555 Design Contest, Win $1500+ In Prizes!

January 25, 2011 by 35 Comments

Sure, microcontrollers are useful, easy to apply, and ubiquitous, but where is the fun in the easy route? Well, for those of you out there with a little imagination and a 555 timer sitting around, there could be rewards in store. Brought to you by such famous personalities as Jeri Ellsworth and Chris Gammell, the 555 contest has prizes and awards for a number of different categories, such as over the top designs as well as awards for most minimalistic. To top it all off, they are even selling T-shirts to benefit engineering education charities.

The craziest (and possibly coolest) part of the entire contest is that the it has all been put together by the hacking community, with no exclusive sponsorship deals or payment to the organizers being accepted. In the spirit of giving, we will be adding some Hack a Day merch to the swag pile, so keep an eye out for the skull and wrenches. Currently the prize list includes a pair of Beagle Boards, a custom hacked Commodore 64 Joystick from Jeri, as well as a number of other project parts and lots more. The sponsorship list is still growing, so all of our information is tentative (and exclusive!), but be sure to check out the complete list so far after the break.

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Hackaday Links: August 15, 2010

August 15, 2010 by 20 Comments

Creepy or not?

Do you find these faces creepy or cute? They can display a huge range of facial gestures and the German engineers who designed them were trying to avoid the uncanny valley. That’s the point at which human features on a robot seem quite real, but are off in just the right way as to cause revulsion. [Thanks Simon]

Water in your ink cartridge

Like all great hackers [Dean] digs through his neighbors’ trash. He found an inkjet printer but wanted to test it out before buying new cartridges. The old ones were dried up but he revitalized them with an injection of filtered water. It might get you through that quick printing project without a trip to Walgreen’s.

Laser-cut LP record

[Niklas Roy] demonstrates a laser-cut LP record. He’s using acrylic as a medium, kind of like a big CD with grooves in it. He’s got several tracks that are simple loops instead of the longer spirals you may be familiar with. They definitely sound different but it’s up to you to decide if that’s by design, or a fluke.

Star Wars cinema

Ever wonder what to do with those classic toys you’ve got sitting around? Here’s a little video that envisions your life with an AT-AT as the house pet. [Thanks Gabe via Wired]

Pictures From Space For $150

September 13, 2009 by 47 Comments

prelaunch

Ever wanted to be able to launch a balloon into space, track its location via GPS, take some photographs of the curvature of the earth, and recover the balloon, all for the low low cost of $150? [Oliver Yeh] sent in his teams project, Icarus, which does just that. The group of MIT students found that they could use a weather balloon filled with helium to reach heights of around 20 miles above the earth;  their particular balloon achieved 93,000 feet (17.5 miles). Then, utilizing only off the shelf components with no soldering, conjured up a GPS tracker using a Motorola i290 Prepaid Cellphone. They then used a Canon A470 loaded with the chdk open source firmware to take pictures. After seeing the results of their launch, the team hopes that this could rejuvenate interests in science and the arts.

$15 HDR Camera

July 16, 2009 by 28 Comments

rewire1 (Custom)

[Steve] was planning a 15 mile hiking trip when he came up with this idea. He wanted to get some good HDR photography, but didnt’ want to lug around his 5D MKII. He managed to pick up a couple of cheap Polaroid X530s. These have decent optics and record in RAW format, which is pretty impressive for something he got for 99cents plus shipping. He had all of the buttons wired for external control via a Viliv umpc. As you can see on his site, his results are quite nice. Of course, you don’t actually have to hack your camera to make HDR images.

15 Ton Robotic Arm + WiiMote

July 8, 2009 by 14 Comments

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v1AJ_OBJUpY]

These 15 ton robotic arms can reach 16 meters. Not content to control them by a simple joystick, the team hacked together WiiMote controls for them. Ok, we get it. Everybody loves the Wii.  What is different about using the WiiMote in this scenario? You can see that they are only using the pitch, yaw, and roll. They’re not utilizing the tracking aspects at all. The only difference between the WiiMote and their joystick in this scenario is that the WiiMote connects via bluetooth. Frankly, we just like the fact that people are playing with the robotic arms, WiiMote or not.

Tools: Proxxon Drill Press TBM115/TBM220

February 27, 2009 by 30 Comments

tbm220ii

A decent drill press is a crucial tool for an electronics lab. We use our drill press to make holes in our own circuit boards, and tap or break traces on existing circuit boards. We’ve used a lot of tools to drill circuit boards — power drills, power drills in “drill press stands”, and high-speed rotary tools — but when we started doing projects on a schedule, it was time for something more reliable.

We first spotted the Proxxon TBM115/TBM220 drill press in the window of a local shop.  Its tiny size and adjustable speed seemed ideal for drilling circuit boards. At $200, this is one of the pricier tools in our lab, but quality bearings and smooth drilling action aren’t cheap.  Read about our experience with this tool below the break.

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VU Meter Made With An LM3915

July 2, 2008 by 17 Comments


So here’s the situation: you have an audio device, maybe a boombox, perhaps one you built yourself, but it has no VU meter. No problem; building a VU meter is easy with these instructions from [Joe].

You’ll need either an LM3915 or LM3916 chip, a couple of bread boards, two audio jacks, ten LEDs, and a few other components. Wire them all together per the schematic, then plug an audio source into the input jack. You can plug your speakers or output device into the output jack, and you’re done. Keep in mind that LM3916s switch negative, so positive to positive wiring from LEDs to the bread board will be necessary. The wiring on [Joe]’s version is a bit convoluted, but it can be cleaned up on yours if you take the time. Video embedded below.

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