KegDroid Makes Drinking Beer More Fun

November 8, 2012 by Ryan Fitzpatrick 16 Comments

KegDroid beer arduino

Are you bored with just drinking beer? Are your friends constantly sneaking into your house and stealing your sacred beverages? If so, perhaps you need KegDroid – the Android controlled beer tap created by [Paul Carff].

Looking for a way to add more excitement to drinking his beer, [Paul] spiced up his tap with a little extra technology. He added an Android tablet for touchscreen navigation of the menus, an Arduino to control the flow sensors and solenoid valves, and an NFC reader to act as security for restricted access. Users must be authenticated before they are allowed to pour any alcohol.

Your name and photo are pulled from your Google+ account as you’re logged in, then you simply select your beverage of choice, and if you’d like a one, eight, or twelve ounce pour. Flow sensors automatically shut off when you have the desired quantity.

Seems like you get more foam than beer, but all in all it’s a cool bar top app.

Check out the video after the break.

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Chromium On The Nexus7

November 3, 2012 by Caleb Kraft 6 Comments

[Hexxeh] is at it again, porting the chromium OS to whatever seems to appear in front of him. This time he’s ported it to the Nexus 7. Last time we saw him, he was raspberry chomping at the pi. The details are very scarce, so we would like to issue this request.

[Hexxeh] we realize you don’t think your every-day-joe would be up to the task of putting chromium on their nexus 7. This is Hackaday however, and we know that at least a few of our readers would LOVE to join you in your efforts and could possibly contribute to your fun. Share some details with us… please.

You can see a video of it in action after the break.

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Cheap Electronic Dartboard Hacked To Use Android For Scoring

October 31, 2012 by Mike Szczys 4 Comments

[Dan] took a $13 electronic dartboard and made it work with an Android device. The idea behind it is that these cheap electronic models feature a very sparse display. At this price that doesn’t surprise us. He wanted to add the features you’d find on a coin-op model like the ones found in bars. So he added some hardware that lets him use Android as the scoreboard.

To do this all he needs is the ability to detect when a dart has hit the board and what value was registered. The board is really nothing more than a 62-button input device organized as an 8×8 matrix. He soldered jumpers between the pins and a DIP socket. After the work was done he programmed his Cordium BASIC microcontroller, a 28-pin chip, and dropped it right in. It communicates with a serial Bluetooth module which provides the connectivity with an Android phone. You can see a very quick clip of the app embedded after the break.

This would be just perfect if you’re using an Android set-top-box on a TV near the dart board.

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Halloween Props: Monster In A Box

October 30, 2012 by Mike Szczys 2 Comments

This furry Halloween decoration proves to be a simple build, but it’s still quite popular with the little ones. [Chris] had a Halloween party for a group of 2-5 year olds and this monster that peeks out of a box was a huge hit. The trick really isn’t in the complexity of the build, but in the interactivity.

The enclosure is just a shoe box which has been covered in synthetic black fur. The lid was hinged on the back, and a hobby servo with a bit of an extension on the arm is used to lift the front which reveals the monster’s paper eyes. Inside you’ll find an Arduino, breadboard, and battery pack. It’s not visible above, but a distance sensor on the front of the box is monitored by the Arduino. When it detects something in front of it the servo fires up and pops open the lid. The firmware includes a timer so that the monster waits a bit before taking its next peek at the party.

Tablet Interacts With Magnets, How Does That Work?

October 30, 2012 by Brian Benchoff 24 Comments

Making computers interact with physical objects is a favorite of the HCI gurus out there, but these builds usually take the form of image recognition of barcodes or colors. Of course there are new near field communication builds coming down the pipe, but [Andrea Bianchi] has figured out an easier way to provide a physical bridge between computer and user. He’s using magnets to interact with a tablet, and his idea opens up a lot of ideas for future tangible interfaces.

Many tablets currently on the market have a very high-resolution, low latency magnetometer meant for geomagnetic field detection. Yes, it’s basically a compass but Android allows for the detection of magnets, and conveniently provides the orientation and magnitude of magnets around a tablet.

[Andrea] came up with a few different interfaces using magnets. The first is just a magnets of varying strengths embedded into some polymer clay. When these colorful magnetic cubes are placed on the tablet, [Andrea]’s app is able to differentiate between small, medium, and large magnets.

There are a few more things [Andrea]’s app can do; by placing two magnets on an ‘arrow’ token, the app can detect the direction in which the arrow is pointing. It’s a very cool project that borders on genius with its simplicity.

You can check out [Andrea]’s demo video after the break.

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Android Debug Bridge Released For The Raspi

October 18, 2012 by Brian Benchoff 12 Comments

Over on the XDA developers forums, something really cool is happening. Android hacker extraordinaire [AdamOutler] has managed to port the Android Debug Bridge to the Raspberry Pi.

The Android Debug bridge allows hardware tinkerers full access to their Android device. This feature has been used to build everything from telepresence robots to connecting a MIDI keyboard to a phone. With this port of the Android Debug Bridge, anyone can take advantage of the existing hacks and hardware written around the ADB to build something completely new.

Of course, the port of the Android Debug Bridge is only useful if your Raspi is running Android. Current Android builds for the Raspberry Pi are janky at best, but the current rate of progress does look encouraging. Hopefully with the most useful Android tool ported to everyone’s favorite credit-card sized computer, the progress of the Raspi/Android builds will pick up their pace.

Face Tracking With An Android Device

October 15, 2012 by Mike Szczys 7 Comments

This Android device can recognize faces and move to keep them in frame. It’s a proof of concept that uses commonly available parts and software packages.

The original motivation for the project was [Dan O’s] inclination to give the OpenCV software a try. OpenCV is an Open Source Computer Vision package that takes on the brunt of the job when it comes to discerning meaning from images. To give the phone the power to move he designed and printed his own mounting brackets for the phone and a couple of hobby servos. An IOIO board connects to the Android device in order to control the motors. On the software side all [Dan] needed to do was write some code to interface the output of the OpenCV face tracking modules with the input of the IOIO. See the finished project demonstration after the jump.

This system can easily be implemented with other hardware, like this Arduino-based version we looked at earlier in the year.

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