RGBike POV

June 11, 2009 by Caleb Kraft 13 Comments

FIR7XMRFVRRH5S0.MEDIUM (Custom)

[Hazard] is designing this open source POV system for bikes. With the recent release of Monkey Electric’s m464q, [Hazard] was inspired. He found the price tag of roughly $2,000 to be way too much though. He is designing his own and taking us along for the trip. He hasn’t quite reached the Monkey Electric level of features, but he does have image display and simple animation. He encourages others to join him in improving the design. He notes that the image on the back side of the wheel is mirrored, so text would be backwards. Maybe he can pick some tips up from this old project.

Simple Computer Controlled Lights

June 8, 2009 by Caleb Kraft 33 Comments

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Rf5zs7VEFM]

As many of you have mentioned, there are a lot of projects that are built with their own microprocessors, and are simply overkill. Here’s a reminder that we can do some pretty fun stuff light synchronized light shows without going overboard. This light show is controlled directly via the printer port on a computer. Sure you can’t un plug it and run it free standing, but you can build it for roughly $20.

Table For Electronic Dreams

May 29, 2009 by Caleb Kraft 7 Comments

table

The table for electronic dreams is an interactive table that is sensitive to electric activity. Though it looks similar to the table built by EMSL, this one lights up based on electromagnetic fields. You can get the schematics and such from the instructable, but there is also a video located at the bottom of the project’s home page. It would be really cool if the effect could be localized more.

1 Meter POV

May 28, 2009 by Caleb Kraft 19 Comments

dinaf1 (Custom)

Here’s another POV project for you. It’s pretty big, at 1 meter in diameter, not quite as large as the stupidly huge one. What is interesting about this display is that it has a dual motor set up. The original motor didn’t quite have the power to get the display up to the required speed. A second one was added as the shaft of the rotor. Yes, one motor is actually spinning another motor that is spinning the display. Well, it’s hard to tell from the description. The original motor might be completely unused, but left in place.

Ghost Matrix, Glow Printing

May 23, 2009 by Caleb Kraft 30 Comments

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x24ESDCkmN0]

Ok, there aren’t any usefull applications we can think of for this one, but we want one really badly. This is a combination of a miniPOV, some UV LEDs, a CNC rig, and some glow in the dark paper. The Ghost matrix works similar to a dot matrix printer where it flashes the UV light to activate the paper. The final effect is very nice. Great job on this one.

[via Laughing Squid]

Weather Canvas

May 22, 2009 by Caleb Kraft 7 Comments

weather

Another Cornell final project, Weather Canvas aims to make watching the weather a little more pleasant. Data is captured via a thermometer, humidity sensor, anemometer, and a Hotwheels radar gun turned precipitation sensor. Once it’s captured, it’s transmitted to the LED matrix inside which displays pretty patterns to convey the weather conditions. They have set images, like icons, that mean different things.

Digital Dice

May 20, 2009 by Caleb Kraft 13 Comments

dnd

There have been several attempts at bringing Dungeons & Dragons up to date with modern technology. Most attempts have been in the form of computer games that somehow fail to capture the essential experience. This attempt, however seems to add some techie flair to while keeping the game the same. [Itay] has built some digital dice. Simply choose how many sides you want your dice to have, then give it a shake. OK, a random number generator isn’t that groundbreaking, but he did have to do some pretty intense soldering. The LED matrix is pretty cool, but we like looking at the back. You can see it in the video after the break.

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