Ball And Plate Doohickey

February 19, 2006 by 20 Comments

ball table

So, if you were wondering what [Kenn Sebesta] was working on that needed yesterday’s hack, this is it. The plate can maintain the cue ball in its current position or make it travel an arbitrary path like a circle or figure-eight. It can also avoid obstacles placed on the plate. Kenn has documented his project thoroughly and covers many of the problems he faced along the way, like how to find the ball in the webcam image. Like most quality thesis projects, it’s constructed out of LEGO.

UPDATE: Now with video!

Continue reading “Ball And Plate Doohickey” →

Digitally Reading Analog Gauges

February 18, 2006 by 19 Comments

analog gauge

While working on his masters degree in controls and robotics, Hack-A-Day reader [Kenn Sebesta] developed a cheap method for digitally reading analog gauges. This method was necessitated by needing to take over 3000 measurements using a dial indicator during his thesis work. The system is implemented in Matlab and uses a webcam to take a picture of the gauge. Once picture is taken it goes through several steps: First, it is reduced to a single color. Then, edge extraction is used to find the lines. Next, the lines are thickened. Finally, the Hough transform is applied to find the longest line: the needle. All that is left to do is measure the arc back to the zero point and match it to your scale. Using this method Kenn’s laptop can take 4 measurements per second.

Continue reading “Digitally Reading Analog Gauges” →

Hack-A-Day Extra

February 17, 2006 by 10 Comments

phoney

The tip line has been pretty dry lately. Not really a lack submissions, just a lot stuff I can’t use because it has been covered everywhere else, like the multi-touch display. I’m not going to dedicate an entire day to something that’s already been on Engadget, Make, or Slashdot because you guys would be seriously pissed off. Reader tips drive this site and I would like to thank everyone that sends them in. You’re the reason this site stays fresh and original.

The Team Hack-A-Day folding team is looking for ways to boost production (being #47 is pretty good though). If you don’t know what the team is about, [Billy the Impaler] has a Valentine for you: The New & Improved Illustrated Folding@home Guide.

The #hackaday channel is still alive and well on EFnet. More links after the break.

Continue reading “Hack-A-Day Extra” →

RC Car Telemetry

February 16, 2006 by 5 Comments

telemetry

Meghan Desai and Yiling Li built this radio controlled car telemetry system for their “Designing with microcontrollers” class. They had looked at several other RC projects and decided it would save a lot of trouble if they didn’t attempt to work with the car’s on-board microcontroller. They built separate boards to house the four IR sensing pairs, temperature sensors, accelerometer, and an Atmel Mega32. All of the collected data is transmitted at 433MHz. On the receiving end is another Mega32 that processes the data and formats it for display on a TV. They’ve done an excellent job documenting their project.

If you have to do a design project this semester, we’d love to see it. Just get some free hosting from Blogger and post your project. I’m using Blogger as an example since they don’t crash and burn when we link to them.

Continue reading “RC Car Telemetry” →

Underwater Living

February 16, 2006 by 4 Comments

divester

Willy Volk interviewed Lloyd Godson for Divester’s latest podcast. Lloyd is building a self-sustaining underwater habitat: the BioSUB. It will hold at least 15 square meters of engineered wheat to convert CO2 to oxygen. He also plans on testing Alon Bodner’s Like-A-Fish tankless SCUBA technology. The system works by lowering the pressure of the seawater to extract the oxygen. The BioSUB project is sponsered by the Australian Geographic Society and Lloyd plans on launching this August.

A quick note: if you caught my friend’s dance/electronica radio show last week, it’s on again tonight 7-9PM CST. Click for the live stream.

Continue reading “Underwater Living” →

Maker Faire

February 15, 2006 by 8 Comments

maker faire

I’m going to be attending Make magazine’s Maker Faire April 22-23rd, San Mateo, CA. It should be a lot of fun.

This is my event schedule for the rest of the year. Feel free to suggest events I should be attending.

Continue reading “Maker Faire” →