Heart-shaped Project Takes No Shortcuts

June 22, 2013 by Mike Szczys 2 Comments

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If all [Blake] wanted to do is scroll “Blake loves Kim” on some LEDs he could have stopped with the breadboard version of the project. Or hastily craft a cardboard heart around the marquee. But he really just used this heart-shaped electronics project as an excuse to get his feet wet with several different types of manufacturing.

The project started as a simple scrolling message pendant. Something along these lines. His very small LED module was being driven by an ATtiny85. He planned to run it from battery which is a perfect excuse to learn how to use the sleep functions built into the chip.

The initial design worked so well he decided to lay out his own circuit board. This made it quite simple to add in a side-positioned button to wake from sleep, and a coin cell battery holder on the back. He used OSH Park for board manufacturing — good thing they allow creative board outlines. To protect the circuitry he also ordered laser-cut acrylic plates that work in conjunction with stand offs to form a case.

He mentions he missed his Valentine’s Day delivery date by a long shot. But that’s how these sort of things go, right?

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Glowing Easter Eggs More Fun Than A Dye Job

April 15, 2013 by Mike Szczys 9 Comments

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This is a project to keep in mind for the kids next Easter. It uses electronics to light up your eggs instead of dying them (translated).

The project still has one foot in the old tradition as it starts by blowing out the eggs. The larger hole on the bottom, which was used to evacuate the yoke an albumen, ends up being just the right size to insert an LED. You could simply hook these up to a battery and resistor, but [Rene] decided to add some functionality by hiding an Arduino board in the fake grass of the Easter basket. This way the way the RGB LEDs can glow, blink, and rotate through different colors. And the foil covered chocolate bunnies aren’t just for show. He wired them up to the I/O pins of the Arduino to use as a switch. When they’re both placed on the same piece of foil it completes the circuit and starts the light show. See for yourself in the clip after the jump.

Of course for the older kids you’re going to need something more complicated to keep their attention.

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April Fools’ Project Teaches Coworkers Not To Touch Your Stuff

April 2, 2013 by Mike Szczys 41 Comments

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Take one look at the sticker on top of this project box and it’s pretty clear you’re not supposed to flip the switch protected by the piece of red plastic. But if your coworkers are anything like [The Timmy’s] there’s at least a few who will stop by and just can’t keep their hands off. He built this to teach those sorts a lesson. Flip the switch and a very loud siren starts blaring. The thing is, the 107db alarm can’t be turned off by the switch, you must have the key for the switch on the side.

The siren is a self-contained unit that just needs a power source between 6V and 15V. This makes the project quite simple, the only part that [The Timmy] really needed to think about was how to build a mechanical SR Latch (set-reset). The solution is to use a mechanical relay. The toggle switch connects the normally open connector to the common terminal to enable the relay. The key switch breaks the relay’s connection to ground, allowing the magnetic switch to open again.

If you need some help understanding how the relay connections work we’ve embedded an unrelated video after the break.

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Valentine’s Puzzle Box Makes You Work For What’s Inside

February 18, 2013 by Mike Szczys 11 Comments

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Here’s a new take on a gift box which has been locked from the inside. I doesn’t rely on GPS coordinates or a real-time clock to unfasten the latch. Instead, the box itself acts as a puzzle. You follow the visual and audio clues, turning the box along three axes in order to input the unlock code.

There are three different difficulty settings. The easiest uses the LED heart to indicate which direction to turn the box next. This is accompanied by a beep for correct or a longer tone for incorrect movements. On the medium setting you can only go by the tones, but once you screw up the lights will aid you in getting back to where you where when making the mistake. The impossible setting doesn’t use the lights at all.

[Matt] took inspiration from some reverse geocache projects featured here on Hackaday. He already had an STM32F3 Discovery board on hand which he received as a sample. It’s driving all of the electronics inside, with the on-board gyroscope as the input device. Don’t miss the video after the break to see how well the thing works.

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R2D2 Collects Valentine’s Cards Like A Boss

February 16, 2013 by Mike Szczys 14 Comments

Think back to your school days when each student would make a box which would receive Valentine’s cards from their friends. We have fond memories of buying cards with Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles on them. We guess this tradition is still going strong. Instead of making a receptacle out of a shoe box [Dr Franken Storer] helped his seven-year-old build this remote control R2D2 with sounds and lights. Yeah, it’s totally cheating. But who can begrudge a hacker dad a little fun?

The bot started as a desktop trash can. It features a domed top which looks just like the droid, but also has a hinged opening where the cards can be placed. To the lid he attached a tilt switch that triggers a Radio Shack sound player to provide the sounds. These sound modules are popular in a lot of projects like this doorbell hack. The final touch (aside from the droid decor on the outside) was to add a remote control car that lets his son drive R2 around.

We asked for more details and he delivered. You’ll find his lengthy description of the project after the jump.

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Hackaday Links: Valentine’s Day, 2013

February 13, 2013 by Mike Szczys 5 Comments

It’s not too late to hack your own Valentine’s day gifts. Here’s four projects to get you headed in the right direction.

Heart-shaped box

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[Ian] built what he calls the Valentine’s gift bomb. It’s a cigar box with this LED heart on the top. A servo motor latches the lid from the inside and won’t open until the thing goes off on the big day. (sorry, no link to this one as he just sent us the pictures found after the break).

A Blinky Bouquet

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[Ryan] shows us how to make a felt bouquet and then light things up with some LEDs.

Pictures in a bottle

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Reuse that old incandescent bulb by adding LEDs and heart-shaped pictures inside the glass enclosure.

Robot love

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This cocoa container turned robot cat calls, raises its eyebrows, and blinks the LEDs eyes when she presses the button on top.

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New Year’s Eve Countdown Clock Included SMS Interactivity

January 9, 2013 by Mike Szczys 15 Comments

We remember several years back, when text messaging was first becoming popular, we went to a bar which had a huge television that would display text messages sent to a particular number. This sounds like a novelty, but in a large group of folks who know one another it’s the sandbox of social games. Wanting to tap in on that fun for his New Year’s Eve party, [James] built this countdown timer that includes an element of SMS interactivity (link dead, try the Internet Archive version).

The rig is projector based. A computer using Processing does the majority of the work but [James] needed a way to accepts text messages (the locale of the party had no Internet connection so this was the best bet). He grabbed a GSM shield and his Arduino Leonardo. The bulk of the evening the display showed the last few messages received, with a small countdown timer in the lower corner. As the countdown approached zero the time was given prominence as in the image above. We guess he was lucky to find a prepaid SIM card that allowed free incoming text messages. Our cell provider charges us 20¢ for each.

You might give this one a whirl next year. If it’s not quite your thing take a look around. We’ve seen a lot of fun setups like this mini ball drop.