Burning Man 2011: Christopher Schardt’s Garden Of Rockets

October 8, 2011 by 4 Comments

This is one piece I regret to have missed this year at Burning Man, however I certainly heard tales from any one who stumbled across it. [Christopher Shardt]’s Garden of Rockets consists of three kinetic fire art pieces with spinning propane rockets that you can control!

[Christopher] decided to incorporate his Burning Man 2010 project, 4pyre², which is a 12 foot pipe with opposing propane fueled rockets on each end. Onlookers can control the amount of propane fed to the rockets and twist the pipe they are attached to causing the whole thing to spin around like an out of control fire hose. Accompanying 4pyre² is  PyreGoRound, and  Pyroticulation which are two variants on 4pyre²’s concept of spinning rocket bars. [Christopher] was lucky enough to have his project materials funded by Burning Man, but added three thousand dollars (!) in propane to the mix out of pocket.

Check out a video of the project after the jump, and [Christopher]’s site for details and schematics.

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Weekly Roundup 10/8/11

October 8, 2011 by No comments

In case you missed them the first time, here are our most popular posts from the past week.

Our most popular post this week is about a clock modeled after Lord Vetinari’s clock in Discworld that ticks at random intervals but keeps accurate time.

Our next most popular post is of a project that takes two 3.5″ floppy drives and uses them to play the Imperial March from Star Wars.

Next we have a post about a way to jam WiFi by sending out deauthentication packets.

Fourth in our list is a post about some really interesting turn signals and other lights that [StarfireMX] created for his car that are chock full of RGB LEDs. This allows them to do all sorts of interesting things other than just blinking.

Finally, we had a post about a robot that has some really interesting ‘wheels’ that aren’t like anything that we have seen before. They are something between an omniwheel and a tank tread and look like they would be fun to play with.

Sustainability Hacks: Wind Turbine Generator

October 8, 2011 by 18 Comments

With a little bit of thought put into the build, a wind turbine generator can be one of the greenest ways to generate electricity. Wind power doesn’t require a semiconductor fab lab (unlike solar panels) and doesn’t have very many environmental consequences (unlike hydro power). The Tech Junkies put up a build log of a wind turbine that ended up being a very easy build.

In the interests of sustainability, The Tech Junkies found an old 1.5 HP DC treadmill motor. After measuring the voltage output when the motor was connected to a lathe, they discovered the power output was very linear. With a little bit of calculations, they realized they needed about 1000 RPM to get 20 Volts out of the motor. The team connected an inverter (it’s always cool seeing a power meter run backwards) and started fabricating the blades.

The team found a wealth of info on blade design on this site and following a few guidelines made six blades out of 8″ diameter PVC pipe. An aluminum hub was fabricated and the whole shebang was put on top of a found steel frame.

The Tech Junkies’ build produces 10 Watts of power but they’re looking to increase that to 500 W with the appropriate gearing. A great build that harkens back to this awesome webpage about turbine building and living off the grid.

Win A Laser Cutter By Playing With Light

October 7, 2011 by 19 Comments

Buildlounge and Full Spectrum Laser have decided to give away a laser cutter to whoever comes up with the best project involving light.

The contest is in part sponsored by  adafruit industries. The focus of the contest is light – just design something around light, submit it, and you’re in the drawing for your own laser cutter. A solar oven, photophone, solar fiber-optic lighting and hacking apart an old overhead projector are suggested on the contest page, but the winning project will probably be much cooler.

Entries are due by January 1st. First prize is Full Spectrum Laser’s 40 Watt laser cutter, second is an awesome green laser pointer from Wicked Lasers, and third prize is an EL wire starter kit from Adafruit. Entries are due by January 1st, so we expect to see a lot of awesome submissions on the Hack A Day tip line between now and New Years.

Adafruit Celebrates Ada Lovelace Day

October 7, 2011 by 15 Comments

ada_lovelace_day

If you weren’t aware, today is [Ada Lovelace] day, so [Ladyada] and Adafruit Industries are spending the day celebrating the achievements of women in the fields of technology, art, engineering, and electronics. Specifically, the focus is on fellow female makers/hackers who are helping shape and promote the industry.

Once every hour, Adafruit Industries is profiling one influential woman, paying tribute to her work and contributions to the tech/maker/art/science space. You’ll see a lot of familiar faces throughout the day, including electronics extraordinaire [Jeri Ellsworth], Make’s own [Becky Stern], as well as [Sherry Huss] and [Louise Glasgow], two of Maker Faire’s leading ladies.

The bios are certainly worth taking a look at – aside from some of the more familiar faces, it’s a great chance to learn about a few makers who you may not have heard of before.

As an added bonus, Adafruit is offering 10% off all purchases from the store using a coupon code that can be found on their site, so be sure to check it out!

Analog IPhone Amplifier Made From Recycled Trumpets

October 7, 2011 by 14 Comments

analog_telephonographer

It’s no secret that the audio quality of the iPhone’s built-in speakers isn’t exactly what you would consider to be hi-fi. Sound quality aside, there are plenty of times where even the volume doesn’t do the music justice. While you can always go out and buy a fancy dock to amplify your iGadget’s sound, artist [Christopher Locke] has a different take on the subject.

For a while now, he has been constructing what he calls “Analog Tele-Phonographers”, metal sculptures that can be used to amplify a mobile phone’s audio. Built out of steel and old trumpets, his audio sculptures require no electricity, instead utilizing the same amplification technology as the original phonographs.

While the Tele-Phonographers won’t make your iPhone sound like a high quality tube amp, they do undoubtedly increase the phone’s volume and they are nice to look at. We can certainly get behind this sort of recycling/reuse of old items.

Continue reading to see a quick video of his Analog Tele-Phonographer in action.

[Thanks, Chris]

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Playing Dubstep On Real Instruments

October 7, 2011 by 52 Comments

When we first saw the live cover of Skrillex Scary Monsters And Nice Sprites by the band Pinn Panelle, we had to know how a band is able to play live dubstep on real instruments. We emailed the band and they spilled the beans on how to process the hell out of an instrument in a live environment.

First up is the bassist, [Nathan Navarro]. He wears a Source Audio Hot Hand on his right thumb. This little box is a two-axis accelerometer that communicates with his pedal board using RF frequencies. With the Hot Hand, he has control over two parameters on Hot Hand Pedals. The envelope effect is awesome, but it’s worth noting that [Nathan] is sponsored by Source Audio. We’re thinking it would be relatively easy to cram a Wii MotionPlus and microcontroller into a wristband. Tied to a computer and MIDI interface, the homebrew solution would do the same thing.

[Derek Song] is the guitarist and he’s used multieffects for most of his musical life He has a small Bluetooth keyboard and touchpad mounted to the front of his guitar that controls just about everything on his pedal board. The Bluetooth controller sends commands to [Derek]’s computer that outputs MIDI CC messages to his pedal board.

In a studio, Pinn Panelle’s cover would be impressive. The fact that it’s being played live opens up a number of doors as to what a band can do in real-time. If you’ve got a pedal board or electronic music build, send it into the tip line. Also, check out the videos after the break for a better demo of [Derek]’s Bluetooth setup.

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