Fool Me Once… Or As Often As Possible

There was a time when posting a fake story was fun for all involved. But in this age of constant trolling, it’s near impossible to pull it off with our savvy readership. Instead of letting you down with a really poorly advised how-to, we’re putting in a call to hear what you’ve got in your own bag of pranks. Consider this another holiday theme and tell us what you’re planning for April Fools’ Day.

As always, we’re looking for your own posts on the topic. We always want to give credit where it’s due so post your prank on your blog or other favorite corner of the interwebs and send us the link. Don’t have a place to put it? You can always start a thread in our project log forum, or check out this for additional spots to stake your claim.

In case you need some help coming up with something, we’ve got a few examples to get you thinking. You can go the route of fake video demonstrations like this Gmail gestures hoax, or the more recent Human BirdWings Project. But those require a lot of production time and a clever seed idea. Perhaps something really simple will go a long way with the roommates. We’re thinking soap covered in clear nail polish to prevent sudsing, or perhaps you want to reconfigure your router to render pages upside down. We can’t wait to see what you come up with!

Happy Late Lit Acrylic Valentines Day

Although [Danman] was right on time with his home-hacked Valentines day gift, this article comes to you a little late. With the message on the heart changed, however, it could be a perfect “Sorry I forgot Valentines Day again” gift, so it may still be useful.

The concept isn’t that complicated, simply a strip of LED lights around a piece of acrylic. A battery holder and switch rounds out this build. It’s a neat way to light things up, but what we thought was especially interesting was the way it was engraved and cut out with a minimum of traditional tools.

Sure, [Danman] had access to a bandsaw, but as for actually engraving the outline he used a modified electric toothbrush! We’d love to see that build written up. If that wasn’t enough, the lettering was “ghetto blasted”, as he puts it, using a compressed air nozzle, a pen tube, and a styrofoam cup full of ceramic dust! Macgyver would be proud!

A Lot Of Love Went Into This Glowing Valentine

[Will] didn’t pick up a card, rose, and bottle of wine for Valentine’s Day like most guys. Nope, he planned way ahead and built this color-selectable glowing Valentine. When we first saw it, we figured he threw some LEDs together with a microcontroller and edge-lit a piece of acrylic. While that is technically what happened, there was a lot more design and craftsmanship at play here than you might think.

First off, the controller board is a beautifully designed two-sided PCB which he etched rather than throwing a mess of wires and hot glue into an enclosure. Speaking of enclosures, he grabbed a wooden picture box from the big box store and used a piece of brass plate stock to serve as the control panel. The enclosure was finished with tinted polyurethane after having a slit added to the top for the acrylic. The message itself was milled using an engraving bit and a Dremel tool. This was done by hand and we think achieves a finished look that is comparable to the CNC milled ornaments we’ve seen in the past.

Get a good look at the device and a demonstration of its features in the clip after the jump.

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Tears From Your Lonely Heart Will Activate A Comforting Tune

If you’re forever alone we’d guess you’ve long since stopped crying about it. But if you’re still prone to shed a tear on a dateless Valentine’s day this project’s for you. [Mikeasaurus] spruced up this pillow to play a tune when it senses your lonely soul. It’s got a moisture sensor which triggers an audio greeting card just when your weeping really starts to get soggy.

If you look closely at the top portion of the white fabric in the picture you can see there are rows of stitching. These hold a matrix of conductive wire mesh fabric on the inside of the pillow case. There are two buses made up of alternating rows (think of the tines of two forks pointed together) which make up the probes. When the gap is bridged by moisture a transistor circuit triggers the audio bits from a greeting card to play a song. Check out the demo after the break. We’re not satisfied that [Mikeasaurs’] couldn’t even bring himself to cry real tears for the clip, but maybe years of solder fumes have clogged up those tear ducts.

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Disco Icosahedron Rings In The New Year

While city engineers were setting up the multicolored ball of lights in Times Square this year, [Phil] at adafruit was busy designing the X2 Time Ball, a disco icosahedron perfect for celebrating the new year.

The ball is made of 20 acrylic triangles zip-tied together into an icosahedron. On each face, six RGB pixels light up via commands from an Arduino. The entire project is able to be controlled remotely thanks to the help of a pair of XBees. [Phil] whipped up a Processing sketch to control the LED ball any way we could possibly imagine.

Although it may be a little late to build an LED disco ball for this year’s New Year’s Eve party, that doesn’t mean we couldn’t use it the other 364 days of the year. It’s perfect for parties, weddings, and our weekly lightswitch raves. Check out the action video of the Time Ball after the break.

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Doomsday Keg Of Radness Helps Ring In The New Year

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Lots of people buy noise makers for New Year’s eve, others opt to sing Auld Lang Syne – then there’s these guys.

The crew at Stone Brewing Company throw an annual bash at their brewery in celebration of New Years, and while [Dino’s] countdown timer is great for intimate settings, they needed something bigger to wow the crowd. A busted half barrel was all the inspiration they needed to build the “Doomsday Keg of Radness”.

[Mike Palmer], the Creative Director at Stone handed the keg off to the maintenance crew for some remodeling, and got ready to fit it with all sorts of lights and other goodies. Holes drilled in the keg were fitted with bright pulsing LEDs, while additional LED light strips were laid out around the perimeter. The bottom was cut out to accommodate a Moonflower LED module, and a 24” monitor was strapped to the side in order to display a countdown timer. An old Macbook jammed inside the keg runs the video display, while the rest of the lighting is remotely controlled with an RF transmitter.

Now mind you this all went down last year, but since the display was such a hit, they will be busting it out again for the 2011 celebration.

Check out the short demo video below to get a look at the Doomsday Keg in action.

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dinos-new-years-ball-drop

Build Your Own Mini Ball Drop For New Year’s Eve

[Dino] wanted to make this New Year’s celebration a bit more interesting, but he can’t make it to New York for the ball drop. Instead, he decided to make his own mini display in his workshop. Obviously he’s working with a slightly smaller budget than the folks at Times Square, but we think his display is pretty neat. If anything, [Dino] can at least guarantee that his New Year’s is 100% Seacrest-free.

The ball drop is made up of five ping pong balls, each backlit by a 10mm LED. The LEDs and ping pong balls were mounted on the electron gun from a broken oscilloscope, giving it a cool look. The balls are lit one at a time by an Arduino, which illuminates each one for 15 seconds while the final minute of 2011 is counted down. Once midnight hits, a flashing “2012” sign illuminates while Auld Lang Syne plays from a tiny speaker.

The musical part of this build is something that [Dino] spent a lot of time on. He thoroughly explains how he translated the song from sheet music into its digital form, a process that would be helpful for beginners to watch.

Continue reading to see how the display was built, and if you’re just antsy to see the ball drop in action, a short demo can be found at 12:13.

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