Stupidly Huge POV Display

November 22, 2008 by Eliot 28 Comments

pov_gear

[Mario Mauerer] and friends were commissioned to build this 2m persistence of vision display (translated) for a party (in a hight-voltage lab no less). Dubbed “Display from Hell”, it uses 100 blue SMD LEDs to generate the POV images. They’re connected to an ATMega64 via shift registers. Their target speed is 600rpm for a flicker free image, which means the propeller tips are moving at 140mph. The board can be updated wirelessly via IRDA and plans for adding SD storage are in place. You have to see and HEAR this thing in the video embedded below. Continue reading “Stupidly Huge POV Display” →

Cythbot, Pneumatic Guitar Hero

November 22, 2008 by Eliot 7 Comments

cythbot

Here’s yet another robot hoping to dominate the human race through the power of ROCK. Cythbot was built to demonstrate Cyth Systems machine vision systems. The device uses a camera to watch the Guitar Hero monitor and identify notes for button presses. The strum bar is then triggered after a delay. The notes are identified solely by pixel intensity since star power can cause them to change shape and color. All button presses are done using pneumatics. The whole system is self-contained and doesn’t require a separate computer for processing. Our favorite part is that the controller remains completely unmodified and the industrial light tree used to indicate notes. The team says that the pneumatics aren’t quite fast enough to hit 100%, unlike some humans. Video of the bot in action after the break. Continue reading “Cythbot, Pneumatic Guitar Hero” →

Animated LED Keyboard

November 18, 2008 by Caleb Kraft 16 Comments

led_keyboard

[Brian] made this really cool LED keyboard. He started with a Deck Legend Fire. When he got it, he realized that every key had its own LED, but the entire unit was either on, or off. He just couldn’t live with that and decided to start hacking into it to make each light individually controlled. He found a perfect empty space in the back of the keyboard and designed custom PCBs to control his lighting. he notes that he spent 12 hours of cutting and soldering wires to each of the lights in the keyboard, that doesn’t include the PCB construction.

In the end, he had a fantastic looking keyboard that had cool effects like heat mapping and idle animations. All stock features still work and it looks almost entirely stock. The only obvious difference is the fact that it has two USB cables coming out of it due to some issues with his KVM switch not detecting it.

G-speak Spatial Operating Environment

November 17, 2008 by Eliot 14 Comments

[vimeo 2229299]

Our fascination with multitouch is fairly well known, but it expands even further to cover all sorts of man machine interaction. Embedded above is a tech demo of g-speak, a spatial operating environment. The user combines gestures and spatial location to interact with on screen objects. If it seems familiar, it’s because one of the company’s founders advised on Minority Report. We doubt all this hand waving is going to catch on very quickly though. Our bet is on someone developing a multitouch Cintiq style device for people to use as a secondary monitor. It would bridge the gap between between our standard 2D interactions and gestures without making a full leap to 3D metaphors.

[via Create Digital Motion]

Auduino Software Synth

November 17, 2008 by Eliot 14 Comments

audiuno

Tinker.it has published plans for building a software synthesizer using an Arduino. The Auduino uses granular synthesis to create a truly unique sound. The grain is constructed from two triangle waves. Each one has adjustable frequency, decay rate, and the repetition rate can be changed too. The Arduino just needs five potentiometers attached to the analog inputs and an audio jack on the digital out. You don’t have to use pots; you can use anything that varies the analog input between 0 and 5 volts. A video of the device is embedded after the jump. Continue reading “Auduino Software Synth” →

Full Fabric Soft Switches

November 16, 2008 by Eliot 7 Comments

soft_switch

When we created our backpack strap WiFi detector for Engadget, we embedded soft switches to control the device. They used two sheets of aluminum foil separated by a layer of foam with holes punched in it. [Plusea] has taken a similar approach but has replaced the aluminum foil with conductive fabric. The end result is a set of three soft buttons that can be easily washed. Have a look at the video of it in action below. Check out the followup project that uses the buttons to replace a scroll wheel. Continue reading “Full Fabric Soft Switches” →

Failing Hard Drive Sounds

November 15, 2008 by Kimberly Lau 25 Comments

Not all hard drives fail the same way. DataCent, a data recovery service based in Canada, has an impressive archive of failing hard drive sounds. If you’re ever in doubt about whether your hard drive needs help, this is your guide. From bad heads to stuck spindles, bad hard drives click, grind, hum, and scratch. It’s almost musical in its regularity. Who will be the first person to string of these samples together into a ringtone or techno song.

[photo: Boja]

[via MetaFilter]