Brewing Tea Too Stressful? 3D Print A Tea Steeper

September 13, 2015 by 29 Comments

When you want to relax with a nice hot cup of tea, the last thing you need is the stress of dunking the teabag in and out of the hot water, right? [Andylear] got tired of it and he has a 3D printer, so he set about solving the problem.

The solution uses a standard mini servo and the VarSpeedServo Arduino library. This library uses interrupts to control speed and position of up to 8 servos. All servos can operate at once and you can control both the position of the servo and the speed of the motion required to get it there. Commands can be asynchronous or you can wait for them to complete and you can even send sequences of commands to each servo.

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Happy Programmer’s Day

September 13, 2015 by 40 Comments

Today (September 13, 2015) is Programmer’s Day — a recognition day that started in Russia, but has been adopted by many countries. While it is great that there is a day recognizing the contribution of programmers to society, the really interesting part is why it is on September 13 (except on leap years).

The leap year part should be a clue. Today is Julian day 256. We’ll guess that anyone reading Hackaday doesn’t need to be told the rest of the story. While it might not be as good of an in-joke as May the 4th (be with you), it is satisfying to know that it isn’t just a random date from the calendar. Now if we could only get the day off as paid vacation…

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Sense Hat Lights Up Pi

September 13, 2015 by 15 Comments

One of our chief complaints about the Raspberry Pi is it doesn’t have a lot of I/O. There are plenty of add ons, of course to expand the I/O capabilities. The actual Raspberry Pi foundation recently created the Sense Hat which adds a lot of features to a Pi, although they might not be the ones we would have picked. The boards were made for the AstroPi project (the project that allowed UK schools to run experiments in space). They don’t appear to be officially for sale to the public yet, but according to their site, they will be selling them soon. Update: Despite some pages on the Raspberry Pi site saying they aren’t out yet, they apparently are.

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A Gramophone For Your Pebble Smart Watch

September 13, 2015 by 2 Comments

At a recent Pebble-themed hackathon, one of the teams created a pretty cool device called the TimeDock Sleepeasy.

It’s a gramophone inspired docking station for your Pebble Time smart watch. And it’s not just a 3D printed mount — nope, there’s an Arduino inside! The team’s plan from the beginning was to make an interactive docking station for the Pebble that would allow it to talk to you without actually pressing any buttons on the watch.

It was rather tricky getting the Arduino Uno talking to the Pebble, but once they figured it out they had a lot of options for interaction — they ended up using an ultrasound sensor so you can just wave your hand at the TimeDock and it would tell you the time.

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Building A 3D Printed Laser Tube

September 13, 2015 by 42 Comments

A YouTuber by the name of [1kreature] is doing some excellent research into building his very own 3D printed laser tube.

It all started after he managed to find an extremely high voltage pulse driver. In his video he assures us we should never buy one. He then designed some 3D printed fittings for a clear acrylic tube that allow for pneumatic and electrical connections. Using a hand pump to create the vacuum inside was the most difficult, so he quickly upgraded to a proper industrial vacuum pump.

Apply the vacuum, turn on the pulse driver… and well… see for yourself!

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Hackaday Prize Semifinalist: Superhero Powers

September 12, 2015 by 8 Comments

The inspiration for [K.C. Lee]’s project for The Hackaday Prize didn’t come from seeing a grave injustice or inhuman suffering. He was watching Daredevil on Netflix. A show about a blind guy who fights crime in his spare time. People don’t have superhuman senses, and radioactive material falling off a truck in New York City leads to Ninja Turtles, not superheros. Still, a crude form of echolocation is well within the reach of the a capable hacker and would be very useful for those who are legally blind.

[K.C.]’s idea for human echolocation is a small wearable with ultrasonic sensors, 6DOF IMUs, and audio and haptic feedback. With a bit of math and a lot of practice, it’s possible to walk down a hallway, avoid obstacles, and find your way around without sight.

Human echolocation is a real thing, and it’s great to see a device that makes this minor human superpower a little more accessible. [K.C.] says there are 40 million people world wide that could use a device like this, and for an idea that was inspired by a superhero on TV, it’s one of the more interesting inspirations for an entry to The Hackaday Prize.

 

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