mirobot

Introducing Mirobot, A DIY WiFi Robot For Children

May 16, 2014 by 23 Comments

We’re quite sure that fathers parents people reading Hackaday wonder how to introduce their children acquaintances to the wonderful world of electronics. The Mirobot (Kickstarter link) might just be a good way to do so. As you may see in the picture above the Mirobot is a small WiFirobotics kit that children can build themselves to learn about technology, engineering and programming.

The laser cut chassis is assembled by snapping it together. All the electronics are left exposed to the outside so children may try to figure out which component does what. The robot is configured over your home WiFi via a Scratch-like visual programming tool. Everything (PCB, Arduino code, user interface) is open source.

The platform is based around the Arduino compatible ATMega328, two stepper motors, a Wifi module that can behave as a client or access point and 5 AA batteries. The campaign stretch goals include a collision detection sensor, line following functionality and finally a sound add-on.

Thanks [nickjohnson] for the tip.

A WiFi Home Power Meter

May 16, 2014 by 13 Comments

acFor his masters at Cornell, [Christopher McNally] designed a simple, non intrusive home power meter capable of doing everything a ‘smart meter’ can do – log power consumption throughout a home, and display a log of a home’s power consumption over WiFi. He’s even testing out some interesting ideas, like automatically detecting when specific devices turn on by reading the current data.

From [Chris]'[Jeramy] developed his system around the Arduino and a Ethernet shield, taking care of networking and choosing a micro, leaving him more time to develop the more interesting part of the project: sensing current. For this he used a small, clip-on current transducer. This sensor generates up to 10 VAC across a resistor, but the Arduino doesn’t play well with AC, requiring a small rectifier built around an op amp.

While the project works as a homebrew smart meter, [Jeramy] wasn’t able to automatically detect when certain devices were powered on. This is partly due to the fact that changes in current were only seen in magnitude and not waveform. Also, if two devices were powered on at the same time, the software would see that as a larger device that draws the sum of the current of two smaller devices. Still, [Jeramy] came up with a cheap way of metering power in any home, and the cost of his solution is cheaper than a lot of professional systems out there.

All the code, files, and design report are available on [Jeramy]’ git.

Home Made Cargo Bicycle Makes Use Of Scraps!

May 16, 2014 by 39 Comments

Recycled DIY Bicycle!

Ever heard of a cargo bike? If you need to carry a lot of stuff around (or maybe even your kid!), then they’re super handy — unfortunately, they aren’t exactly cheap — or common. So you could just make your own…

[Matthew Venn] was inspired by Tom’s cargo bikes, recently featured in issue 12 of Boneshaker magazine. He collected a few scrap bicycles, some steel, and started fabrication — lucky for him, his friend [Eric] has a full metal working shop complete with plasma cutting, MIG welding, and a lathe.

They started by cutting the front end of the bicycle off and replacing it with a much longer steering column. This connects to the only new part they had to buy — a pair of Ford Escort tie rods, which allow you to steer the tiny front wheel. They continued welding the rest of the frame together, testing it as they went — once satisfied with its handling (it still needs brakes) they built the cargo platform and called it a day.

There’s a complete gallery of the process over on [Matthew’s] Flickr, so if you’re hoping to make your own, take a gander!

Electrolytic Rust Removal Leaves Your Parts Shiny As New

May 15, 2014 by 82 Comments

If you’re tired of removing rust by hand, you’d be surprised how easy it is to build your very own electrolytic rust removal system!

[James Taylor] is in the process of restoring a very old lathe. Most parts were small enough to simply remove the rust, paint, and grease via chemical stripping and bead blasting, but he ran into a problem with the 40kg lathe bed. It’s painted and if he chemically strips it, he needs to rinse it — which might result in even more flash rusting.

He looked up electrolytic rust removal, and was a bit suspicious of how simple and effective it claimed to be, but he decided to give it a shot anyway. He picked up a big 160L rain barrel, 6 pieces of rebar, some copper wire, and a computer power supply.

Continue reading “Electrolytic Rust Removal Leaves Your Parts Shiny As New” →

MicroModem, For Data Transmission Explorations

May 15, 2014 by 24 Comments

modemThem kids with those Arduinos don’t know what they’re missing. A serial connection is just too easy, and there’s so much fun to be had with low bandwidth modems. [Mark] made the MicroModem with this in mind. It’s a 1200 baud AFSK modem, capable of APRS, TCP/IP over SLIP, mesh network experimentations, and even long-range radio communication.

As the MicroModem is designed to be an introduction to digital wireless communication, it’s an extremely simple build using only 17 components on a board compatible with the Microduino. The software is built around something called MinimalProtocol1, a protocol that will be received by all other listening stations, features error correction, and automatic data compression. There’s also the ability to send TCP/IP over the link, which allowed [Mark] to load up our retro site at a blistering 1200 bps.

The code is extremely well documented, as seen on the Github for this project, with board files and even breadboard layouts included. [Mark] has three PCBs of his prototype left over, and he’s willing to give those out to other Hackaday readers who would like to give his modem a shot.

Find The Giant Jolly Wrencher At Maker Faire This Weekend

May 15, 2014 by 16 Comments

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Check it out, I made something really geeky for Maker Faire. If you’re going to be in San Mateo this weekend for Maker Faire Bay Area, watch for the floating Skull and Wrenches. I won’t be alone, and my compatriots and I will be loaded down with stuff to give away to those who ask for it. If you are hell-bent on finding us, just check this Twitter list as we’ll frequently be tweeting our locations and exploits.

Want to grab a beer with some other Hackaday folk? Even if you’re not attending the Faire, you can take part in the festivities. We’re descending on O’Neil’s Irish Pub on Saturday night. You might want to let us know you’re coming. You can show up unannounced, but we can’t guarantee that you’ll be able to squeeze into the 80-person-pub. If we have way too many hackers overflowing into the street we’ll probably split the party up and go bar hopping. The place is apparently right next to a train stop for your traveling convenience. We just hope to keep things tame enough to make it to Maker Faire again on Sunday morning, but we can’t guarantee that either ;-)

1980’s Ingenuity Yields Mechanical Intervalometer

May 15, 2014 by 12 Comments

DIY Intervalometer

Let’s go back in time to the 1980’s, when shoulder pads were in vogue and the flux capacitor was first invented. New apartment housing was being built in [Vince’s] neighborhood, and he wanted some time-lapse footage of the construction. He had recently inherited an Elmo Super-8mm film camera that featured a remote control port and a speed selector. [Vince] figured he might be able to build his own intervalometer get some time-lapse footage of the construction. He was right.

An intervalometer is a device which counts intervals of time. These are commonly used in photography for taking time-lapse photos. You can configure the intervalometer to take a photo every few seconds, minutes, hours, etc. This photographic technique is great when you want see changes in a process that would normally be very subtle to the human eye. In this case, construction.

[Vince] started out by building his own remote control switch for the camera. A simple paddle-style momentary micro switch worked perfectly. After configuring the camera speed setting to “1”, he found that by pressing the remote button he could capture one single frame. Now all he needed was a way to press the button automatically every so often.

Being mechanically minded, [Vince] opted to build a mechanical solution rather than an electronic circuit. He first purchased a grandfather clock mechanism that had the biggest motor he could find. He then purchased a flange that allowed him to mount a custom-made wooden disk to the end of the minute hand’s axle. This resulted in a wheel that would spin exactly once per hour.

He then screwed 15 wood screws around the edge of the wheel, placed exactly 24 degrees apart. The custom paddle switch and motor assembly were mounted to each other in such a way that the wood screws would press the micro switch as they went by. The end result was a device that would automatically press the micro switch 15 times per hour. Continue reading “1980’s Ingenuity Yields Mechanical Intervalometer” →