Nimbus, The Wall-following Robot

February 15, 2011 by Mike Nathan 4 Comments

nimbus_wall_following_robot

[Johannes] sent in the latest iteration of an ongoing project – Nimbus, the wall-follwing robot. Originally operating on a cardboard frame, the robot has undergone several revisions as you can see by reading through his blog. Nimbus started out as a simple, Arduino-powered robot, but the project has progressed nicely over time. The last revision simply avoided walls, using a Sharp IR proximity sensor to detect, then avoid obstacles. The most recent model sports a nice polycarbonate frame as well as two additional IR proximity sensors, allowing Nimbus to navigate quite well, following walls and avoiding obstacles with ease. It does get caught up from time to time on carpets and wires, but overall Nimbus is a great little robot. [Johannes] even added a small RGB status LED for the bottom of the bot, communicating its navigation status to the operator at all times. This is done by flashing various colors when objects have been discovered or have moved out of sight – it’s a really novel addition.

Keep reading for a video of Nimbus navigating his way around, and don’t forget to check out the Nimbus photo stream.

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WWII’s Top Cryptography Comes To A Child’s Toy

February 15, 2011 by Mike Szczys 12 Comments

This toy has some upgraded internals that turn it into an Enigma machine. We absolutely love the idea, as it takes a toy that your child may have grown out of, and uses it to provide teachable moments dealing with both history and mathematics. But who are we kidding? We want to make one just because it’s a fun project.

[Sketch] grabbed this toy from a thrift store because it has a full keyboard that he can use to make his own machine. It’s powered by an Arduino, with a four-line character LCD display taking the place of the original. His post covers the methods he used to figure out the keyboard wiring, and also contains a cursory overview of how the Enigma Machine functions. See a video of the finished project after the break.

If this wet your appetite, also check out the paper Enigma Machine we covered during Hackaday’s first year.

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Shockingly Fun Quiz Game

February 15, 2011 by Mike Szczys 6 Comments

Gather your friends round the living room for a head-to-head quiz game. This one’s not quite as nice as you might think. Get an answer wrong and you’re going to get the Venkman treatment thanks to the stored electricity in a disposable camera flash circuit. [Israel] runs the game questions from a Windows machine, and uses a set of four USB joystick buzzers that let each contestant ring in. They all wear a cuff that houses electrodes for negative-reinforcement upon an incorrect answer. Since every contestant answers each question it won’t be long before you hear the uncomfortable yelp of failure from your guests. This seems a little bit more fair than shocking people for not calming their minds, but the video from that hack is still one of our all-time favorites.

Valentine’s Day Love Song Machine

February 14, 2011 by Mike Nathan 13 Comments

tellart_bell_ensemble

Just in time for Valentine’s day, [Adam Meyer] and the folks over at tellart.com have put together a little project they call the “Love Song Machine“. Using a web-based form, anyone can submit a song, which will then be played on a system of bells that they have set up in their office. You can choose from several pre-defined love songs, or you can create your own unique arrangement with which to serenade them. Once you are ready to go, your song will be queued up, and you can watch a video of your creation as it is being played.

The system is comprised of 8 solenoid-actuated bells which are all controlled by the Arduino they have hooked up to their web server. It’s a pretty fun idea, and there are sure to be plenty of people submitting songs, so get yours in before things get too busy!

Keep reading to see a video preview of their system in action.

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Radio-controlled LED Light Show

February 14, 2011 by Mike Nathan 15 Comments

HL1606_radio_controlled_light_show

[Alan] was commissioned to make some wearable, radio-controlled LED strips for the Travelling Light Circus. It has taken some time, but he has recently finished some prototypes, and thought it was a good time to do a writeup on the project. The system is managed by a single controller unit, which communicates with any number of LED driver units, each controlling 4 HL1606 LED strips. The light displays are synchronized across all of the LED driver units via a 2.4 GHz radio, with each driver falling into synch almost immediately after being powered on. While some might be turned off to the fact that he uses Arduino Pro Minis to control the LEDs, this is far from a simple project.

[Alan’s] blog contains several posts about this project, with everything documented in detail. He spends quite a bit of time talking about the project’s software, as well as hardware issues he ran into along the way.

His blog is a must read, but even more so, it is a must see. The lighting effects are mesmerizing, as there are a ton of different light patterns these units can generate, so be sure to check out the following video of the lights in action.

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Arduino Based PC Ambient Lighting

February 14, 2011 by Kevin Dady 20 Comments

[royboy] from the Arduino forum has recently made a post showing off his Arduino / PC ambient light system. The system is simple to wire up and easy to use, as long as your video is being sent from a PC, which for many of us that use “home theater pc” systems is very convenient. Using a sparkfun red/green/blue (non addressable) led strip, an ULN2003A, an Arduino, and a short sketch written for processing the project is easy to toss together and very effective too.

The processing sketch continuously takes screen captures and then takes the resulting pictures and averages all the colors together. That average color is fed down to the Arduino over its stock serial connection, where it is output to 3 of the pwm capable outputs. Those outputs are connected to the 2003 Darlington transistor array to switch the 12 volt led strip.

It may seem like it would be slow, as processing is an interpreted Java based language, plus serial communication, plus Arduino overhead, but its actually very responsive and completes its task with little or no lag. Join us after the break for a quick video to see for yourself.

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Range Finder Musical Toy

February 13, 2011 by Mike Nathan 11 Comments

parallax_arduino_ping_organ

Instructables user [sketchsk3tch] was looking to make a fun toy for his kids using things he had around the house and came up with the Ping Organ. The organ is played by standing in front of the Parallax Ping range sensor, and moving around any which way you please. He interfaced the range sensor with an Arduino, scavenging a small speaker from an old toy for audio output.

The code for the project is fairly straightforward, borrowing most of it from the demo software that shipped with the Ping and the Arduino. He made a few small tweaks in order to get the organ to play frequencies of actual notes, as well as to allow for some flexibility when calculating the specific note to play.

While not the most complex project we have ever featured, [sketchsk3tch] reports that his kids love to spend time flailing around wildly in front of the organ, which is exactly what he intended.
Video of the organ being tested after the break.

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