Yes, I’m going to dedicate an entire post to this. Limor is one of our favorite hardware hackers, but her site was unfortunately down last week when we picked it for Editor’s Choice. Well, she is back from vacation and has gotten the site back online as promised. Take some time to check out her great projects: the Minty MP3, Mini POV, and my favorite, the x0xb0x.
Hackaday Links
I managed to round up some project boxes when I was home this weekend: 17 peppermint, 7 wintergreen, 4 cinnamon, 1 liquorice, and 1 clone.
[someguy_08527] was annoyed that I hadn’t posted his tree sap removal hack:
if youve ever had a car that you want to keep nice, im sure some of you have had the unfortunate experience of having tree sap drip on it
Mac Mini Robot
The University of Oklahoma wanted to get a good idea of what it is like to operate a robot using visual and aural sensors before they built one of their own. They started with the Pioneer 3-AT robotics platform. They added a Mac Mini and powered it using a 12V battery and an inverter (this was only a temporary setup). The Pioneer is controlled through a USB-to-serial connection. An iSight camera provides visual feedback. Turning control is jerky over the WiFi connection, but since this will eventually be an autonomous system it isn’t a concern. It is a nice quick proof-of-concept.
[thanks Jason Striegel]
Noise Cancelling Headphones
Here are plans for building a noise canceling headphone circuit. Noise cancellation works by placing microphones close to the ear and then playing the recorded sound out of phase causing destructive interference. Commercial headphones have the mics and power supplies built into the headphones. The page has some other fun suggestions for playing around with the stereo mic setup. If you’re looking for a cheaper route, there is this.
[thanks flybri and h-tech]
Event Coverage: Dorkbot Meetings And Artbots 2005
Continuing on our streak of Friday coverage of cool hackerly events, we would like to say a few words on Dorkbot and Artbots. Dorkbot started as a New York City monthly meeting for robot and homebrew interactive device aficionados. It has now spread to many cities, perhaps even one near you. Guests are invited to speak and afterwards, the hardware hackers mix and mingle to the geekery beat. The collection of projects presented in the past are stored on their site with linkage for you to peruse. We at Hack A Day are a bit sad that neither Paris nor Nebraska hosts a monthly Dorkbot. That said, you are invited to start a new Dorkbot chapter near you if you so desire. The next New York City Dorkbot meeting is on Wednesday, October 5th at 7 pm. Check the listings and/or mailing lists for the city nearest you.
As if Dorkbot’s artsy tech scene wasn’t cool enough, once a year Douglas Repetto also organizes Artbots: The Robot Talent Show. We had a chance to attend Artbots 2003 at the Eyebeam Gallery in NYC. Particularly marking that year was Stijn Slabbinck’s scratchbot which has been covered rather extensively elsewhere. LEMUR – the league of electronic musical urban robots — was also in attendance in 2003. This year’s Artbots was held in Dublin, Ireland and included workshops: a MIDI scrapyard challenge and a 60 minute bot building course.
Some of our favorite artist installations from this year’s Artbots include:
Continue reading “Event Coverage: Dorkbot Meetings And Artbots 2005”
Telecrapper 2000
The Telecrapper 2000 is designed to intercept telemarketer calls. It checks the caller ID when a call comes in and picks up if the ID is “out-of-area”, “unavailable”, or “private”. A script then begins playing a series of WAV files. A new file is played when the script detects silence indicating the marketer has finished speaking. The entire conversation is recorded for later amusement.
[thanks h-tech]
Hackaday Links
Well, it doesn’t look like the PSU meeting happened. Moving on:
Yesterday I was moaning about the price of Cobalt Flux‘s dance mats. [SilentCircuit] says the cheaper mats from LikSang work great. There’s always the really cheap option.
I’ve been avoiding a the Flying Spaghetti Monster links, but I couldn’t help chuckling while playing the new FSM flash game. [via] To bad I’m already a minister for a different religion.
Did anyone pick up an iPod nano yet? Have you started hacking? Here is the iPod nano disassembled.
Every so often someone suggests we adopt the hacker emblem from Conway’s Game of Life. I guess I was always adverse to it since a glider in a 3×3 grid would die in the next timestep.
[lain]’s buddy built a drill powered bike. Includes “automatic” transmission.
External hard drive case from an old tape player. [thanks Gene kaufman]
Another OSx86 install. It discusses compatible hardware you should purchase if you’re building a box from the ground up. There is no way to tell if you’ll need the TPM chip with future OSx86 functionality though. [via]
