Author: James Hobson

1404 Articles

Act Now And Receive The Prong Saver For Only $0.00!

November 12, 2015 by 33 Comments

Well, actually, you can’t buy this. But for [TVmiller’s] latest project he decided to have some fun with the video — so he made an infomercial for it.

Called the Prong Saver, the device clips onto any appliance’s electrical cord to help prevent you from accidentally pulling too hard and bending the electrical prongs. It’s basically a cord-tension alarm. The question is — can you hear it over the vacuum cleaner?

And just because he could, it’s solar powered. Because why the heck not? He built it using scraps he found around the workshop. That included a solar powered LED key chain, a small piezo speaker, an eyebolt and a compression spring. Anyway, check out the commercial after the break. It had us in stitches.

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Drones Are Getting A Lot Smarter

November 11, 2015 by 49 Comments

[DJI], everyone’s favorite — but very expensive — drone company just announced the Manifold — an extremely capable high performance embedded computer for the future of aerial platforms. And guess what? It runs Ubuntu.

The unit features a quad-core ARM Cortex A-15 processor with an NVIDIA Keplar-based GPU and runs Canonical’s Ubuntu OS with support for CUDA, OpenCV and ROS. The best part is it is compatible with third-party sensors allowing developers to really expand a drone’s toolkit. The benefit of having such a powerful computer on board means you can collect and analyze data in one shot, rather than relaying the raw output down to your control hub.

And because of the added processing power and the zippy GPU, drones using this device will have new artificial intelligence applications available, like machine-learning and computer vision — Yeah, drones are going to be able to recognize and track people; it’s only a matter of time.

We wonder what this will mean for FAA regulations…

Disney’s Designing A Smart Watch That Knows What You’re Touching

November 10, 2015 by 47 Comments

Did you know Disney actually has a huge R&D subsidiary? It’s called Walt Disney Imagineering, and they’ve come up with some pretty interesting technology. They’re currently working on a smart watch interface called EM-Sense that uses an electromagnetic signal to detect and learn what the user is interacting with.

Basic machine learning allows the watch to learn what different devices “feel” like on an electromagnetic scale. It’s capable of detecting things you would expect, like appliances, power tools, and even electronic devices — but it’s apparently sophisticated enough to tell when you’re touching a door handle (and which one) depending on the structure and EM feedback!

They better explain the technology in the follow video, and demonstrate a use case for it where the smart watch can lead you through activities while giving you tutorials on skills you may need. Sounds like the beginning of a real-life PipBoy!

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3D Printed Peristalic Pump Has Impressive Capabilities

November 10, 2015 by 31 Comments

[Frank Zhao’s] grandfather has esophageal cancer. Unfortunately for him, it means he’ll be eating through a tube for a while. This involves someone helping him with a big syringe to push a thick food liquid through the tube. [Frank] knew there had to be a better way. While [Frank] was in the hospital in China visiting, he started designing a 3D printed peristaltic pump. It’s what you would expect: a mechanism that massages a loop of plastic tubing to push the contents further down the path.

After he got back to the States he refined his design a bit more and started 3D printing. As it turns out — it works pretty damn well. In the following video he shows it pumping mayonaise — and since it’s peristalic, no priming of the pump required!

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Finally. A Working JetPack

November 9, 2015 by 106 Comments

Well, it’s either an extremely well edited video, or [JetPack Aviation] has actually come up with a working JetPack.

According to their site, this JetPack has been in development for the past 25 years, and the current revision is capable of speeds of up to 100mph, and lasts for over 10 minutes. Just last week they flew it around the Statue of Liberty for a promo — yet this is the first time we’re hearing of it…

There’s a documentary coming out next year about the development of it, so it seems like a lot of effort to go to if it’s simply a hoax…

Watch their maiden JetPack flight after the break, and let us know what you think!

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Gravity Pong Reaches Into The Sky

November 8, 2015 by 5 Comments

For a recent event [Norwegian Creations] decided to make something fun. They built what might just be the tallest free-standing gravity pong game out there. It’s 4.5m tall, and the LEDs in it draw over 100 amps!

What is Gravity Pong anyway? Well it’s a single person game where you get three “bounces”. A ball of light will drop from the top of the tube and the closer to the bounce-line you hit the button, the higher it will bounce. Your high score consists of how high you get the light — but if you miss the bounce line, you lose!

The structure itself is quite impressive. They’ve wrapped acrylic tubes with 1792 individually controllable RGB LEDs, in groups of four. Each section requires a power supply capable of putting out 27A @ 5V! The game is controlled by a Raspberry Pi 2 which controls a Pixelpusher to manipulate the LEDs. It’s connected to the Internet, so high scores can be automatically uploaded!

When it comes to pong though, we quite enjoy playing it with $5,000 construction crane controllers — because why not?

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Friction Welding… Wood?

November 8, 2015 by 62 Comments

You’d think writing for Hackaday means we probably don’t get surprised very often by projects… but then we see something we never thought was possible — in this case, the linear friction welding of wood to join it.

Friction welding (also known as stir welding), is the process of taking two pieces of material (typically metal, or plastic), and vibrating one of them super fast while pushing against a stationary piece of the same material — the resulting friction causes a massive heat buildup that can then literally weld the two pieces of material together.

It’s an easy way to bond plastic parts together using a dremel and some 3D printing filament, and while doing it with metal is significantly harder, it is possible to do at home as well.

But according to the video after the break — it’s actually possible to do this with wood.

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