Author: James Hobson

1404 Articles

Smallest Computer

What Is This? A Computer For Ants!?

April 16, 2015 by 68 Comments

How can we be expected to teach children use a computer if they can’t even see it? I don’t wanna hear your excuses! The computer has to be at least… three times bigger than this!

Developed by the University of Michigan, the Michigan Micro Mote (M3) is quite possibly the world’s tiniest computer. It’s about the size of a grain of rice.

The multi-layered PCB (shown after the break) features 7 layers of components, surrounded in epoxy for protection. Drawing only 2 nano Amps during standby, the computer can be powered by a 1 millimeter squared solar cell. It’s designed to be glued to a window for use. It’s capable of input data via sensors, the ability to process and store the data, and then output the data wirelessly. Its range is only 2 meters at the moment, but they hope to extend it to about 20 meters.

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bass fire extinguisher

Putting Out Fires With A Dubstep Drop

April 13, 2015 by 47 Comments

Two engineering students from George Mason University have built a rather unorthodox fire extinguisher. It uses a subwoofer to send sound waves powerful enough to extinguish small fires.

Similar in concept to a giant smoke-ring canon, the device uses a subwoofer with a tube that has a smaller aperture opening at the end. When the bass drops (literally), this causes an intense wave of sound (well, air), to be expelled from the device. And as you can see in the video below, it’s quite effective at putting out small fires.

They use a small frequency generator and amplifier to power the system, and throughout extensive testing found 30-60Hz to work best. It’s not actually one big blast of air, but a pressure wave that goes back and forth — agitating the air, and separating it from the fire. There is a catch though.

One of the problems with sound waves is that they do not cool the fuel,” Isman said. “So even if you get the fire out, it will rekindle if you don’t either take away the fuel or cool it.

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Dextrus V1.2 Robot Hand

Wounded Soldier Gets Robotic Hand Replacement

April 12, 2015 by 47 Comments

[Neal Muzzy], a local member of the Cedar Valley Makers makerspace, just made news on Open Bionics for his robotic prosthetic hand called Dextrus v1.2 which he made for his friend, and wounded war veteran, [Taylor].

In just two months, [Neal] worked with his friend to make this robotic prosthetic with the goal of having it more functional and easier to use than [Taylor]’s current prosthetic. The very first prototype was made by using the open-source Dextrus design, to test fit, and control using EMG sensors. Once they determined it would work — onto customizing!

They call it Dextrus V1.2, and it works better for [Taylor] than the original — but that’s the whole point of the Open Hand project — starting with a base design, and making it better. If you’re not familiar with the Open Hand Project, it was originally crowd-funded on Indiegogo, and is now an organization to make robotic prosthetic hands more accessible to amputees. We wrote about it in Hacklet 41 – Prosthetic Projects.

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Da Vinci Cryptex

A Replica Of Da Vinci’s Cryptex

April 12, 2015 by 30 Comments

What makes this beautifully crafted, hand-made Da Vinci Cryptex even more impressive is that a high school student made it.

Shared with r/DIY a few days ago, the creator [SandNpolish] got tons of positive feedback — and so he should. Made out of solid brass and tigerwood, the level of detail he put into it is incredible. From the carved lions face on an antler bone, being used as an end cap for the cryptex, to the other end, a piece of Damascus steel. The whole thing is gorgeous. He made almost everything by hand, making use of a lathe to shape the cylinders, and a milling machine to notch the inner teeth of the lock. The entire gallery of images is a pleasure to scroll through to see the project from start to finish.

We’ve seen lots of cryptex combination locks over the years here at Hack a Day — from something as simple as a paper-craft cryptex, to one made out of PVC pipe, and of course, even a 3D printed one. But all of them seem to be missing the fun part — as portrayed in the Da Vinci Code — where’s the vinegar and papyrus damn it!

Robot Guitar Rocks Out

Robotic Player Guitar Rocks Out On Its Own

April 11, 2015 by 29 Comments

Back in 1988 [Ben Reardon] walked through the Japanese pavilion at the World Expo held in Brisbane, Australia. He saw a robot playing a classical guitar, and was in awe. Later in his life, he decided to learn guitar, and always thought back to that robot. After going to SIGGRAPH 2014 and being inspired by all the creative makers out there, he realized the technology was here — to build his own Robot Guitar.

He started small though — with a prototype robotic Tambourine. It helped flush out some of the ideas for coding that he would eventually employ on the Robot Guitar. The guitar features both an Arduino and a Raspberry Pi, along with six RC servos — one for each string. The biggest challenge with the project was getting the servos mounted just right — stiff, but with adjustment so each pick could be tuned for identical timing. He ended up using aluminum extrusion to mount the servos, three per side in order to leave space for the picks.

Once the mechanical portion was done — onto the coding…

In the end, it ended up being only 460 lines of code. Python and a bit of Bash for the Raspberry Pi — and of course a few sketches for the Arduino. But enough talking about it — let’s hear it!

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Automatic garage door opener

Blink Thrice To Let Me In

April 8, 2015 by 52 Comments

Now here’s a really cool home hack. [Luis Rodrigues] has automated his garage door to open, simply by flashing his headlights at it.

But wait, doesn’t that mean anyone could break into his house? Nope. At first we thought he had just added some photo-sensors and a bit of computer logic in order to turn a pattern of lights into an output to open the garage, but no, it’s actually specific to his car only. Which is awesome because if anyone ever tried to copy him to break in, all they break into is a very confused state of mind.

You see how it actually works is the headlight output is connected to a control box under the hood of his car. A Moteino (RF Arduino variant) reads the input signal of the headlights flashing three times, and then communicates wirelessly to the garage door in order to open it.

But [Luis] also has a gate outside his property — so if you hold the lights on for a second, both the garage door and the external gate will open as well.

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Hack the Home

Hack The Home

April 7, 2015 by 19 Comments

Live in Kentucky? Want to invent the next big thing for the kitchen, like the automated ice maker? Well, you’re in luck. GE is hosting a massive hackathon at their microfactory called FirstBuild which is located in Louisville, Kentucky. Unfortunately it looks like pre-registration is already closed.

The concept of FirstBuild is pretty cool. GE has created what they like to call a microfactory for innovating new products in small production runs to flush out good ideas. We’d call it more of a corporate hackerspace with some serious funding. Regardless of their motives, it’s still a cool concept. And they have some awesome toys, er, tools.

The event is being sponsored by lots of big names like Intel, Atmel, TI, Freescale, MakerBot and even Autodesk — and the prizes aren’t too shabby either! Though for the really big prizes you’ll need to stick with us.

We have to wonder — what happens when GE sees an idea they like? Hopefully it results in a sweet job.

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