Microcontroller Fireworks Launcher

November 15, 2008 by Kimberly Lau 9 Comments

[vimeo 2245777]

After being inspired by our previous posts on a microcontroller-powered missile launcher and the wireless fireworks controller, [Adam] at Additronics.com decided to build his own microcontroller launcher. He combined elements from each of the prior projects, and included some of the advice from the Hack a Day comments. His multi-rocket/fireworks launcher is configured with an Arduino Diecimila, and requires a whole boatload of batteries. [Adam] claims there’ll be another video at New Year’s of the microcontroller in action, which we’re definitely looking forward to watching.

Stribe 1 Kits Available

November 13, 2008 by Eliot 11 Comments

stribe

We first spotted the Stribe music controller at Maker Faire. [Josh Boughey] has since refined the controller’s design so that it can be constructed in a modular fashion and it’s being sold in kit form by Curious Inventor. The kit has two columns of 64 LEDs and a Spectra Symbol SoftPot for control. You can daisy chain eight modules together using a ribbon cable. It uses SPI control, with a separate wire for the data line (not in the ribbon). An Arduino is used to hook the controller to programs like Max/MSP.

Meggy Jr RGB Portable Game Platform

November 12, 2008 by Joshua Wright 7 Comments

meggy

Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories have just announced the release of the Meggy Jr RGB, a fully programmable handheld console with an 8×8 RGB LED matrix display. Like its big sisters Peggy and Peggy 2.0, the Meggy Jr is driven by an ATmega168 microcontroller and is made up of a bank of fully addressable LEDs. Unlike its siblings, the device boasts six buttons and the ability to be mounted inside of a custom case (or “handle set”) constructed from plastic or wood, drastically altering the look of the console. Using the popular open-souce Arduino environment, users are able to write custom software for the device. While it works great as a game console, of the many possible configurations and suggested uses, we think “disco floor for your Lego minifigurines” is the most amusing.

Liquid Tree

November 11, 2008 by Kimberly Lau 22 Comments

Liquid Tree is decorative, functional, and green. It’s a liquid feedback display created by [Jia Yi Lin] that is designed to tell you exactly how much water you’re wasting in the shower. Behind the pretty tubes is some interesting hardware. [Lin] used an Arduino board, and based her code off the Unipolar Stepper example. She’s posted her own code and wiring for the project. When hot water is turned on, the motors decrease the amount of liquid in the tubes. This causes the pattern to slowly disappear, indicating water consumed.

[via NOTCOT]

CatGenie Hacking

November 7, 2008 by Caleb Kraft 37 Comments

[ScottSEA] has six cats. As you can imagine, with six cats, a simple litter box just doesn’t cut it. [ScottSEA] uses the CatGenie. While a self cleaning cat toilet is a technical marvel, it has one major drawback. Much like an ink jet printer, it has disposable cartridges. Those cartridges, just ike some print cartridges, have a built in counter that disables them after so many uses. After adding up the totals for six cats worth of cartridge use, [ScottSEA] started hacking. He has posted directions on how to manually refill them, as well as reset the internal counter using an Arduino.

We suggest that he find a way to harness all that cat power for his home electronics. How many watts could you produce per cat?

Arduino RC Airplane

November 7, 2008 by Caleb Kraft 13 Comments

arduino_airplane

[Olivier] told us about this fantastic project where he built his own RC airplane. The airplane itself is nothing special, it is the controls that are worth paying attention to. He used an Arduino Diecemilla , some XBee transceivers, and a SparkFun Wee. The main site is a general overview, but there are links to more detailed breakdowns of how to build some of the parts. There are several videos of him flying it as well.

Official Arduino Ethernet Shield

November 6, 2008 by Eliot 16 Comments

ethernetshield
Arduino has just released an official ethernet shield. It’s based on the same WizNet W5100 chip that was used in the tiny ethernet board we covered earlier. The W5100 handles the full IP stack and can do TCP or UDP with four simultaneous sockets. The board has a power indicator plus six LEDs to debug the connection. It works with the standard ethernet library. The reset button resets the shield and the Arduino. The SD adapter is not currently supported by the Arduino software.