Adding A Pedal To A Yamaha DD35 Drum Kit

April 24, 2011 by Caleb Kraft 3 Comments

[Paul] Wrote in to tell us about a quick project that might be useful to others out there. He was having some problems with the DC jack on his Yamaha DD35 portable drum kit. Naturally, he did what most of us would do and just broke out the soldering iron and prepared to solder it back in place(hot glue it afterwards, that always helps too). That part isn’t a big deal, we’ve all seen it a million times. However, while inspecting the DC jack, he noticed something silk screened on the board right next to it. As it turns out, that was a kick pedal jack. After a few minutes hunting for a victim around the house that would be sacrificed for its plug, he got his hands on one. A few moments later he was jamming away with a kick pedal.

We absolutely love these super quick upgrades. [Paul] thought maybe this feature was left out at the last minute, and we’ve seen this type of thing for a number of reasons. Maybe that was a feature kept aside for a more expensive model, maybe there was some other reason it was left off. Frankly, we don’t care, we just think it is awesome that it works!

Stay with us to see a quick video demonstration.

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The Vibrotron

April 24, 2011 by Caleb Kraft 18 Comments

Behold the Vibrotron! Constructed by the Carnegie Melon University robotics club, the vibrotron is a piece of a larger project called the robOrchestra. The mechanics in action here are quite simple. You have two reservoirs of small steel balls. One at the bottom, one at the top. The bottom ones are fed to the top ones using an Archimedes’ screw. Once at the top, they are dispensed through some tubing down to plink off of a vibraphone key. All of the timing is done via solenoids mounted at the end of the tubes. The final product reminds us of the Animusic animations that were put out a few years ago.

For this system, since they wanted this to be an automated and reconfigurable bot, they are using an Arduino to control the solenoids. This way they can change songs as they please. We have to admit though, we’d love to see one where the timing for the song was all done through tube length or some other passive system allowing it to be hand cranked and purely mechanical.

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The LayerOne Hacking Conference Is Around The Corner

April 23, 2011 by Caleb Kraft 20 Comments

We just wanted to give a heads up to everyone to remind them that the annual layerOne hacking and security conference is coming up soon. They have announced their speaker line-up which includes talks on home monitoring, lockpicking, mobile malware and tons more. The event is located in Anaheim California on May 28-29.

They sent us sort of a press release with some information on the event and some details on the badge. You can read their email after the break.

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Simple AVR Based GPS Tracker

April 23, 2011 by Caleb Kraft 7 Comments

The latest project from Lucidscience.com is a simple AVR based GPS tracker. As usual, the instructions here are quite in-depth including schematics and step by step procedures all the way down to modifying cables when necessary. What we found interesting is that the GPS module he’s using is so simple. It only requires 3 wires, one for power, one for serial communication, and one for a heartbeat.

For the microprocessor, he’s using an ATMega 324, which is a bit of processing overkill but he needed the SRAM for the GPS point storage. You could obviously expand to external storage but the goal here was to keep it extremely simple. Actually, there just isn’t a whole lot here other than the microprocessor, the GPS module, and a level converter. After wrapping up the circuit he goes on to explain how to get the data into Google Earth for display. After a few trips around the block you can see the results are quite nice.

Thinkpad Dock-Picking

April 4, 2011 by Caleb Kraft 15 Comments

Hackers at the “RaumZeitLabor” hackerspace in Mannheim Germany have noticed that the locking mechanism on the thinkpad mini dock is extremely easy to circumvent. Sold as an additional layer of security, the mechanism itself is not really secured in any way. The button that actuates it is locked by a key, but the latch isn’t secured and can be accessed via a vent on the side. They are using a lockpicking tool in the video, but they say that even a long paperclip would suffice.

We know that no security device is perfect, and if someone really really wants it, they’ll take it, but this seems a bit too easy. Maybe the next version will have a little plastic wall protecting the latch from being actuated manually. Hopefully if security is your main concern you are using something a little more robust that a dock-lock.

[via the RaumZeitLabor hackerspace (google translated)]

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I Can Has Hackz?

April 1, 2011 by Caleb Kraft 42 Comments

AFTR NARROWLY AVOIDIN TEH AQUIZISHUN BY AOL FEW YEERS AGO, HACKADAI HAS DECIDD IT IZ TYME 2 PARTNR UP WIF TEH CHEEZBURGER NETWORK.

THOUGH U CUD NOTICE SUDDEN AN SHARP INCREASE IN KITTEHS LOCATD IN R POSTS, WE WILL STRIV 2 CONTINUE DELIVERIN TEH HIGHEST QUALITY HACKZ WE CAN FIND ON TEH NET. WE EXPECT DAT DIS NEW POSISHUN SHUD HALP PLANT US FIRMLY IN DA HEARTS AN SOULS OV TEH GENERAL POPULACE AN HALP MAK HACKIN MOAR ACCEPTABLE 2 TEH MAINSTREAM.

PLZ CONTINUE 2 SUBMIT UR TIPS AS WELL AS ANY CUTE PICTUREZ U CUD HAS OV KITTEHS OR DAWGGIEZ. COMBININ TEH 2 WILL GIT U BONUS POINTS.

aaaaand, that’s it. Enjoy your April first and rest assured that the following posts will all be LEGITZ.

Hackaday Is Looking For A Full Time Project Builder/ Video Host!

March 24, 2011 by Caleb Kraft 79 Comments

Hackaday.com is looking for an experienced hacker/writer to join our team doing original hacking and modding projects on video. Are you energetic, outgoing, and passionate about hacking/modding? Can you solder AND explain what you’re doing and why? Come join our team and modify/hack/create things daily with a professional film crew to be aired on HackADay, then post a writeup detailing how you did your hack. Let your mind run wild, combine Mythbusters with Ben Heck, can you do it?

To be able to do this job successfully you need to be energetic, passionate and knowledgeable about hacking. The person who is perfect for this job will have experience with computer modding, hobby robotics, basic electronics, microcontroller programming, as well as some larger manufacturing skills like running a CNC mill and welding. Take a look at Hackaday.com to see the kinds of projects we would like to see created. Writing/blogging experience is a plus.

Job duties will include:
-following trends to see what the latest awesome hack would be
-brainstorming your own original hacks and mods
-executing those hacks
-breaking down the hacks to educate the viewers

This is a full-time, in-house position at our Santa Monica office. Pay is $30-$40k a year based on experience and includes benefits. To apply, please submit a cover letter and resume to our online job board (http://mhlo.co/ed886g). In your cover letter tell us why you’d be the best fit for the job, and please feel free to include any links to personal hacks/projects, or any future hack ideas you’d bring to HackADay.