Deck The Cubes

December 14, 2012 by 6 Comments

deck-the-cubes

[MrBuildIt] has lived up to his name when it comes to this year’s Christmas decorations. He built a rig that spreads Christmas cheer from one end of the cubicles to the other.

In the demo video after the break you’ll see that the system is controlled by a nicely polished Android app. It lets you choose from three different Christmas songs (or no music at all) as Santa Claus makes his rounds. The app includes buttons for switching all of the lights on or off but we think it’s more corny fun to see then turn on as Santa flies overhead.

The sleigh and three tiny reindeer are suspended from a pulley system. When they make it to one end of the office a hall effect sensor serves as a limiting switch. From the look of it you’d think Santa will be flying backwards on the return trip but there is a servo that flips the thing around so that he’s going the right way.

This is quite a gaunlet to have thrown down when it comes to office decor. We’d like to see what geeky thing’s you’ve been doing with your own decorations. Get some details up on the web and send a link our way!

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DSLR Trick Lets You Change Focus After Taking The Picture

December 14, 2012 by 35 Comments

Here’s two photographic takes on the same subject, each with a different depth of focus. [Chaos Collective] came up with a way to make interactive still images that allow a user to adjust the depth of focus by clicking on different objects in the image.

This was inspired by the Lytro camera which uses an array of lenses to take multiple pictures at once. Each of those images has a slightly different depth of focus. The technique used here doesn’t require that you buy one of those $400+ cameras. But it’s not a cheap hack unless you already own a camera that can shoot video and has manual focus.

The technique used by the [Chaos Collective] is to move the camera’s manual focus setting from the nearest to the furthest target while capturing a video. That file can then be processed using their browser-based tool which turns it into an embedded HTML5 image.

IFF System Keeps You From Shooting Your Friends

December 14, 2012 by 16 Comments

IMU

An IFF system – Identification of Friend or Foe – are used by military aircraft in battle situations to determine if another aircraft is being piloted by a fellow aviator or an enemy. For the boots on the ground, friendly fire is generally regarded as a very bad thing, so a few students in [Bruce Land]’s ECE 4760 class at Cornell decided to make a wearable version of an IFF for their final project.

[Wen Hao Lui] and [Aadeetya Shreedhar] broke their project down into two parts: an initiator unit and a receiver unit. The initiator unit sends an encryption key to the receiver unit which, in turn, replies back to say, ‘don’t shoot.’ [Wen] and [Aadeetya] needed to choose between using RF or laser-based communications for the initiator, but the difficulty in acquiring or building a radio antenna with the requisite directionality made a laser the obvious choice.

The receiver unit has eight phototransistors attached to a vest and will reply to the initiator unit via a Wi.232 radio module when the laser illuminates the phototransistors. In the event of an enemy acquiring one of these vests, the project includes a pulse detection circuit that will erase the encryption keys when the wearer’s pulse drops to zero. A bit morbid, but the video after the break sure makes it look cool.

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Almost Building An Engine From Hardware Store Parts

December 14, 2012 by 82 Comments

engine

You can build a surprising amount of stuff from parts you can pick up at a hardware store. Sometimes, though, getting a project built from sections of pipe is very, very difficult. That’s the case with [Lou]’s hardware store engine: despite an inordinate amount of cleverness, he just can’t seem to get an engine made from pipe fitting to work and is now asking for some ideas from other ingenious makers.

The engine uses regular oxygen and propane tanks you can pick up at Home Depot with torch heads soldered onto half inch pipe. The fuel and oxygen are mixed in a T fitting until a grill igniter sets the gas mixture ablaze pushing a cylinder down the length of a copper pipe. The cylinder is attached to an aluminum flywheel that also controls the opening and closing of the oxygen and propane valves as well as switching the grill igniter on and off.

Right now, [Lou] can get the engine running, but only for one stroke of the cylinder. He’s having a bit of a problem turning this into a working motor. If you’ve got any idea on how to make [Lou]’s engine work, drop a line in the comments. We’ll throw our two cents in and say he needs a valve on the exhaust, but other suggestions are always welcome.

Hackaday Links: December 13th, 2012

December 13, 2012 by 20 Comments

Cardboard box computer

links-cardboard-box-computer

[Alistair] chapman had a Laptop with a broken screen sitting in his parts bin. He knew he had an LCD panel on hand that would probably work with it, but it wouldn’t fit in the case. His solution was to transplant all the computer parts into a cardboard box from a motherboard.

This violin is garbage

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The kids in this orchestra live in a villiage built on top of a landfill. But they make the most out of what they have. This orchestra is composed of instruments built from garbage and they seem to work pretty well. [Thanks Bruce]

More LED mystery puzzles

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[Henryk] is at it again. He puts together some very impressive circuits that play tricks on your engineering mind. His latest is three LEDs in series. Look closely and you’ll see they’re not performing as expected. Watching the solution to one of his previous puzzles will help you figure out how he’s doing it. His work is simply amazing.

Netbook framed as a dedicated weather station

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Not wanting to get rid of old but still working hardware, [Retro Toaster] built a dedicated weather station by mounting the screen, keyboard, and track pad in a picture frame.

Current and voltage testing your USB projects

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This dev board is a pass-through for USB devices. It makes voltage and current testing your device quite simple.

How To Used An Android Device With A Shattered Screen

December 13, 2012 by 31 Comments

This screen is not just cracked, it’s devastated. We can all agree that you’re not going to be carrying this around with you anymore, but it might still be useful in other endeavors. [Mr Westie] wanted to use it for the camera which is undamaged. The issue is how do you control an Android device with a broken screen?

He knew there are apps out there that let you control your device remotely. But these still depend on you being able to install and launch the program. He found he could get the image from the screen on his computer using a package called Screencast. It runs on your computer and doesn’t need to be installed on the phone, but it will require a rooted phone and the user must click to authorize root access. He got around that hangup by pushing keypress commands to the phone via ADB. The only problem left is if debugging mode is not enable.

Using Two Chargers With One Laptop

December 13, 2012 by 36 Comments

dual-charing-jacks-thinkpad

This one’s a riot! [Nico] got a new computer and didn’t want to change the six power supply cords he had strategically placed around his home and at work. So he just added a second charging jack that accepts a different style connector.

First off the laptop is used — but it’s new to him. So cracking it open and soldering in a new jack doesn’t affect the already expired warranty. He had an unlimited supply of Dell laptop chargers available from work. They are rated 19.5V and the charger for this computer is rated 20V so he figured this should be no problem. Instead of just swapping out the old charging port he added a second where the RJ-11 connector (for a telephone modem) was located. Now he doesn’t need to waste money buying more chargers for the new-old machine.

This isn’t the first time we’ve seen someone replace a power jack. But it is the first computer we’ve seen that takes two different chargers.