Rendering Fractals With Just HTML And CSS

January 26, 2015 by 18 Comments
What’s better than spending hours and hours with CSS
trying to get images and text to center properly? Not [Jim], but he did notice that
CSS3 was a very powerful language. He wondered about building Tetris, a Turing Machine, or rendering fractals purely in CSS and HTML. The jury is still out if a Turing machine is possible, but he did manage to generate some simple fractals using just CSS and HTML, no JavaScript required.

Most fractals are recursive, and CSS rules can be applied to HTML objects that have already have rules applied to them. It’s not quite recursion, because there’s no way to dynamically generate HTML with CSS. However, with just a few tags, [Jim] can generate one level of a Pythagoras Tree. This method requires placing tags in the HTML for every level of the tree, greatly limiting the cool factor. That’s easily remedied by a few CTRL+Cs and CTRL+Vs.

The same technique can be used to render a Koch snowflake – seen on this page. Yes, it’s all HTML and CSS, without JavaScript. Why? Because he can, and that’s good enough for us.

Using RC Transmitters With Flight Simulators

January 26, 2015 by 21 Comments

It’s winter, and that means terrible weather and very few days where flying RC planes and helicopters is tolerable. [sjtrny] has been spending the season with RC flight simulators for some practice time. He had been using an old Xbox 360 controller, but that was really unsuitable for proper RC simulation – a much better solution would be to use his normal RC transmitter as a computer peripheral.

The usual way of using an RC transmitter with a computer is to buy a USB simulator adapter that emulates a USB game pad through a port on the transmitter. Buying one of these adapters would mean a week of waiting for shipping, so [sjtrny] did the logical thing and made his own.

Normally, a USB simulator adapter plugs in to a 3.5mm jack on the transmitter used for a ‘buddy box’, but [sjtrny] had an extra receiver sitting around. Since a receiver simply outputs signals to servos, this provides a vastly simpler interface for an Arduino to listen in on. After connecting the rudder, elevator, aileron, and throttle signals on the receiver to an Arduino, a simple bit of code and the UnoJoy library allows any Arduino and RC receiver to become a USB joystick.

[sjtrny] went through a second iteration of hardware for this project with a Teensy 3.1. This version has higher resolution on the joystick axes, and the layout of the code isn’t slightly terrible. It’s a great project for all the RC pilots out there that can’t get a break in the weather, and is also a great use for a spare receiver you might have sitting around.

The Proper Use For A Gameboy Advance Carrying Case

January 26, 2015 by 14 Comments

About a decade ago, Nintendo released a Game Boy Advance carrying case in the shape of a Game Boy Advance. It was the obvious answer to the original brick Game Boy carrying case every eight year old had in 1990. This jumbo-sized Game Boy Advance case also makes a really good platform for a console mod, which is exactly what [frostefires] got when he put an N64 in one.

This isn’t the first time we’ve seen this bit of old Nintendo paraphernalia used to house an N64. A few years ago, [Hailrazer] used the same GBA carrying case as the body of an N64 build. There were a few shortcomings in that build, most importantly the removal of the D pad.  [frostedfires]’ build fixes this oversight.

Inside the GBA enclosure is a 4.3 inch screen, a replacement Gamecube joystick, an SNES D pad, and of course the entire N64 circuit board with a few modifications.

[frostedfires] entered this into a ‘Shark Tank’-ish  competition at school, and this build was so impressive he won first place. Link to the full build thread here.

ANUBIS, A Natural User Bot Interface System

January 26, 2015 by 14 Comments

[Matt], [Andrew], [Noah], and [Tim] have a pretty interesting build for their capstone project at Ohio Northern University. They’re using a Microsoft Kinect, and a Leap Motion to create a natural user interface for controlling humanoid robots.

The robot the team is using for this project is a tracked humanoid robot they’ve affectionately come to call Johnny Five.  Johnny takes commands from a computer, Kinect, and Leap motion to move the chassis, arm, and gripper around in a way that’s somewhat natural, and surely a lot easier than controlling a humanoid robot with a keyboard.

The team has also released all their software onto Github under an open source license. You can grab that over on the Gits, or take a look at some of the pics and videos from the Columbus Mini Maker Faire.

First CNC Project Results In Coffee Table Of Catan

January 25, 2015 by 16 Comments

[Christian Finklea] was inspired by a glow in the dark table, and decided to try his hand at making his own… and it’s absolutely fantastic.

He designed the table using SketchUp Make, and overlaid the continents of our planet on a grid of hexagons — Though it looks like he left Antarctica out of the mix — poor Antarctica! Why hexagons you might ask? Well, his CNC machine isn’t that big, so he had to choose a smaller work piece size in order to make the table. Kind of gives off a Settlers of Catan vibe too…

Once he had all the intricate hexagons milled out, he began assembling the table. Lots of wood glue later the table started looking like a table. Now here’s the fun part — making it glow.

Using what looks like a kind of glow-in-the-dark epoxy, [Christian] filled in all of the country cutouts and waited for it to cure. Bit of sanding later, some more lacquer, and boom — he has an awesome coffee table.

Now if only he had stuck some LEDs in there too like one of these RGB coffee tables we’ve seen — Then you could also play Risk anytime!

Hacking Your Coworkers Label Makers

January 25, 2015 by 58 Comments

Finally, a real hack! [PodeCoet] wrote in to tell us about a little fun he had recently in the workplace… He discovered the label makers everyone uses are all IP-enabled… and well, he took advantage of that.

His long but utterly delightfully written blog post is actually a tutorial on how to hack into Zebra-brand printers. From the realization of this possibility, to the first test print, to spoofing his MAC address, [PodeCoet] had a blast doing this — evident in his lovely descriptions of the events — like after he made first access to a printer over IP.

I’m now tripping absolute balls with excitement, and time seems to dilate as I rush to get to the car to drive home.

Unable to contain my excitement during the 20 minute drive, I pull over into a laneway, browse Zebra’s website on my smartphone, and download a copy of the “Zebra ZPL Programming Guide”.

Talk about excitement! Oh and did we mention he originally planned on getting fired by doing this?

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Hackaday Links: January 25, 2015

January 25, 2015 by 24 Comments

Misumi is doing something pretty interesting with their huge catalog of aluminum extrusions, rods, bolts, and nuts. They’re putting up BOMs for 3D printers. If you’ve ever built a printer with instructions you’ve somehow found on the RepRap wiki, you know how much of a pain it is to go through McMaster or Misumi to find the right parts. Right now they have three builds, one with linear guides, one with a linear shaft, and one with V-wheels.

So you’re finally looking at those fancy SLA or powder printers. If you’re printing an objet d’arte like the Stanford bunny or the Utah teapot and don’t want to waste material, you’re obviously going to print a thin shell of material. That thin shell isn’t very strong, so how do you infill it? Spheres, of course. By importing an object into Meshmixer, you can build a 3D honeycomb inside a printed object. Just be sure to put a hole in the bottom to let the extra resin or powder out.

Remember that episode of The Simpsons where Homer invented an automatic hammer? It’s been reinvented using a custom aluminum linkage, a freaking huge battery, and a solenoid. Next up is the makeup shotgun, and a reclining toilet.

[Jan] built a digitally controlled analog synth. We’ve seen a few of his FM synths VA synths built from an LPC-810 ARM chip before, but this is the first one that could reasonably be called an analog synth. He’s using a digital filter based on the Cypress PSoC-4.

The hip thing to do with 3D printers is low-poly Pokemon. I don’t know how it started, it’s just what the kids are doing these days. Those of us who were around for Gen 1 the first time it was released should notice a huge oversight by the entire 3D printing and Pokemon communities when it comes to low-poly Pokemon. I have corrected this oversight. I’ll work on a pure OpenSCAD model (thus ‘made completely out of programming code’) when I’m sufficiently bored.

*cough**bullshit* A camera that can see through walls *cough**bullshit* Seriously, what do you make of this?