Fancy Beer Pong Table Cleans Your Balls

September 28, 2012 by Mike Szczys 19 Comments

Beer Pong seems to have been around for some time but it only recently exploded in to a universally known game. But one thing has always bothered us. Who wants to drink the beer into which that grimy little ball has fallen? Leave it to the frat boys at MIT to come up with a solution. Their beer pong table automatically cleans your balls.

Of course the table looks great. It’s outfitted with laser cut felt lettering on the apron, and the top features EL wire highlights. But the two features that really set it apart aren’t hard to spot either. First, there are rain gutters along either side to help catch the spillage. Secondly, that blue ring is actually the input nozzle for the ball cleaner. By pushing the ball through the vinyl sleeve it enters a recirculating liquid cleanser, popping out of the portal on the left a second later. That’s about all the details we have on the system, but you can get a closer look at the inner workings in the clip after the break.

The thing to remember is that these guys NEVER run out of ping-pong balls. They’ve got thousands on hand ever since they built this launcher.

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Doorbell To Internet Bridge Also Useful For Other Home Automation

September 28, 2012 by Mike Szczys 5 Comments

This wireless doorbell hack can send a text message when someone rings. Adding the hardware to the chime unit turned out to be quite simple. It shows potential for a slew of other applications.

[Martin] started the project with a breakout board he had designed for an RFM12B wireless transceiver board. This board is popular because of its low-cost, small size, and ease of operation. [Martin’s] breakout is barely larger than the RFM module itself, and merely adds an ATtiny84 to the mix. In the case of this doorbell project he uses a pin interrupt to detect when the doorbell’s LED is illuminated. This wakes the chip from sleep and sends a message back to the receiver that something has happened.

The receiver can do anything it wants with that data. In this case it uses an email-to-SMS service to send [Martin] a text message. But the home automation applications are vast for this simple hardware. We have a water heater that is not near a floor drain so we use a simple leak detector to sound an alarm if there is ever a problem (the water heater sits in a shallow tray). That works if we’re home at the time. Using [Martin’s] solution could extend that alarm’s reach worldwide.

[via Hacked Gadgets]

Crystal Doorbell Helps Class Up The Joint

September 26, 2012 by Mike Szczys 23 Comments

Even if you live in a dump this quick build will make your doorbell sound high-class. The new rig uses a crystal goblet to alert you of guests at the door. We suppose the room-silencing sound of flatware on a wine glass does make a great attention getter.

For [Tobias] the hardest part of the build was getting his wife to sign off on it. But he says the 1970’s era original was looking pretty shabby, which kind of made his argument for him. It took just two hours to develop and install the replacement. It uses a servo motor with an articulated striker to ping the glass which is hanging inverted between two pegs. The original AC transformer (which are most often 16V) was used to power the Arduino. He built a simple rectifier along with a big smoothing capacitor to make sure the Arduino doesn’t reset when voltage dips. Although it’s not mentioned in his comments, we’d bet the doorbell wire has been rerouted to connect directly to the Arduino, rather than remain patched into the power loop.

Don’t miss the clip after the break to hear how great this thing really does sound.

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Another Great Backyard Observatory Build

September 25, 2012 by Mike Szczys 11 Comments

With a little help from their friends [Jeff Fisher] and his dad built this observatory in their back yard. Their use of simple building materials and techniques show that you can create a respectable home observatory without breaking the bank.

It starts with a footing for the telescope mount. This is completely separated from the building that surrounds it so there will be no issue with vibrations affecting the images it is capturing. From there a foundation made of cinder blocks was laid before placing joists and installing a sub floor. It was during this process that they trenched and placed conduit to run power to the building. With the floor in place the walls were stick built and a carefully crafted dome was assembled and hefted in place by this septet of gentlemen.

Four months was all it took to get to this point, but [Jeff] and his dad are still working on a deck to go around the observatory. They’re using a very nice telescope that they purchased, but it is also possible to build one of those yourself.

[via Reddit]

Key Code Door Lock Won’t Endanger Your Security Deposit

September 20, 2012 by Mike Szczys 13 Comments

College students have returned in droves to dorms and apartments at campuses everywhere. So this is the time of year we usually start seeing some coded entry hacks. [Charmonkey] recently took on the challenge at his new apartment. There were some caveats though. He needed to ensure the Landlord could still enter using a key, and he didn’t want to alter the door or the jamb in any way. What he came up with is a coded entry system that can turn the deadbolt.

In order to mount some hardware on the door he removed the inner part of the dead bolt assembly and used the pair of threaded tubes on the adjoining lock section as anchor points. This holds the Pokemon tin he’s using as a project box securely in place. The rest of the components all mount to it. These include the stepper motor that actuates the deadbolt, a switch for manual operation, an Arduino, and a motor driver board.

He got really creative with the keypad. The wires connecting it travel through the door’s peephole and into the smaller plastic project box that hosts the rest of the hardware.

[via Reddit]

Home Automation Hack Controls Lights Based On Head Count

September 19, 2012 by Mike Szczys 19 Comments

This home automation hardware turns on and off the lights based on room occupancy. The hack is an extension of an earlier version that was only a proof of concept. [RPisces] took the idea and made it into reality by mounting the sensor hardware in a doorway.

He prototyped the device using the MSP430 launchpad. It monitors a pair of IR distance sensors which record a change when something passes between them and the opposite side of the hallway. This is a good sensor choice as it only requires hardware on one side of the passageway. Because two of them are used, it’s quite simple to figure out if a person is entering or leaving the room based on which is tripped first.

In this case [RPisces] drives a relay to switch a lamp on and off. But it could be used for just about anything. We’d enjoy seeing it trigger an audio system like the one [Quinn’s] installing in every room.

Self Monitoring A Home Alarm System

September 18, 2012 by Mike Szczys 16 Comments

[Lior] wanted to cancel the monitoring system for his home’s alarm, but he didn’t want to stop using the alarm all together. The trick is to rig up some way to monitor it himself. It would have been simple to have it just call him instead of the alarm company since the system just uses a telephone connection. But this would require that he have a land line for it to connect to, and when it calls him he would have no idea what part of the system had been set off. He developed a way to have the system text message him with all of the available details.

An Arduino controls the system, with a SIM900 GSM shield to hand the cell side of things. The board to the left emulates the standard telephone line, with an M8870 DTMF touch tone decoder to figure out what the alarm system is telling him. He also needed to implement touch tone generation to talk back to the system. His write-up includes links to other articles he posted about hardware, software, and protocol specifics.