Mobile Electronics Workstation Has It All In A Small Package

May 10, 2021 by Kristina Panos 13 Comments

Home is absolutely everything these days. Plenty of spaces around the abode have had to do double and triple duty as we navigate work, play, and everything in between. Although it’s been a great time to engage in hobbies and even find new ones, where exactly are we supposed put all the stuff that accumulates?

[Fabse89] needed a portable, usable solution for doing electronics work that could be easily packed away. They happened upon a tool case being thrown out, and repurposed it into a great one-stop solution for whenever the urge to play with pixies strikes.

[Fabse89] started by stripping the box out to the bare walls and modeling the inside in Fusion360. Then they built and cut an acrylic insert that holds two power supplies and a soldering station. There are fixed 5 V and 12 V outputs on one power supply, plus a variable supply that maxes out at 48 V.

When it came to tool storage options, [Fabse89] got lucky with a small, seldom-used set of plastic drawers that fits perfectly next to the power station. These hold all the small tools like flush cutters, pliers, and a de-soldering pump. The top section of the case folds back and is the perfect place for component storage boxes. We think this is a tidy solution and especially like that you don’t have to dismantle it to use it — can be used with everything in place and packed up quickly. We also like that the front lid pulls down into a makeshift table, so this really could go anywhere with mains power.

Acrylic not rugged enough for your tastes? Here’s a DIY supply that doubles as a melee weapon.

MIT’s Hair-Brushing Robot Untangles Difficult Robotics Problem

May 8, 2021 by Kristina Panos 12 Comments

Whether you care to admit it or not, hair is important to self-image, and not being able to deal with it yourself feels like a real loss of independence. To help people with limited mobility, researchers at MIT CSAIL have created a hair-brushing robot that combines a camera with force feedback and closed-loop control to adjust to any hair type from straight to curly on the fly. They achieved this by examining hair as double helices of soft fibers and developed a mathematical model to untangle them much like a human would — by working from the bottom up.

It may look like a hairbrush strapped to a robot arm, but there’s more to it than that. Before it ever starts brushing, the robot’s camera takes a picture that gets cropped down to a rectangle of pure hair data. This image is converted to grayscale, and then the program analyzes the x/y image gradients. The straighter the hair, the more edges it has in the x-direction, whereas curly hair is more evenly distributed. Finally, the program computes the ratio of straightness to curliness, and uses this number to set the pain threshold.

The brush is equipped with sensors that measure the forces being exerted on the hair and scalp as it’s being brushed, and compares this input to a baseline established by a human who used it to brush their own hair. We think it would be awesome if the robot could grasp the section of hair first so the person can’t feel the pull against their scalp, and start by brushing out the ends before brushing from the scalp down, but we admit that would be asking a lot. Maybe they could get it to respond to exclamations like ‘ow’ and ‘ouch’. Human trials are still in the works. For now, watch it gently brush out various wigs after the break.

Even though we have wavy hair that tangles quite easily, we would probably let this robot brush our hair. But this haircut robot? We’re not that brave.

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K’nex Pinball Machine Is A Playable Work Of Art

May 7, 2021 by Kristina Panos 12 Comments

It’s really a wonder that we missed this one, what with all the extra time in front of a computer we’ve had over the last year or so. But better late than never, we always say, so behold, (a little at a time, because there’s quite a lot to look at), [Tyler Bower]’s pinball machine built entirely from K’nex.

Where do we even start? This is a full-size pinball machine, as in 7′ tall, 5′ long, and 3′ wide. [Tyler] estimates that it’s made from about 16,000 pieces, or around 73 pounds of plastic, much of which was obtained locally and is secondhand. Many of those pieces make up the ten drill motor-driven chain lifts in the back — these move the ball through the machine after it goes through one of the track triggers and return it to the playfield in various delightful ways.

Speaking of ways to score, there are nine of them total, and some are harder to get to than others. They all involve some really amazing K’nex movement, and each one uses aluminum foil switches to trigger scoring through a MaKey MaKey.

Of course there’s a multi-ball mode, but our favorite has to be the trap door in the playfield that gets you to the mini pinball game in the upper left, because only the best pinball games have some kind of mini game. Either that, or our favorite is the rotating arm that swings around gracefully and drops the ball on a track. Anyway, all nine elements are explored in the video after the break, which frankly we could watch on repeat. If you’re hungry for more details, there’s quite a bit of info in the description.

The only thing this machine is missing is a tilt switch, but as you’ll see in the video, it would probably get triggered quite often. Is this somehow not cool enough for you? Here’s a slightly bigger K’nex ball machine that doesn’t seem to move as much, but also isn’t a full freaking pinball machine complete with meta game.

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Auto Strummer Can Plectrum The Whole Flat-Strumming Spectrum

May 7, 2021 by Kristina Panos 3 Comments

Playing the guitar requires speed, strength, and dexterity in both hands. Depending on your mobility level, rocking out with your axe might be impossible unless you could somehow hold down the strings and have a robot do the strumming for you.

[Jacob Stambaugh]’s Auto Strummer uses six lighted buttons to tell the hidden internal pick which string(s) to strum, which it does with the help of an Arduino Pro Mini and a stepper motor. If two or more buttons are pressed, all the strings between the outermost pair selected will be strummed. That little golden knob near the top is a pot that controls the strumming tempo.

[Jacob]’s impressive 3D-printed enclosure attaches to the guitar with a pair of spring-loaded clamps that grasp the edge of the sound hole. But don’t fret — there’s plenty of foam padding under every point that touches the soundboard.

We were worried that the enclosure would block or muffle the sound, even though it sits about an inch above the hole. But as you can hear in the video after the break, that doesn’t seem to be the case — it sounds fantastic.

Never touched a real guitar, but love to play Guitar Hero? There’s a robot for that, too.

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Shake Up Your Magic 8-Ball With GIFs

May 6, 2021 by Kristina Panos 8 Comments

When you need quick answers to life’s burning yes or no questions, most reasonable people reach for a Magic 8-Ball. But since we all have most of those answers memorized at this point, has the Magic 8-Ball sunk to a cliche and become less useful in the present day? ~~Signs point to yes.~~ Yeah, maybe.

Not to worry, because [DJ Harrigan] has given the Magic 8-Ball a modern makeover by redesigning it to serve up suitable GIFs instead. Inside that beautifully-engineered snap-together shell lives a Raspberry Pi 3, and it displays the GIFs on a 240 x 240 IPS LCD screen. [DJ] wanted to use a round screen, but couldn’t find one with a good enough refresh rate. Maybe someday. We love this build either way.

Our favorite part is probably the power button, which is incorporated as the period in the ‘.gif’ logo. Although it takes a bit longer to get this 8-Ball ready to answer questions, it’s worth the wait. And besides, the splash screen is nice.

Once it’s booted up and ready to go, you still have to shake it — for this, [DJ] used a simple DIY spring-based tilt switch. Check out the demo and build video after the break. If you want to build one for yourself, the files are up on the project site.

Need decision-making support on the go? This Magic 8-Ball business card should fit in your wallet.

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Hacker Spends A Few Cycles Upgrading An Under-Desk Bike

May 6, 2021 by Kristina Panos 12 Comments

Pandemic got you way behind on your exercise goals? Us too. But not [codaris] who bought an under-desk bike to get in a bit of cycling while banging away on the keyboard. The only bad thing about this bike is the accompanying app — it’s all-around weak and requires too many steps just to get to peddlin’. It pays to know thyself, and [codaris] knows that this will be a major de-motivator and made a desktop app that does it all, including/starting up as soon as the pedals start spinning.

[codaris] built a Windows application that displays workout data in real time and then saves the stats in a SQLite database after the pedaling stops. It took a fair amount of work to get there, logging the Bluetooth traffic during a ride and comparing that with Wireshark output from a live session to decode the communication between the bike and the app. Turns out there are six commands total, and [codaris] really only needs three — Connect, Start Workout, and Continue Workout.

The app displays the elapsed workout time, speed, distance traveled, and the current RPM. We love that it starts logging and displaying data as soon as [codaris] starts pedaling, because that would be a major goal for us, too.

There’s more than one way to hack a bike. [codaris] was inspired by [ptx2]’s excellent work to un-brick a much more expensive bike with a Raspberry Pi.

Thanks for the tip, [Jhart99]!

Julius Sumner Miller Made Physics Fun For Everyone

May 5, 2021 by Kristina Panos 38 Comments

Let’s face it — for the average person, math and formulas are not the most attractive side of physics. The fun is in the hands-on learning, the lab work, the live action demonstrations of Mother Nature’s power and prowess. And while it’s true that the student must be willing to learn, having a good teacher helps immensely.

Professor Julius Sumner Miller was energetic and enthusiastic about physics to the point of contagiousness. In pictures, his stern face commands respect. But in action, he becomes lovable. His demonstrations are dramatic, delightful, and about as far away from boring old math as possible. Imagine if Cosmo Kramer were a physics professor, or if that doesn’t give you an idea, just picture Doc Brown from Back to the Future (1985) with a thick New England accent and slightly darker eyebrows. Professor Miller’s was a shouting, leaping, arm-waving, whole-bodied approach to physics demonstrations. He was completely fascinated by physics, and deeply desired to understand it as best he could so that he could share the magic with people of all ages.

Professor Miller reached thousands of students in the course of his nearly 40-year teaching career, and inspired millions more throughout North America and Australia via television programs like The Mickey Mouse Club and Miller’s own show entitled Why Is It So? His love for science is indeed infectious, as you can see in this segment about the shock value of capacitors.

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