32-bit ARM7 Gaming rig

May 26, 2010 by Mike Szczys 30 Comments

Are you hardcore enough to build your own 32-bit ARM powered gaming console AND use point-to-point soldering to accomplish this? [Craig Bishop] did just that when building his GameSphere console project. First thing’s first, click through the jump and watch the game play video. He wrote that game in the C language in less than a day which in itself is quite remarkable. On the hardware side of things he’s got an interesting mix; an Ateml AT91R40008 chip drives this system with PIC 18F4682 for VGA signal generation and a PIC 18F2685 to interface with the N64 controller. We like what he’s done so far and would love to see this end up in its own game cabinet. Continue reading “32-bit ARM7 Gaming rig” →

Maple R3 Now Shipping

May 24, 2010 by Mike Szczys 15 Comments

Leaf Labs is now shipping the Maple R3 boards. [Phil Burgess] gave the platform a look just before launch last fall and the high-powered prototyping board is now even better. New features come in both hardware and software varieties. The bootloader can now be upgraded without additional programming hardware, there’s hardware SPI and I2C interfaces, and a newly-polished IDE for Linux and Windows. At $50 it’s a good way to get access to the power of the ARM Cortex M3 processor at the center of the board. We’ve seen several projects that use the mbed, which is in the same class as the Maple, but we’re waiting to see what you’ve accomplished with this little devil.

Hand Made Manipulator Arm

May 7, 2010 by Mike Szczys 32 Comments

We’re pretty used to seeing CAD used in the design process for most things. It’s a bit of a shocker to come across a project this involve, and this well executed, that didn’t use CAD.

[Anton] spent 100 hours building this manipulator arm by hand. He made the parts by drawing them on styrene and cutting them out with scissors. He has started building version two with AutoCAD but from what we’ve seen in the video after the break, improvements on the original design will be minor. The speed and fluidity of the servos with added magnetic encoders makes for a graceful robotic dance; we’d love to be its chess partner. Continue reading “Hand Made Manipulator Arm” →

Report From ESC Silicon Valley 2010

April 28, 2010 by Phil Burgess 10 Comments

Ah, the heady aroma of damp engineers! It’s raining in Silicon Valley, where the 2010 Embedded Systems Conference is getting off the ground at San Jose’s McEnery Convention Center.

ESC is primarily an industry event. In the past there’s been some lighter fare such as Parallax, Inc. representing the hobbyist market and giant robot giraffes walking the expo. With the economy now turned sour, the show floor lately is just a bit smaller and the focus more businesslike. Still, nestled between components intended to sell by the millions and oscilloscopes costing more than some cars, one can still find a few nifty technology products well within the budget of most Hack a Day readers, along with a few good classic hacks and tech demos…

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Robotic Chess Opponent

April 14, 2010 by Mike Szczys 22 Comments

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CkGqn5rNzK8]

[Dennis] is using a robotic arm as a chess opponent. Rather than using an under-board movement system, a Lynxmotion AL5A robotic arm plucks each piece and moves it to the next space. He tells us that he’s using a Python script that he created to process the moves and decide what’s next. That must mean he’s using a webcam to capture the location of the pieces on the board. About half way through you can see the robot run into one of the pawns. We’d like to know if he has problems with picking up the pieces as the game progresses and they get further away from the center of each square. From what we can see, looks like a great job!

What Input Device? Just Use Your Arm

March 31, 2010 by Mike Szczys 24 Comments

This one could be a game changer. [Chris Harrison] and a team of researchers are showing off a method of using your arm as an input device. An arm band worn by the user picks up acoustic signatures created by tapping on your arm with the other hand, or taping your fingers and thumb together on the same hand. They’re achieving accuracies in the 82-97% range but it gets even better. Take a look at the video after the break and see what they’ve done by adding a pico-projector to the arm band in order to use your arm or hand as a touch display.

We liked seeing the concept mice from October, but the future of input devices might already be attached at the elbow.

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ARM-based CNC Mill Needs No Computer

March 24, 2010 by Mike Szczys 27 Comments

[Fedeortiz12] and his team are nearing completion of their CNC mill (english translation). They set out to build a standalone machine that takes G-code in the RS274/NGC format from an SD card and machines parts accordingly. At the heart of the system is an ARM LPC2148 controller with a character LCD and control pad for operation. The guys have made a teaser video showing the project being tested with a felt-tipped pen. Take a look after the break.

We’d like to see the final product milling PCBs. We’ve always been a little jealous of the PCB milling setup that [imsolidstate] has in his shop.

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