Turning A One-armed-bandit Into Web Slots

January 12, 2011 by Mike Szczys 14 Comments

[Kyle Kroskey] just finished his first Arduino project, adding web control to a slot machine. He started with an IGT S+ model which were extremely popular in Vegas and Atlantic City casinos for years, but are now being replaced with more modern versions. His grand idea was to modify the machine so that it can be controlled from a PC, then unleash a live stream so that the Internets can play.

This turned out not to be too hard, there’s just a few controls he patched the Arduino into; the button for maxing out the wager amount, and sensors that measure coin inserts and payouts. In order to keep the peace he disconnected the speaker but rerouted the audio into a PC so that it can be played over the streaming feed. This make sure it’s quiet in the room without sacrificing the online fun. The PC is running Ubuntu and controls the video feed, a screen detailing jackpot data above the machine, and facilitates passing webpage player requests to the Arduino for machine control.

For another fun slot machine hack, check out this gaming device turned bartender.

Beer Catapulting Fridge

January 10, 2011 by Caleb Kraft 21 Comments

We’re not sure where the fascination to have your libations flung at you came from, but we can’t say we’re entirely against it. This beer catapult robot (dead link try Internet Archive) will pull a cold one from its gullet and fling it to you, or in your general direction. While he doesn’t have the source code available for the Arduino bit, we’re OK with that. We’re more interested in the mechanisms at work here and there are plenty of pictures of his set up. It seems very similar in design to this one we covered back in 2007, which also appeared on” The Late Show with David Letterman”. Join us after the break to see the thing in action.

[thanks Springuin]

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Internet Enabled Drip Coffee

January 7, 2011 by Mike Szczys 23 Comments

A fresh pot of coffee is never more than a tweet away with the Tweet-a-Pot. It works in much the same way that our Troll Sniffing Rat does. For that build we used a Python script to monitor our comments, and this does the same except that the script read tweets through the Twitter API. It watches for a specific hash tag (#driptwit) and when found it sends a serial command to an Arduino. The microcontroller then writes a digital pin high to actuate a relay, powering up the coffee maker.

Sure, you have to preload the pot with grounds and water, but what do you expect, automatic coffee roasting and brewing? That’s quite a bit more work.

Flaming Guitar Hero

January 5, 2011 by Mike Szczys 17 Comments

[Chris Marion] knew he wanted to play with fire, or more accurately with fireball spewing valves, but he need a good project in which he could use them. Inspiration finally struck and he built this controller that matches fireballs to the fret buttons on a Guitar Hero controller. There’s quite a lot that goes into this but we think that he hit a home run. The basic components are a manifold with electronically actuated valves, another manifold for the pilot lights, and a modified Guitar Hero controller.

To interface the controller he used an Arduino along with [Bill Porter’s] PS2 library to read signals from the buttons. But the real labor intensive part of the build came with the manifold. There’s a hardware store’s worth of fittings and flexible copper pipe that go into that assembly. In the end this all came together in just one week.

[Thanks Bill]

Broken Laptop Recovered Using An Arduino

January 4, 2011 by Mike Szczys 64 Comments

We see Arduino boards used in a lot of projects but we’ve never thought of using one as a USB crossover cable. That’s basically what [Jack the Vendicator] did to get his broken laptop running. When his video card stopped working he found himself unable to access the laptop. Newer machines don’t have a serial connector, which could have been used for a serial terminal, so he was at a bit of a loss since neither SSH nor VNC were installed. But he thought he might be able to use the Arduino as a serial terminal connector over USB. He plugged the Arduino into the laptop, and connected a USB serial converter from his desktop computer to the Arduino’s serial pins. In effect he’s just taking advantage of the FTDI chip, translating those signals back into USB on either end. Once he booted the headless laptop it took just a couple of blindly typed commands to get SSH running in order to regain control.

More Bike-controlled Google-travelling

January 3, 2011 by Mike Szczys 16 Comments

This is becoming such a popular hack we figure someone needs to come up with a name for it like Google-travelling or Google-cising (exercising with Google). It’s a bike controller for Google Earth. [Braingram] broke out his road bike, setting it up in the trainer in front of his laptop. If you already have a computer with a cadence sensor this will be a snap. These measure the crank rotation using a magnet and reed switch. So as not screw up his summer biking [Braingram] spliced into the sensor while leaving it attached to the bike computer. From there it is read by an Arduino which also monitors an analog joystick attached to the handlebars. A little bit of Python scripting and you’ll be ready to go.

Be sure to check out some of the other variants like using an exercise bike, or adding a wearable display.

Arduino EMF Sensor

December 31, 2010 by Mike Szczys 23 Comments

As a biomedical equipment technician [Adam Outler] equipment needs to be in top working condition. The emergency room staff were complaining about erroneous noise on the electrocardiogram and it’s his job to fix it. He suspected EMF interference so as a quick first step he decided to throw together an EMF detector using an Arduino. It uses a bank of LEDs as an indicator bar to reflect the EMF picked up by the red antenna. In the video after the break [Adam] checks a room for possible sources of interference, treating the recharging circuit from the emergency lights as the most likely culprit. Since the ECG is many times more sensitive to EMF than the Arduino, this turns out to be a quick and easy way to make sure he’s not barking up the wrong tree.

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