Take Your Robots Tubing

October 6, 2015 by 16 Comments

When you think of a robot, you might think of one with wheels, tracks, or even legs. But today’s robots are as likely to have wings, props, or even some way to propel it through the water. If you are bored with quadcopters and want to build a water-going robot, you should check out Jalcboat, an open source robot/boat. Although the project is under development, the videos (see below) show that they’ve made a good bit of progress.

As you might expect, 3D printing is a key ingredient and the files are available on Thingiverse linked above. In addition, the robotic boat has a Raspberry Pi onboard to control brushless motors. The main web site is more of a discussion forum and some of it is in Spanish, so you might want to keep Google translate handy.

Continue reading “Take Your Robots Tubing” →

Light Speed: It’s Not Just A Good Idea

October 6, 2015 by 31 Comments

[Kerry Wong] took apart a PM2L color analyzer (a piece of photography darkroom gear) and found a photomultiplier tube (PMT) inside. PMTs are excellent at detecting very small amounts of light, but they also have a very fast response time compared to other common detection methods. [Kerry] decided to use the tube to measure the speed of light.

There are several common methods to indirectly measure the speed of light by relating frequency to wavelength (for example, using microwave ovens and marshmallows). However, measuring it directly is difficult because of the scale involved. In only a microsecond, light travels almost 1000 feet (986 feet or 299.8 meters).

Continue reading “Light Speed: It’s Not Just A Good Idea” →

Your Steaks Sleep With The Fishes In This Giant Sous Vide Aquarium

October 5, 2015 by 21 Comments

A small engineering company in Germany called [Nerdindustries] decided to throw a party, and in doing so, wanted to squash some rumors that nerds only eat pizza and take out. We’d say they successfully one-uped their friends while proving they too can make gourmet food. The gathering included a massive sous vide cooker out of an old 240L aquarium. Be warned, their website presentation is rather annoying but worth it.

sousvide aquarium thumbnailThey got the aquarium off eBay for $40, and started the project by resealing the aquarium with some silicone. Water adding some aluminium extrusion they mounted six immersion heaters. Three to heat it to temperature, and another three running off a PID control loop with waterproof temperature sensors to maintain it within a degree or so. Of course that wouldn’t get you very far unless you completed the build by filling the aquarium with water.
To make it a bit fancier for the party, they also threw a projector above it to display some simple visuals in the water. For their big night, they cooked steaks at 60C for about an hour and a half, and then finished in a pan to sear before serving — they were a hit. There’s a video on the site, but we can’t embed it here, so you’ll have to go check it out!

Is Sous Vide still a hot topic with hackers? There was a flurry of activity a few years back (Sous Vadar obviously one of our favorites) but we haven’t seen nearly as many projects lately. Actually we recently saw a Sous Vide repurposed for brewing instead of cooking.

Georgia Tech Pumps Water Through Silicon For Chip Cooling

October 5, 2015 by 72 Comments

One of the things that stops electronic devices from going faster is heat. That’s why enthusiasts go as far as using liquid nitrogen to cool CPU chips to maximize their overclocking potential. Researchers at Georgia Tech have been working on cutting fluid channels directly into the back of commercial silicon die (an Altera FPGA, to be exact). The tiny channels measure about 100 micron and are resealed with another layer of silicon. Water is pumped into the channels to cool the device efficiently.

A comparable air-cooled device would operate at about 60 degrees Celsius. With the water cooling channels cut into the die and 20 degree water pumped at 147 ml/minute, the researchers kept the chip operating about less than 24 degrees Celsius.

Continue reading “Georgia Tech Pumps Water Through Silicon For Chip Cooling” →

Juggling Robot Deftly Handles Balls

October 5, 2015 by 22 Comments

A well-designed robot can do any action a human can do. Whether this is an acrobatic performance, or just writing with a pen, there’s a robot out there for any single action a human can perform. This includes juggling, but never before has the human action of juggling been replicated at this scale. [Nathan] built a robot that can juggle seven balls simultaneously. That’s more balls in the air than any other juggling robot.

jugglebotWhile the original plan was to build a low-cost version that could juggle balls by throwing them up in the air, this proved to be very difficult. Instead of giving up, [Nathan] simplified the problem by rolling the balls up a ramp. The entire build is documented in an imgur gallery, and there’s some interesting tech going on here. The 3D printed arms are controlled by beefy stepper motors running at 60V. To stop the balls from bouncing around in the arms, [Nathan] included and electromagnet to hold the balls in place for a fraction of a second during each cycle.

Juggling seven balls is amazing, but how about eight? This is the question every builder of a juggling robot will get, and it’s not quite as simple as adding another ball. The motion of juggling an even number of balls is completely different from juggling an odd number. That being said, [Nathan]’s robot does have four balls under its belt. It should probably get that looked at.

This isn’t [Nathan]’s first amazing 3D printed robot, and it probably won’t be the last, either: he recently built a Skittles sorting machine for the next time Van Halen comes to town. There’s an amazing amount of skill in all his projects, and he’s certainly an asset to the entire hackaday.io community.

Continue reading “Juggling Robot Deftly Handles Balls” →

Frozen Time Photography With A 100W LED

October 5, 2015 by 68 Comments

High speed photography is fun. Ultra high frame rate video, even more so. But since not many of us have access to $10,000 HFR cameras… we have to make do with long exposure shots a perfectly timed camera flash. You can design a system to trigger the flash at just the right millisecond — but they’re still pretty expensive typically.

[Electronupdate] has a 100W LED module and penchant for Arduino Nanos — so he wondered if he could make an affordable high speed camera rig — and he did.

It’s a pretty slick little setup. He has a limit switch mounted to a nail on a piece of wood — when the water balloon drops on it, it triggers the mechanical switch. The Arduino then triggers the LED flash, which is quite a large load and requires a High Side Switch to operate. A small LCD and series of buttons allow him to dial in the time offset just right in order to get some awesome photos of a water balloon exploding.

Continue reading “Frozen Time Photography With A 100W LED” →

Deuterium Powered Homes And The Return Of Cold Fusion Hype

October 5, 2015 by 144 Comments

We’ve been sent this press release claiming a new kind of fusion reaction that works at small scales using an incredibly exotic fuel material: ultra-dense deuterium. We looked into it with an open mind, and if we’re being kind we’ll conclude that there’s a ten-year long research project being undertaken by [Leif Holmlid], a single scientist whose claims would win him one or two Nobel prizes if any of it were true.

If we drop the kindness and approach it rationally, this doesn’t smell right and can’t be believed until it has been reliably reproduced by someone not associated with the original research. Let’s delve into the claim of Deuterium powered reactions, and circle around on the cold-fusion hype we found so sadly entertaining back in the ’90s.

Continue reading “Deuterium Powered Homes And The Return Of Cold Fusion Hype” →