Stereoscopic Display Art Installation

March 19, 2013 by 9 Comments

stereoscopic-display

This rig is something of a museum or art installation, but the concept is so simple we thought it could easily inspire your next project. The two mirrors and two video sources make up a stereoscopic display.

The user sits between two displays (computer monitors shown here, but the post also shows images projected on two walls of a room). A pair of mirrors mounted at forty-five degrees form the eye pieces. It’s a V-shaped mirror assembly in which the narrow end pointing toward the bridge of the user’s nose. The mirrors reflect the images from the monitors, giving a different view for each eye.

In this case each monitor is playing back a video loop, but one is just slightly longer than the other. Each monitor has a potentiometer in front of it. The user can turn them to speed or slow the playback in an attempt to bring the video back into sync. We don’t think we’d replicate that portion of the project. But it might be fun to view some stereoscopic clips in this way. There’s even instructions on how two cameras were used to record the scenes.

You can get a closer view of the test apparatus in the clip after the jump.

Continue reading “Stereoscopic Display Art Installation” →

Python Script Migrates From Dying Google Reader To Evernote

March 19, 2013 by 17 Comments

google-reader-to-evernote

We’re sure you’ve heard by now that Google has decided to close its RSS feed aggregator service called Google Reader. We’ve got to remember to get our list of thousands of great hacking blog feeds off of there before it’s gone. But just preserving the list is rather easy. [Paul Kerchen] has a bit different problem. He’s got hundreds of articles starred and he wants to preserve a way to find those pages again. His solution was to write his own Python script to migrate starred Google Reader articles over to Evernote.

We’re not here to promote the Evernote service. But just so we’re on the same page, it’s an archiving system that lets you save things like webpages and text documents for access on a wide range of different platforms. So all that really needs to happen is for [Paul] to get the list of links from his starred articles folder formatted for import on Evernote. It starts by using Google Takeout to download an archive of his account data. Within this dump is a JSON formatted file called ‘starred.json’. His script parses the data and imports each article into Evernote. There’s even rate limiting to manage the daily import maximum of free accounts.

Ask Hackaday: What Movies Have The Best/worst Hacking Scenes

March 19, 2013 by 342 Comments

best-and-worst-movie-hacking

It’s time to do your best impression of [Comic Book Guy] as you make your case for trash or triumph in big screen hacking scenes. We watch a lot of movies, and it’s hard not to groan when the filmmakers cut corners by doing zero research into what using a computer actually looks like. But then once in a great while you have a team that does its due diligence and puts up a scene that makes sense to those of us in the know. So we’re wondering, what movies do you think have the best hacking scenes, and which ones are the worst offenders? Leave your opinion on the topic in the comments section.

We realize that you can come up with tons of poorly done ones, what we would really like to hear about is who did it right. We’ll get you started with a couple of examples. The image on the upper left is a scene from Tron: Legacy which we think did a fantastic job of portraying actual computer usage. You can read more about the huge amount of work that went into it in this article (via Reddit).

In the lower right is one of the most shady movies scenes that comes to mind. [Hugh Jackman] is compelled to do some ‘hacking’ by [John Travolta] in the movie Swordfish. The caption at the top of the screen is “COMPILER”, and who the heck knows what the rest of that is supposed to be?

On the hardware hacking side, it gets a little more difficult, we would LOVE some examples of hardware hacks or mods done right.

DIY Arduino Pro Mini Quadcopter

March 19, 2013 by 5 Comments

[execUc] took a stock V929 quadcopter and started making some crafty customizations. The main change – the control electronics were replaced by an Arduino Pro Mini (16Mhz model). He soldered all the modules on a prototyping board and, although admittedly a bit heavy, the little guy takes flight with no problem.

Among other details, an HMC5883L (magnetometer) and MPU6050 (accelerometer / gyroscope) are used as sensors. A LiPo 7.4V battery pack supplies the power. The brushed motors are controlled by pulse-width modulation from SI2302 MOSFET with added diodes. He plans to swap out the micro-controller for an ARM7 stm32F103 for extra computing power, and needs to play with the PID values to correct a slight problem he seems to be having when rotating.

Check out a test flight video after the break. [execUc] has a thorough list of all the alterations he made in the video description, so be sure to read it.

[via Hacked Gadgets]

Continue reading “DIY Arduino Pro Mini Quadcopter” →

Make Your Own Steadycam Mount

March 19, 2013 by 13 Comments

gopro-steadycam

[Ryan] wrote in to tell us about his partially 3D-printed steadycam mount on Instructables. In the video after the break, the camera does stay quite steady through some basic tests. The base is a paint roller handle, and the device works by using a long arm on the bottom with some weights to keep the camera upright. This handle is attached to the weights and camera through a 3-axis Gimbal system that allows the camera to stay relatively steady even if your hand isn’t. A full bill of materials and the needed STL files are provided.

Of course if you’re “old school” and like to use subtractive manufacturing methods, you can always check out this [camera stabilizer] from [Do-It-Yourself Gadgets]. The device works in a nearly identical manner, but the BOM seems to be: metal, screws, threaded rod. There are some cool animated GIFs of it in action on the site, or check out the video after the break.

As a “camera mount” bonus, check out this super easy [GoPro] (or any other small camera) clamp mount.  Really clever. Continue reading “Make Your Own Steadycam Mount” →

Designing And Building A Wooden Mechanical Clock

March 19, 2013 by 16 Comments

wooden-clock-prototype

Electronics are undoubtedly the basis for our modern society. Leaving out transistor-based devices, and a mechanical clock would be one of the most intricate devices man has come up with. As a Mechanical Engineer, I thought it would be a fun challenge to design and build my own gear-driven clock.

Because clocks have obviously been invented, I wouldn’t be starting from scratch, and I don’t think I could have figured out an escapement on my own. I explain my initial clock escapement and gear reduction design thoughts in this post, and originally getting the escapement to work was my biggest fear.

As seen in the first video after the break, the escapement gear is still a big problem, but not really for the reason I expected. The shaft that the gear sits on seems to be bent, so it allows the escapement to “go free” for part of it’s cycle, losing any sense of accurate timekeeping. Be sure to also check out the second video, especially around 1:50 when I show what happens when an escapement gear goes much faster than a normal clock. Continue reading “Designing And Building A Wooden Mechanical Clock” →

Robotic Rat Torments And Depresses Real Rats

March 18, 2013 by 92 Comments

robotic-rat-torments-real-rats

Animal testing has always been a subject of much debate. On one hand, it allows us to determine if something is probably safe for humans. On the other hand, it’s injuring and killing the very animals that help us escape that same fate. Any way you look at it, be thankful you’re not a lab rat. Being a mammal, they share a similar physiology with us. They are also easy to breed and easy to dispose of. These characteristics make them the prime subject for testing the safety of drugs and treatments that might one day be used on humans. Scientists at Waseda University in Tokyo, Japan, have created a new rat nemesis – the WR-3, a robot designed specifically to stress and depress lab animals in the name of science.

Depression isn’t normally something rats have to worry about in the wild. So, the WR-3 tries to instill it upon them. The robot has three functions: attacking continuously (relentlessly rams the victim), attacking interactively (attacks for 5 seconds whenever the victim moves, then stops), and chasing (stays right next to the victim but never attacks). The scientists found that the best way to make the rats depressed was to attack them continuously in their youth, then attack interactively as they get older.

With the data the scientists gain from these new experiments, they hope to learn more about human depression and hopefully come up with more successful treatments. There isn’t a lot of specific information we could find about the WR-3, but we’ll keep you posted.

[via Gizmodo]