Misc Hacks

4181 Articles

Defcon Bot Rules Announced

December 2, 2006 by 8 Comments


The DefconBots rules have been announced for Defcon 15. The reference design is actually pretty good on it’s own – I’m curious to see what sort of improvements the teams will come up with. The RD includes a full tutorial, so teams will definitely have a fighting chance. [via Midnight Research Labs]

The only rule is speed, so I wonder how many guns will feature multiple barrels. It seems that they don’t care how much ammuntion is used. (It does say no shotguns) Hrm, maybe a mini-gun that covers the 5×5 area with fine enough resolution to hit everything? Sure it lacks finesse, but firepower-a-plenty!

Now I can’t find his page but one of the Danger founders had built something similar using a Mac as the controller and a paintball gun. Of course, we’ve seen similar guns before.

Tesla Gone Wild

November 29, 2006 by 9 Comments


I’ve gotten quite a few good submissions lately, so don’t get mad if you’re not up. I can’t resist high voltages, so this Tesla coil project capable of 30 inch lightning bolts built by [PlasmaFire] caught my eye. Not too bad for a high school project.

From his description: The Tesla Coil that I built runs on normal house current (120VAC, 60Hz), fed through line filters to two Franceformer 9060 P-E neon sign transformers that output 9000 volts at 60ma each. After going through a high-voltage Terry-style RFI filter, the power is stored in a 4.0-joule capacitor bank. This energy is dumped into a copper-coil primary. The secondary, made from cast acrylic and motor winding wire, and a topload, made from dryer duct, aluminum foil tape, and a wood disc, complete the overall assembly.

(oh, and just for fun: the cylon roomba. Thanks [tod])

Crazy Holidays Extra

November 27, 2006 by 8 Comments


After sushi-thanksgiving at my house, I’m beat – but you guys have been busy on the tips line.

In one of those special moments of vengance, the ‘real’ ps3 grill was created. (It’s been built, don’t be fooled by the fund raising graphic they were too lazy to remove.)

In another moment of consumer electronics death, a 25mw 405nm laser was obtained from a blu-ray DVD burner and turned into the closest thing to a light saber I’ve seen.

[James Coxon] sent in his autonomous RC car project (link dead, try Internet Archive). I found his Pegasus high altitude balloon project even more interesting.

If you haven’t already heard about it, if you can hack this ps3, you’ll actually get to own it. Thanks [good4me] and [wierdguy].

[Chris_rybitski] sent in his music syncro’d christmas light control – he runs the AC audio into diode rectifier to drive a SSR.

If you really hate squirells, [Alexiy] thinkgs you might find a remote controlled airsoft gun handy.

Don’t forget to check out the Hack-A-Day Design Challenge. I already announced the iPod, the MAKE controller and Daisy MP3 player kit, but look for another prize announcement soon.

Let the holiday geekery continue!

Bio-ElectroStatic Generator

November 26, 2006 by 25 Comments


[Matt] sent in Electrifried 2 – the second version of a device with one purpose: shock your friends like you’ve got a giant shag carpet. The ion generator is used to provide create a static electric charge on demand. Looks like another great alternative use for a negative ion generator that could take evil christmas giving to a new level.

Post-thx Giving Extra

November 24, 2006 by 8 Comments

I’m hanging out with relatives, enjoying the holiday, but I can’t forget you guys. I’ve finally got a chance to announce some more prizes for the Design Challenge.

In addition to fbz’s hackaday ipod nano, MAKE put up one of their MAKE controllers and one of their Daisy MP3 player kits. The controller looks pretty sweet, servo interfaces, USB, etc, good stuff. I’ve got one of the daisy’s to play with, so I’ll be putting up more on that later. They also put together a nice open source gift guide. Plenty of it is from make, but there are a few good things on the list.

[John] sent in his Atari lynx C64 dtv mod. No details, but it looks like a decent portable mod.

[kedge] notes that the Wii apparently has opera pre-installed.

[Adam] pointed at that someone already has XP running on a friggin PS3. [via emulation under linux] I had issues reviewing the video, but it may have been my machine.

I’m going back to my poker game. Enjoy the holidays!