Ping Pong For The IT Office

September 4, 2014 by Bryan Cockfield 5 Comments

The office environment over at [Adam]’s place of employment has recently become one of the many IT-related offices with a ping pong table, a cliché that he readily points out. However, [Adam] and the other folks at the office decided to step up their game a little bit by making this automated ping pong table.

The table first keeps track of the players with specialized RFID tags that are placed in the handle of the paddles. The paddles are unique to each player, and when they are swiped past a reader on the table the scoring system registers the players at the table.

Small capacitive touch sensors on the underside of the table allow the players to increment their score when a point is made. The scoreboard is a simple but a very well-polished interface that has audio cues for each point. The system is also able to keep track of the winners and the overall records are tracked, allowing for office-wide rankings.

This is the best table-related game hack since the internet-connected foosball table, and should be welcome in any office for some extra break room fun at work! All of the code is available on the project site.

Arduino-Powered Alarm System Has All The Bells And Whistles

September 2, 2014 by Bryan Cockfield 24 Comments

Put aside all of the projects that use an Arduino to blink a few LEDs or drive one servo motor. [IngGaro]’s latest project uses the full range of features available in this versatile microcontroller and has turned an Arduino Mega into a fully-functional home alarm system.

The alarm can read RFID cards for activation and control of the device. It communicates with the front panel via an I2C bus, and it can control the opening and closing of windows or blinds. There is also an integrated GSM antenna for communicating any emergencies over the cell network. The device also keeps track of temperature and humidity.

The entire system can be controlled via a web interface. The Arduino serves a web page that allows the user full control over the alarm. With all of that, it’s hard to think of any more functionality to get out of this tiny microcontroller, unless you wanted to add a frickin’ laser to REALLY trip up the burglars!

Baby’s Room Gets A Palace With This CNC Castle Decoration

August 31, 2014 by Bryan Cockfield 8 Comments

castle decoration

[Vegard] and his wife were expecting a baby girl, and decided to build a castle for their new daughter. As a prototyping geek with his own CNC machine in his apartment, he decided to take to Google Sketchup to design this well-crafted castle decoration for his daughter’s room.

The first challenge was figuring out what the castle would look like. [Vegard] had never been to Disney Land or World, and so had never actually seen any of the fairy-tale castles in real life. After experimenting with some paper versions, he settled on a design which incorporates multiple layers and can house lights within them.

The next step was to cut the final version on the CNC machine, then sand and paint the parts. After figuring out a way to mount the castle to the wall, some LEDs were added for effect, driven by an Arduino. The final version looks pretty good!

Hacking your kids’ room is great fun, and you get to keep making new stuff to remain age appropriate. We bet [Vegard] can’t wait until she’s old enough to enjoy a marble-run that wraps the entire room. In the mean time he can work on a classic robot stroller.

Foosball Now Part Of The Internet Of Things

August 26, 2014 by Bryan Cockfield 3 Comments

internet of things foosball

At a local LAN event, [Thomas] wanted a way to easily show off the capabilities from some of the Internet-of-Things devices everyone keeps talking about. His idea was to build an internet-connected foosball/table soccer/table football table to show off some hardware and software.

[Thomas]’s table automates almost everything that is part of the great sport of foosball. Once a user logs in using the barcode scanner, the game begins by deploying the tiny ball with parts salvaged from a Roomba. The table uses infrared sensors to detect the ball. Once a goal is scored, it is posted online where anyone can see the current score and a history of all of the games played on the table.

There are a few other unique touches on the foosball table, such as the LED lighting, touch screen displays, and an STM32-E407 ARM processor to tie the whole machine together.

For more information including the source code and demonstrations, check out [Thomas]’s project blog. And, if you get lonely, perhaps you can try the robot foosball player!

Halo-style Paintball

August 22, 2014 by Bryan Cockfield 12 Comments

paintball buggy

It seems as though [Nathan] has taken some serious inspiration from the Warthog. The iconic armored buggy from Halo video games has a turret mounted to the roof. Although [Nathan]’s buggy only shoots paintballs from its turret.

Mounting paintball markers (guns) to various objects such as vehicles, robots, or other machines isn’t quite as straightforward as it seems. Vibrations from anything can transfer through a clamping system and cause paintballs to break. This, of course, inhibits the functionality of the marker and is a messy cleanup to boot. Then there has to be a way to fire the paintballs, which is usually handled by soldering to the electrical connections in the marker. And the entire rig has to stand up to the normal jostling and sudden turns from the buggy.

[Nathan] has solved these problems first by creating a custom fast-change mount that allows any malfunctioning markers to be changed rapidly. The electronic firing mechanism is handled by an ATtiny microcontroller and there is a custom electrical connection that is automatically made when the marker is bolted to the mount.

The new system allows markers to be changed in about 30 seconds, much better than any other system. Maybe in the future [Nathan] can upgrade the buggy’s turret to accommodate a paintball minigun.

Speedy Drinkmaker Keeps Party Guests Hydrated

August 20, 2014 by Bryan Cockfield 23 Comments

After five weekends of work, [Alex] completed his automatic drink maker, the RumBot. What makes this automated bartender different from others is the fact that it is fast. VERY fast. It can serve drinks to five different locations in as little as 3 seconds per drink. By [Alex]’s estimation, this could keep a party of 100 people going without anyone waiting on a drink.

The RumBot can make either of five pre-programmed drinks at varying levels of alcoholic intensity, ranging from 1 (“Virgin”) to 10. And for that extra push over the cliff, you can turn the knob to 11 (“Problem”).

Drink selection itself is handled by a simple digital I/O on an Arduino with a 1950s-styled user interface. The frame is built out of wood and uses 3D Printed plastic parts. It houses a very robust servo on a ~~belt~~ screw-driven stage to move the drink nozzle, and special sensors placed at either of the five drink locations detect a cup ready to be filled. Any cup placed at any of the positions will automatically be filled based on the RumBot’s settings at any particular time.

Based on the quality of the build and the increased speed of this automatic drink maker, this should be a huge hit at any party. With all the knobs turned to 11 though, it might be a good idea to have a breathalyzer on hand! All of the code and schematics for the project are available at the project site as well.

Continue reading “Speedy Drinkmaker Keeps Party Guests Hydrated” →

The Most Basic BASIC Computer

August 19, 2014 by Bryan Cockfield 38 Comments

AVR microcontrollers can do pretty much anything nowadays. Blinking LEDs, handling sensor inputs, engine control modules, and now, thanks to [Dan], a small single chip BASIC computer with only ten parts (and four of them are capacitors).

[Dan]’s homebrew computer has it all. The ATmega 1284P microcontroller outputs a composite video signal and handles inputs from a PS/2 keyboard. The microcontroller runs at 16 MHz, has 7 kB of memory for programs, and can use a separate EEPROM to store data. It also has an array of GPIO pins for interacting with the physical world.

For software, the microcontroller runs a version of BASIC called Tiny BASIC plus, which is a stripped-down language that can fit in 3 kB of memory. This is crucial if you’re in the 1970s or if you’re programming on an AVR microcontroller in the 21st century.

We’ve seen other Arduinos and AVR-type microcontrollers that can run BASIC, but this one has a great form factor and clean look. It’s also a great way to get familiar with homebrew computing and the BASIC programming language!