Building A Rather Rudimentary Arduino Tank Bot

January 3, 2013 by Mike Szczys 7 Comments

building-an-arduino-tankbot

The tank robot builds that we see are often quite complex. This lets them do great things, but makes the platform scary for beginners. Here’s a tank build that would be a great first project, especially if you’re more interested in the programming side of robotics than you are in the hardware itself. [Paul Bleisch] combined several different commercially available products to fabricate this Arduino-powered tank robot base.

Locomotion is provided by a double geared-motor module. This unit, the plastic wheels and treads, as well as the wooden mounting platform are all made by Tamiya. They cost very little and are already designed to work with one another. To this base he adds the Arduino and a motor shield which makes the connections dead simple. The black case on one end of the chassis holds four AA batteries which provide power for everything.

These components are all that’s really needed to start, but they provide no interactivity. So [Paul] picked up a used wireless PlayStation 2 controller. There’s a library (written by regular reader [Bill Porter]) that allows him to connect the receiver to the Arduino in order to pick up commands from the controller. He also plans to add an ultrasonic range finder to the build sometime in the future.

If you’re don’t need to do things the easy way you should consider fabricating your own tank treads.

Solar Powered Wifi Radiation Sensor

January 3, 2013 by Eric Evenchick 4 Comments

[Manish] packed lots of functionality into this radiation sensor module. The device is completely solar powered and weatherproof, so it can be mounted anywhere. It uses a Geiger Muller tube to monitor radiation and connects to the internet using wifi network to report the readings.

The design uses an Arduino Pro Mini to perform the monitoring and reporting. Wifi connectivity is provided by a RN-XV wifi module. A solar panel, Adafruit’s solar charger, and a LiPo battery are used to provide power to the device. It’s enclosed in Adafruit’s IP-66 rated weatherproof enclosure.

A custom Geiger Muller tube interface is used to interface with the tube. The interface is simple and cheap. It provides the high voltage required to drive the tube, and circuitry needed to detect the ionization events.

Once the device is connected to the internet, it uploads data directly to Cosm. This service lets the data be shared using Twitter, or accessed using an API. The project shows how to build a wireless networked sensor that directly connects to the internet for about $100.

Ringing In The New Year With An Arduino And Calcium Carbide

December 30, 2012 by Brian Benchoff 23 Comments

carbide

It’s the first we’ve heard of it, but a New Year’s Eve tradition in The Netherlands called Carbidschieten sounds like it’s just up our alley. Basically, a small chunk of calcium carbide and a little bit of water is placed in a metal milk churn. The carbide decomposes into acetylene and a flame is held up to a small hole in the milk churn. The resulting explosion sends the lid of the milk churn across a field and much fun is had by all.

[Edwin Eefting], [Johan Postema], [Elger Postema] are exploding 1000 liters of acetylene this New Years and needed a safe way to detonate their celebration. They came up with an electronic ignition system based on an Arduino that probably makes just as much noise as the explosion itself.

The build is basically an Arduino with a few relays. When a pair of buttons are pressed for longer than a second, the Arduino goes into countdown mode with the requisite alarms and ringing bells. When it’s time to fire the carbide cannon, a power supply is turned on that heats up a glow plug, igniting the acetylene. It’s a great build, and adds an adequate amount of safety for an event involving exploding 1000 liters of acetylene.

You can check out the videos of the countdown timer after the break, or check out the Facebook group here.

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Nerf Sentry Gun For The Apocalypse

December 28, 2012 by Jeremy Cook 28 Comments

If you’ve ever wanted to shoot someone with a Nerf gun, but just didn’t have the energy to get off the couch, this hack may be for you. It’s also a good way to ward off zombies if another apocalypse, Mayan or otherwise, is on the horizon.

Although the effects are very cool, as seen in the video after the break, the method for making this setup was quite simple. The requirements for this project were that the gun could not be permanently modified, and everything had to fire automatically. These restrictions may have contributed to the simplicity of the design as many of us would start breaking things before we had to.

Instead of some elaborate hack, the trigger was tied back in the firing position at all times. A relay was then used to interrupt the power supply to the mechanism allowing an Arduino equipped with an infrared sensor to automatically control the firing. The setup is explained after the break, but skip to around 1:55 if you’d rather just see the guns in action. Continue reading “Nerf Sentry Gun For The Apocalypse” →

Buzzed Buzzer Gives You A Breathalyzer Test While Ringing In The New Year

December 26, 2012 by Mike Szczys 2 Comments

We’re not sure if there’s enough time to get a parts order delivered, but no geeky New Year’s party will be complete without a party buzzer that doubles as a Breathalyzer. The Buzzed Buzzer hides all of the necessary bits inside of a paper and plastic party favor. We guess it only buzzes if you’re over the limit? Actually that’s not the case at all. The accuracy of the sensor used in the project really just measures the presence of alcohol and can’t quantify BAC.

A Teensy 2.0 microcontroller board drives the project. Powered by a Lithium cell, it monitors an MQ-3 Alcohol gas sensor and drives a buzzer. The components are just small enough to be hidden by the cone of the party buzzer. You can see a demonstration of this in the short clip after the jump.

This is a fun project, but we’re still big fans of getting the crowd involved with this large LED meter which is hooked up to the same style of alcohol sensor.

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Train Set Built In A Suitcase Does More Than You’d Think

December 25, 2012 by Mike Szczys 15 Comments

[Mario] can take his train set on the road with him because he build the thing inside of a suitcase. That in itself is pretty neat, but he pulled off more than just laying down a ring of track and surrounding it with realistic scenery. This train set is automated.

The suitcase itself looks a bit funny and that’s because it started as a portable phonograph. Removing the turntable and it’s requisite parts made plenty of room for the N-scale railroad (that’s really small stuff!). An Arduino with a motor shield drives the train around the loop. A reed sensor below a section of track provides feedback on where the locomotive is in the circuit. When it reaches that point the train stops and a bridge is lowered over the track for some invisible traffic to cross. There is even some audio flair which can be heard in the video after the break. It includes the whistle of the train and the ding of that bell mounted on the top half of the case.

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Wooden Box Repeats Rhythm Used When Knocking On The Lid

December 21, 2012 by Mike Szczys 10 Comments

knock-box-build

[Paul Mandel] just finished building this knock box project. It’s a familiar concept that uses a solenoid to tap on the side of the box. The Arduino driven setup monitors vibrations on the lid. When you knock on the box, it records the pattern and plays it back using the solenoid.

He was inspired by a knock-detecting door lock. Using that code as the starting point he implemented a system that takes input from a simple push button and echos back the rhythm using the Pin 13 LED on the Arduino board. This is a great way to start as it removes the complexity of driving a solenoid and monitoring a piezo element. After a bit of success he implemented each of those hardware modules one at a time. You can get a look at the final product in the clip after the break.

One of our favorite version of this project is still the knock block from several years back.

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