Yesterday, we featured [Andrew]’s orientation aware camera. We want to highlight another one of his projects: LED Life. It’s a 6×5 LED matrix playing Conway’s Game of Life. He used the low power MSP430 like our e-paper clock. The best part of the writeup is his explanation of how Charlieplexing works. Microcontroller GPIO pins generally have three possible states: output high, output low, and input. This combined with the directional nature LEDs and some creative wiring means you can run a large matrix of individually addressable LEDs with just a few IO pins. Instead of just flipping the IO pins on and off you change their assigned state. Have a look at [Andrew]’s site for some great illustrations of how the system works. A video of his LED Life board is embedded below. Continue reading “LED Life And Charlieplexing”
Misc Hacks4108 Articles
Sticky Tape Emits X-rays
Wired posted a gallery covering an interesting phenomenon. When you unroll regular sticky tape it emits visible light, but what was recently discovered is that under vacuum it actually emits x-rays as well. They’re still trying to nail down the cause. Have a look at the gallery of UCLA’s research lab to see what kind of equipment you need to unroll tape in a vacuum.
INTERNATIONAL CAPS LOCK DAY
As you can plainly see, we’re embracing International Caps Lock Day with full gusto. Go ahead, try it out in the comments. Caps lock is the cruise control for cool. Surprisingly, there are quite a few full time haters of the key running campaigns: CAPSoff and anticAPSLOCK actually united to form CAPSoff.org to further development of a caps lock free keyboard.
Once you’re tired of yelling at people online (like that’ll happen), you might attempt to do something useful with the key. In OSX, you can remap the caps lock key in System Preferences > Keyboard & Mouse > Modifier Keys. You can make it an extra Command, Control, Option, or select No Action. If you want to map it to another key entirely, try a program like fKeys. You could map it to Esc to make Vim—THE BEST TEXT EDITOR EVER—easy to use. In Windows, try this handy guide from TechRepublic for remapping your keys.
If ease of use is not your goal, you could always make a random caps locker hardware dongle.
[photo: catcubed]
Björk Teaches You About Electronics
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=75WFTHpOw8Y]
As we often suspected, [Björk] is quite the technical mastermind. In the video above, she teaches you about the ins and outs of her television. We think she’s making a strong bid as the next person to join Prototype This! Her hacking philosophy is the same as ours: “You shouldn’t let poets lie to you.”
Art From Code: Generative Graphics
[Keith Peters]’ blog Art From Code is devoted to his beautiful graphics from computer source code, also known as generative art. Although [Peters] is reluctant to reveal his source code, algorithmic graphics can be created with the help of tools like ActionScript, Flash, and Flex. There are some great tutorials that can start you on the path to making your own evocative art.
[via Neatorama]
Parts: Chip Sockets For Dual In-line Package (DIP)
DIP through-hole chips are an old package with instantly recognizable dual in-line pin rows. Beginners love these chips because they’re large and look easy to solder; we abhor them because we hate messing around with the drill. Whatever your motivation for using a through-hole chip, use a socket whenever possible. A circuit board with socketed chips is easy to test without endangering the parts, and ICs can be removed, tested, and replaced, without resorting to a soldering iron. This week, by request, we looked at several common through-hole chip sockets. Continue reading “Parts: Chip Sockets For Dual In-line Package (DIP)”
Lasercut RepRap Kit
The RepRap is a self-copying 3D printer. The project has published plans for creating a lasercut acrylic version of the device. They call it a RepStrap since once assembled it could produce printed plastic versions of the machine components, bootstrapping true RepRaps. The plans are available for Ponoko an on-demand product service, and it would cost ~$380 if you used their service. The plans are free, so you could get them manufactured by other means. [vik] is still putting together the assembly instructions. He hopes to have an all inclusive electronics kit at some point too. This is another great step towards putting desktop manufacturing within reach of everyone.
