Fuse Making Machine

August 10, 2012 by Mike Szczys 19 Comments

This is a fuse making machine that operates nearly as well as a factory machine would. Have you figured out what exactly this is yet? It’s not an electrical fuse, it’s a Visco Fuse. Still not totally clear? Don’t worry, we had to look it up too. Visco Fuse is a high-quality safety fuse used in fireworks.

[Robert McMullen] built the machine as part of his degree in Mechanical Engineering at Olin College. But there’s a hobby twist behind its genesis. When he has free time he participates in Olin’s Fire Arts Club and we’re sure this stuff comes in handy. The fuse is made by encapsulating a stream of gunpowder in a tube of woven thread. Twenty spools of thread wrap their way around the nozzle of a fine funnel. Once the casing is in place the machine coats it in a waterproof lacquer.

The image above only shows the base of the machine. All the fun parts (and test burns including one underwater) can be seen in the video after the break. Continue reading “Fuse Making Machine” →

Edison’s Cradle Is A Bright Idea

August 6, 2012 by Caleb Kraft 45 Comments

This interesting take on Newton’s Cradle is called “Asobi” and was created by [Yasutoki Kariya]. However, [Johnny] at Spoon and Tamago dubbed it “Edison’s Cradle”, which we think is a great name.

As you can make out in the video, it isn’t really a Newton’s Cradle. There is a solenoid pushing the bulbs at the end out at the correct time, but that’s fine. The overall result is quite brilliant. Unfortunately, we don’t know much about the setup. Anyone have more information? Anyone want to take a stab at making “Tesla’s cradle”?

[via Make]

Continue reading “Edison’s Cradle Is A Bright Idea” →

Control Giant Fireballs With Your Mind

August 6, 2012 by Eric Evenchick 9 Comments

[Matt Oehrlein] and [Ed Platt] from the i3 Detroit hackerspace created the Mind Flame project. The project uses Electroencephalography (EEG) sensors from NeuroSky to measure the user’s concentration level. When you’re concentrating hard enough, the Mind Flame launches a giant fireball, which probably breaks your concentration pretty quickly.

Propane is accumulated in tanks, and then released past a hot surface carbide igniter. It looks like an Arduino is used to open the valve, and the result is a massive fireball controlled by your brainwaves.

The Mind Flame was demoed at the Detroit Maker Faire as a competition. Two participants face off to see who can concentrate the hardest and make the device launch three fireballs first. In the future, they want to incorporate new competitive elements. One example is placing wooden houses in the line of fire, and letting opponents try to burn down their adversary’s house before their’s is set ablaze.

You can check out an interview about the project here.

[Via Make]

Genezap Improves Your Video Game Skills Using Corporal Punishment

August 2, 2012 by Mike Nathan 13 Comments

genezap

As if getting your ass handed to you while playing video games wasn’t annoying enough, [furrtek] decided that the best way to help improve his skills was by inflicting physical pain each time his on-screen character died.

While perusing the Internet looking for something to break through the doldrums of the day, he came upon a video in which someone decided to try on a dog shock collar just for kicks. This sparked [furrtek’s] imagination, and he started to think that it would be pretty cool to use the same sort of device to make dying in a video game that much more unpleasant.

After ordering a set of collars online, he tore them apart to see how they functioned, and to measure just how big of a jolt they were able to deliver. [furrtek] then modified two Genesis controllers with a pair of ATtiny 25s, which let him send the fire signal to the collars. Unfortunately, stock Genesis games don’t allow you to send signals to the controllers, so [furrtek] had to spend some time hacking ROM images to trigger events when players are injured or lose a life.

We think the project is pretty slick, and if you don’t mind fiddling with your old controllers, you too can have a merciless trainer strapped around your neck. For those slightly more averse to pain, you can watch [furrtek] and his friend [Dyak] suffer the consequences of poor gameplay for your amusement.

Continue reading “Genezap Improves Your Video Game Skills Using Corporal Punishment” →

Automated Turret Gives You The Upper Hand In Office Warfare

July 31, 2012 by Mike Nathan 17 Comments

TI-office-turret

When your co-workers get on your nerves, the mature recourse is to be the bigger person and simply ignore the obnoxious individual. A team of engineers from TI show us a slightly alternative means of dealing with office mates which is not quite as mature, though far more entertaining.

The office toy cum mechanized weapons system relies on a TI MSP430 LaunchPad, coupled with a custom Turret430 breakout board. The former is the brains of the operation, while the latter houses motor drivers for the motorized turret. The system can be steered throughout its 300 degree range of rotation using an attached joystick, but in the interest of catching their target by surprise, they added an automated mode as well. The automated targeting system uses an attached webcam to pick out victims by the color of their clothing, which seems to work pretty well.

To see the system in action, check out the video embedded below.

Continue reading “Automated Turret Gives You The Upper Hand In Office Warfare” →

Understanding Op-amps From Simple To Hard

July 30, 2012 by Mike Szczys 17 Comments

[Tim] wanted to help out a ECE student struggling with some Op-Amp problems. He put together a video which does a good job of explaining what an Op-Amp does, then tackles each of the questions one at a time.

His analogy is illustrated in this image. There’s an operator using a crane to lift a crate. He is watching a ‘radio man’ in a window of the building to know how high it should be lifted. These roles are translated to the function of an Op-Amp in a way that makes understanding the common parts quite easy. The crane is the Op-Amp and the floor to which it is trying to lift the crate is the input pin. The current height of the crate is the output signal. The radio man is the feedback resistor which is trying to get the desired height and current height to equal each other. Watch the video after the break and all becomes clear.

After this analogy is explained [Tim] tackles the actual homework problems. He’s going through everything pretty quickly, and doesn’t actually give the answers. What he does is show how this — like most circuit solving problems — depends on how you group the components in order to simplify the questions. Grab a pen and paper and put on your electron theory hats to see if you can solve the questions for yourselves.

Continue reading “Understanding Op-amps From Simple To Hard” →