Halloween Hacks: A Light And Music Show Fit For [Jack Skellington]

October 28, 2011 by Mike Nathan 4 Comments

Halloween Hacks Banner

singing_pumpkin_halloween_show

[Greg] was looking for something to build using his recently acquired Arduino, and with Halloween approaching, he thought a cool light display would make a great project. He browsed around online and found this tutorial that shows how to build a chorus of singing pumpkins controlled by a computer’s parallel port. Since he didn’t have any computers with a parallel port kicking around anymore, he decided to try his hand at recreating it with an Arduino.

[Greg] gathered eight light up Jack-o-Lanterns, along with a handful of relays and other miscellaneous components. He wired up the relays to trigger each individual pumpkin’s built in light when switched by the Arduino. He sat down and carefully listened through “This is Halloween” from The Nightmare Before Christmas, choreographing each of the pumpkins to take on the voice of one of the movie’s characters.

When the show begins, the display transforms from a group of unassuming pumpkins with candles a-flicker to a chorus of ghouls extolling the virtues of Halloween.

It really is fun to watch, so be sure to check out the video below. If you’re looking to throw together a quick display before the big day rolls around, [Greg’s] source code and diagrams should get you headed in the right direction.

Continue reading “Halloween Hacks: A Light And Music Show Fit For [Jack Skellington]” →

DIY Thermostat Keeps The Harsh Winter Cold At Bay

October 27, 2011 by Mike Nathan 13 Comments

diy_attiny_thermostat

[Phil’s] parents grow their own organic food, but the harsh Ukraine winters make storing it a difficult proposition. Since it can drop to -30°C on occasion, they asked him to find a way to keep their storeroom at around 5-7°C above zero. He decided to construct his own programmable thermostat to keep things in check, and has been documenting the process as he goes along.

The thermostat uses a DS18B20 temperature sensor to monitor the room, and the logic is handled by an ATtiny2313. When the temperature dips low enough, the ATtiny triggers the room’s heater via a standard 240v relay. He can check the current temperature via a small 7-segment display mounted on the control board, which also contains three microswitches for controlling the heater.

It looks like a pretty solid build so far, and while he hasn’t finished coding the thermostat just yet, [Phil] says that those details are forthcoming. He has published a schematic however, so you can get a jump start on building your own if you’re looking to warm things up this winter.

Continue reading to see a video overview of the thermostat’s design.

Continue reading “DIY Thermostat Keeps The Harsh Winter Cold At Bay” →

Hacked Parking Disc Can Be Controlled Remotely

October 27, 2011 by Mike Nathan 30 Comments

reverse_engineering_parking_disc

If you have ever traveled around Europe, you are likely familiar with parking discs. Required in many countries that would rather not deal with parking meters, these devices are placed in the front of a car’s window, and indicate when the vehicle was parked. When parking enforcement officers come through the area, it makes quick work of identifying which cars need to be ticketed.

[Michael] received a fancy electronic parking disc as a gift, but the device was incredibly buggy, causing him all sorts of grief. After contacting the manufacturer and receiving no helpful response, he took it upon himself to get things working properly.

He dismantled the disc and found that like many products today, the microprocessors were locked down behind a layer of hard resin. Undeterred, he decided to rebuild it from the ground up using an ATmega microcontroller to provide basic parking disc functionality. He also armed his disc with a GSM modem and a GPS receiver – the former gives him the ability to communicate with the device, while the latter provides accurate time data while allowing him to keep tabs on the car’s location, should the need arise.

The hacked disc’s guts reside in his glove box, and can be controlled using his iPhone, making it easy to tweak his parking time at will.

Check out the video below to see his parking clock in action, and if you have questions on any part of the build, [Michael] says he’s more than happy to fill in any missing details.

Continue reading “Hacked Parking Disc Can Be Controlled Remotely” →

Recreating The Commodore PET With An FPGA

October 27, 2011 by Mike Nathan 18 Comments

commodore_pet_fpga_clone

[Thomas’] love affair with Commodore computers spans well over 30 years, and not too long ago he decided to recreate one of his favorite Commodore offerings, the PET. As we have seen with similar undertakings, this sort of project is no easy task, but [Thomas] seems to be making his way along nicely.

Using a Xilinx Spartan-6 FPGA on the Digilent Nexys3 dev board, he has implemented the Pet in Verilog. Like the original, his clone contains 16K of both ROM and RAM, utilizing the same simulated 6502 microprocessor he used on a previous Apple ][+ project. The FPGA version of the computer sports a 640×400 resolution which is twice that of the original, so [Thomas] simply doubled the size of each of the PET’s pixels to fill in the extra space.

[Thomas] has made some great progress so far, including the ability to load games and other programs from cassette images over a serial connection. He says that there are still a few loose ends to tie up, but it all looks good from here!

Continue reading to see a short video of Space Invaders running on he PET recreation.

Continue reading “Recreating The Commodore PET With An FPGA” →

Halloween Hacks: Simple Robotic Skull Is A Perfect Last Minute Decoration

October 27, 2011 by Mike Nathan 3 Comments

Halloween Hacks Banner

simple_talking_skull

If you haven’t taken the time to put your decorations together it’s time to get a move on. With Halloween just around the corner big elaborate displays are pretty much out of the question, but [Boris] and the team over at Open Electronics have a simple project that’s sure to be a hit with the Trick or Treaters.

Using a cheap plastic prop that you can likely find at any Halloween store, they have put together a simple talking skull that moves along with whatever music or sound is being piped through it. The skull’s mouth is moved by a single servo mounted inside the brain cavity, which is controlled by an Arduino. The Arduino monitors the sound level of the source audio being played, actuating the servo accordingly.

It’s quick, simple, and effective – perfect for a last minute decorating project. If you are a little more ambitious, you could always put together a whole chorus of skulls without too much additional effort – just a few extra skulls and some servos would do the trick nicely.

Check out a quick video of the skull in action below, along with another short clip showing how the servo is rigged up to move its mouth.

Continue reading “Halloween Hacks: Simple Robotic Skull Is A Perfect Last Minute Decoration” →

Minibloq Arduino IDE Is In Beta And In Need Of Testers

October 26, 2011 by Mike Nathan 67 Comments

minibloq_beta

If you have been chomping at the bit to give drag and drop Arduino programming a try, Minibloq is finally in Beta and ready for you to test!

We mentioned the application back in April of this year, when [Julián da Silva] was still in the early stages of developing the software. His graphical programming environment is meant to put the power of the Arduino and its derivatives into the hands of children in an easy fashion, with a gentle learning curve.

A lot has transpired since we first wrote about Minibloq, including a very successful Kickstarter campaign, along with many hours of programming and testing. The current Beta release includes a ton of features and programming “blocks” beyond what we saw earlier this year, so be sure to check out the video below for a quick tour of what’s new.

[Julián] says that the application’s source code will be released after they add a few key features, so keep an eye out for that if you’re interested in taking a peek under the hood.

Continue reading “Minibloq Arduino IDE Is In Beta And In Need Of Testers” →

Huge Flexible LED Matrix Can Be Worn Almost Anywhere

October 26, 2011 by Mike Nathan 24 Comments

lightbright_led_mesh

[Erik] has been keeping extremely busy with his latest project, a flexible RGB LED matrix that he calls “Project Light Bright”. The folks at BuildLounge tell us that this is the first entry they have received so far in their “Light Contest”, in which they are giving away a free laser cutter to the best entry.

[Erik] hand soldered ten 16×16 RGB LED panels together in order to build this display, and the results are awesome. The entire thing is controlled by a WiFi-enabled Beagleboard, which drives all of the panels and then some. The Beagleboard features embedded web and DNS servers, which allows it to act as a wireless AP, enabling him to control the display using any WiFi capable device. The Light Bright displays all sorts of predefined artwork, but [Erik] can also alter the display on the fly via his phone as well. The entire thing is powered by a reasonably sized LiPo battery pack that he keeps tucked away in his pocket, which allows the display to run continuously for about 20 hours.

Check out the video below to see a quick walkthrough of [Erik’s] Light Bright suit, then be sure to stop by his site for more videos, details and updates on the project.

Continue reading “Huge Flexible LED Matrix Can Be Worn Almost Anywhere” →