Solar Charging Your DS

February 12, 2009 by Caleb Kraft 38 Comments

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[dark sponge] decided to make his DS lite, solar powered. Or, at least charged via solar panels. He was able to find solar cells that were 60×60 mm, which means he could fit 4 of them on the outside of the DS. This gives him a total of 6V at 80 mA output. These panels charge the battery between uses. The DS has to be open and laying on its face for all 4 panels to be exposed, but this way of mounting them didn’t alter the pocket-ability of the unit. He says he’s been using it for a while and hasn’t had to plug it in yet, but we have concerns about wiring the panels directly to the battery. As [cyrozap] points out in the comments on the instructable, this is a Lithium Ion battery, shouldn’t there be some charging circuitry involved?

Cell Phone Shoe

February 11, 2009 by Caleb Kraft 59 Comments

Sometimes you absolutely need to keep your phone a secret. You know, like when you’re on spy missions. The goons at the door will always frisk you, but they never check under your shoe, right? [mikeyberman] shows us how to make our own Maxwell Smart style shoe phone. All you need is to dig a giant hole in your shoe sole and cram a cell phone in there. Will it get ruined by water? Probably. Will you look like a goon trying to talk on it? Definitely. Can you make it through airport security? Try it and let us know.

Accelerometer Controlled Pong

February 10, 2009 by Caleb Kraft 6 Comments

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[Adam] sent us this cool game he made. It is accelerometer controlled pong (translated). The screen is a Nokia 3310 LCD, tied to an ATmega8 for the brains. He’s using an MMA7260 accelerometer for the controls. The whole thing is encased in an iPod nano box. this looks like a pretty fun little game, though we’d like to see someone attempt a two player match with it.

Build A Wiremap

February 9, 2009 by Caleb Kraft 13 Comments

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For those of you who don’t recall, the Wiremap is a 3d volumetric display built from hundreds of tiny strands. An image is projected onto the strands to achieve 3d effects. [phedhex] has posted an in depth instructable on how to build a wiremap. He covers the construction with lots of good tips as well as giving links to the software for Windows, Mac, and Linux. Check out the video after te break to see some fairly impressive 3d patterns.

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Plexi Cliffhanger For Trackmate

February 8, 2009 by Caleb Kraft 1 Comment

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If you’ve ever wanted to play with tangible tracking systems quick and cheap, you might be interested in this super quick tracking surface for trackmate. Trackmate is open source software for physical object tracking. Making a surface for it isn’t that hard in the first place but this one is probably the easiest. All you really need is some Plexiglas, some c-clamps and a web cam. The whole thing packs into a backpack or over the shoulder bag. This would be perfect for live performances.

IR Controlled Light Dimmer

February 7, 2009 by Caleb Kraft 14 Comments

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This is a pretty useful device. It is an IR controlled light dimmer. It goes in line with the main power and controls how much gets through to your light. You can adjust the brightness with a TV remote control. Finally, we can retire our clapper! These are commercially available, but making your own is just so much more fun. You may have to dig a little on their site for the schematics and programming. There are tons of other projects there as well so have fun. You can see a video of it in action after the break.

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Augmented FPS Gaming

February 6, 2009 by Caleb Kraft 14 Comments

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[MikeFez] sent in this info about his augmented FPS set ups. He started this project back with an original XBox in 2006. He wanted a more immersive way of interacting with his games. Pointing out that gaming visuals and interactivity have come leaps and bounds while the controllers themselves have basically just added a few buttons, he explains his goals. He wanted to have to move his body to move his character and possibly physically aim. The original project, for the XBox, was successful in that he used a floor pad to control his character. Since then, the Wii has come out and he has moved to the PC as his main platform. As expected, he is now using the Wiimote as the aiming device.