Dot Matrix Clock On The Way

September 12, 2009 by Jakob Griffith 25 Comments

[Kevin] sent in his almost finished open source dot matrix clock. Sporting a hefty 40 x 16 display powered by a PIC 18F he has complete pixel by pixel control of the graphics. Combined with with a triple buffer he is at least able to output 15fps, with planned 30fps. While this has great potential for a clock, what about going further? Twitter updates, chat messages, weather updates, the current airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow; it will be tough to beat the competition without some more features. Either way, its an awesome project and we can’t wait to see it completed.

Rock Band Drum Set Remake

September 11, 2009 by Jakob Griffith 11 Comments

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uQhAx4l0fvs&feature=player_embedded]

We’ve seen some impressive mods for the popular video game Rock Band, from new cymbals to an air powered kick pedal, but we cant say we’ve seen someone go as far as the folks over at EDrums. They start off making their own mesh heads, a junction box to connect everything, and then a base to hold it all together. It is definitely some dedication and hard work for a setup that will only be used in the living room in front of the T.V. Check out some more video of it in action, and a comparison to the original Rock Band drum set, after the break.

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Life Size Animatronic Wolf Tail

September 9, 2009 by Jakob Griffith 31 Comments

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We’re not 100% sure the usefulness of this hack, but it is extremely interesting regardless and will probably make a lot of furries happy. WolfTronix presents their method for creating a realistic animatronic wolf tail. It uses an Atmel MCU controlling two servos alongside a mess of Klixx toys and paper clips to produce a nice wag motion. The guide is extremely detailed and looks to be fun, so long as you don’t mind the monotonous task of shaving off potentially hundreds of ‘nubs’ as they call them. Either way, you’ll definitely have the best (and only…) tail on the block.

Thanks [J. Peterson]

Aluminum IPhone Dock

September 6, 2009 by Jakob Griffith 23 Comments

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Last week we mentioned an article to cover up that ugly iPod dock; [Jozerworx] did one better by creating his own iPhone dock entirely. He had access to a machine shop where he combined some spare aluminum with an existing iPhone connection cable, but mentions the dock could probably be created with basic hand tools and a power drill. The design is quite minimalist and we would go as far as to say it has that shiny-and-made-by-apple-so-I-have-to-buy-one look. Alternatively, frosted acrylic with some leds would probably look pretty cool too, maybe it would blink whenever there is activity. What kind of dock would you hack?

Harry Potter Marauders Map Realized

September 5, 2009 by Jakob Griffith 19 Comments

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After reading about cheap wireless for microcontrollers, [Leigh] left a comment about his Marauders map. Much like the Harry Potter version, whoever holds the ‘map’ is able to see the location of the ‘marauders’ within certain bounds. Unlike the magical version however, each person being tracked needs to hold a PICAXE 08M, GPS, and 433.92MHz transmitter: while the map needs a computer running his Python script and a receiver of the same frequency. It has the potential for locating people, but we feel it might be better off in a swarm robotics setup.

Tap-controlled Metronome

September 4, 2009 by Jakob Griffith 8 Comments

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[Adam] and his buddy [Matthew] sent in their tap-controlled metronome, or as they prefer, “metronome with an attitude.” Using the piezo speaker you can tap patterns and rhythm into the memory and it will repeat it back to you in loop. The two buttons allow you to speed up or slow down the beat which is indicated by an led array. As per their request, we mention its entirely on a PIC 16F, not an Arduino. Perhaps the most interesting part we found that’s definitely worth checking out was their amazingly detailed build process. Check out a quick video of the metronome in action after the break.

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Circuit Board Instrument

September 1, 2009 by Jakob Griffith 9 Comments

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T8UzSVFUIc0]

[Moldover] decided to change up the way CDs are packaged for his album release. Yes, you still get a CD with some pretty sweet music, but the case can also play sounds. He custom printed a circuit board containing some LEDs, buttons, photoresistors, and what looks to be a piezo transducer which all combine to produce a strange whine like noise. But with the included headphone jack, he shows it can be used to produce some very interesting music – reminds us of circuit bending.

[Thanks Ferdinand]