Robot Boxing With Wrist Watches

August 3, 2010 by Mike Szczys 7 Comments

The classic injection molded plastic Rock ‘Em Sock ‘Em Robots has been upgraded to use motion control. The project uses four TI Chronos watches, one on each wrist of both players. In the video after the break we get a good look at the guts of the base unit. We’re quite impressed with the quality craftsmanship that went into retrofitting the plastic bots with four servos each. The electronics include some bells and whistles such as an SD card that records scores and can replay a match via saved inputs. If you’ve got a couple of these watches on hand we’d love to see you port this project and make it a Punchout controller.
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Hardware Hack 3D, Software Still Needed

August 2, 2010 by Jakob Griffith 39 Comments

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_k7Vc10YsDk&feature=player_embedded%5D

If you’re on the fence about 3D TV and related technologies [Anton B.] might be able to help you decide. No, he’s not going to shove pamphlets in your face and explain why its the wave of the future. Rather, by showing the hack-ability (its a word) of 3D shutter glasses. A simple bridge of wire across specific contacts can ‘trick’ the glasses into only displaying only the left or right picture.

Wouldn’t that make it just a regular 2D TV again? Yes, that’s the beauty of it. Person A could be watching a completely separate movie pr0n than person B, but all on the same TV. Or two people could be playing a video game, without dividing the screen in half. The only problem is the current lack of software that can interlace movies/games, who’s up for writing some C++ this weekend?

Super Simple Gaming Controller For Android Or IPhone

July 29, 2010 by Mike Szczys 19 Comments

If you’ve got an iPhone or Android device that you use with a Wii remote when gaming, this quick hack will give you the third hand you need to manage all of that hardware. [Syanni85] mounted his Android phone to a Wii wheel for just a few dollars in parts. He ran across the wheel itself at the dollar store, and the phone is held in place using a universal mounting bracket. A small square pad sticks onto the back of any device and mates with a base. He cut off the unnecessary parts of the base and glued it to the back of the wheel.

If you haven’t tried using a Wii remote with your phone yet, find out how to do it with iPhone or with Android.

All That’s Needed Is A Retro Paintjob, MiniMAME

July 22, 2010 by Jakob Griffith 22 Comments

[Tim’s] miniMAME‘s construction follows the “light and cheap” approach, using foam core board and hot glue. Sure it won’t last a nuclear attack, but at least it’s light enough to carry to a friend’s house.

With a removable netbook at the core, CCFLs, speakers, trackball, and mini arcade fighting stick, the project completely surpassed our expectations. For those looking to build a miniMAME, [Tim] includes lots of pictures, details, and plans allowing anyone to make their own in about an afternoon.

Making Mobile Audio Work At Home

July 22, 2010 by Mike Szczys 45 Comments

[Nikita] made a great find while cleaning out his garage: a set of audio amplifiers from a 1986 Volvo. After a bit of testing, he dislodged a stuck relay and set out to use these amps for a home audio system. He grabbed some left over brackets from his TV mount and used them as rail mounts. On the back he wired standard speaker connectors and RCA connectors to the wiring harness for the amplifiers. The final aspect is powering up the device, for which he used his ATX psu previously modified as a bench supply. 130-Watts of power for the cost of a few connectors.

We surprise to find we haven’t covered this common ATX bench-supply conversion before. What we have seen is an adapter to use one as a bench supply.

Nixie Sudoku: A Look At The Hardware

July 19, 2010 by Mike Szczys 8 Comments

We’re always happy to receive a tour of the guts that make things work. [John Sarik] posted several pictures and descriptions of the hardware that makes up his Nixie Sudoku build. The modular design uses professionally made circuit boards which greatly improve the durability of a large set of circuits such as this.

The design draws on good ideas from similar hardware. The Nixie Duo kit from Ogi Lumen allows tubes to be mounted on top of driver boards with cascading shift registers for control of up to 8 tubes. The ArduiNIX shield makes the high voltages needed for Nixies easy to control with an Arduino. No, [John] didn’t just order these kits and plug them into each other. He designed his own boards to suit his needs. Each driver board can control 9 tubes in a 3×3 grid, all on one PCB. His high voltage board can supply enough juice for the whole system which is tied together with a single Arduino board.

His writeup is quite interesting so do take a look. He also filmed a walk through video which we’ve embedded after the break. It clears up some questions, such as showing the use of a blinking decimal point to indicate the current cursor position.

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Shred Air With Theremin Hero

July 13, 2010 by Jakob Griffith 16 Comments

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sBhOB7CfUoY%5D

Remember those Ebay auctions of air guitars going for several thousands of dollars? We don’t either, but Theremin Hero (more info in the YouTube description) is about as legit as you can get to actually rocking on nothing but air.

Much like using a theremin to control Mario, the vertical antenna acts as the fret board while the horizontal one detects strumming. Combine the output of the theremin with some custom software (yet to be released) and Guitar Hero and you have Theremin Hero Air Guitar.

[via Bob’s House of Video Games]