 pound plastic fighters might not seem devastating, don’t underestimate the LiPo batteries and brushless motors that are running under the hood. These competitors can easily heave each other across the ring. We’ve definitely seen mini Battlebot tournaments before, and we’re thrilled to see them on the rise in everyday places. Better start getting your materials ready. Who knows? Mini Battlebots might be coming to an alley near you too.

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Quickie WiFi Scanner

February 24, 2016 by Elliot Williams 4 Comments

File this project under “Getting Stuff Done” rather than “Shiniest Things”. [filid] works with a local free-WiFi access group, and wanted to map out the signal strength (RSSI) and coverage of their installations. This is a trivial task for an ESP8266, and it was even easier for [filid] because he had already written some WiFi scanner code for the same hardware.

Basically, the device is a Neopixel ring connected to an ESP8266. If it detects a router that’s part of the Freifunk München network, it displays the RSSI on the ring in an attractive circular “bargraph”. When it doesn’t detect a Freifunk node, it displays the number of WiFi routers that it finds. It dumps a lot more detail over the serial port.

The code is short and sweet. Take a look if you’re just getting started with networking using the Arduino firmware on an ESP. Even if you don’t live in Munich, you’ll be able to tweak it to your own situation in a few seconds.

We want to see a GPS and an SD card added to this one, for a standalone wardriving-with-purpose setup. And while we admit that the small form-factor is probably appropriate for this project, how much cooler would it be if it glowed blue like Bilbo’s “Sting”?

Hackaday Prize Worldwide: Dallas

February 24, 2016 by Brandon Dunson 11 Comments

Join us for a Meetup on Saturday, March 19th in the Lone Star State. Team Hackaday will be at the Dallas Makerspace and we want to hang out with you. Bring a hack to show off and come see what everyone else in the area has been up to.

Come join us for food, drinks and lightning talks. If you aren’t familiar with lightning talks it’s pretty simple, they’re designed to be short and to the point talks no longer than 7 minutes. Bring one of your hacks and 5 to 7 minutes of bragging rights to show off. Or perhaps you are working on a new project and need some help, what better audience to bounce ideas off of? Come on out and show us what you got no matter what stage of the project you’re in, we want to see it and hear all about it.

This is a free event and you are not required to be a member of the Dallas Makerspace to attend, however we do want you to RSVP if you plan to come.

We can’t wait to see what you’ve been working on and we want to hear all about it. We will also have a few Hackaday related talks: [Mike Szczys] is giving a talk on Hackaday Belgrade and [Brandon Dunson] is giving a talk on the 2016 Hackaday Prize. The monthly hardware design workshop I will be teaching at the Dallas Makerspace starting in April: Mrs Penny’s Driving School will also be the topic of a lightning talk. Full disclosure: [Mike Szczys] also hinted at giving another talk but we’ll have to wait and see what he chooses to talk about.

The Challenges Of A Laundry Folding Robot

February 24, 2016 by Adam Fabio 54 Comments

“This is the year of the general purpose home robot!” “2016 is going to be for robots like 1976 was for the home computer!” The problem with statements like those is the fact that we’ve been hearing them since the 1970’s. General purpose home robots still have a long way to go. Sure, we’ve got Roomba, we’ve even got self-driving cars. But we don’t have Rosie from the Jetsons. And while I don’t think we’re going to get to Rosie for a while, there are some simple challenges that can spur development in that direction. One need look no further than one’s own laundry room.

Using machines to wash and dry laundry isn’t a new concept. Washers and dryers have become commonplace enough that we don’t think of them as robots. Hamilton Smith patented the rotary washing machine in 1858. Maytag has had home machines available for nearly 100 years. Many of the early machines were powered by gasoline engines, as electricity wasn’t common in rural farmhouses. Things have improved quite a bit since then! From the dryer we transfer our laundry to a basket, where it has to be folded. It is this final step that cries out for a homemaking automaton to take this chore out of Everyman’s hands.

As one can imagine, folding laundry is one of those tasks that is easy for humans, but hard for robots. However, it’s not impossible. The idea of this article is to show what has been done, and get people talking. A project like this would take a person or group of people with skills in mechanics, electronics, machine vision, and software. It would also be sure to place well in the 2016 Hackaday Prize.

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