Hackaday Links: December 13, 2015

December 13, 2015 by 30 Comments

So you’ve been rocking a tin foil hat for years now, and people have finally gotten used to your attire and claims that fluoridated water is a government mind control experiment. This holiday, how about something a little more stylish? Yes, it’s a Kickstarter for the World’s First Signal Proof Headwear. This fashionable beanie or cap protects you from harmful electromagnetic rays. Next time you shoot an eighteen minute long YouTube video of a wheezing rant about chemtrails, look fashionable with Shield – the world’s first stylish signal proof hat.

That last tip came to us from a Crowdfunding marketing agency. That means money was exchanged for the purposes of marketing a modern tin foil hat.

[Mike] has an old IBM 5155, the ‘luggable’ computer with design cues taken from the first Compaq. With an Ethernet adapter and a little inspiration, He was able to get this old computer to load the Hackaday retro edition.

[gyrovague] has a Chromecast that’s a bit janky. When it comes to electronics, strangeness means heat. The solution? A heat sink for the Chromecast. You don’t even need a proper heat sink for this one – just epoxy a big ‘ol transformer to the aluminum plate in the Chromecast.

This year, Keysight gave away a pile of test and measurement gear to the i3Detroit hackerspace. Keysight is doing it again, with a grand prize of around $60,000. Entries close on the 15th. Protip: you, personally, don’t want to win this for tax reasons. A non-profit does.

The Internet recently caught wind of a satellite modem being sold by Sparkfun. It’s $250 for the module, with a $12/month line rental, and each 340 byte message costs $0.18 to receive. Yes, it’s cool, and yes, it’s expensive. If you ever need to send a message from the north pole, there you go.

Need to remove the waterproof coating from LED strips? Don’t use a knife, use a Dremel and a wire brush.

Maker Barn Organizer Creates Makerspace Access Control System

December 13, 2015 by 15 Comments

The MakerBarn is a new makerspace between The Woodlands and Tomball, TX (north of Houston). [George Carlson], one of the founders and a retired design engineer, wanted to make sure only members certified on a machine could use it. He worked with [Kolja Windeler] to create the MACS or Makerspace Access Control System. He has one video explaining MACS and, after the break, another explaining the browser based user interface for the system.

20151205_181615A control box, [George] calls them stations, controls the power to a machine. Member badges have an RFID tag that is read when inserted into the station’s reader. If the member is authorized to use the machine, the power is enabled. For safety, the member’s badge must remain in the reader to maintain power. The reader uses a Photon board from Particle with a WiFi link to a Raspberry Pi server.

[Kolja] developed a Pi system to maintain a database of member numbers and the machines they can use. The list is sent to the stations periodically or when updates occur. The user interface is browser based on the MakerBarn’s LAN so it can be maintained by a computer or smartphone in the space. Presently 21 MACS modules have been built with some going to Hanover University in Germany for their auto hobby shop.

Not only did [George] lead the effort on creating MACS but has been key to getting the construction done inside a pole barn to make the MakerBarn a reality.

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OSWatch, An Open Source Watch

December 13, 2015 by 18 Comments

If you are a soldering ninja with a flair for working with tiny parts and modules, check out the Open Source Watch a.k.a. OSWatch built by [Jonathan Cook]. His goals when starting out the project were to make it Arduino compatible, have enough memory for future applications, last a full day on one charge, use BLE as Central or Peripheral and be small in size. With some ingenuity, 3d printing and hacker skills, he was able to accomplish all of that.

OSWatch is still a work in progress and with detailed build instructions available, it is open for others to dig in and create their own versions with modifications – you just need to bring in a lot of patience to the build. The watch is built around a Microdunio Core+ board, an OLED screen, BLE112A module, Vibration motor, a couple of LEDs and Buttons, and a bunch of other parts. Take a look at the schematics here. The watch requires a 3V3, 8MHz version of the Microdunio Core+ (to ensure lower power consumption), and if that isn’t readily available, [Jonathan]  shows how to modify a 5V, 16MHz version.

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FIRST Robotics Gives Us Hope In The Next Generation Of Hackers

December 13, 2015 by 53 Comments

A top scoring team in FIRST Robotics shows off just what some high-school students are capable of. Called the Simbot SideSwipe, their 2015 robot is a slick piece of mechatronic genius, which according to our tipster was built in just six weeks by the students.

The robot is essentially a remote controlled palletizing forklift, capable of collecting and stacking six recycling totes, and a green bin. It’s an impressive combination of mechanical control and fabrication — though it is worth noting, these bots are remote controlled — not autonomous.

To encourage learning, the team has posted their engineering report, and even the CAD model online. They obviously had quite a bit of funding judging by their component selection, but regardless, we’re seriously impressed with both the design and execution of manufacturing their robot — especially if it was really built in just six weeks. Just take a look at the following videos:

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Decoupling Lego Trains Automatically

December 13, 2015 by 25 Comments

Lego train sets were introduced almost 50 years ago, and since then, one thing has been constant: the trains connected with magnets. While this is a supremely simple means of connecting locomotives to rolling stock, there is one big disadvantage. Building decouplers – devices that will separate one car from another – is difficult.

Now, with a clever combination of racks, gears, and wedges, trains can disassemble themselves. They can even do it with an Arduino.

wedgeThis decoupler works by effectively wedging cars apart from each other. With a motor from an old Lego Technic set, a few gears, shafts, and a rack, a device can be constructed that fits between the rails of a track that raises into the undercarriage of rolling stock.

Because this rolling stock is moved around with a locomotive, all that’s needed to separate two halves of a train is to move the locomotive forward. Yes, it does mean that the connection with the weakest magnet is disengaged – not necessarily the connection you want to decouple. However, with only one car and a locomotive, there’s only one connection to break. Simple enough.

This Lego decoupler can be further improved with an Arduino, a few ultrasonic sensors, and an IR detector to make a fully automatic decoupling siding for a Lego train layout. You can see all this below operating with a full state machine that perpetually switches rolling stock behind a locomotive.

A great use for Legos.

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ARM-Based Gesture Remote Control

December 13, 2015 by 5 Comments

When we wave our hands at the TV, it doesn’t do anything. You can change that, though, with an ARM processor and a handful of sensors. You can see a video of the project in action below. [Samuele Jackson], [Tue Tran], and [Carden Bagwell] used a gesture sensor, a SONAR sensor, an IR LED, and an IR receiver along with an mBed-enabled ARM processor to do the job.

The receiver allows the device to load IR commands from an existing remote so that the gesture remote will work with most setups. The mBed libraries handle communication with the sensors and the universal remote function. It also provides a simple real-time operating system. That leaves just some simple logic in main.cpp, which is under 250 lines of source code.

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Turning A Pi Into A PDP

December 12, 2015 by 28 Comments

There’s no better way to learn how to program a computer than assembly, and there’s no better way to do assembly than with a bunch of blinkenlights and switches. Therefore, the best way to learn programming is with a PDP-11. It’s a shame these machines are locked up in museums and the garages of very cool people, but you can build your own PDP-11 with a Raspberry Pi and just a few extra components.

[jonatron] built his own simulated version of the PDP-11 with a lot of LEDs, a ton of switches, and a few 16-bit serial to parallel ICs. Of course the coolest part of any blinkenlight simulator are the front panel graphics, and here [jonatron] didn’t skimp. He put those switches and LEDs on a piece of laser cut acrylic with a handsome PDP11 decal. The software comes with a load of compiler warnings and doesn’t run anything except for very simple machine code programs. That’s really all you can do with a bunch of toggle switches and lights, though.

If this project looks familiar, your memory does not deceive you. The PiDP-8/I was an entry in this year’s Hackaday Prize and ended up being one of the top projects in the Best Product category. We ran into [Oscar], the creator of the PiDP-8, a few times this year. The most recent was at the Hackaday SuperConferece where he gave a talk. He’s currently working on a replica of the king of PDPs, the PDP-11/70.

Video below.

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