Misc Hacks

4164 Articles

Control The Real World With An Arduino-Enabled Minecraft Mod

June 4, 2016 by 8 Comments

Minecraft modding has become almost as popular as the block-based game itself, with tons of editors and tools available to create new kinds of blocks, mobs, and weapons. And now, with this mod framework that can talk to an Arduino, modders can build blocks that break out of the Minecraft world to control the real world.

While turning on a light from Minecraft is not exactly new, the way that MCreator for Arduino goes about it is pretty neat. MCreator is a no-code framework for building Minecraft mods, which allows modders to build new game capabilities with a drag and drop interface. The MCreator Arduino toolkit allows modders to build custom Minecraft blocks that can respond to in-game events and communicate with an Arduino over USB. Whatever an Arduino can do – light an LED, sense a button press – can be brought into the game. It’s all open-source and free for non-commercial use, which is perfect for the upcoming STEM-based summer camp season. We can think of some great projects that would really jazz up young hackers when presented through a Minecraft interface.

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Flying Balls Of Molten Aluminum!

June 3, 2016 by 47 Comments

We’re replacing “holy moley” in our vocabulary. Levitating globs of molten aluminum are that much more amazing. It’s not that we couldn’t believe it would work — we understand the physics after the fact. It’s just that we never would have thought to build an induction forge that can simultaneously melt and levitate a chunk of aluminum. (Video embedded below.)

[imsmoother] has had plans for 3 kW and 10 kW induction heaters online since at least 2011, and we’re wondering how we haven’t covered it before. Anyway, in the video, he’s using the smaller of the two to melt a chunk of aluminum. Continue reading “Flying Balls Of Molten Aluminum!” →

Feeding The Cat, Reinventing The Wheel

June 2, 2016 by 32 Comments

There are few projects that we see as many iterations of as the pet feeder or the plant waterer. (What is it with you people? Are you all as forgetful as we are?) Still, the fun is in the details of the implementation. Or at least that’s the case with [Emmaanuel]’s cat feeder.

The writeup is split into three parts: the worm-drive, the electronics, and the housing (here in English: worm, electronics, housing). And of course, there’s a video inlined below.

The auger and motor housing make great use of PVC pipe and 3D printing, and the dispenser unit looks quite professional. There’s not all that much to say about the electronics — an Arduino clone, an LCD, and a cheap gear motor do just about what you’d expect.

The CNC’ed case with spring-fit tabs steals the show, however. It’s made out of MDF, which doesn’t take well to screwing or glueing. With carefully routed pins and tabs that have a little spring in them, [Emmaanuel] was able to take the pieces off the mill table and just snap them together. Awesome.

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Mind Control Cerebro Helmet Controls People

June 1, 2016 by 38 Comments

For the recent release of X-Men Apocalypse, YouTuber [Allen Pan] from “Sufficiently Advanced” decided to make a rather ambitious project — a working Cerebro Helmet. Wait what?

When worn, it allows you to steer the person wearing it to the left or right using a series of impulses to the brain. It’s actually a well-researched technique called Galvanic Vestibular Stimulation — basically if you zap a nerve in your ear it messes with your balance. If you’re trying to walk in a straight line and the electrodes trigger, it causes a sudden imbalance and you tend to lean in that direction — thus changing the direction you are walking. Kind of like remote control cockroaches — but… with people…

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DIY plastic shredder with gears and safety

Scratch-Fabricated Plastic Gobbling Shredder Brings Recycling Home

June 1, 2016 by 10 Comments

[Jason Knight], an intern at FabLab RUC, has worked hard for 9 months to make a sheet plastics shredder for HDPE and LDPE from things like plastic bags, bubble wrap and air cushion packaging with the goal of recycling the shredded plastic. Why shred these things? When broken down to smaller pieces they can be melted in a consumer grade oven (like where you cook your frozen pizzas) then molded into new objects or extruded into 3D printing filament.

We especially like his big homemade 1.1 inch (30mm) thick wooden gears, for transferring the rotation from the motor to the cutting shafts while giving a step up in torque. As you can see in the video below, the gears definitely add an extra look of power to the machine.

The blades are the shape you most often see in shredders, gear-like disks side-by-side with teeth cut from them that pull the plastic in while shredding it (in contrast to this lower-throughput experimental DIY shredder made with two steel pipes). [Jason’s] multiple teeth are a bit of work to fabricate — not only were all the teeth milled from sheet metal but they then had to be individually sanded to remove burrs from the edges. It was worth it, as this has no problem chewing waste plastics to pieces.

Shredders can be dangerous machines for wandering fingers so [Jason] added a few safety features. Those include a drawer that you open to insert your plastic into the shredding area and a guard that completely surrounds the gears. And both features include transparent plastic areas so that you can still watch the impressive working parts in action.

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DIY Air Quality Meter And Emissions Tester

May 27, 2016 by 5 Comments

Handheld measuring devices make great DIY projects. One can learn a lot about a sensor or sensor technology by just strapping it onto a spare development board together with an LCD for displaying the sensor output. [Richard’s] DIY air quality meter and emissions tester is such a project, except with the custom laser-cut enclosure and the large graphic LCD, his meter appears already quite professional.

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Feed The Fun With A Semi-automatic Cheesy Poof Rifle

May 23, 2016 by 18 Comments

At Hackaday we think that hackers have the power to make the world a better place with their builds. This air-powered cheesy-poof rifle is not one of those builds, unless making the world a little more fun and slightly messier makes it a better place.

The principle of [NightHawkInLight]’s design is simple – an electric leaf blower provides the power, and a big vat o’ poofs provides the ammo. Getting the two together and providing a barrel is a matter of some simple plumbing with 1″ PVC pipe and fittings. But wait – lest you think this hack, like the ammo, is just a delicious bit of fluff, there’s something to be learned about fluid dynamics here. With a plain tee fitting, the leaf blower would only pressurize the magazine, making it difficult to chamber a round. But by adding a small restriction to the incoming air flow, the Venturi effect actually sucks ammo into the chamber and down the barrel, to the delight of hungry wildlife for yards around. Science!

There’s plenty of room for improvement to the design – something along the lines of this gas-powered, tube-fed snowball gun would be keen. As it stands, the cheesy-poof gun seems like good, unclean fun.

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