Automated Turret Gives You The Upper Hand In Office Warfare

July 31, 2012 by Mike Nathan 17 Comments

TI-office-turret

When your co-workers get on your nerves, the mature recourse is to be the bigger person and simply ignore the obnoxious individual. A team of engineers from TI show us a slightly alternative means of dealing with office mates which is not quite as mature, though far more entertaining.

The office toy cum mechanized weapons system relies on a TI MSP430 LaunchPad, coupled with a custom Turret430 breakout board. The former is the brains of the operation, while the latter houses motor drivers for the motorized turret. The system can be steered throughout its 300 degree range of rotation using an attached joystick, but in the interest of catching their target by surprise, they added an automated mode as well. The automated targeting system uses an attached webcam to pick out victims by the color of their clothing, which seems to work pretty well.

To see the system in action, check out the video embedded below.

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[Dino] Builds A Fetch-O-Matic For This Month’s Make

July 30, 2012 by Brian Benchoff 21 Comments

Perennial Hackaday favorite [Dino] has an article in this months Make magazine. It’s an automated ball launcher that allows you to play fetch with your dog without wearing your arm out.

The powerhouse inside [Dino]’s ball launcher is a windshield wiper motor powered by an 18 Volt cordless drill battery pack. When a ball in dropped into the hopper, it turns on a switch sending some power to the motor.

The swing arm that actually launches the ball is anchored to the frame of the ball launcher with a spring. This stores energy for one half of a rotation of the motor until the arm rotates half way around inside the box. Then, the arm quickly accelerates and launches the ball across the yard.

[Dino] says he’s working on training his dog to drop the ball into the chute after retrieving it, creating a perpetual game of fetch. At least until the battery runs down, that is. Video after the break.

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Excavate Your Basement Using RC Equipment

July 28, 2012 by Jeremy Cook 41 Comments

Although it could be debated as to whether or not this is a “hack,” since the equipment used is built for excavation, the scale of it seems deserving of a mention. In the linked article, [Joe] is quoted as saying, “the common misconception here is that the RC’s are not here to excavate my basement, but rather the basement excavation project is here for the RC’s.” This could be a motto for most makers/hackers in that projects are frequently not done for the resulting product, but for the experience of making something your own.

According to [Joe], he excavates 2 – 3 cubic yards per year with his little RC vehicles. Living in Canada as a rancher and farmer, he’s required to be near his home to feed his hungry animals even during the cold winter months. During this time, there can be very little to do. After sometimes working 16 hour days during the summer, he needed something to keep him occupied close to home. Be sure to check out the excavation video after the break, or check out the original article for even more pictures and video! Continue reading “Excavate Your Basement Using RC Equipment” →

Adding Payload To An RC Cessna

July 26, 2012 by Mike Szczys 11 Comments

For just a few bucks you can add a payload to your flying toys. In this case it’s a Cessna RC plane which now has an added surprise. The first thing to be dropped was a parachute with a weight on it (for testing purposes). But there are hints of future projects that will use the same system for different purposes.

As you can see in the image above, the system depends on an additional compartment attached to the bottom of the plane. It was built from foam board to keep the weight down and connects using rare earth magnets. The bottom of the enclosure acts as the door, hinging on a servo motor with a bamboo skewer as the axle. So far the test drops have gone pretty well, but some more work needs to be done with the parachute design. It only opens about 60% of the time. We can sympathize, having had to work out some of our own parachute issues.

Don’t miss video from the plane as well as the ground after the break.

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Need A Quadcopter Transmitter? Use A PS2 Controller!

July 16, 2012 by Brian Benchoff 22 Comments

After [Pyrofer] built a quadcopter, he purchased a cheap 6-channel transmitter made in China. Unfortunately, that transmitter was terrible so he took an old PS2 controller and built his own.

For his build, [Pyrofer] broke out the analog sticks and wired them to an AVR housed in the handle of the controller. The AVR sent commands to a 2.4 GHz radio transmitter powered by a small LiPo battery. With the addition of a few tact switches behind the shoulder buttons of the controller, [Pyrofer] has four axes of control with a few buttons for changing modes on his quadcopter.

This build really doesn’t hold a candle to some of the awesome DIY RC transmitters we’ve seen, but we’ve got to give [Pyrofer] credit for coming up with a very simple and easy build. Just about everyone has a PS2 or XBox controller lying around, and with a few extra hardware bits it’s easy to bodge up a decent remote control.

[Pyrofer] used a project called Funkenschlag to generate PPM signals, so if you feel the need to replicate this project send it in when you’re done.

Launching Rockets And Recording Video

July 12, 2012 by Brian Benchoff 12 Comments

Since we put out a call for model and amateur rocketry hacks, we’ve been getting a lot of submissions on our tip line. Here’s two that found their way to us yesterday:

Upgrading an original

Back in the early 70s, Estes released a rocket with an 8mm movie camera attached to the nose of the rocket. It was called the Estes Cineroc, and is an excellent demonstration of engineering prowess to fit a movie camera inside a cardboard tube. The Cineroc is somewhat of a collector’s item, so of course there’s a reproduction kit with a payload bay large enough for [Bob Marchese]’s 808 key fob video camera. His launch video looks awesome, has color, and doesn’t need to be mailed off to Estes to be developed.

Much better than a lightbulb and a button

Remember the old yellow (or blue, and I think maybe a red one) push-button launch controller? Equipped with an arming key (a piece of wire), batteries, and a button, that controller wasn’t much to write home about. [Joe Niven] built his own launch controller with multiple LED lights, buzzer, continuity checker, and a battery tester. Not bad for a 555 and a pair of 4000-series logic chips.

Sonic Screwdriver Controls Your TV, Doesn’t Work On Wood

July 12, 2012 by Brian Benchoff 13 Comments

Sure, you could pretend to be the Doctor with a simple plastic sonic screwdriver. It might even have a LED on the tip, and if you’re really splurging a tiny speaker for sound effects. Yep, you could make due with an inelegant version of the Doctor’s Gallifreyan army knife, or you could get this amazingly detailed sonic screwdriver replica.

Instead of a plastic or resin replica, this replica of the 11th Doctor’s sonic screwdriver is made out of die-cast, copper plated metal with a jade green polycarbonate tip. This replica has a few tricks up its sleeve; instead of just lighting up and providing a few sound effects at opportune times, it also can serve as a programmable infrared remote with a gesture interface thanks to a three-axis accelerometer. If that’s not enough, the copper ‘rods’ just below the tip also serve as a touch interface for the microcontroller on board.

For as many jaw dropping light saber builds we’ve seen we’re genuinely surprised we haven’t seen more sonic screwdriver builds. It’s really cool this toy can serve as a remote control, but we’re betting a few Hackaday readers can replicate this replica with an extendable jewel cage and maybe even a Bluetooth gesture controller.

If you’d like your own sonic screwdriver, you can pick one up at ThinkGeek (for the US) or Forbidden Planet (for the UK). After the break is a video released by ThinkGeek showing off the this truly awesome remote control.

Tip ‘o the hat to [Zerocool] for sending this one in.

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