Circadian Lighting For The Home Via Home Assistant

November 13, 2022 by Zoe Skyforest 10 Comments

Artificial lighting is great, in that it lets us work and live well into the night. However, our bodies are dependent on the natural lighting cycles of the sun as part of their basic operation, and artificial lighting can interfere with this. [Tyler Cipriani] decided to use Home Assistant with some smart lights to try and make home lighting more suitable for our natural circadian rhythms.

The basic intent was to give the home bright white/blueish light during the day, matching the sun’s output. The light would then be altered to warmer yellow/red tones in the evening. The eye has cells that respond to blue light to regulate our circadian rhythms with the presence of the sun, so reducing blue light at night may help reduce disruption to sleep and other body processes.

Home Assistant has a Circadian lighting component available built specifically for this task. It’s a useful smart home tool for achieving such a job, too, as it readily works with a wide variety of hardware from different vendors. In [Tyler]’s case, light switches are Zigbee devices that talk to Home Assistant via a Zigbee2MQTT hookup and a Combee Zigbee gateway. Lights around the home are a mixture of Philips Hue devices and other brands of smart lights.

[Tyler] states the effects are “subtle but noticable.” He notes that it’s easier to feel sharp and work during the day, but harder to continue the lighting warms and dims at night. He points out that this is a design feature to help keep him on a healthy sleep schedule.

We’ve seen other circadian rhythm lights before. In fact, NASA uses them on the ISS, but you can build your own for a lot less than they spent. If you’ve got your own circadian lighting hacks, don’t hesitate to drop us a line!

DIY Streamdeck Helps You Professionalize Your Twitch Show

November 12, 2022 by Zoe Skyforest 4 Comments

The one thing that separates the pros on Twitch from the dilettantes is the production values. It’s all about the smooth transitions, and you’ll never catch the big names fiddling with dodgy software mid-stream. The key to achieving this is by having a streamdeck to help control your setup, like this straightforward design from [Electronoobs]. (Video, embedded below.)

The build relies on an Arduino Micro, which is a microcontroller board perfectly equipped to acting as a USB macro keyboard. It’s paired with a Nextion LCD touchscreen that displays buttons for various stream control features, like displaying a “Be Right Back” screen or cuing up video clips. The build also features bigger regular buttons for important quick-access features like muting a mic. It’s all wrapped up in a 3D printed housing, with some addressable RGB LEDs running off another Arduino to add some pizazz. The neat trick is that the build sends keycodes for F13-F24, which allows for the streamdeck’s hotkeys to avoid conflicting with any other software using conventional keyboard hotkeys.

It’s a useful tool that would be of use to anyone streaming on Twitch or other platforms. Alternatively, you could repurpose an old phone to do a similar job. Video after the break.

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Bicycle Inner Tube Becomes Rugged Pencil Case

November 12, 2022 by Zoe Skyforest 23 Comments

If you’re a cyclist that lives in an area with poorly-maintained infrastructure, you’ll likely have plenty of punctured inner tubes begging for reuse. Consider crafting them into a rugged, hard-wearing pencil case with this design from [Yorkshire Lass].

[Yorkshire Lass] does a great job of not only explaining the basic design of the pencil case, but also the unique techniques required to work with inner tubes in this manner. For best results, the tube must first be straightened by stretching it for some time along a flat board. Strips of the rubber must then be cut to suit, and then assembled into the pattern to make the pencil case. Sewing up the case also requires some special techniques outside those used in regular sewing. That’s largely down to the fact that rubber can’t be pinned in place without leaving a permanent hole in the material. Thankfully, the write-up explains all the traps for those new to sewing inner tubes, which we’d have to suspect is most of us.

Assembled properly, you’ll end up with a pencil case made of far tougher material than most. Plus, it makes a great fashion accessory to flaunt to other bicycle or recycling evangelists at your school, college, or workplace. Even better, there’s scope to run a group craft session with your local bike group given everyone surely has a few dud mountain bike tubes laying around.

We’ve seen some other neat hacks intended to store pens and pencils around the workshop. Meanwhile, if you’ve got your own great reuse ideas for old bicycle inner tubes, do drop us a line!

Robot Gets A Life-Sized Pokemon Costume For Halloween

November 12, 2022 by Zoe Skyforest 3 Comments

Quadruped robots are everywhere now that companies like Boston Dynamics are shipping smaller models in big numbers. [Dave’s Armoury] had one such robot, and wanted to give it a Pokemon Halloween costume. Thus, the robot dog got a Jolteon costume that truly looks fantastic. (Video, embedded below.)

You would think that covering a quadruped robot in foam would ruin it, but somehow it didn’t stop it moving too badly at all.

The robot in question is a Unitree Go1, which [Dave] had on loan from InDro robotics. Thus, the costume couldn’t damage or majorly alter the robot in any way. Jolteon was chosen from the original 150 Pokemon as it had the right proportions to suit the robot, and its electric theme fitted [Dave’s] YouTube channel.

A 3D model of Jolteon was sourced online and modified to create a printable head for the robot application. Two 3D printers and 200 hours of printing time later, and [Dave] had all the parts he needed. Plenty of CA glue was used to join all the parts together with some finishing required to make sure seams and edges didn’t spoil the finish too much. Wood filler and spray paint were used to get the costume looking just like the real Pokemon. Continue reading “Robot Gets A Life-Sized Pokemon Costume For Halloween” →

Bike-Riding Skeleton Stalks The Streets On Halloween

November 11, 2022 by Zoe Skyforest 11 Comments

Stationary pumpkins and motionless skeletons aren’t enough to scare people these days. If you want to really create a fright on Halloween, you need something more convincing. This bike-riding skeleton from [rc jedi] might just do the trick.

A few neat tricks make this impressive build surprisingly simple in nature. Propulsion is via a scrapped electric scooter drivetrain hidden in the sidecar. This not only propels the rig, but the third wheel means there’s no need to do any fancy balancing work to keep the bike upright. Steering is via a big chunky servo mounted to the bike frame which controls the handlebars. Regular RC gear handles remote control of the steering and drive.

The skeleton itself was an off-the-shelf buy, that was modified to have more flexibility in its joints. The hands were attached to the handlebars, and the feet attached to the pedals, so it appears to pedal the bicycle as it moves down the road. A dog skeleton rides along in the sidecar as a spooky companion.

A skeleton prowling the streets by BMX is a wonderfully spooky sight. We’ve seen some other great skeleton builds before, too, from the canine to the musical variety. Video after the break.

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This Crosswalk Sign Costume Is A Halloween Hit

November 11, 2022 by Zoe Skyforest 5 Comments

Halloween costumes can be anything from an expensive authentic recreation of a character’s garb, to a cheap knockoff bought from one of those overcrowded pop-up stores. Alternatively, you can get creative and conceptual about things, such as by building yourself a crosswalk sign costume.

The creation of [jared531], the build uses a large piece of cardboard painted black as the base. This sits behind the wearer, and is given a yellow outline to emulate the crosswalk signals common in the US. Red fairy lights are then laid out on half of the cardboard in a pattern emulating the “STOP” hand signal.

The wearer should then dress in all-black garb, and attach the flat cardboard panel to themselves with elastic straps. A black mesh face covering helps to complete the look by blending in the wearer’s face. They are then outfitted with white fairy lights around their body, emulating the “WALK” signal.

It’s a simple concept, but quite accurately replicates a typical crosswalk sign. It’s something we certainly haven’t seen before, which is impressive in this Internet era when anything new is old again mere minutes later.

If your tastes are more avant-garde, though, consider going the TV head route next year. If you’ve built your own high-tech, high-concept costume, hit us up on the tips line!

Dot-Painting Graffiti Machine Is Wonderfully Simple

November 10, 2022 by Zoe Skyforest 28 Comments

Traditionally, when many of us think of graffiti, we think of artists spraying away with simple paint cans. However, there’s often a lot of tech and art that goes into the field these days. [Vitaly Tesh] built himself a impressive dot-painting spray rig that’s really rather nifty.

The dot maker performed ably in this piece by [Vitaly].

The build starts with [Vitaly] using a heated Stanley knife to cut away a propeller assembly from a small toy drone. He then fits a small plastic disc to the motor in place of the prop. The disc has a cutout so that as it spins, it only allows paint to pass at certain times. The whole package bolts onto a regular spray can, so it can be used with any paint color or brand that’s desired.

The spray can paints individual dots on the wall at varying distances apart, thanks to the spinning disc. Varying the speed of the motor or the rate at which the can is moved relative to the wall changes the pitch of the dots. Importantly, [Vitaly] included a drip capture system so that paint that doesn’t pass out of the dot aperture doesn’t leak all over his hands or the wall, ruining the piece.

We’ve seen robots put to work painting murals on walls, too. Video after the break.

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