Robot Arm Gives Kids The Roller Coaster Ride Of Their Lives

August 10, 2024 by 60 Comments

Unfortunately, [Dave Niewinski]’s kids are still too little to go on a real roller coaster. But they’re certainly big enough to be tossed around by this giant robot arm roller coaster simulator.

As to the question of why [Dave] has a Kuka KR 150 robot in his house, we prefer to leave that unasked and move forward. And apparently, this isn’t his first attempt at using the industrial robot as a motion simulator. That attempt revealed a few structural problems with the attachment between the rider’s chair and the robot’s wrist. After redesigning the frame with stouter metal and adding a small form-factor gaming PC and a curved monitor in front of the seat, [Dave] was ready to figure out how to make the arm simulate the motions of a roller coaster.

Now, if you ever thought the world would be a better place if only we had a roller coaster database complete with 4k 60 fps video captured from real coasters, you’re in luck. CoasterStats not only exists, but it also includes six-axis accelerometer data from real rides of coasters across Europe. That gave [Dave] the raw data he needed, but getting it translated into robot motions that simulate the feeling of the ride was a bit tricky. [Dave] goes into the physics of it all in the video below, but suffice it to say that the result is pretty cool.

More after the break.

Continue reading “Robot Arm Gives Kids The Roller Coaster Ride Of Their Lives” →

3D Printed Jet Engine Goes Turbo

August 10, 2024 by 12 Comments

Printing a model jet engine is quite an accomplishment. But it wasn’t enough for [linus3d]. He wanted to redesign it to have a turbojet, an afterburner, and a variable exhaust nozzle. You can see how it all goes together in the video below.

This took months of work and it shows. This probably won’t make a good rainy-day weekend project. You do need a few ball bearings and some M2 hardware, but it is mostly 3D printed.

Continue reading “3D Printed Jet Engine Goes Turbo” →

Be Your Own DJ With QN8066 And An Arduino Library

August 10, 2024 by 5 Comments

The QN8066 is a fun little FM transmitter chip. It covers the full FM broadcast band and has built-in DSP. You would find this sort of part in car cell phone adapters before every vehicle included Bluetooth or an AUX port.  [Ricardo] has created an Arduino library to bring the QN8066 to the masses.

The chip is rather easy to use – control is handled with a common I2C interface. All the complex parts – Phase Locked Loop (PLL), RF front end, power management, and audio processing are all hidden inside. [Ricardo’s] library makes it even easier to use. One of the awesome features of the 8066 is the fact that it handles Radio Data System (RDS). RDS is the subcarrier datastream that allows FM stations to inject information like song title and artist into the signal. The data is then displayed on your radio screen.

You can find the source to [Ricardo’s] library on GitHub. Using it is as simple as picking it up from the Arduino IDE.

If you are looking for an RDS-enabled radio to test out your QN8066 design, you wouldn’t do too bad with this Gameboy cartridge receiver.

Click through the break for a video from [Ricardo] explaining his QN8066 design. Continue reading “Be Your Own DJ With QN8066 And An Arduino Library” →

Better Living Through Hackery

August 10, 2024 by 11 Comments

Hackaday’s own [Arya Voronova] has been on a multi-year kick to make technology more personal by making it herself, and has just now started writing about it. Her main point rings especially true in this day and age, where a lot of the tech devices we could use to help us are instead used to spy on us or are designed to literally make us addicted to their services.

The project is at the same time impossible and simple. Of course, you are not going to be able to build a gadget that will bolster all of your (perceived or otherwise) personal weaknesses in one fell swoop. But what if you start looking at them one at a time? What if you start building up the good habits with the help of a fun DIY project?

That’s where [Arya]’s plan might just be brilliant. Because each project is supposed to be small, it forces you to focus on one specific problem, rather than getting demoralized at the impossibility of becoming “better” in some vague overall sense. Any psychologist would tell you that introspection and dividing up complex problems are the first steps. And what motivates a hacker to take the next steps? You got it, the fun of brainstorming, planning, and building a nice concrete DIY project. It’s like the ultimate motivation, Hackaday style.

And DIY solutions are a perfect match to personal problems. Nothing is so customizable as what you design and build yourself from the ground up. DIY means making exactly what you need, or at least what you think you need. Iteration, improvement, and the usual prototyping cycle applied to personal growth sounds like the ideal combo, because that’s how the tech works, and that’s also how humans work. Of course, even the coolest DIY gadget can’t instantly make you more mindful, for instance, but if it’s a tool that helps you get there, I don’t think you could ask for more.

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Video Game Preservation – Stop Killing Games!

August 10, 2024 by 60 Comments

It’s been an ongoing issue for years now. People who buy video games, especially physical copies, expect to be able to play that game at their leisure, no matter how old their console gets. This used to be a no-brainer: think about the SNES or Genesis/Mega Drive from the late 80s and early 90s. You can still buy one today and play the games without any issues. Not so with many modern, internet-connected games that rely on communication with servers the publishers own, whether or not the online features are necessary for gameplay. Stop Killing Games is a new initiative in the EU and worldwide to get enough valid petition signatures to force the issue to be brought up in parliaments all over the world, including the EU Parliament.

An increasing number of videogames are sold as goods, but designed to be completely unplayable for everyone as soon as support ends. The legality of this practice is untested worldwide, and many governments do not have clear laws regarding these actions. It is our goal to have authorities examine this behavior and hopefully end it, as it is an assault on both consumer rights and preservation of media.

StopKillingGames.com

Why now? Well, Ubisoft recently killed a popular videogame called The Crew by taking down the servers that support the game. Without these servers, the game is completely useless. France and many other European countries have strong consumer protection laws which, in theory, should prevent companies from pulling stunts like this, but this particular situation has never been tested in court. Besides this, the group are also petitioning governments around the world, including France (where Ubisoft is based), Germany, Canada, the UK, the US, Australia, and Brazil, and also options for anywhere else in the EU/world.

If you’re a gamer, and especially if you play video games which use online components, it’s definitely worth reading through their website. The FAQ section in particular answers a lot of questions. In any case, we wish them luck as the preservation of media is a very important topic!

[Thanks to Jori for the tip!]

What Is SystemVerilog, Really?

August 10, 2024 by 7 Comments

[Mark] starts a post from a bit ago with: “… maybe you have also heard that SystemVerilog is simply an extension of Verilog, focused on testing and verification.” This is both true and false, depending on how you look at it. [Mark] then explains what the differences are. It’s a good read if you are Verilog fluent, but just dip your toe into SystemVerilog.

Part of the confusion is that until 2009, there were two different things: Verilog and SystemVerilog. However, the SystemVerilog 2009 specification incorporates both languages, so modern Verilog is SystemVerilog and vice versa.

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The Luminiferous Theremin

August 9, 2024 by 5 Comments

[Extreme Kits] asks the question: “What the hell is a luminiferous theremin?” We have to admit, we know what a thermin is, but that’s as far as we got. You’ve surely seen and heard a theremin, the musical instrument developed by Leon Theremin that makes swoopy music often associated with science fiction movies. The luminiferous variation is a similar instrument that uses modern time of flight sensors to pick up your hand positions.

The traditional instrument uses coils, and your hands alter the frequency of oscillators. Some versions use light sensors to avoid the problems associated with coils. While the time of flight sensors also use light, they are immune to many false readings caused by stray light.

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