Alarm Clock Learns New Trick, Opening Doors

September 1, 2010 by Jakob Griffith 21 Comments

Waking up at 5:30 in the morning. [Mark Stead] didn’t like the idea either when his chickens started crying to be let out. One simple solution obviously is to eat the chickens build an automatic door opener. The mechanism starts out with an old style mechanical alarm clock, add a geared motor with some creative switch work to pull open the door, weather proof the entire thing, and done. [Mark] even modified the setup later to work with vertical doors. No MCU required for either.

Pair this with an automated feeder system, egg gathering and cooking setup, and you’re half way to having your breakfast ready for you when you wake up in the morning – around noon like the rest of us.

[Thanks MS3FGX]

Art Piece From Board Artwork

August 29, 2010 by Mike Szczys 11 Comments

[Theo Kamecke] is an artist who produces striking pieces using printed circuit boards. We’ve seen PCBs used as faux stained-glass before, but [Theo’s] craftsmanship stands apart from everything we’ve seen. His webpage has at least one piece that sites the usage of vintage 1960’s circuit boards, but we wonder if he doesn’t design some of these to suit his work. Either way, we’d love to see him take on the finish work for that mechanized expanding round table we saw back in June. See more of his work on his photostream.

[Photo Credit]

[Thanks Mowcius]

Beginner Concepts: Analog Circuits

August 28, 2010 by Mike Szczys 38 Comments

We look at a lot of projects that have microcontrollers in them. That’s because microcontrollers do cool stuff, but there are still plenty of tricks you can pull off with analog circuits. [Osgeld’s] latest project explores this realm, controlling the discharge of capacitors through an LED. His setup uses just nine components and, if you’ve been collecting broken electronics from your friends and neighbors like a good hacker, you can scavenge all of these parts. Try it, you’ll like it!

RS232 And RS485 Networking – No Code Required

August 14, 2010 by Mike Szczys 21 Comments

Here’s a serial to Ethernet module that you won’t have to write firmware to build. It uses a Lantronix XPORT module which takes care of all the work for you, including an embedded webserver. Both RS232 and RS485 data buses are connected to the XPORT serial input via a level converter to step the signal down to 3.3V. This solution comes at a price because of the ethernet module, but it would make a nice prototyping tool for testing projects that work on the two serial protocols.

Airsoft Minigun Packs Quite A Punch

August 12, 2010 by Mike Szczys 34 Comments

[Kuba_T1000] built a multi-barrell Airsoft minigun with an unbelievable firing rate and an almost inexhaustible ammo pack. The gun is made entirely from aluminum which meant some time on the CNC machine. The six barrels don’t rotate but they are all used, resulting in the carnage shown in the video after the break. That large box you see is the ammo pack, which can hold 16,000 BBs and uses an electric feed system to reach the necessary delivery speeds. It is certainly not something you’d want to run into as part of an automated turret.

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Behind The Scenes Of A 1K Graphics Demo

August 8, 2010 by Phil Burgess 38 Comments

Programmer/designer [Steven Wittens] has posted a fantastic write-up on the black art of producing compact demo code, dissecting his own entry in the 1K JavaScript Demo Contest. The goal is to produce the best JavaScript demo that can be expressed in 1024 characters or less and works reliably across all standards-compliant web browsers.

[Wittens] details several techniques for creating a lot of visual flash in very few bytes, including the use of procedural graphics rather than fixed datasets, exploiting prime numbers to avoid obvious repetitions in movement, and strategically fudging formulas to save space while adding visual interest. These methods are just as applicable to other memory-constrained situations, not just JavaScript — some of the contest entries bear a resemblance to the compact microcontroller demos we’ve previously showcased, except running in your browser window.

The contest runs through September 10th, allowing ample time to come up with something even more clever. Whether he wins or not, we think [Steven] deserves special merit on account of having one of the most stylish blogs in recent memory!

Spirograph Generator

July 23, 2010 by Mike Szczys 8 Comments

The Agnewgraph I can turn out a pretty nice Spirograph drawing. Instead of relying on meticulously acurate CNC hardware, it uses a Spirograph stencil similiar to that business card we’re so fond of. The key to the [Mpark’s] design is an analog joystick which is attached to the pen. As the pen follows the plastic guide around, a Propeller microcontroller calculates the angle of travel based on that joystick. These measurements are used to decide how to move the two stepper motors that provide horizontal and vertical motion to the frame. We’ve attached a video after the break just in case our rough description didn’t do it for you.

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