Plotterbot Hangs On Your Wall To Work

November 6, 2013 by James Hobson 12 Comments

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Looking for a fun and easy to do project to begin your foray into the fun-filled world of Arduinos? How about your very own drawing robot, aptly named, the Plotterbot!

We first heard word of this project when [Jay] submitted a giant plotted version of the Hack A Day logo for our Trinket contest, and we liked the Plotterbot so much we had to give it a featured article!

It’s a very simple design that uses an Arduino, 2 stepper motors, a servo motor (for pen lifting), some fishing line and various odds and ends you can probably find around the house. Realistically it will cost around $100 to build, but if you can salvage some parts from an old printer or scanner, even less!

[Jay] is currently releasing a series of detailed posts on his blog explaining the process of building one, but if you’re excited to start right away, you can always check out his FAQ for more juicy details.

Hackerspacing In Europe: Conclusion

November 6, 2013 by James Hobson 22 Comments

Wow! What a trip. In just over one week we travelled nearly 2000 km and visited 13 hackerspaces in 10 different cities in Germany, Belgium and The Netherlands. However that was only the tip of the iceberg — there were dozens more hackerspaces in the area, and we wish we had the time to visit them all! The hospitality of the hackerspaces was amazing. Thank you so much to all the spaces we visited! If you missed some of tours, you can see the them all here.

Chaosdorf (Dusseldorf, Germany)
Garage Lab (Dusseldorf, Germany)
ACKspace (Heerlen, The Netherlands)
HSBXL (Brussels, Belgium)
Whitespace (Gent, Belgium)
Void Warranties (Antwerp, Belgium)
Open Garage (Antwerp, Belgium)
MadSpace (Eindhoven, The Netherlands)
De Ontdekfabriek (Eindhoven, The Netherlands)
Revelation Space (The Hague, The Netherlands)
Technologia Incognita (Amsterdam, The Netherlands)
Hack42 (Arnhem, The Netherlands)
Stratum0 (Brunswick, Germany)

Did you enjoy these tours? Is there anything you’d like to see more of? The style of the tour? Other things to focus on? Let us know in the comments!

Fork-o-Drumbot: A MIDI Drummer!

November 5, 2013 by James Hobson 5 Comments

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We just got word of a great project by [Vito] — A MIDI Drumbot made from an Arduino and scraps from around the house!

After learning some basics of programming microcontrollers way back in high school, [Vito] was excited to start using the Arduino platform. His first thought was to build a desktop milling machine for engraving his own PCBs. But after a bit of research, he soon concluded it might be a bit too ambitious for a first project, so he opted for something a bit simpler — A robot drummer.

Using some cardboard, a few elastics, a plastic fork, a 12V solenoid, an Arduino and a MIDI interface he had created the original Fork-o-Drumbot, able to tap a simple beat, using one note. After this initial success he grew excited to continue along the same vein of recycling things to characterize his entire project. Fast forward a few weeks of blog posts and he now has a fully functional MIDI drummer which even has a cymbal! They were even featured in the local newspaper after performing a duet with a local singer during an art exhibit called the Singing Balconies of Friedrichshain.

Stick around after the break for an extremely catchy rendition of Superstitious by Stevie Wonder, as played by the Fork-o-Drumbot!

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DIY Doggy Doorbell

November 3, 2013 by James Hobson 16 Comments

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Is your dog the strong silent type? Ever wish he or she could tell you when it is time to go do their business? This Reddit r/DIY user found a simple solution — a doggy doorbell!

The dog in question isn’t very vocal, so his owner sought a simple solution, similar to Pavlov’s bells — the only problem? He needed some range on it, as you can’t always hear a few bells throughout the entire house. The solution? A wireless doorbell that he repackaged into a dog friendly button!

Compared to our last post on an automatic pet watering system, this one is a very simple hack that requires absolutely no electrical experience. It could be improved upon quite easily though, by wiring a second switch in parallel so the dog can ring the doorbell from the outside of the house too!

According to the owner, it only took a few treats to get the pooch trained well enough to use it whenever he needs to go out!

[Via Reddit]

Make Your Own LED Lightbulb!

November 3, 2013 by James Hobson 43 Comments

LED lightbulb

Do you like saving electricity? Who doesn’t!

Do you have a lot of LED light strips lying around, destined for a project that you never quite got around to? We’re guilty!

Do you have an old DC power adapter? Of course you do.

Do you love soldering? Duh.

Do you have a dead fluorescent light bulb sitting around? Maybe…

If so, here’s a quick and silly guide to making your very own LED light bulb! The result is a bit ghetto we admit, but quite functional. Perhaps it could be improved by adding a glass Christmas bobble to make it look a bit more like a regular light bulb. And if you’re ambitious enough you could throw a microprocessor in there and add wireless control to it as well … but let’s be honest, smart LED light bulbs are getting quite affordable these days. But hey, you’ve got to do something for entertainment!

Arduino Keypad Door Automation

November 1, 2013 by James Hobson 45 Comments

arduino door pad

[Andrea] just sent us this great student hack he made for his room. He’s constructed an Arduino keypad door lock — without using any proper fastening hardware!

The entire build is made out of scrap parts he had lying around: some DVD’s, a bit of wood, an allen key, a motor and belt from a broken printer, an old hard drive enclosure, and a few power supplies. As you can see the entire setup is held up rather artistically using good old duct tape.

The system auto-locks after 5 seconds, and just in case, [Andrea] has hard-coded in a few safety codes into the firmware to allow him to forcefully open the door — you know, if it malfunctions or something. Not overly confident in his code, he also has it reset every 5 minutes of idling to safeguard against potential memory leaks — probably a good idea! All in all it’s a very cool build, and we have to give him props for not damaging the door to mount it! Down the road he’s also planning on adding a knock sensor using the small speaker that is already part of the circuit, because, why not?

Stick around after the break to see this magnificent contraption that would make Red Green proud.

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Hackerspacing In Europe: Hack42 In Arnhem!

November 1, 2013 by James Hobson 31 Comments

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Wow.

That 3-letter word does not even begin to describe the awesomeness that is Hack42. Located in a decommissioned German military base in Arnhem, Hack42 is one of the largest, and as far as we’ve seen, the most awesome hackerspace yet.

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