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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Open Source Android Thermostat

October 13, 2012 by Mike Szczys 39 Comments

Put that old Android phone to good use by mounting it on the wall as a smart thermostat. This open source hardware and software project lets you replace your home’s thermostat with an Android device which adds Internet connectivity and all that comes with the increase in computing power.

The brunt of the hardware work is taken care of by using an IOIO board which makes it easy to interface any Android device with the simple hardware which switches your HVAC equipment. We’ve been waiting for the launch of the new IOIO design and if it comes in at a lower price as has been rumored that makes this project in the price range of the least expensive of programmable thermostats (assuming you already have an Android device to devote to it). Simply etch your own board to host the relays and voltage rectifier and you’re in business.

There is a client and server app, both free in the Play Store. The server runs on the wall-mounted device with the client offering control via a network connection. The features of the system are shown off quite well in the video after the break.

This sounds like a perfect use for that phone you ripped out of the pages of a magazine.

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Cellular Vehicle Information And Control

October 13, 2012 by Mike Szczys 14 Comments

This hardware, which was built as a Computer Engineering project by [Bryon] and his classmates, gives you feedback and control of a car though a cellular phone network. It uses text messages to communicate with a control device. This can be pretty much any cellphone, but in the clip after the break they show off an Android app which puts a pretty GUI in front of you and abstracts away the tedium of specially formatted messages.

At the heart of the system is an Arduino Mega board. It has a cellular shield with an external antennae for connectivity. A GPS device, relay board, and ODB-II module provide feedback and control to the system. The relays allow the car to be started and the doors to be locked. The GPS and ODB-II module can send back location and vehicle information (anything available from the car’s sensors). There were some issues with the text messages being blocked during testing. The team thinks that the automated back-and-forth triggered some kind of spam filter from the telecom.

There’s still more work to be done if they want to actually drive the car via remote control.

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Turn Your IPhone Into A View-Master

October 12, 2012 by Mike Szczys 27 Comments

This super quick hack will be fun to do with the kids. Remember the days of View-Masters? You’d put a disk of small slides into a little plastic viewer and a stereoscopic image would jump out at you in 3D! Now you can not only view stereoscopic images on your smartphone, but make your own too!

To shoot the images just hold your phone in portrait orientation and take a snapshot of your subject, then move the camera six inches to the right and take a second image. The two pics need to be displayed on the screen at the same time and for this [Plarky] uses a free iPhone app called Pic Stitch. We’re sure you can find an Android equivalent in no time if you do a bit of searching.

To view the stereoscope it helps to make a divider out of cardboard like the one seen above. You’ll need to cross your eyes and focus on a point to bring the two images together. We don’t remember having to do this with the View-Master so we’re hoping someone will take the idea and improve upon it. We’ve already seen a digital View-Master. Now we want to see those dual screens replaced with an iPhone cradle.