Immersive VR With A 200-Degree Stereoscopic Camera

VR is in vogue, but getting on board requires a steep upfront cost. Hackaday.io user [Colin Pate] felt that $800 was a bit much for even the cheapest commercial 360-degree 3D camera, so he thought: ‘why not make my own for half that price?’

[Pate] knew he’d need a lot of bandwidth and many GPIO ports for the camera array, so he searched out the Altera Cyclone V SOC FPGA and a Terasic DE10-Nano development board to host it. At present, he has four Uctronics OV5642 cameras on his rig, chosen for their extensive documentation and support. The camera mount itself is a 3D-printed octagon so eight of the OC5642 can capture a full 360-degree photo.

Next: producing an image!

Continue reading “Immersive VR With A 200-Degree Stereoscopic Camera”

This Mask Will Make You A Psycho

Videos games are a cornucopia of project ideas well-suited to the talents of makers and hackers, and Halloween is as good a time as any to show them off! Reddit user [Tavarin], a huge fan of the Boderlands video games, whipped up a plaster mask — replete with glowing eyes — of one of the game’s signature enemies: the Psycho.

[Tavarin]’s secret to forming comfortable plaster masks is to open his jaw while the wrap is setting  — that way he’ll be able to talk without breaking the mask off his face. Hot gluing in and modifying a 60mm PC fan and a pair of lenses meant that the only thing standing between him and a lot of sanding to shape the mask’s details was a few layers of thick plaster mix.

Continue reading “This Mask Will Make You A Psycho”

Why Only Use One Controller When You Can Use ALL Of Them?

After booting up his RetroPie system, [jfrmilner] had the distinct feeling that something was off. Realizing that the modern Xbox 360 controller didn’t fit right when reliving the games of his youth, he rounded up all his old controllers to make sure he always had the right gamepad for the game.

Wanting to keep the controllers unmodified — so they could still be used on the original systems — he had to do a bit of reverse-engineering and source some controller sockets before building his controller hub. Using shift-in registers, shift-out registers, and some multiplexers, he designed a large circuit selector — which acts as a shield for an Arduino Micro — so all the controllers remain connected. A potentiometer allows him to select the desired controller and a few arcade buttons which access RetroPie shortcuts really round out the hub. Check out the demo after the break!

Continue reading “Why Only Use One Controller When You Can Use ALL Of Them?”

You’d Print A Part, But Would You Print A Foot?

Born with just one foot, [Nerraw99] had to work around prosthetics all his life. Finally getting fed up with the various shortcomings of his leather and foam foot, he designed, tweaked, printed and tested his own replacement!

After using Structure Sensor to scan both his feet, [Nerraw99] began tooling around with the model in Blender and 3D printing them at his local fablab/makerspace: MakerLabs. It ended up taking nearly a dozen printed iterations — multiple printing issues notwithstanding — to get the size right and the fit comfortable. Not all of the attempts were useless; one version turned out to be a suitable water shoe for days at the beach!

Continue reading “You’d Print A Part, But Would You Print A Foot?”

What Is It, R2? Have Something To Share?

Sometimes great projects keep evolving. [Bithead942] built himself an R2-D2 to accompany him when he goes a-trooping — but something didn’t feel quite right. Turns out, R2 was missing its signature beeping banter, so he made it more contextually responsive by implementing a few voice commands.

[Bithead942]’s main costume is that of an X-Wing pilot, and the replica helmet works perfectly; it already has a fake microphone — easily replaced with a working model — and the perfect niche to stash the electronics in the ‘mohawk.’

Even though the helmet has the perfect hiding spot for a circuit, space is still at a premium. Services like Alexa tend to be pretty accurate, but require WiFi access — not a guarantee on the convention floor. Instead, [bithead942] found that the EasyVR Shield 3.0 voice recognition board provided a suitable stand-in. It needs a bit of training to work properly(cue the montage!), but in the end it compares fresh audio commands to the ‘training’ files it has stored, and if there’s a match, triggers a corresponding serial port. It’s not perfect, but it most certainly works!

Continue reading “What Is It, R2? Have Something To Share?”

DIY Barometer: It’s For Your Health!

[Taciuc Marius] and his colleague noticed that days with low atmospheric pressure plus caffeine in their system meant a spike in blood pressure. Considering how this might impact his cardiovascular health, he decided to make a relative pressure barometer out of a jar to help him decide whether he should really have another cup of coffee.

Aside from a 3D printer, you’ll need to assemble a small jar with a lid, some screws, lock washers, nuts, and a flexible membrane — a piece of a rubber glove or balloon will do nicely. [Marius] details the build process on his project page, advising others to print the parts at 0.2 resolution — potentially even upping the extrusion multiplier to 1.1 — to prevent gaps in the print that would compromise the airtight seal needed for the barometer to work properly.

Additionally, thick glue or epoxy is recommended for the rest of the assembly process — it doesn’t have to be pretty, but it does need to be sealed! The final product can be easily tested by simply holding the jar.

While this barometer helps one make healthy choices, not all are created equal. This one tells you flat out how you should consider getting to work, while others have been tricked into behaving like touch sensors.

Monstrous USB Power Bank

At some point, cleaning out the spare parts bin — or cabinet, or garage — becomes a necessity. This is dangerous because it can induce many more project ideas and completely negate the original purpose. [Chaotic Mind], considering the pile of  batteries he’s collected over the past decade, decided that instead of throwing them out, he would recycle them into a grotesque USB power bank.

Inside the bulk of this power bank are an eye-popping 64 18650 Lithium Ion cells, mostly collected from laptop batteries, and wired in a parallel 8×8 pattern with an estimated capacity of over 100,000mAh(!!).  The gatekeeper to all this stored energy is a two-USB power bank charger board from Tindie.

Ah — but how to package all this power? The handy man’s secret weapon: duct-tape!

Continue reading “Monstrous USB Power Bank”