IoT With The Ethereum Blockchain

November 9, 2017 by 14 Comments

Anyone keeping up with financial news today is surely inundated with stories about Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. While most of the news is about the potentially inflated value of some of these coins, and how drastically they have changed in price in just a decade, there are other interesting things going on behind the scenes. For example, the currency Ethereum allows for a distributed programming platform of sorts to be implemented in the blockchain, which [GusGorman402] has taken advantage of in his latest project (YouTube link, embedded below).

The device that he built is based on an ESP8266 which connects to a router running an instance of a Go Ethereum node. Essentially, he uses the Ethereum blockchain to control an LED connected to the ESP8266 using a feature of Ethereum called a smart contract. While this might be a misleading name, a smart contract is basically an autonomous program that can do virtually anything a programmer writes into it. While this is a roundabout way to write a “Hello World” program, it does demonstrate the power of the Ethereum platform when compared to other cryptocurrencies.

If you’re interested in currency trading, blockchains, cryptography, or the future of computing, be sure to check out the detailed video after the break. It’s a curious new tool, and it will be interesting to see how developers and hackers alike use it to accomplish things we’ve never thought of yet.

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Stop Motion With The Time Glove

November 9, 2017 by 29 Comments

What do you get when you put an ultra-bright LED in the palm of a glove, and strobe it controlled by an accelerometer? A Time Control Glove! In creator [MadGyver]’s own words, it’s “just a stroboscope with frequency adjustment” but the effect is where all the fun is.

The Time Control Glove uses the stroboscopic effect, which many of us have seen used in timeless water drop fountains where the strobe rate makes drops appear to change speed, freeze in place, and even change direction. [MadGyver] made the entire assembly portable by putting it into a glove. An on-board accelerometer toggles the strobe in response to a shake, and the frequency is changed by twisting the glove left or right. The immediate visual feedback to the physical motions is great. The whole effect is really striking on the video, which is embedded below.

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Take Robby Home

November 8, 2017 by 25 Comments

Ok, we’ll stipulate it right up front: this isn’t a hack. But you have to admit, it would make a fine starting point for a truly epic one. Robby the Robot — the robot from the 1956 movie Forbidden Planet is up for sale. Well, technically he isn’t so much a robot as he is a suit with some animatronics. The auction lot includes Robby, his (non-functioning) vehicle, a control panel, and some other accouterments. If you have deep pockets, you’ll need to bid before November 21.

MGM reportedly spent $125,000 on Robby which was a crazy amount of money in the 1950s. In today’s currency, that would be well over a million bucks. They got their money’s worth, though, as Robby appeared in movies and TV shows including Lost in Space and several episodes of the Twilight Zone. He even made a motionless cameo on The Big Bang Theory.

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Look Out DotStar, Here Comes Lumenati

November 8, 2017 by 24 Comments

Adafruit has long been the undisputed ruler of the smart LED product, with their WS2812B (NeoPixel) and APA102C (DotStar) product lines dominating due to the robust assortment of sizes and form factors, as well as their ease of use. SparkFun Electronics recently announced Lumenati, their new line of APA102C breakouts that feature some intriguing features which do a good job of distinguishing the two lines.

First, the screen-printing on the boards include pixel numbers. We were working on NeoPixel assemblies the other day and keeping track of pixels was a nightmare. In addition, the Lumenati boards are meant to combine into larger creations, allowing you to make complicated shapes. SparkFun supports this by giving the boards castellated headers — far better than the solder pads! If you are running into logic conflicts with the boards you can solder in jumpers to bypass the data connections and control individual boards separately. On the down side, SparkFun’s intitial offerings — 6 products — still can’t compete with Adafruit’s, like their 255-LED disk, shields, strips, matrices, and flexible PCBs.

We’ve published a few DotStar builds over the years, like this violin bow lightsaber and the Magicshifter POV stick. Maybe we’ll start seeing some Lumenati builds? Continue reading “Look Out DotStar, Here Comes Lumenati” →

Star Wars Speeder’s Finishing Touch: Mirrors

November 8, 2017 by 19 Comments

[Super 73] make electric scooters, and they made some Star Wars Speeder Bikes with a twist for Halloween; adding some mirrored panels around the bottoms of the bikes made for a decent visual effect that requires no upkeep or fancy workings. Having amazed everyone with the bikes, they followed them up with a video of the build process.

The speeders are shells built around their Super 73 electric scooter, with bases of what looks like MDF sitting on anchor points. Onto the base platforms goes cardboard and expanding foam to create the correct shapes, which are then sanded then coated in fiberglass and bondo. Then it’s time for paint, weathering, and all the assorted bits and pieces needed to make the speeders as screen-accurate as possible. The real finishing touch are the mirrored panels to conceal the wheels and create a levitation illusion. As long as the mirrors are angled so that they reflect the pavement when viewed by a pedestrian, it works fairly well.

Top it off with costumes and a ride around town (with plenty of cameras of course, they naturally wanted to grab some eyeballs) and we have to say, the end result looks nifty. Both the showcase and making-of videos are embedded below.

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Key-tar Lets You Jam At The Hackerspace

November 8, 2017 by 4 Comments

We’ve seen our share of stepper motors making music, but [Tanner Tech’s] key-tar takes it to a whole new level. Incorporating an acoustic drum to accentuate the stepper motor sounds and a preamp to feed a guitar amplifier, the key-tar is a fully playable instrument.

Moving the stepper via an Arduino at different speeds creates different notes. The user interface is an old PC keyboard. Apparently, [Tanner] recycled most of the parts in his model. The stepper came from an old printer and the keyboard was a dumpster rescue.

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Minecraft And Forge: Try This Amazing Way To Visualize Logic

November 8, 2017 by 19 Comments

I’ve got virtual circuits on the mind lately. There are a myriad of tools out there that I could pick up to satisfy this compulsion. But the one I’m reaching for is Minecraft. I know what you’re thinking… a lot of people think Minecraft is getting long in the tooth. But chances are you never tried some of the really incredible things Minecraft can do when it comes to understanding logic structures. This goes way beyond simple circuits and easily hops back and forth over the divide between hardware logic and software logic.

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