POV Display With An Element Of Danger

December 30, 2013 by James Hobson 8 Comments

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Persistence of vision displays are always cool, although we must admit this one looks like it could very well explode at high speeds…

Safety concerns aside, this desk fan based display provides a great starting point for learning about making POV displays. It makes use of an old cellphone battery, an ATmega8, some LEDs, Veroboard, assorted wires and solder and of course, a high-speed desk fan.

[shparvez001] also provides the full code on his blog for the project, making it very easy to replicate. Though we might also suggest you keep it small enough that the original fan cage still fits on top.

From an aesthetic point of view, the display looks fine in the dark — but when the lights are on you might get some odd looks. We can see this project being greatly improved by mounting the LEDs through one of the fan blades, and the control electronics on the back side of the other blades. Maybe throw in some wireless charging for the battery while the fan is off too?

Anyway, stick around after the break to see the display in action. If you want a more permanent fan POV try adding display hardware to a ceiling unit.

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DIY Incubator Cooks Bacteria… Or Yogurt!

December 30, 2013 by James Hobson 14 Comments

Ever wonder what kind of fecal content is in your drinking water? Do you also like yogurt? If so, this DIY Bacteria Incubator is just for you!

[Robin] is part of the BioDesign team for the Real-World project which is an interdisciplinary project featuring biology, electronics, and environmental sciences to bring together solutions for real world water problems. Since it’s a community oriented project they strive to keep it open-source and well-documented in order to share with everyone.

The DIY Incubator is a rather simple tool that can be used to help analyze water for fecal contamination, which is a problem in many third world countries. It consists of a styrofoam box, a light bulb and a home-brew Arduino which provides the PID control of the heat. For bacterial analysis, regular coliform bacteria live at 35C, while fecal coliform prefer about 44C — if incubated at these temperatures the bacteria will make itself known very quickly (within about 24 hours).

Oh and if you don’t want to find out how dirty your water is, you can also make yogurt instead. Check out a short demonstration of the incubator after the break.

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Electric Snow Scooter

December 30, 2013 by James Hobson 20 Comments

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[Dane] decided he wanted to make a rather large electric scooter, capable of taking him through even the most inclement weather — that’s right, even snow.

Well, after about 18 months of stop and go work it is finally complete — for now. It features an impressive 7kW brushless 3-phase motor, a massive lithium ion battery pack and more custom parts then you could shake a stick at!

The frame started out as one of those big push scooters from the 80’s, in fact, it is the same as the one shown in Macklemore’s Thrift Shop video (pic)! But since then it has had many a modification done to it — it looks as though the front end is the only part that wasn’t touched!

He’s got an incredible build log his website, so if you want to build your own (you will once you’ve seen the video after the break), it’s a great starting point.

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The Crowbox Turns Crows Into A Cash Machine

December 29, 2013 by James Hobson 22 Comments

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[Joshua Klein] is intrigued by crows, and in particular, their intelligence. He’s devised a system that may be able to train wild crows into performing useful tasks, such as exchanging lost coins for treats.

The idea started as a random conversation at a cocktail party almost 10 years ago, and now has become a reality. In fact, we actually mentioned this project’s beginnings 5 years ago! So far they have succeeded in training captive crows to exchange lost coins using the Crowbox to receive treats. The end goal however is to teach wild crows the same thing — once this is proven, it could be extended to other tasks, like search and rescue, sorting through discarded electronics, or even garbage collection!

The project is opensource, and the Arduino driven Crowbox is looking for alpha-testers to help experiment with wild crows from different locals. The current community is rather small, so if you’re interested in the concept, please check it out. We’ve attached [Joshua’s] excellent TED talk on the intelligence of crows after the break — if you’re not fascinated by crows yet, you will be!

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Project Lucidity Wants YOU!

December 29, 2013 by James Hobson 11 Comments

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Do you lucid dream? Do you want to? [Dinesh Seemakurty] has just started something called Project Lucidity, which is the first(?) open source, developer friendly, fully featured, lucid dreaming sleep mask. And he’s looking for hackers to help!

We’ve covered lots of projects on lucid dreaming before, like making your own homemade lucid dreaming goggles, or modifying a commercial EEG headset for lucid dreaming. We also can’t forget the LucidScribe project either, the one that seeks to communicate from within dream state!

Anyway, what’s different about Project Lucidity? Well, first of all, it’s open source. Second of all, it’s based on an ATMEGA328P, meaning it’s fully compatible with the Arduino IDE. It looks like a great start, and [Dinesh] is planning on taking everything open source very soon — but before then he wants you to try it out!

If this sounds like a project you want to get behind and help develop, check out his site and sign up. Or ask away in the comments section!

Raspberry Pi Car Deck

December 27, 2013 by James Hobson 25 Comments

You can get all sorts of cheap car stereo decks from China, but where’s the fun in that? [Sentcool] is an IT specialist and electrician, and he decided he wanted something a bit more unique for his car — so he built this awesome Raspberry Pi car setup!

He’s using a Raspberry Pi Model B R2, a standard LCD car display (from China), a small 12V audio amplifier and an NF filter. The image above is from the first test of all the components together. He originally wanted to use a touch screen, but thought it might be too expensive for the project, so instead he’s carefully soldered switches onto some ribbon cable for the Pi’s GPIOs. Don’t you just love stripping ribbon cable?

From there it was just a matter of creating a nice wooden face plate and jamming everything into the center console of his car. It looks pretty good although the buttons could use some work — Don’t worry though, [Sentcool] is already thinking about upgrading it.

See more after the break!

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Motorized Longboard

December 27, 2013 by James Hobson 18 Comments

What were you building in your junior year of highschool? Well, for [Aaron Cofield], he built a motorized longboard.

He started with a plain longboard in the design he liked, gave it a nice paint coat (aesthetics over functionality people!) and then started looking into motorizing it. As it turns out there’s actually a pretty handy blog dedicated to converting longboards to electric. After many hours of research he settled on a 2400W RC prop motor and a 150A high performance RC car ESC unit. Who knew it was that simple!

A few metal brackets, some belts, sprockets, an idler and a whole ton of lithium-ion batteries later and the build is complete! He’s currently controlling it with an RC car remote, but had plans to control it using a Wii nunchuck and Arduino. The test runs this past summer got the board going about 20mph!

It looks done for now, but we’re sure he’s going to be continuing to refine it next summer — stick around after the break to see one of its first test drives!

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