Hack A Day Fail Whale Contest

September 4, 2008 by Eliot 12 Comments

We’re back! There may be a bit of oddness for the next few days. Our Fail Whale contest is still running and we’ve received over 100 entries so far. Here’s how you can participate:

While we’re adding more hamsters to our server power plant we thought we’d hold a little art contest. Whenever Twitter goes down, they post the iconic Fail Whale. The Fail Whale has become so popular that it has spawned a dedicated blog and many many art projects: embroidery, tattoos, and laser cut models.

We want to see what you think Hack a Day failure looks like. Create an illustration, photo, sculpture, anything that you think embodies Hack a Day failing. Send your entries to hackaday.fail@gmail.com and add them to the Hack a Day photo pool. The prize is $100 for you to spend in the No Starch Press store. Entries are due 00:00PDT Saturday September 6th 2008.

[image: Bjonnh]

Interactive Globe Display

September 2, 2008 by Caleb Kraft 1 Comment

[ERASME] built this interactive globe interface for an exhibit on Inuit people and their land. The goal was to have a tactile input device to Google Earth data. The unit is composed of a half globe for location selection, a touch pad for layer selection, and a Wiimote for view changes.They had to develop their own driving application for Google Earth as none exists for Linux. The software, called KeyEvents takes inputs from all the devices and mimics keyboard and mouse control in Google Earth.

There is much more information on how they got the pieces to work together, as well as some videos in french showing the device working. One thing that stands out though is that they decided to use direct association on their Wiimote, thus stopping rogue Wiimotes from gaining control. Who would carry a Wiimote around just to hijack public displays? We would.

[thanks Leucos]

RGB Desktop Clock

September 1, 2008 by Eliot 11 Comments

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-hxZRCponks&hl=en&fs=1&rel=0][Mark Roy] designed this fine RGB LED desktop clock. It uses a PIC16F877A microcontroller and a DS1307N Real Time Clock. There is a ring of 12 RGB LEDs around the perimeter. Hours are indicated in red, minutes green, and seconds blue. If the hands overlap, the colors are mixed. Three buttons are used to set the time and it can run on as little as 0.7volts. You can find out more about the project on Stellar Core. He has plans to kit it in the future.

Apollo Guidance Computer Clone

August 31, 2008 by Eliot 9 Comments

[Cliff Miller] pointed out this incredible project from 2004. [John Pultorak]’s journey began in late 2000 when he decided to build a 60’s or 70’s era minicomputer. While gathering technical documentation, he found some interesting information on the Apollo Guidance Computer and felt that was the way to go. The AGC was the first integrated circuit computer ever built. Designed by MIT in 1964 it was constructed from ~5000 ICs, almost all 3-input NOR gates. [John]’s version uses late 1960’s 74LS TTL logic which gains him a 10 to 1 reduction in the number of ICs. A good thing when you have to do ~15K wirewrap connections. He also used flipflops and register chips instead of building everything from NOR gates. [John] essentially built the AGC three times: First, he coded a simulator in C++. Then, he imported the logic design into CircuitMaker to verify that it would actually work. Finally, he built the 3 by 5foot machine. He’s provided an amazing amount of documentation for anyone that wants to explore this device and the overview alone is well worth a look.

Modular Portable System

August 30, 2008 by Eliot 6 Comments

Reader [John Grayson], known for his multiconsole portable, has constructed a brand new portable. Not liking the controls or the tethered nature of retro TV games he decided to build a modular portable system. He built a custom system that uses cartridges created from TV game systems. The device has a 5.4″ screen and two Canon batteries for 4.5 hours of play.

Hacking A Scale To Test Rocket Motors

August 29, 2008 by Caleb Kraft 7 Comments

[David Steeman] sent us this project. He uses a consumer scale to measure rocket engine thrust. He wanted to be able to map the thrust curve of his homemade rocket motors to determine whether they are meeting the design goals. It does this by measuring the force applied by the rocket engine via a microcontroller that records it in a text file on a computer. He then analyzes this data in an Excel spreadsheet.

The sensors were harvested from a consumer scale while the rest of the electronics were built by hand. He’s using a PIC 18F2550 microcontroller which has a built in USB interface. He has breakdowns of each piece with detailed information on how it works as well as some nice pictures. There is also a list of future improvements that he would like to do such as increasing sample speed, integrating it with the ignition, and decreasing the physical size. Files for the schematic, firmware, and excel spreadsheet are available for download at the bottom of the page, so keep scrolling down.

Wifi Robot : A Hacked WRT54GL Rover

August 28, 2008 by Caleb Kraft 16 Comments

[Jon Bennett] sent us this link to his Wifi Robot. After playing with a Linksys WRT54GL router, he was inspired to build something that would utilize this embedded Linux system. Using a thrift store R/C truck, he built a wireless robot rover. This thing can be controlled over the internet, or by laptop with a range of about 500 meters.

The router has been modified to have 2 Serial ports and a 1GB SD Card. It connects to a micro controller, which could be an Arduino or AVR Butterfly. He has supplied information for both. The truck has been mostly gutted, leaving only the chassis and electronics. He had to beef up some of the truck electronics when they fried under the load. The entire unit is powered by a pair of 7.2 Volt 3800 mAh battery packs. The most important thing on the list though, is the horn. You can honk the horn while you are driving this thing around.

The site supplies tons of information including pictures of his build, videos of it in action, speed tests, schematics, software downloads, and resource links. Great job [Jon].