Temperature Sensing Munny

February 18, 2009 by Eliot 7 Comments

munny

Here’s another nerdy present that was built for Valentine’s Day. [João Silva] created a temperature sensing Munny. A Munny is a vinyl toy made to be customized. Other than these Munny speakers, we haven’t seen them in many electronics projects. The LM35CZ temperature sensor has an analog output that connects to the ADC on the ATtiny15L. The microcontroller changes the RGB LED’s color based on the temperature: blue for cold, green for comfortable, and red for hot. It only flashes every three minutes to conserve the power in the coin cells. His one-off circuit board also includes an ISP header for programming. The Munny’s head looks like it does a great job diffusing the light.

Solar Batteries

February 16, 2009 by Eliot 51 Comments

solarbatt

[Knut Karlsen] put together a prototype set of solar rechargeable batteries. He always seemed to have batteries laying around on his worktable and figured they might as well be charging. The flexible solar cells were given to him by researchers at the IFE and are rated at 1.8V. He used superglue to secure them to the C cells. A silver conductive pen plus flat wires from a Canon lens connect the solar cells to the battery terminals. The batteries just trickle charge for now, but he’s going to try to build cells with built in charge controllers in the future.

VHS Toaster

February 16, 2009 by Caleb Kraft 28 Comments

Though the inspiration was said to have come from a clip of The Young Ones, we all know this was bound to happen eventually. [lemonie] has turned a VHS deck into a toaster. They’ve done a fantastic job, it looks almost perfectly stock. We can imagine that maintaining the look of the VCR was pretty difficult especially getting everything to line up correctly. Finally, we have a use for our old VHS deck. You can see a video of it in action after the break.

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Voice Controlled Home Automation

February 14, 2009 by Caleb Kraft 64 Comments

stephanie

[Brian] sent in this writeup on his voice controlled home automation system. Starting with the Microsoft SAPI, a voice recognition system, he programmed some basic home automation. In a move that makes this project decidedly more awesome, he decided to build a physical representation of his automation system. This disembodied head is “Stephanie”. She responds to her name, has an articulated jaw that moves with the syllables in the words, and even ejects her “brain tray” on command. We want one.

There is lots of information on his site about the circuitry involved, as well as source code and a video. You can see the video after the break.

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Robotic Baby Crib

February 9, 2009 by Caleb Kraft 44 Comments

suima_crib

This surprisingly pleasant looking crib is actually a robot, designed to keep babies quiet and happy all night long. Once inside and locked up, the baby is under the robot’s care. When the robot senses crying, it rocks gently back and forth. This should allow parents the time to catch some sleep. As pointed out in the article, the $5000 price tag is a bit steep. Especially considering the fact that you can get a much less technologically advanced equivalent for relatively cheap. How many of you hackers have babies? What hacks did you do to get your babies to sleep?

Gray Hoverman UHF Antenna

February 8, 2009 by Caleb Kraft 25 Comments

ant

With the impending digital switchover, many of you will find yourselves not only in need of a new converter box, but an antenna as well. Just like everything else, there are plans out there on how to build your own. [William] has gone through the effort of documenting his design and build of a very nicely made version. He used PVC for the frame and a wire mesh or chicken wire reflector. Good job [William]

IR Controlled Light Dimmer

February 7, 2009 by Caleb Kraft 14 Comments

dimmer

This is a pretty useful device. It is an IR controlled light dimmer. It goes in line with the main power and controls how much gets through to your light. You can adjust the brightness with a TV remote control. Finally, we can retire our clapper! These are commercially available, but making your own is just so much more fun. You may have to dig a little on their site for the schematics and programming. There are tons of other projects there as well so have fun. You can see a video of it in action after the break.

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