Another Homebrew Segway Clone Comes In At Under $300

March 19, 2012 by 9 Comments

[Matt Turner] tipped us off back in January about his homemade Segway project. Unfortunately that message slipped through the cracks but we’re glad he sent in a reminder after reading Friday’s feature an a different 2-wheeled balancer.

We like it that he refers to this project as being on the budget of a graduate student with a young family. We certainly understand where he’s coming from, and we hope he can ride this to job interviews to show them he truly lives engineering. The control circuitry is a bit higher-end than we’re used to seeing. He chose a Cypress CY8C29466 SoC to control the device. But the sensors are a common choice, using the Wii Motion Plus and Wii Nunchuk for the gyroscope and accelerometer they contain. This is a no-brainer since the sensors are high-quality, cheap and available locally, and communicate of the standard I2C protocol.

When looking for motors [Matt] was happy to find an old electric wheelchair on Craig’s List. This also gave him a gear box, wheels, and tires. He added a pair of motor drivers, with his own alterations to suppress feedback. Sounds like they run a little hot because he plans to add cooling fans to them in the future. But this first iteration is up and running quite well as you can see in the clip after the break.

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Hackaday Links: February 26, 2012

February 26, 2012 by 5 Comments

Wii Nunchuk controlled Monotron

Adding a bit of motion control to your music synthesizer turns out to be pretty easy. Here’s an example of a Wii Nunchuk used to control a Monotron. [Thanks John]

Hackers on the Moon and other space related goals

Yep apparently a non-government backed expedition to the moon is in the works. But you’ve got to walk before you can crawl and one of the first parts of the process is to launch a hackerspace-backed satellite network called the Hackerspace Global Grid. Check out this interview with one of the initiative’s founders [Hadez]. [Thanks MS3FGX]

Laser pointers and frosted glass

We were under the impression that a laser show required finely calibrated hardware. But [Jas Strong] proves us wrong by making pretty colors with laser pointers and slowly rotating glass. [Thanks Mike]

MSP430 Twitter Ticker

[Matt] built a Twitter ticker using the TI Launchpad. It works on an LED matrix or OLED display along with a Python script which handles the API.

Android floppy drive hack

[Pedro] shows us how he reads floppy disks with his Android tablet. The hardware includes a docking station to add a USB port to the tablet, as well as a hub and USB floppy drive. On the software side of things an Android port of DOSbox does the rest.

Evalbot Nunchuck Control

January 31, 2011 by 16 Comments

[Martin] got his evalbot recently and wanted to try controlling it with his Wii nunchuck. After some trial and error, he finally got it working. He’s shown that controlling the bot with the nunchuck was actually pretty simple, but there are some other tips that could be pretty helpful in the process. One was the fact that the point where he’s taking power for the nunchuck could easily be shorted on the motor. He wrapped his in tape, but we could see this little bug pestering us for a while before we figured out what it was.  You can download his code and see his build process on his site. Be sure to catch the video of it working in both accelerometer and joystick mode after the break.

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LEGO Host For All Of Your Prototyping Projects

September 13, 2010 by 7 Comments

[Deadbird] decided to use a LEGO 8880 Super Car as a host for all of his electronic tinkering. Throughout his blog (translated) you’ll find the vehicle with an Arduino MEGA interfacing various prototyping bits. It starts with the motors for locomotion, closely followed by a servo for steering. From there we see the addition of a breadboard and graphic LCD screen. So far he’s worked out the use of a PS2 keyboard as a controller and, most recently he’s interfaced a Wii Nunchuck.

We’re more used to seeing NXT kits adapted for wider use, but if you’ve got a nice kit like this one it makes a great base onto which you can add your own robotic elements.

Arduino IPod Library Work Continues

April 1, 2010 by 24 Comments

[David Findlay] has been hard at work on his Arduino iPod remote library and is now showing off some Wii Nunchuck control in the video after the break. When we looked in on his work in September he was using a Staples Easy Button to control the iPod. Now he’s added all of the functionality for iPod simple remote mode, and most of the advanced mode.

Advanced mode works well with his iPod Photo but the iPhone just returns errors. We know that Apple uses some tricks to keep unauthorized accessories out, so we hope that [David] finds a way to sniff out the necessary accessory protocols from an approved model.

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RFID-enabled Robot…mood…tail…thingy.

October 16, 2009 by 38 Comments

moodtail

Furries: is there nothing they cannot do? Well okay, “shower” remains an elusive concept, but wearable technology seems to be in, as evidenced by this robotic mood tail. [Wei-Chieh Tseng]’s adorable Arduino-driven fashion accessory operates either via Wii Nunchuk or a set of RFID cards tagged with specific emotions to depict.

Details are scant. It appears to have been a project for a physical computing or design class. One thing’s for certain: Halloween is going to be awesome.

[via Engadget]

Wii MotionPlus + Arduino

June 23, 2009 by 13 Comments

wiimoteplus

[knuckles904] was able to use the new Wii MotionPlus with an Arduino. Nintendo has released the WM+ in order to detect the motion of the controller better. The Wiimote only detects acceleration, whereas the WM+ detects rotation along 3 axes. The Arduino communicates with it over I2C, the same protocol that is used with the Nunchuk. To connect the two devices, he used jumper wires, but breakout boards are also available. He was able to create some example code with help from wiibrew.org. When paired with a Nunchuk, which contains a 3-axis accelerometer, you can have a 6 degrees-of-freedom IMU for under $40, perfect for controlling your robots or logging data.

[via adafruit]