Building A Wooden Air Raid Siren

March 31, 2013 by 44 Comments

siren

A while back, [Matthias] was working on a dust collector for his shop. Being the master woodsmith he is, he decided to build a dust collection system out of wood. Everything worked out in the end, but in creating wooden impellers and blowers, he discovered his creations made a lot of noise. For this project, instead of trying to quiet his blower, he decided to make one as loud as possible in the form of an air raid siren.

The basic idea behind [Matthias]’ air raid siren is to make two impellers that force air through two stators along the perimeter of the rotor. As the siren spins, the air coming from the impellers is either blocked or passes through the stators, creating an alternating high and low pressure; to be more accurate, it creates a ton of noise. Stack two of these impellers together and you’ve got a two-tone air raid siren made out of wood.

For something that’s spinning very fast, we’re surprised [Matthias] didn’t have more problems with balancing his siren than he did. There are a few useful tricks to be picked up from his tutorial, though: balancing everything on a marble really seemed to help with the build.

As for how loud the siren is, [Matthias] can’t give us a decibel volume. From the video after the break, though, we can tell you it’s really, really loud.

Thanks [Dimitar] for sending this in. [Matthias], it’s alright if you send projects in yourself. You’ve earned the right to say, “I am so cool!”

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Coding New Parts In Eagle

March 31, 2013 by 9 Comments

chip

Making new parts in Eagle CAD isn’t the easiest thing in the world, especially if you’re dealing with a package that isn’t in one of the default libraries. Usually, making a new part means digging out a datasheet and drawing a new part in Eagle. A better solution would be to generate new parts with code – define the number of pads, the shape of the pads, the symmetry of the chip, and so forth. [Joost]’s madparts does just that, allowing anyone to create new parts in Eagle by entering numbers instead of drawing lines.

The idea behind madparts is to code new entries in Eagle libraries with Coffeescript. It has instant graphical feedback for the part you’re designing, and is able to import from and export to Eagle libraries. A KiCAD-enabled release is coming soon, but until then, madparts looks like a great way to create your own parts in weird packages in Eagle.

Interview: Another Kickstarter Round For The B9Creator

March 30, 2013 by 27 Comments

The Dawn of the 3D Printing Age - Art by Dennis HarrounNearly a year ago, the 3D printing scene saw a few new printers based on a technology other than squirting plastic out of a nozzle. These printers used DLP projectors underneath a vat of UV curing resin to build objects one layer at a time with incredible resolution.

Probably the most successful of these printers is the B9Creator from [Michael Joyce]. His original Kickstarter took in half a million dollars – 10 times his original goal – and still managed to deliver all the kits to backers within 2 weeks of the promised date. Now, [Michael] is running another Kickstarter before taking his printers to select distributors. We played some email tag with [Michael] for an interview discussing the perils of a hugely successful Kickstarter, and the future of the B9Creator ecosystem.

Check out our interview after the break.

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Treasure Trove Of Swarm Robotics Research

March 30, 2013 by 10 Comments

swarm-robotics

The screen capture above shows a group of swarm robots working together to move the blue box from the left side of the frame over to the right. It’s just one of many demonstrations shown in the video clip after the break. The clip is a quick sampling of the many swarm robotics research projects going on at the University of Sheffield’s Natural Robotics Lab.

The main focus for all of the research is to see what can be accomplished by getting a large group of relatively simple machines to work together. Each device has a microcontroller brain, camera, accelerometer, proximity sensors, and a microphone. By mixing and matching the use of available components they can test different concepts which will be useful in creating utility robot swarms for real-world tasks. The video shows off the robots grouping themselves by like characteristic, a test called segregation (the purpose of this didn’t resonate with us), and group tasks like moving that box. The nice thing is that a series of white papers is available at the post linked above (click on the PDF icon) so that you may dig deeper if these projects are of interest to you.

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Used Hard Drive Repurposed As A Cotton Candy Machine

March 30, 2013 by 25 Comments

hard-drive-cotton-candy-machine

If you’re reading this website, you’re probably someone who likes to take things apart. As such, you probably also have one or more old computer hard drives just sitting around in a parts bin.  Of all the projects you could have for an old drive, here’s an interesting one – A Chinese engineer who operates a hard drive repair and data recovery center decided to turn a used drive into a cotton candy machine.

Possible sanitary concerns set aside, his creation is very cheap and easy to build. Most hackers probably have all the necessary gear just sitting around already. The only parts he used were: a hard drive that still powered up, a generic plastic basin, an aluminum can, a flat round metal tin, and six bicycle spokes.

It might not be pretty, but it works. If you want to create your own, be sure to check out the above link. There’s a full DIY guide complete with step-by-step photos.

[Thanks Fabien]

Adding Bluetooth Remote Control To PC Speakers

March 30, 2013 by 8 Comments

adding-bluetooth-remote-control-to-pc-speakers

[Andrzej’s] plain old computer speakers are ordinary no more. He pulled off a fairly complicated hack which now lets him control speakers via Bluetooth.

He had a set of Creative brand computer speakers with a volume potentiometer that needed replacing. He was having trouble finding a drop-in replacement part and decided he would just go with a rotary encoder. Obviously you can’t just drop one of those in, he would need a microcontroller to monitor the encoder and translate the change into the appropriate resistance. He figured if he was going this far he might as well make the most out of the uC.

Above you can see all the stuff he crammed into the original case. The rotary encoder is seen on the lower left. An ATmega8 is on a PCB he made himself. The white part to the left is a digital potentiometer which feeds the resistance to the original speaker PCB. On the left is the Bluetooth module which lets him control everything from his phone. You can see a demo of that after the break.

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BigDog Throwing Cinder Blocks

March 29, 2013 by 70 Comments

bigdog-throwing-cinder-blocks

It’s as if giving cheetah-like speed to an advanced robot wasn’t good enough. The engineers over at Boston Dynamics must have been thinking to themselves, how can we make this thing even more menacing? The answer seems to be adding a highly dexterous articulated arm that gives the robot the ability to chuck objects as heavy as cinder blocks. We’re not kidding, look at the image above and you’ll see one mid-flight in the upper left. A quick search tells us that block probably weighs 30 pounds!

BigDog is a research project for the US military that we’ve seen navigating all kinds of terrain. It’s a heavy lifter able to carry loads where other machinery cannot. But now they’ve added an appendage that reminds us of an elephant’s trunk. It branches off of BigDog’s body where a quadruped’s neck would be. At the end of the appendage is a gripper that looks much like what you’d seen on industrial assembly robots. But enough talk, click through to see the action video. Oh, and if you didn’t pick up on the cheetah reference we made earlier you’ll want to check out this post.

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