Hackaday Monday Sipping And Contest

July 4, 2005 by 57 Comments

monday sipping

OH my! What a busy and great weekend! As you may or may not know, I was with Jason, Brian, and Karina over at Live8 behind the scenes blogging about Live8 with them. It was a wonderful time and experience. Then I had the balls to go and see War of the Worlds after such a long day, and I reccomend you rush out and see it. Twice. It’s wonderful.

But back to hacks. We’ve made a final decision. Hackaday meetups will officially be once a month and on a thursday. The last thursday of every month to be exact. If you’re in Philadelphia, the meetings here will be insanely awesome. We’ll be renting out hotel conference rooms or something like that, having contests, giveaways, prizes, and discussions. Almost like a mini-defcon each month!

The shirts will also be ordered this week which rocks, so be on the lookout on how to score those aside from Defcon.

Oh! Podcast 03 will be out this week as well! We’re getting our RSS feed up and running soon but if it’s not ready by Friday, we’ll still post the podcast on here and iTunes.

MIT’s infamous disco LED-ridden floor is available for purchase now. Wicked.

And it looks like Brazil is finally getting around to building those $100 laptops. My question to YOU guys is

Half Rack Effect Stand

July 3, 2005 by 9 Comments

half rackhalf rack

Reader David Kristian was annoyed with having to use a full table or other object to support his half-rack effect when playing gigs. Laying the box flat made it impossible to read or tweak the device. He ended up with this mini-tripod. Replacing the pan lock screw and adding a suction cup foot created a really elegant solution. It gives a good viewing angle and it’s easy to pick up and take with you.

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DIY Nitrous Oxide Injection

July 2, 2005 by 12 Comments

nos

Well, it seems like our last two Saturdays of automotive hacks have been keeping you interested, so we’re going to keep it up. By popular demand: Here is a guide to building your own nitrous oxide injection system.  The nitrous oxide molecule has a better oxygen/nitrogen ratio than normal air so it is more useful for the combustion process. The site describes all of the components you will have to gather to build a fully functional system and has instructions for modifying stock parts for better performance. Nitrous is really hard to use properly and I can’t imagine someone putting one of these together without some experience with a commercial unit first. Nitrous can lead to really high cylinder pressures and temperatures; so, be careful or you’ll just end up with an aluminum foundry.

[thanks XyTec]

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Commodity Telepresence Rover

July 1, 2005 by 5 Comments

telepresence

Scott Metoyer built this awesome telepresence rover using really cheap parts. He started with a Pentium II laptop that wasn’t being used. Then he picked up a relay board to connect to the parallel port. A servo board was connected to the serial port and a webcam was attached to the USB port. The drive wheels are powered by two windshield wiper motors. The rover runs a server application that talks to a wireless client computer for control. He says the control lag is minimal and you get 15fps from the webcam with pan and tilt. This is a great start and really shows how cheaply you can build a telepresence robot. Scott still has a lot of sensor connections he can use so I’m sure will see more interesting applications in the future.

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Hackaday Lazy Afternoons

July 1, 2005 by 20 Comments

Lazy Afternoons

Here’s another poll. We like learning stuff. So vote.poll swag

So Live 8 is tomorrow. Woohoo. The lineup keeps getting better. You can check out live8insider.com for live blogging on Live 8. Anyways, I was looking at the new iControl for Garageband and I remembered a nice little secret that you guys might enjoy.

If you want a hardcore discount at the Apple store online, go and sign up for the Apple Developer Connection. I think it’s a once a year $79 or $99 fee. You’ll get all this free stuff and pre-release software etc. which is cool. But aside from that

VOIP Chat Cord

June 30, 2005 by 13 Comments

chatcord

We’ve mentioned Christoffer’s Skype phone before; Jeroen decided to make a device that could work with any standard phone. Seeing the Chat-Cord he decided that one could be built really easily. The main component is a transformer to demux the the mic and line signals. I’m guessing you could grab the appropriate one off of an old modem. To translate the DTFM tones for dialing he downloaded the Chat-Cord software. The only problem left is how to ring the phone using Skype and Jeroen has enough tips to put you on track. I know at least one reader requested this after seeing the Chat-Cord so I hope you guys enjoy.

[thanks usergentoo]

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