Xbox 360 Arcade Controller

November 25, 2008 by Caleb Kraft 18 Comments

360_arcade

[weirdo] sent in this sweet Xbox 360 arcade controller project(translated). He really wanted an arcade controller for the new Mortal Kombat game. After noticing that the expensive retail arcade controllers were missing the trigger buttons, he decided to hack his own together. After dissecting the controller, he soldered in some break out boxes. This will allow him pretty easy reconfiguration. Wanting some additional customization, he added LEDs to the buttons. Most people add LEDs to the buttons, so that’s not a huge deal, but he also added one to the ball on the end of the joystick. That added touch almost makes us forget that this thing is housed in a pizza box. To be fair, he wants to refine the button layout for a while before he makes a final enclosure.

We covered a very similar project last year, but it has since disappeared from its original site. You may also remember the slick Wireless PS2 arcade controller from back in June.

A Basic Stamp Supercomputer

November 24, 2008 by Caleb Kraft 149 Comments

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Hobby super computer building isn’t something you hear about every day. This project is even more peculiar due to the fact that it is a supercomputer built with BASIC Stamps. [humanoido] posted some great pictures and detailed info about his project. We’re not completely sure what definition of supercomputer he’s using, but he states that it beats out the others in 10 categories. Those categories are: smaller, lighter, portable, field operable, runs on batteries, has greatest number of input/output, has greatest number of sensors/variety, lowest power consumption, lowest unit cost, and easiest to program. Those sound a little more like features than supercomputing categories to us, but that doesn’t detract from the fact that this is one cool jumble of wires.

You may be wondering what it does. Well, so are we. From what he says, it talks in Chinese and English and has a plethora of other input and output devices. It also displays status of its internal communications. Catch a video after the break.

Continue reading “A Basic Stamp Supercomputer” →

TISCH, Multitouch Framework

November 23, 2008 by Eliot 7 Comments

[floe] wrote in to tell us about his multitouch based thesis work. While many projects have focused on the hardware side of multitouch, TISCH is designed to promote the software side. TISCH is a multiplatform library that features hardware abstraction and gesture recognition. This takes a lot of weight off of widget developers since they can specify known library gestures instead of writing the exact motions from scratch. Using TISCH also means a standard set of gestures across multiple widgets, so the learning curve will be much easier when a user tries out a new app. If you’re researching multitouch, check out this project and help improve the codebase.

Tennis Ball Fetcher

November 22, 2008 by Eliot 2 Comments

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Reader [Julian von Mendel] and his team built this tennis ball fetching robot for a competition (translated). The first version used distance sensors to locate the tennis balls for pick-up, but they changed to a camera based approach. The robot has three omniwheels and is designed to calculate the shortest path to the ball despite orientation since it can rotate while traveling. The wheels are monitored using rotation sensors from PS/2 mice. The control is provided by 3 Atmel microcontrollers that communicate via SPI. The multiprocessor design is fairly generic and could be reused for a different style of robot. While their robot performed fairly well, there were some shortcomings. The limited storage space meant frequent trips to drop off balls. The tilting bucket kept them from picking up tennis balls that were against the wall. Also, the bot had to be disassembled for battery swaps. The project is very well documented and they’ve released all of their control code. You can see the robot retrieving a ball after the break. Continue reading “Tennis Ball Fetcher” →

CNC Engraver Upgrades

November 21, 2008 by Eliot 3 Comments

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We’ve been following [glaciawanderer]’s CNC build for quite some time and he’s recently added a few upgrades to make for an even more interesting machine. He’s been trying out new bearing blocks, anti-backlash nuts, and z-axis plates hoping to get some improvements. In the case of the bearing blocks, he went back to the older style because of the added safety and smoother movement. The final addition he made was a dust collection system. It’s just a couple support hoops and duct tape, but it should keep dust out of the threads and rails.

Sonar Navigation Jacket

November 20, 2008 by Caleb Kraft 15 Comments

sonar_jacket

[Lynne] had this crazy idea to build a piece of clothing that would give you feedback about your surroundings using sonar. She started with a carefully selected thrift store jacket. She wanted something that looked good and also provided plenty of places to hide electronics. She used the LilyPad system, with a vibration pad and a sonar range finder. When the system detects an object within a certain distance directly in front of the wearer, it warns them with some vibration. Not only is it practical, it looks pretty cool too. Did we mention she designs clothing?

She notes, in the comments section, that while it can detect an obstacle, it cannot detect a void. How could she detect a drop in the floor or a step down?

Animated LED Keyboard

November 18, 2008 by Caleb Kraft 16 Comments

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[Brian] made this really cool LED keyboard. He started with a Deck Legend Fire. When he got it, he realized that every key had its own LED, but the entire unit was either on, or off. He just couldn’t live with that and decided to start hacking into it to make each light individually controlled. He found a perfect empty space in the back of the keyboard and designed custom PCBs to control his lighting. he notes that he spent 12 hours of cutting and soldering wires to each of the lights in the keyboard, that doesn’t include the PCB construction.

In the end, he had a fantastic looking keyboard that had cool effects like heat mapping and idle animations. All stock features still work and it looks almost entirely stock. The only obvious difference is the fact that it has two USB cables coming out of it due to some issues with his KVM switch not detecting it.