[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T0knvD7wx6A]
[Totoro] sent in this cool little email notification device he made. Using a paper model of Wall-E, he added some servos and connected it to his computer using a PIC. Mail-E has independent arm rotation and head rotation. He admits that the PIC processor is major overkill and plans some upgrades such as making it wireless and using a little better suited chip to control it. Not bad for a proof of concept.
What can you build with a ballpoint pen and some extra parts? [gzip] found himself with a bonus box of right angle switches and other miscellaneous parts and set out to build a joystick. Simple arcade joysticks use switches that are actuated by the movement of the stick and this design embraces the concept. The four tactile switches are mounted on protoboard facing each other with part of a ballpoint pen in the middle. When the pen is moved it presses against one or more switches to close, completing a circuit. For good measure he even incorporated a fire button into the top of the “stick”. Now we just need someone to make this work with a tiny Ms. Pac-Man emulator.
Last week we saw a rotating iPhone dock built from Lego. This week we’re happy to put up another example of a dock made of these popular building blocks. Thank goodness this one takes into account all of the sudden jolts that our desk is prone to by incorporating shock absorbing springs. The design is very sleek with a jazzy red scheme and a less-is-more attitude. We are a bit concerned about our expensive hand held falling out but then again that’s what the springs are for. Who can be the first to put together a step-by-step guide for building this one?
[via Engadget]
This one came out over a year ago and we missed it. [Daqq] has made a plasma ball out of a nixie tube. All that was required was the transformer from a cold cathode meant for computers and a nixie tube. He did have to do a tiny bit of modification to the power supply, which you can see on the project page. This isn’t the most useful project, since you can’t really see much of the plasma, but it is really cool nonetheless. We think this would make a really neat button. You can see a video of it in action after the break.
We’ve covered sequencers before, but reader [Johan] sent in his latest project that is much more minimalistic approach. Dubbed the BBox, he based his drum generator on an Arduino and an LCD display. Rather than synthesizing sound, the Arduino just outputs MIDI which is then interpreted by his Roland Juno-D. In building the device he used a favorite trick of ours to keep the interface clean. He then found an awesome banana box to use as a case. Although, the project may not be as functional as some of the others out there, it certainly has flair. Video of it in action after the break.
The iPhone doesn’t have the market cornered on the use of accelerometers. The tiltphone project incorporates a three axis accelerometer into a set of headphones transforming them into a remote control for an iPod. A PIC16F690 reads in data from the analog sensor, translates specific movements into commands, and like the Arduino iPod Remote from last week, relays them to an iPod via the Apple Accessory Protocol. A quick nod left or right skips tracks, holding a sideways nod controls the volume, and setting the headphones down pauses.
This project is a bit older but we’re glad [anon] tipped us off as we hadn’t seen it before. There doesn’t seem to be any code or schematics available but because the Apple Accessory Protocol is known, it’s only a matter of working out how to interpret the sensor data. There is video after the break and if you pull off this hack yourself be sure to send in details for a followup.
Continue reading “Head Bangers Beware: Motion Sensing Headphones”
Hard drive speakers aren’t anything new, but they have yet to be done very professionally. Most hard drive speaker hacks are awesome, but aren’t meant to be a showpiece. [Oliver] took the opportunity to put together a set of 20GB drives and a custom-built acrylic case with a horizontal VU meter up front. The project is well-photographed and documented and can be recreated without the use of laser cutters or other expensive tools. The only thing it’s missing is an iPod dock!
Related: Giant bulb VU meter
