Playing The Song “Still Alive” On Hacked Exercise Equipment

May 5, 2012 by Caleb Kraft 7 Comments

Back in 2009, [Evi1wombat] pulled of this interesting hack, and it has slowly made its way through the internet to find us today. He obtained the computer from a recently deceased treadmill and decided to hack into it. Finding himself unable to flash the existing chip, he yanked it out and replaced it with something he was more familiar with, a dsPIC30F4011. Unfortunately we don’t have any pics of the inside, but he says that he had some fun with wire because the pin mapping wasn’t exactly the same. [Evi1wombat] also gained some respect for the original designer judging by this quote from the source code:

* Damn, the dude who designed that board pulled
* some pretty nifty tricks… took a while to
* get all the drivers working.

Of course, once you have control over some nifty new hardware, the first logical thing to do on it is play “Still Alive” from the game Portal.

Enjoy the video after the break.
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[Jaimie’s] Giant Hexapod Project

May 4, 2012 by Caleb Kraft 44 Comments

Warning, this may be a duplicate post. We all agree we’ve seen this before, but can’t find it in our archive. If it is, sorry. If it isn’t enjoy one of the most awesome projects we’ve seen in a long time.

Meet [Jaimie Mantzel] an eccentric, and very hyper, individual. He’s done many projects, but this one in particular stands out as being quite ambitious. [Jaimie] is building a giant hexapodal walker that he can ride in. Dubbed simply “Giant Robot”, the 12 foot tall and 18 foot wide robot began construction in 2007. This individual is so full of energy, you’ll get tired just watching his videos. We’ve included, below, his introduction video as well as the video where his giant robot takes its first steps. Note that there are 67 videos of the build process. Unfortunately, as of the last video in January 2011, the robot is unfinished.

Don’t worry though, we know [Jaimie] is still alive. We saw him recently coming up with cool toy ideas.

If this has left you with an insatiable craving for a video of a fully functional giant walking ~~hexapod~~ octopod, don’t forget about mondo spider.

[Thanks Kamil]

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Upgrading A Digital Multimeter To Tell The Temperature

May 4, 2012 by Caleb Kraft 16 Comments

[Rajendra] tipped us off to this really slick hack he’s done to allow his multimeter to tell the ambient temperature. He’s basically measuring the output of an LM35 temp sensor that he has mounted in the case. The circuit is extremely simple and only requires the sensor, a couple resistors, and a switch so that you can return to normal function. When finished, you’ll have a multimeter that will display the ambient temperature when set to to the correct range (0-200 mV in his case). The switch is there so that you can return your multimeter to normal function afterwards. While [Rajendra] chose to display ambient temperature, you could just as easily create an external probe for measuring other things.

The Gas Cap Senses Your Flatulence And Displays It On Your Forehead

May 4, 2012 by Caleb Kraft 13 Comments

If you’ve ever found yourself wondering if there’s any possible way to let those with deficient olfactory senses know just how flatulent you are, wonder no more. The Gas Cap is here to fulfill that very need. A bar graph of sorts, located on the front of a hat that will light up to reflect the amount of methane sensed near your, uh, exhaust port. This project cost around $100, though a good portion of that went to the Xbee modules so that the detector could be separated from the hat, allowing for remote fart notifications.

This seems to be a project that is not as uncommon as one might assume. We’ve seen fart intensity detectors as well as tweeting chairs that alert the world when you pass gas.

[via Adafruit]

Fairly Simple Hack Makes Samsung TVs Reboot Forever

May 3, 2012 by Caleb Kraft 64 Comments

[Luigi Auriemma] almost rendered his brother’s TV useless attempting to play a simple practical joke. In the process, he uncovered a bug that could potentially upset a lot of people. His idea was to connect a computer to the system via WiFi, masquerading as a remote control. [Luigi] found that by altering the packet being sent to the TV by adding a line feed and some other characters to the name, it would begin an endless reboot loop.

He also discovered that he could easily crash the devices by setting the MAC address string too long. We’re not sure if he’s modifying the remote, or the television on this one though.

These bugs affect the Samsung TVs and Blu Ray players that utilize the same chip. The crazy part is that despite his attempts, he has been unable to contact anyone at Samsung to let them know!

[via BoingBoing]

An ATTiny13 Makes May 13th Brighter

May 3, 2012 by Caleb Kraft 4 Comments

When the time comes to go to the store and pick up those chocolates you always get your mother for ~~valentines~~ mother’s day, why not spice them up a little with some LEDs? [Dmitry] shows how you can easily add some flashing lights to the packaging without really modifying it. He’s using an ATtiny13 which only has 5 I/O pins, so he had to charlieplex the LEDs to get all 10 functional. The result is fairly quick and might just show Mom that you really do care.

[via HackedGadgets]

Hackerspace Intros: Null Space Labs In Los Angeles California

May 3, 2012 by Caleb Kraft 9 Comments

[Charlie] from Null Space Labs in Los Angeles, California sent in this fun little video as an introduction to their hackerspace. Going a bit askew from the traditional “walk through” method of a tour, they decide to first attempt semi-successfully to fly a quadcopter, film some police commotion, then show off some projects in progress. Don’t worry, you do get to see a fair bit of the space and the copious piles of parts as well.

You may recall seeing some of the previous projects coming from this hackerspace such as the time red bull sent them a mystery object and how they salvaged a pick and place machine.

Remember, we want to promote all the hackerspaces we can! We don’t care if you’re just 3 hackers in a basement with a single project, a multimillion dollar facility, or anything in between. Send us those video tours!

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