E-Reader For Nintendo DS

January 20, 2006 by 16 Comments

7ds

The e-Reader is an add-on product for the Nintendo Game Boy Advance. It has a simple optical card swipe for loading programs off of specially encoded cards. The location of the link port adapter keeps the device from being used with the Nintendo DS. Reader [Caitsith2] has posted instructions for modifying the reader for use with the DS. If you don’t plan on using it with your GBA you can pull the entire board. Once you’ve got the e-Reader switched you can do fun stuff like printing out your own homebrew e-Reader cards.

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Walk Your Robot Dog With LEGO

January 19, 2006 by 4 Comments

robot walker

Since he spends way too much time programming robots, Pavel Petrovic, felt he should delegate the task of walking his robot dog… to his other robot. No, that isn’t the real story, but there isn’t a lot of justification for the project besides it being a neat trick. LEGO IR tower support for WowWee bots had already been developed, but Pavel decided to try controlling the bots using the LEGO RCX. BrickOS provides direct control of the RCX’s IR port. Pavel’s program lets the simple LEGO bot issues commands to the RoboPet to lead it around the room. It works, but isn’t too reliable because there is no way for the RCX to determine the absolute position of the dog. Have a look at Pavel’s site to see videos of it in action.

[thanks Robert Oschler]

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IPod Integration For Factory Radios

January 18, 2006 by 14 Comments

saab

Most factory radios in cars don’t include a line in. alfaGato decided he wanted to integrate an iPod into his system, but wanted to maintain the factory functions. His Saab 9-3 came with GM’s OnStar system (not activated) which he thought would make a decent in road into the radio. His instructions should work for most radios with a factory cellphone integration option. He opened the radio and cut the traces for the phone input to get separate left and right channels. These were wired to the external CD changer input. He didn’t have the factory changer and the phone input also had amplification on the line that would interfere with the iPod. He designed a circuit with two possible inputs: iPod connector or AUX. The circuit is designed to mute the inputs if OnStar is activated. The circuitry is contained within a Saab factory phone mount with an iPod holder attached to it. Check out alfaGato’s blog dedicated to the project and our previous auxiliary input projects.

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Cellphone Controlled Door Opener

January 17, 2006 by 16 Comments

door opener

Looking for a way to demonstrate his AutoIt script that allows Windows control using a cellphone, zerocool60544 put together this automatic door opener/closer. It uses two water bottles as counterweights and two LEGO motors to drive the door. The motor control is a parallel port connected relay board. It’s a pretty simple demo, but I’ll definitely be looking into AutoIt in the future.

[thanks emdy]

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Rogue Server In A UPS

January 16, 2006 by 19 Comments

ups

InventGeek‘s newest contributor, Dan Williams, has just posted his first project: hiding a server in a UPS surge protector. Dan found himself with a dead UPS surge protector and decided to do something fun. The brick has two built in RJ-45 connectors and power so he figured he could easily hide a server in it. There are three main components involved: a 4-port router, an NSLU, and a USB enclosure for a laptop hard drive. The router and the NSLU were both stripped of their cases to save space. The wall warts were stripped of their cases as well. There aren’t a lot legitimate reasons to make one of these. It is still a fun project and if a burglar runs off with your laptop, but not your disguised file server, you might feel a little better.

[thanks Jared]

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DIY Fig Rig

January 15, 2006 by 9 Comments

fig rig

The Fig Rig is the brain child of director Mike Figgis. The Rig is designed to provide stability while using a handheld camera. If you’ve seen the continuous 90 minute takes in Figgis’s Timecode you know what prompted him to come up with this contraption. Like most digital video camera accessories the Rig comes with a premium price. KingVidiot has a forum post detailing his attempt at creating a homemade Fig Rig. He used an old steering wheel, a piece of aluminum plate and a wooden dowel. It isn’t that pretty to look at, but it definitely didn’t cost him $300 and it works pretty well too.

[thanks DVguru]

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Amiga In An FPGA

January 14, 2006 by 15 Comments

 mini amiga
Dennis had been working on this project for over a year before recently releasing it in the Amiga.org forums (photos). The Amiga was notable for its use of unique, dedicated processor chips for tasks like real time video effects. Dennis has recreated these chips in a Xilinx Spartan-3 400K gate FPGA. His development board also features a MC68000 processor and an MMC card for storage. He’s got everything, but sound and keyboard support working. He is able to run Lemmings though, and isn’t that what’s really important?

[thanks Seantech]

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