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Raspberry Pi Zero Contest Grand Prize Winners!

March 21, 2016 by 17 Comments

The Raspberry Pi Zero Contest presented by Adafruit and Hackaday came to a close last week, as the clock struck 11:59 am on Sunday, March 13, 2016. Since then our team of judges has been working to pick the top three entries. It was a hard job sorting through nearly 150 amazing creations.  In the end though, the judges were able to pick three grand prize winners. Each winner will receive a $100 gift card to The Hackaday Store.  So let’s get to the winners!

[JohSchneider] and [Markus Dieterle] both won Pi Zero boards and went on to win $100 gift certificates. [shlonkin] didn’t win a Pi Zero, but persevered and continued working on the classroom music teaching aid even without a Zero board. The top winners aren’t the only ones who are doing well. Everyone who entered has a head start on a great project for The 2016 Hackaday Prize.

I’d like to thank Hackaday’s own [Dan Maloney], [Kristina Panos], [Sophi Kravitz] and [Brian Benchoff] who joined me to judge the contest. The entire Hackaday staff is indebted to [Limor Fried] and [Phil Torrone] over at  Adafruit for coming up with 10 live videos, and providing 10 hard to find Pi Zero boards for our winners. The biggest thanks go to the entrants. If I could send a prize out to each and every one of you, I would!

Hackaday Links: March 6, 2016

March 6, 2016 by 12 Comments

There’s the R2 Builders Club, hundreds of people are building BB-8, but there are a few robots that don’t get enough love from the amateur propsmiths. [Kenneth] just finished up his build of Crow from MST3K. He built Tom Servo a year or so ago and K-9 from Doctor Who. The beautiful thing about building MST3K robots and Doctor Who props is that you’re probably working with a larger budget than the prop department had.

Heathkit’s new website is up. The two products we know about so far – an AM radio kit and a slim jim antenna – can only be described as, ‘meh.’ Still, there are a few upgrades for old kits available and the requisite amount of nostalgia.

On today’s issue of, ‘should not be attempted by anyone, ever, under any circumstance’ here’s how to build a table saw at home. Yes, it’s a table saw built from a piece of aluminum, styrofoam, hot glue, and a shoe box. The guy really botched it by not going for the zero clearance insert here, but at least the fence is only a few dozen degrees off parallel with the blade.

[Mathieu] is working on a Mooltipass Mini. It’s tiny and the scroll wheel thingy makes things fun.

March 18th through March 20th is the Midwest RepRap Festival in Goshen, Indiana. This is, by far, the best conference, meetup, or festival we go to year after year. We’ll have a few members of the Hackaday crew at the event, and rumor has it the Internet has made it to Indiana this year.

Adafruit got a writeup in the New Yorker. The article is technically about the art of PCB design, but as with most general interest pieces on electronics it is awash in non sequiturs and simply defining the terminology.

[Oscar] built a miniature replica of a blinkenlight computer last year for the Hackaday Prize. This was the PiDP-8/I. While it looks awesome, the PDP-8/I is inherently limited. [Oscar] has his design methodology down, and now he’s working on a miniature replica of the king of the PDPs. It’s the PiDP-11/27. It’s just a prototype and render now, but the finished project will have custom switches, a handsome bezel, and will be much more capable.

MAME is now FOSS. That’s great news, but think about the amount of work that went into making this happen. MAME is 19 years old, and  that means everyone who has contributed to the project over the years needed to sign off on this initiative.

Raspberry Pi Zero Round 1 Winners!

March 1, 2016 by 27 Comments

The Raspberry Pi Zero Contest presented by Adafruit and Hackaday has been going incredibly well! We currently have 132 projects entered, and there is still time for YOU to get in on the fun! The only problem entrants have had is getting their hands on these amazing $5 computers. We’ve made that easy by giving away ten Raspberry Pi Zero boards. The following projects were well documented, well thought out projects were selected by the judges. We’ve already informed the winners through Hackaday.io, and will be shipping out the Pi Zero boards to them right away.

Please join the judges and the entire Hackaday staff in congratulating the winners of the Pi Zero boards!

If you didn’t win, all is not lost! There is still time to enter the contest. The deadline is 11:59 pm PST on March 13, 2016. You’ll be in the running for one of three $100 gift certificates to The Hackaday Store!

New Angle On Raspberry Pi Zero Hub

February 6, 2016 by 48 Comments

Collectively, the Hackaday readers sigh, “Not another Pi Zero hub!!!”. But [Sean Hodgins’] hub is different. It has a new angle, literally. Besides, it’s an entry in the Hackaday and Adafruit Pi Zero Contest .

1514291454445337873[Sean Hodgins’] acute approach is orthogonal to most of the other hubs we’ve seen. He’s mating the hub at right angles to the Zero. The hub plugs into both the on-the-go USB port and the USB power port. No extra cables or wiring needed. [Sean] plans to release the design on GitHub after his Kickstarter campaign ends. He’s supplying bare boards for those who like the smell of solder paste.

This project nicely triangulates the issues of adding a hub to the Zero. The physical connection is solid with the boards connecting via the USB connectors. Power is supplied through the hub the way the Pi expects, which means all the protections the Pi Foundation built into the onboard conditioning are left in place. This also reduces surge problems that might occur when back powering through a hub and hot swapping USB devices. Another neat feature is the notched corner leaving the HDMI port accessible. Similarly, the Pi’s GPIO pins are free of encumbrance. One drawback is the hub is fused at 2 amps, just like the Pi. It would be nice to have a little more headroom for power hungry USB devices. Maybe another 0.5 amp to allow for the Zero’s usage.

[Sean] snaps the two together after the break.

Continue reading “New Angle On Raspberry Pi Zero Hub” →

Joysix, Six Degree Of Freedom Mouse Made From Retractable Key Rings

February 2, 2016 by 23 Comments

[Nicolas Berger] submits his six degree of freedom mouse project. He hopes to do things like control a robot arm or fly an alien mothership.

We thought the construction was really neat; suspending a wooden ball in the middle of three retractable key rings. By moving the ball around you can control the motion of a cube displayed on the computer. We first thought this was done by encoders or potentiometers measuring the amount of string coming out of the key fobs. However, what’s actually happening is a little bit cleverer.

[Nicolas] has joined each string with its own 2 axis joystick from Adafruit. He had some issues with these at first because the potentiometers in the joysticks weren’t linear, but he replaced them with a different module and got the expected output. He takes the angle values from each string, and a Python program numerically translates the output from the mouse into something the computer likes. The code is available on his GitHub. A video of the completed mouse is after the break.

Continue reading “Joysix, Six Degree Of Freedom Mouse Made From Retractable Key Rings” →

Hackaday And Adafruit Launch The Pi Zero Contest

February 1, 2016 by 80 Comments

Hackaday and Adafruit are teaming up to bring you the Pi Zero Contest. Unless you’ve been hiding out in your workshop for the past month or so, you probably already know The Pi Zero is the $5 Linux-based computer which has been taking the world by storm. Think you have the next great project for this single-board computer? Enter it for a chance to take home one of three $100 gift certificates to the Hackaday Store. We know Zeros have been hard to find, so we’ll be giving away 10 of them before the contest is over. Even if you don’t have a Pi Zero, read on!

This is all about documenting quality projects to Hackaday.io. We’re looking for well thought out, well documented builds intended for the Pi Zero. Any project submitted to this contest can also be rolled over to the 2016 Hackaday Prize. Think of it as getting a head start.

Here are the details:

  • From February 2nd, to February 20th, Lady Ada will make 10 ‘From the Desk of Lady Ada’ broadcasts focusing on this contest. During each broadcast she will present an idea for a Pi Zero Project. You don’t have to build Lady Ada’s projects, they’re starter ideas to get your wheels turning. If you don’t have a Raspberry Pi Zero, don’t worry! You can prototype with a Raspberry Pi Model B, or a Pi 2. There are also 10 Pi Zero boards up for grabs before the contest is over.
  • The deadline for winning a Pi Zero is 12:00am PST February 25th, 2016. The judges will pick the 10 most well thought out and well documented projects.
  • On February 29th, the judges will announce the winners of 10 Raspberry Pi Zero boards.
  • The grand prize for this contest is one of three $100 gift cards to the Hackaday store. The deadline to enter is 12:00 am PST March 14th, 2016.

Entering is easy.  All you have to do is submit your project. Just click the “Submit to” drop down list on your project page. Then select Adafruit Pi Zero Contest.

So fire up your soldering irons, warm up your 3D printers, and load up your favorite code editor. It’s time to start hacking!

String Racing Robots Are Here !

January 12, 2016 by 24 Comments

This could be the start of a new thing. [HarpDude] showed off his String Car Racers over on the Adafruit forum. It’s like a small model cable car on caffeine. String up enough of them and go head to head racing with others.

A motor with a small pulley runs over a length of string stretched between 2 posts. Below the pulley, acting as a counterweight balance, is the rest of the racer. A Trinket board, motor driver, 9V battery and a pair of long lever micro switches to detect end of travel. The switches also help reverse the motor. A piece of galvanized wire acts as a guide preventing the String Car from jumping off the string. And discovering the benefits of a micro-controller design, as against discrete TTL/CMOS, old timer [HarpDude] added two operational modes via software. “Pong”, where the String Car keeps going back and forth over the string until it stops of (battery) exhaustion. The other mode is “Boomerang” – a single return trip back and forth.

We are guessing the next upgrade would be to add some kind of radio on the car (ESP8266 perhaps) and build an app to control the String Car. That’s when gaming could become fun as it opens up possibilities. One way to improve performance would be to add two “idler” pulleys in line with the main drive pulley, and then snake the string through the three of them. Now you know what to do with all of those old motors you’ve scavenged from tape drives, CD drives and printers. Let the Games begin!

Thanks [Mike Stone] for tipping us off on this.