Virtual Yule Log Brings Old Tradition To The Web

December 15, 2022 by Lewin Day 2 Comments

Yule Log broadcasts are a bit of an American tradition, though similar content has also been broadcast around the world. They consist of a video of a log burning in a fireplace, ideally merrily so, and often feature Christmas carols or other holiday songs to help create a festive mood. [Joshua Gross] wanted to bring that tradition up to date, and thus built a Yule Log website with the help of some creative technologists.

WebYuleLog.com, as the project is known, features several web-based recreations of the Yule Log concept. They are charming little creations built with different techniques, from the AI-generated to those hewn from simple, pure HTML and CSS. They range from cute 8-bit-esque tributes to burning firewood, to the ethereal and unrecognizable thought bubbles of an image-generating neural network. We’re pretty sure one of them is a oblique reference to an old Excel 97 Easter Egg, too.

It’s funny how much can be achieved within a modern browser window. Once upon a time, you were lucky to get a few GIFs and an obnoxious looping MIDI soundtrack.

Giving Your Pets A Digital Squeak

December 15, 2022 by Matthew Carlson 4 Comments

A pet tracker has a particularly grueling set of requirements: small, light, rugged, incredibly long battery life, safe for the pet, and cheap. [Mihai Cuciuc] was looking at the options and wasn’t thrilled with any of them. So as any hacker would, he rolled his own, dubbed Squeak.

It uses an RN2483 module as it is a LoRAWAN module with publically available firmware from Microchip itself. This means [Mihai] could add his code and keep the modem code without having to reverse engineer everything or add a second microcontroller. In addition to the modem, there’s a GPS unit connected via UART. The clever part is the dual voltage regulators — the one powering the GPS is enabled or disabled by the RN2483. In addition, the RAM V_BACKUP line is always powered, which means the RN2483 can power up the GPS and let it get a quick fix (thanks to the RAM backup line).

To maximize the chances of a packet making it through, he made them only have the bare essentials. There are return packets to change the tracker’s mode (such as uplink interval or how often to capture GPS). With some cloud support, [Mihai] created infrastructure to capture the packets and relay them to Telegram. He can request the last location, receive updates, and change modes.

We’ve got you covered if you’re interested in tracking some of your dog’s other habits.

Dumping Game Boy Cartridges Via The Link Cable Port

December 14, 2022 by Lewin Day 17 Comments

When it comes to vintage consoles like the Game Boy, it’s often nice to be able to dump cartridge ROMs for posterity, for archival, and for emulation. To that end, [Francis Stokes] of [Low Byte Productions] whipped up a rather unique method of dumping Game Boy carts via the link cable port.

The method starts by running custom code on the Game Boy, delivered by flash cart. That code loads itself into RAM, and then waits for the user to swap in a cart they wish to dump and press a button. The code then reads the cartridge, byte by byte, sending it out over the link port. To capture the data, [Francis] simply uses a Saleae logic analyzer to do the job. Notably, the error rate was initially super high with this method, until [Francis] realised that cutting down the length of the link cable cut down on noise that was interfering with the signal.

The code is available on GitHub for those interested. There are other ways to dump Game Boy cartridges too, of course.

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How The Turntable Paradox Works

December 14, 2022 by Lewin Day 35 Comments

Leave most objects on top of a turntable, and set it spinning, and they’ll fly off in short order. Do the same with a ball, though, and it somehow manages to roll around on top for quite some time without falling off. [Steve Mould] set about unpacking this “Turntable Paradox” in a recent YouTube video.

In the basic case, the fact that the ball rolls is what keeps it on the turntable. As the turntable spins, the ball spins in the opposite direction, as per Newton’s first law of motion. As long as the ball is allowed to roll up to the same speed as the turntable, it will pretty much stay in place in the absence of any other perturbing forces. In the event the ball is nudged along the turntable, though, it quickly ends up in a more complicated circular motion, orbiting in a ratio to the speed of the turntable itself. [Steve] explains the mechanisms at play, and dives into the mathematics behind what’s going on.

Sometimes, demonstrations like these can seem like mere curiosities. However, understanding physical effects like these has been key to the development of all kinds of complicated and fantastical machinery. Video after the break.

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Omniwhegs Are Awesome Times Two

December 14, 2022 by Elliot Williams 26 Comments

What’s the strangest wheel? The omniwheel. Unless you count whegs — “wheel legs” — as wheels. This research paper from Shanghai Technical University explores a mash-up of the two ideas, where the wheels roll as standard omniwheels until a servo on the axle unfurls them into their whegs configuration. The result? OmniWhegs!

The resulting vehicle is a bit of a departure from the original whegs concept, which used compliant mechanisms which passively balanced the force across the legs. Here, the omniwhegs are rigid and actually use a synchronization routine that you can see in the video embedded below.

If you can’t get enough omniwheels, you’re not alone. Here’s a rare three-wheeler, and here’s an omniwheel made of MDF. We haven’t seen enough whegs-based bots, but OutRunner is pretty astounding, and we think deserves a second look.

We’ve also seen wheels that convert to whegs before, but without the omni. And we don’t know if that one ever made it out of render-of-a-robot phase.

So kudos to the Shanghai team for taking the strangest possible wheels and actually building them!

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Nanoaetherphone Is A Special MIDI Controller

December 14, 2022 by Lewin Day 11 Comments

MIDI controllers can be simple straightforward keyboards, or wild magical devices that seem to snatch notes from the very aether itself. As you might expect from the name, the Nanoaetherphone II is one of the latter.

The device is inspired by the Theremin, and was built to celebrate its 100th anniversary. The Nanoaetherphone II is all about using sensors to capture data from wireless hand-wavey interactions, and turn it into MIDI messages. To this end, it has an LDR sensor for detecting light levels, which determines volume levels. This is actuated by the user’s thumb, blocking the sensor or allowing ambient light to reach it. At the front of the handheld unit, there is also an ultrasonic range sensor. Depending on how close the sensor is to the user’s hand or other object determines the exact note sent by the device. As a MIDI controller, it is intended to be hooked up to an external synthesizer to actually generate sound.

The overall concept isn’t too complicated, and the design makes it easy to pickup and play. We imagine it could even be foolproofed by programming it only to play notes from a given scale or mode, allowing for easy soloing without too many of those ill-tempered blue notes. Jazz enthusiasts might prefer it to just spit out any and all notes, of course.

We love a good MIDI controller around these parts, and we’ve seen everything from knitted models to those made out of old phones. Video after the break.

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Magnet Clock Makes Field Lines Visible

December 14, 2022 by Robin Kearey 1 Comment

The traditional method for visualizing magnetic fields, which your science teacher probably demonstrated at some point, is to sprinkle some iron filings onto a piece of paper and hold it over a magnet. It’s a bit of a messy process though, and nowadays there’s a more modern method available in the form of magnetic viewing films. These work thanks to tiny nickel particles suspended in an oily medium, and come in very handy if you want to examine, say, the magnetic field pattern of a DC electric motor. [Moritz v. Sivers] had another idea for this magic material however, and used it to make a Magnet Viewing Clock.

The clock’s front panel looks very similar to a large monochrome LCD, but is actually a big slab of magnetic viewing film. Four disks are mounted behind it, each carrying number-shaped magnetic stickers that are cleverly hidden from view. An Arduino Uno keeps track of time through a real-time clock and operates four stepper motors that rotate the number wheels. When they move into position, their magnetic stickers become visible through the film and you can read the time.

The clock’s mechanical parts are 3D printed, while the digits were cut from a sheet of sticky magnetic foil using a vinyl cutter. If you’d like to try making something similar you’re in luck: [Moritz] made the design files and the Arduino sketch available on his GitHub page. Magnetic viewing films are pretty neat things to play with anyway, and can even be used to read hidden messages.

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