Pause Your Tunes When It Is Time To Listen Up!

September 2, 2020 by Brian McEvoy 9 Comments

“Sorry. I had music playing. Would you say that again?” If we had a money-unit every time someone tried talking to us while we were wearing headphones, we could afford a super-nice pair. For an Embedded C class, [extremerockets] built Listen Up!, a cutoff switch that pauses your music when someone wants your attention.

The idea was born while sheltering in place with his daughter, who likes loud music, but he does not want to holler to get her attention. Rather than deny her some auditory privacy, Listen Up! samples the ambient noise level, listens for a sustained rise in amplitude, like speech, and sends a pause signal to the phone. Someday, there may be an option to route the microphone’s audio into the headphones, but for now there is a text-to-speech module for verbalizing character strings. It might be a bit jarring to hear a call to dinner in the middle of a guitar riff, but we don’t like missing dinner either, so we’re with [extremerockets] on this one.

We don’t really need lots of money to get fun headphones, and we are not afraid of making our own.

Karting Hands-Free

September 1, 2020 by Brian McEvoy 3 Comments

Some of us have computer mice with more buttons than we have fingers, resolution tracking finer than a naked eye can discern, and forced-air vents. All these features presuppose one thing; the user has a functioning hand. [Federico Runco] knows that amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, ALS, or Lou Gehrig’s disease, will rob a person of their ability to use standard computer inputs, or the joystick on a motorized wheelchair. He is building EyesDrive for the 2020 Hackaday Prize, to restore that mobility to ALS patients. There are already some solutions, but this one focuses on a short bill of materials.

Existing systems are expensive and often track pupil location, which returns precise data, but EyesDrive only discerns, left, right, and resting. For these, we need three non-invasive electrodes, a custom circuit board with amplifiers, signal processing circuits, and a microcontroller. He includes a Bluetooth socket on the custom PCBs, which is the primary communication method. In the video below he steers a virtual kart around a knotty course to prove that his system is up to the task of an urban wheelchair.

EyesDrive by [Federico Runco] should not be confused with the HackadayPrize2015 winner, Eyedrivomatic, lead by two remarkable hackers, Steve Evans and Patrick Joyce.

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OPARP Telepresence Robot

August 31, 2020 by Brian McEvoy No comments

[Erik Knutsson] is stuck inside with a bunch of robot parts, and we know what lies down that path. His Open Personal Assistant Robotic Platform aims to help out around the house with things like filling pet food bowls, but for now, he is taking one step at a time and working out the bugs before adding new features. Wise.

The build started with a narrow base, an underpowered RasPi, and a quiet speaker, but those were upgraded in turn. Right now, it is a personal assistant on wheels. Alexa was the first contender, but Mycroft is in the spotlight because it has more versatility. At first, the mobility was a humble web server with a D-pad, but now it leverages a distance sensor and vision, and can even follow you with a voice command.

The screen up top gives it a personable look, but it is slated to become a display for everything you’d want to see on your robot assistant, like weather, recipes, or a video chat that can walk around with you. [Erik] would like to make something that assists the elderly who might need help with chores and help connect people who are stuck inside like him.

Expressive robots have long since captured our attention and we’re nuts for privacy-centric personal assistants.

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A PIN Pad Blasting UV Sanitizer

August 30, 2020 by Tom Nardi 47 Comments

Retailers have instituted enhanced cleaning procedures in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, with an aim to keep frequently touched surfaces as clean as possible. Certainly one of the most commonly handled objects in the entire store is the payment terminal by the register, and the PIN pad specifically. Which is why [Josh Starnes] is working on a UV sterilizer that mounts onto a standard credit card terminal.

It’s a simple enough idea, but as is often the case, figuring out how to properly execute it is where things get tricky. [Josh] has already moved through several design iterations for his 3D printed enclosure in an attempt to make something that’s unobtrusive enough to be practical. The goal is to make something that the user won’t mistake for some kind of skimming device, which can certainly be tricky.

The skeptics in the audience will be happy to hear that [Josh] isn’t bothering with an LED UV source, either. We’ve all seen the pitfalls of trying to sanitize using UV LEDs, so this design goes old school with a small 12 volt UV bulb. That does mean it will need a dedicated power source however, which it seems like he’ll be addressing in the next phase of the project.

UnifiedWater Finds Potable Water And Stops Polluters

August 29, 2020 by Kristina Panos 16 Comments

Millions of people all over the world don’t have access to clean drinking water, and it’s largely because of pollution by corporations and individuals. Solving this problem requires an affordable, scalable way to quickly judge water quality, package the data, and present it to an authority that can crack down on the polluters before the evidence dissipates. Ideally, the solution would be open source and easy to replicate. The more citizen scientists, the better.

[Andrei Florian]’s UnifiedWater flows directly from this line of thinking. Dip this small handheld device below the surface, and it quickly takes a bunch of water quality and atmospheric readings, averages them, and sends the data to a web dashboard using an Arduino MKR GSM.

UnifiedWater judges quality by testing the pH and the turbidity of the water, which gauges the amount of impurities. Commercial turbidity sensors work by measuring the amount of light scattered by the solids present in a liquid, so [Andrei] made a DIY version with an LED pointed at a photocell. UnifiedWater also reads the air temperature and humidity, and reports its location along with a timestamp.

This device can run in one of two modes, depending on the application. The enterprise mode is designed for a fleet of devices placed strategically about a body of water. In this mode, the devices sample continuously, taking readings every 15 minutes, and can send notifications that trigger on predefined thresholds. There’s also a one-and-done individual mode for hikers and campers who need to find potable water. Once UnifiedWater takes the readings, the NeoPixel ring provides instant color-coded judgment. Check out the demo after the break.

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Two Days Left To Enter The Hackaday Prize!

August 29, 2020 by Mike Szczys 2 Comments

Your entry for the 2020 Hackaday Prize needs to be in by Monday morning, August 31st!

This is the deadline for initial entries, if you’re one of the one hundred lucky projects that advance to the finals you’ll still have another month to polish up your project. Why not make this weekend your own personal hackathon?

Entries focus on four challenges outlined by our non-profit partners this year. From improving modular dome housing and developing manufacturing techniques in disaster zones, to designing interfaces for people with physical challenges and protecting natural ocean landscapes, there’s plenty of room to be creative here. In addition to the $50,000 grand prize there are still nine other top prizes up for grabs.

You can do this. Tell your story, show a proof of concept, and document it to convince the judges your project is viable. It’ll be tight, but hackers work best when deadlines are looming. We can’t wait to see what you come up with between now and Monday!

Building A Heavy Duty Open Source Ventilator

August 28, 2020 by Tom Nardi 12 Comments

Since the COVID-19 pandemic started, we’ve seen several attempts to create homebrew ventilators designed to address the shortage of these lifesaving machines. Unfortunately, most hackers aren’t terribly experienced when it comes to designing practical medical equipment. So while many of the designs might have appeared functional on the workbench, there’s little chance they’d get used in any official capacity.

The open source DP Ventilator is still clearly the product of a couple plucky hackers, but we think it shows a level of design maturity that’s been missing in many of the earlier attempts. Made primarily with 3D printed components, this mechanical device is designed to operate a hand-held manual resuscitator; essentially standing in for a human operator. This makes the design far less complex than if it had to actually pump air itself, not to mention safer for the patient since the resuscitator (often referred to as an Ambu Bag) installed in it would be a sterile pre-packaged item.

In the video after the break, you can see just how much thought and effort has been put into the device’s touch screen interface. With a few quick taps the medical professional operating the DP Ventilator can dial in variables such as breathing rate, pressure, and volume to match the patient’s needs. While the Arduino Mega 2560 at the machine’s heart wouldn’t pass muster for any regulating body in charge of medical devices, we think with a few more tweaks, this design is getting close to something that might actually be able to save lives.

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