If a picture is worth 1000 words, by our count, [Ryan Commbes] has said 1.68×10^6 different things about his custom robot, airsoft, and monster truck builds. While we’re not ones to pick favorites, we agreed his Alpine TPG-1 (picture at the top) build is a step above the rest. Sadly, the forums with his build log doesn’t seem to be loading, but he says the basic process if you wanted to make your own is to gather pictures, measure, and create.
[Thanks Andrew]
[Carmine] let us know about his team’s Automated Football Launcher. Their goal was to combine a football launcher with motion tracking, to allow a player to practice running and catching with the perfect throw. Unfortunately, and we’re not quite sure when, they ended up changing out the Jugs machine for an air cannon, which resulted in the use of foam footballs and the loss of throwing factors such as spiral. Somewhat defeating the purpose but we’ll let it slide; only because we know its going to be shooting potatoes eventually.
The project comes together by using two cameras giving distance and color tracking, combined with a rotating platform (and the best use of garden hose ever), an accurate set-top for their launcher. As seen in the video after the jump, it works out quite nicely. Continue reading “Perfect Spiral, Every Time”
[Kevin Fodor] shares his method of reading multiple inputs on one pin of a microcontroller. The analog to digital convert function of the microcontroller is used to read a potentiometer but with some careful calculations a resistor network can be built into the circuit that provides a unique voltage value for each button pushed. The only real drawback is that the system cannot read multiple button presses at the same time. Theoretically up to ten momentary push buttons can be used but [Kevin] estimates that only four plus the potentiometer will work reliably.
[Thanks Charper]
[Mazomen] left the expensive ready-to-order options for others and built his own egg incubation chamber. It keeps the eggs warm and happy in a Styrofoam lined box. Temperature regulation is handled by an ATtiny26 microcontroller in conjunction with a DS18B20 temperature sensor. When the temp drops, two 60-watt light bulbs in the chamber above the eggs are turned on and the air is circulated with a small case fan. If you’ve already made the switch to automated vegetable growing this project will make your chicken raising easier as well.
[Thanks RicoElectrico]
Accelerometers make for nice user interaction, that’s why every Apple product seems to have one included and the Nintendo Wii is still alive despite its underpowered graphics capabilities. Adding one to your project is pretty simple, just a matter of reading in analog data and interpreting it according to the datasheet. If you’re just starting out, here’s a tutorial on how to interface an accelerometer with a PIC microcontroller. They’re using an ADXL320 which can be acquired on a breakout board for about $30. The schematic and code are simple so even if you don’t intend to build the circuit (or want to use a different uC), this is easy to understand as an academic exercise.
[Thanks Skitchin]
[Photo credit: SparkFun]
[Simon Inns] is still hard at work making USB connectivity for PIC microcontrollers easier for the hobbiest. He’s released a framework for PIC based USB devices under Windows. It includes the firmware needed for USB compatible 18F PIC chips as well as a C# class library and example programs for the Windows side of things. This goes quite a bit further than his PIC-USB tutorial but with little added effort on your end of things.
We do our USB prototyping on a breadboard just like [Simon] did in this example. He’s got a nice little USB-B connector breakout that is easy to plug into the breadboard. If you prefer to have a more stable development area, check out the one he designed. It’s a single-sided PCB made for through-hole components with just a handful of jumper wires.
If you get in the line of fire this golf ball launcher is gonna leave a mark, or worse. It’s based on the same premise as the sausage gun, but now everything is automated and no meat products are used.
A hopper stores a row of golf balls. When it comes time to load, a ball falls into the chamber, starter fuel is sprayed into the combustion area with the aid of a fan, and after both chambers are sealed the propellant is ignited.
We’ve embedded two videos below for your amusement. It looks like [Chrille] and his friends are being careful with their creation. We’re glad for that because this is about as dangerous as the high-velocity ping-pong ball launcher. Continue reading “Fully-automated Golf Ball Gun”
