One Arduino Handheld To Rule Them All

May 28, 2019 by 9 Comments

There’s nothing quite as annoying as duplicated effort. Having to jump through the same hoops over and over again is a perfect way to burn yourself out, and might even keep you from tackling the project that’s been floating around in the back of your mind. [Alain Mauer] found that he’d build enough Arduino gadgets that were similar enough he could save himself some time by creating a standardized piece of hardware that he can load his code du jour on.

He’s come to call this device the Arduino Nano QP (which stands for Quick Project), and now it’s part of the 2019 Hackaday Prize. [Alain] doesn’t promise that it’s the perfect fit for everything, but estimates around 85% of the simple Arduino projects that he’s come up with could be realized on QP. This is thanks to the screw terminals on the bottom of the device which let you easily hook up any hardware that’s not already on the board.

The QP board itself has the ubiquitous 16×2 character LCD display (complete with contrast control trimmer), seven tactile buttons arranged in a vaguely Game Boy style layout, and of course a spot to solder on your Arduino Nano. All of which is protected by a very slick laser cut acrylic case, complete with retained buttons and etched labels.

We’ve seen no shortage of handheld Arduino devices, but we have to admit, something about the utilitarian nature of this one has us intrigued. We wouldn’t mind having one of these laying around the lab next time we want to do a quick test.

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A Ping Pong Ball LED Video Wall

May 17, 2019 by 6 Comments

Constrained builds are often the most fun. Throw an artificial limit into the mix, like time limiting your effort or restricting yourself to what’s on hand, and there’s no telling what will happen.

[bitluni] actually chose both of those constraints for this ping pong ball LED video display, and the results are pretty cool, even if the journey was a little rough. It seems like using sheet steel for the support of his 15 x 20 Neopixel display was a mistake, at least in hindsight. A CNC router would probably have made the job of drilling 300 holes quite a bit easier, but when all you have is a hand drill and a time limit, you soldier on. Six strings of Neopixels fill the holes, a largish power supply provides the 18 or so amps needed, and an Arduino knock-off controls the display. The ping pong ball diffusers are a nice touch, even if punching holes in them cost [bitluni] a soldering iron tip or two. The display is shown in action in the video below, mostly with scrolling text. If we may make a modest suggestion, a game of Pong on a ping pong ball display might be fun.

[bitluni] says that the display is on its way to Maker Faire Berlin this weekend, so stop by and say hi. Maybe he’ll have some of his other cool builds too, like his Sony Watchman Game Boy mashup, or the electric scooter of questionable legality.

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Hackaday Podcast 018: Faxploitation! Ikea RFID Hacking, Space Ads, Hydrogen Dones, And Blinkies

May 10, 2019 by 7 Comments

Hackaday Editors Elliot Williams and Mike Szczys gather round the microphone to spin tales from a week of hacks. All the rage are fax-machine-based malware, a hydrogen fuel cell drone, and bringing color to the monochrome world of the original Super Mario Land. There are at least three really cool LED hacks this week, plus Tom’s been exploring space advertising, Maya’s debunking solder myths, and Elliot goes ga-ga for a deep Ikea electronics hack. Closing out the show is an interview with Bart Dring about his exquisitely-engineered string art robot.

Take a look at the links below if you want to follow along, and as always, tell us what you think about this episode in the comments!

Take a look at the links below if you want to follow along, and as always, tell us what you think about this episode in the comments!

Direct download (60 MB or so.)

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A Retro Handheld Console As They Used To Be Made

April 28, 2019 by 4 Comments

Before there were Nintendo Switches, there were Game Boys. And before that there were all the successive generations of Game Boys and other consoles right back to the Game and Watch, and then those handheld Simon and Space Invaders games of the late 1970s. These devices typically packed a 4-bit microcontroller and an array of discrete LEDs, and movements in-game were simply created by alternate LEDs on the game field being flashed.

The TeleBall from [sv2002] is a handheld game in the vein of those early handheld games, in that it features a matrix of LEDs as a screen on which it can display simple games. So far it plays Breakout, and Tennis for Two, which might seem odd were it not for its built-in radio for two-person play with two consoles.

Inside the TeleBall is an Arduino Nano, a Maxim display driver for the LED matrix, and the familiar Nordic Semiconductor RF module. Control is via a potentiometer, and everything sits in a smart 3D-printed case. Everything is open-source, so should you wish to have your own you can head over to the project’s web site and grab all the files. You can watch it in action playing tennis with two consoles in the video below the break.

The original Tennis for Two created in 1958 was an oscilloscope game using an analogue computer, and is credited as the first video game created purely for entertainment purposes. If you’d like to see a recreation of it, we covered one over a decade ago.

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The Pocket Emulator That Will Fit In Your Pocket

April 16, 2019 by 20 Comments

If there’s one thing tiny Linux Systems on a Chip are good for, it’s emulation. There’s nothing like pulling out an emulation console on the bus for a quick game of old-school NES Tetris, or beating the next level in Super Mario World. This is the smallest emulation console ever. It’ll fit in your pocket, and it has a bright, vibrant screen. It doesn’t get better than this.

This project is an improvement on two projects, both of which are some of the top projects on hackaday.io, the best place on the Internet for hacks and builds. The Keymu is (or was, at the time) the smallest emulation console ever, built as a miniaturized version of the Game Boy Advance SP in a 3D printed case and powered by the Intel Edison. The Edison doesn’t exist anymore, so after that development moved over to the Funkey Zero, a tiny console built around the AllWinner V3s chip and a 240×240 display. Both of these are tiny, tiny consoles, but as silicon gets better there’s always better options, so it’s back to the drawing board.

The design of the Funkey Project is again built on the AllWinner V3S SoC with 64MB of DDR2 DRAM. There’s a 1.5″ display with 240×240 resolution, and of course this retro emulation console retains the classic and very useful clamshell form factor of the famous Game Boy Advance SP.

Already, this project is in the works and it’s shaping up to be one of the most popular projects on hackaday.io ever. Everyone wants an emulation console, and this is the smallest and tiniest one yet. Whether or not this project can carry through to production is another matter entirely, but we’re eager to find out.

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It’s (Almost) Two Keytars In One!

April 13, 2019 by 4 Comments

All the best retro-1980s chiptune acts should possess a keytar. It’s the Law, or something. [Theremin Hero] has reminded us of this with a new video we’ve shown below featuring an instrument he had a part in creating alongside [Sam Wray] and [Siddharth Vadgama] a few years ago. The Blade is a 3D-printed keytar featuring two Guitar Hero necks and an integrated pair of Game Boys to provide the sound from the authentic silicon.

To describe it in those terms though is to miss a wealth of other components and featured. The keyboard itself is from a Rock Band keytar which feeds MIDI to a Raspberry Pi running PD Extended that handles all the button press mappings. An Arduino Mega performs the same task for the two Guitar Hero necks. Midi from the various sources is processed by an Arduino Boy which then feeds the Game Boys that make the sounds. Oh – and there’s a Leap Motion 3D motion controller in the mix as well, though that doesn’t seem to be used directly in the chiptune synth functionality.

We’ve had a few keytars here over the years, but this one makes us think of the Commodore 64 instrument created by [Jeri Ellsworth].

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Building A Slimline Portable NES

April 3, 2019 by 3 Comments

Emulation of classic consoles has long been a solved problem. It’s now possible to run thousands of vintage games on a computer the size of a stick of gum, and to do so with all the benefits emulation brings. [M-Parks] isn’t the biggest fan, however – and decided to build a slimline NES handheld instead. The goal was to produce a portable NES in as compact a package as possible.

Things have come a long way in the handheld console modding scene in the last ten years. 3D printing has largely replaced vacuum forming, and it’s no different here. [M-Parks] modeled up a case and sent it off to be 3D printed in PLA, somewhat mimicking the general layout of the original Game Boy. It’s a little larger, but given that it accepts full-size original NES carts, it can only be so small.

A Retro-bit NES-on-a-chip console was used to provide the motherboard and cartridge connector for the build. Rounding this out is a power supply from Adafruit, an LM386 audio amplifier, as well as a digital volume control which is a nice touch.

While such a build may sound daunting to the absolute beginner, all it takes is a soldering iron, some hot glue, and a willingness to have a go. There’s nothing wild or groundbreaking about this build, but to dwell on that would be missing the point. [M-Parks] now has a portable NES to play on those long train rides, and learned some great skills doing it –  a solid result for any project!

If you’re keen on seeing another take, check out [Dave]’s build from a few years back.