Minty Tunes Is Wireless Audio In An Altoids Tin

November 18, 2021 by Zoe Skyforest 15 Comments

These days, a lot of phones don’t have audio jacks anymore. It can make it hard to listen to music if your favorite headphones aren’t already wireless-enabled. Minty Tunes solves that problem, combined with a little Altoids tin flair.

Yes, the long and the short of it is that this is a Bluetooth audio receiver built into a tin of mints. The build is relatively simple, hooking up a cheap Bluetooth audio decoder module to a lithium-polymer battery. This is paired with a TP4056 battery charger IC to allow the battery to be topped off easily. It’s all then wired up and stuck in everyone’s favorite hacker electronics enclosure.

For those who aren’t fans of wireless earbuds like AirPods and the like, it’s a useful solution for listening to music from a smartphone. As the builder notes, it’s also a great way to play music over a hi-fi or car stereo with an aux port. Alternatively, you could always build your own pocket MP3 player from scratch. Video after the break.

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What It Takes: Turning A Hatchback Into A Race Car

November 17, 2021 by Zoe Skyforest 24 Comments

We’ve spoken a lot about building race cars here at Hackaday, but what does it actually look like to go out and do it? The boys from [Bad Obsession Motorsport] dived into that very question with their Bargain Racement series last year.

The CityCar Cup championship aims to keep entry costs low and racing competitive by racing cheap hatchbacks with a strict ruleset. Credit: Nankang Tyre CityCar Cup

The series follows the duo as they build a Citroen C1 into a competitive race car to take on the City Car Cup, an entry-level racing series focused on keeping the field competitive and the racing close.

Even at this level, there’s plenty to do to prep the car for competition. The rollcage needs to be installed, seats changed out for race-spec gear, and plenty of wiring to do as well. [Nik] and [Richard] have plenty of experience in the field of motorsport, and shine a great light on how to do the job, and do it right.

All in all, building the car cost £5995 pounds, starting from a used £850 Citroen C1. However, actually going racing costs more than that. Between race suits and boots, a helmet, club memberships and race entry fees, it cost a full £8273 to get to the first race. It’s steep, though much of those costs are upfront. Keep the car off the walls and year on year, you only need to keep paying for entry fees, memberships and consumables like fuel and tires.

It’s a great look at everything from building a race car, to testing and then actually competing as well. It serves as an excellent real-world example of what we talk about in our series on how to get into cars, which just recently touched on prepping a car for endurance competition. Video after the break.

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Finally, A Piano BBQ Grill That You Can Drive Around The Workshop

November 17, 2021 by Zoe Skyforest 36 Comments

It’s a truth universally acknowledged that sometimes a little music can add much to a nice afternoon picnic. It’s also well-known that meat cooked over hot coals should be turned regularly to allow for even cooking. This barbecue grille project from [Handy Geng] delivers on both counts.

The project uses a full 88 motors, activated by pressing keys on an electronic piano. The technique used is simple; rather than interface with the keyboard electronically or over MIDI, instead, a microswitch is installed under each individual key.

Thus, when the piano keys are pressed, the corresponding motors are switched on. Each motor turns a skewer loaded with meat, sitting above a box of hot coals. Thus, playing the piano turns the meat, allowing it to be cooked on all sides without burning.

As a further bonus, the entire piano barbecue grille is also motorized, allowing [Handy Geng] to do laps around his workshop while playing the piano and cooking up lunch. It’s a great way to cook up some grilled kebabs while simultaneously entertaining one’s guests.

We’ve seen some other fun grill hacks too – even robotic ones! Video after the break.

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Russian Anti-Satellite Weapon Test Draws Widespread Condemnation

November 17, 2021 by Zoe Skyforest 44 Comments

On the morning of November 15, a Russian missile destroyed a satellite in orbit above Earth. The successful test of the anti-satellite weapon has infuriated many in the space industry, put astronauts and cosmonauts alike at risk, and caught the attention of virtually every public and private space organisation on the planet.

It’s yet another chapter in the controversial history of military anti-satellite operations, and one with important implications for future space missions. Let’s examine what happened, and explore the greater context of the operation.

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Microplastics Are Everywhere: Land, Sea And Air

November 16, 2021 by Zoe Skyforest 65 Comments

Plastics took off in the 20th century, with the new class of materials finding all manner of applications that metal, wood and paper simply couldn’t deliver on. Every field from electronics to the packaging of food found that plastics could play a role.

Now, over 150 years since the development of Parkesine in 1867, we’re now realizing that plastics come with more than a few drawbacks. They don’t break down well in nature, and now microplastics are beginning to appear all over the Earth, even in places where humans rarely tread. It seems they may even spread via the air, so let’s take a look at this growing problem and what can be done about it.

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Circuit Sculpture Lamp Is A Colorful Cube Companion

November 15, 2021 by Zoe Skyforest 10 Comments

Circuit sculpture is engineering and art all at play together. One must combine the functional with the aesthetically appealing. [EdwardA61] did just that with this enchanting lamp build.

Like many other circuit sculptures, the build relies on the aesthetic qualities of brass, though [EdwardA61] notes that copper wire can be used as well. Four WS2812B LEDs, in their bare PCB-mount form, are soldered into a circuit using the brass to carry the power and data signals as needed.

A Seeduino Xiao microcontroller is responsible for controlling the show, though relies on a typical PCB rather than a circuit sculpture in and of itself. It does provide for easy powering and programming however, with the benefit of its USB-C connector.

It’s a simple skeleton design, as so many circuit sculptures are, but it’s a form that we’ve come to love and appreciate. [EdwardA61] did a great job of photographing the build, too, showing how the colors on each LED interplay with each other as they’re cast on the table.

It’s a lamp we’d love to build ourselves, and we hope that [EdwardA61] follows through on plans to cast a similar design in clear resin, as well. If you’ve built your own artistically electrical sculptures, be sure to let us know!

Bluetooth RC Car Packs In A Few Sensors

November 13, 2021 by Zoe Skyforest 4 Comments

Have you ever been walking around the house, desperate to know the ambient temperature, humidity, and barometric pressure? Have you ever wanted to capture that data with a small remote-controlled platform? If so, this project from [TUENHIDIY] will be exactly what you’ve been looking for.

The little remote-control car is built around a Seeed Wio Terminal. This is a microcontroller platform that comes with a screen already attached, along with wireless hardware baked in and Grove connectors for hooking up external modules. Thus, the car adds a DHT11 temperature and humidity sensor, along with a BMP280 air pressure sensor using the Grove connectors.

Driving the car is done via a Blynk smartphone app that communicates with the Wio Terminal. Small DC motors at each wheel are driven via a DFRobot quad-motor shield. With the built-in screen, the RC car displays commands received from the smartphone app, as well as the temperature, humidity and pressure in the immediate environment.

We really like the simple PVC-based chassis design, and it’s a straightforward project that demonstrates how to build a Bluetooth-controlled car. Data collected by the sensors is also visible on the smartphone app, so if you need to sample conditions in the next room without getting off the couch, you could do that pretty easily.

Projects like these are a good way to get familiar with working with motors and sensors. It’d be a great base for simple robotics development, too. We’ve featured builds from [TUENHIDIY] before, too, like this great rotary plotter that can draw on bottles. Video after the break.

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