M-CLE: Hacked Smart Cycle

January 16, 2009 by Caleb Kraft 15 Comments

smartcycle

M-CLE, described as ” a physical learning environment in which synergistic artificial intelligence through the use of robots(creative agents) is employed to embellish the creativity of the child”, looks like a pretty fun toy. For those of you who haven’t figured out what it does from that quote, it is a toy that kids ride on to control a robot. That robot draws on the floor while other robots interact with it using AI. This is all made to “embellish” the child’s creative work.

To control the robot, a child rides on a Fischer Price Smart Cycle. The factory electronics were replaced with an ATMEGA168. A wireless transmitter connects to the robot, which is also powered by an ATMEGA168. While one robot is controlled by the child, the others are packed with sensors to allow them to interact with it. They use touch, ultrasonic ping detectors, and IR line detectors. You can see it all in action in the video summary.

The design is interesting, everything is bright and colorful, and the shark fins on the robots are a nice touch. We have to wonder though, with a toy to ride on, a robot to control, and 3 other robots to watch in wonder, is the child going to be too distracted to be very creative?

Tape Measure Generator

January 15, 2009 by Caleb Kraft 39 Comments

generator

[Dr. West] wanted to do his small part to help save the planet. He has built a small generator from a stepper motor and a tape measure. The tape part of the tape measure was replaced with some cord. The spring loading mechanism makes the string re-wind automatically, which is nice. He shows it attached to one leg, with the string tied to the other, generating power while he walks. This is cumbersome, but seems fairly effective. You can see him waking around in a video after the break. Would this benefit from a flywheel or friction drive to keep the motor spinning after each pull? How can he rig it to feed off of the motion of only one leg to avoid tripping hazards?

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Wiimote Controlled Coil Gun

January 14, 2009 by Caleb Kraft 24 Comments

iocoil1

[thecapacity] sent us his iobridge project where he controls a coil gun with a Wiimote. To make the coil gun, he took apart an office golf putter that had a ball return. The mechanism to return the ball is a metal cylinder that is moved magnetically. He simply replaced the cylinder with a smaller diameter piece of metal to create the gun. His computer monitors the Wiimote axis changes and sends them to the ioBridge. The unit could be located anywhere, but without a camera on it, he’ll have a hard time aiming. There’s a video of it working after the break.

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Hand Made Triode

January 13, 2009 by Caleb Kraft 29 Comments

vac

[Claude Paillard] makes his own triodes (google translated) for short wave radios. The site doesn’t have a lot of details itself, but links to entire books on the history of radio tubes and manufacturing of them. [Claude] takes us through the entire process of building a triode in a 17 minute long video. Even if you aren’t into them, this is fascinating. From the looks of it, several of us might only be a pump or two short of being able to cobble one together.

[thanks Dieter]

Illuminato

January 12, 2009 by Caleb Kraft 19 Comments

illuminato

[Matt] sent us this very cool looking project called Illuminato. After brainstorming on how to improve upon the Arduino, and receiving lots of input on his ideas, [Matt] has put together this board that has several nice improvements. It has more I/O, more code space, faster serial communication speeds, built in PWM, and works with existing Arduino shields. Not only does it make these improvements, but it does it with style. The finish is quite nice, the layout is pleasing and it even has two rows of SMD LEDs on the back for some added geek cred. You can see a couple videos of it in action after the break.

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Putting FD Lenses On A D60

January 11, 2009 by Caleb Kraft 15 Comments

lens

[Peter] sent in this really slick project where he ads an FD lens mount to a cannon EOS D60. He already had a collection of nice lenses and didn’t want to waste them. After finding some a donor camera for the FD mount, he purchased a cheap D60 to graft it onto. While his first impulse was to simply glue the new mount onto the front of the camera, it was evident that this would hold the lenses too far from the sensor. The camera went under a bit for a while and luckily, no real damage was done to the mirror housing. The final result seems to work very well, there are example galleries available on his site.

Wireless BlinkM Control

January 10, 2009 by Eliot 5 Comments

blinkm

[John] has been working with several BlinkM RGB devices. He’s created a controller to talk to each of the BlinkMs wirelessly and change their behavior. The core is an old relay tester box used to test telephone circuits. Each of its four knobs are connected to the analog inputs on the Arduino. The signal is transmitted using RFlink devices. Each BlinkM is paired with an ATmega168 and receiver. The control box also has a switch to send the same signal to all of the devices at the same time. The transmit and receive code are available on his site. You can find a video of it embedded below.

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