The Power Glove Ultra Is The Power Glove We Finally Deserve

January 28, 2017 by James Hobson 14 Comments

How do you make the most awesome gaming peripheral ever made even more bad? Give it a 21st-century upgrade! [Alessio Cosenza] calls this mod the Power Glove Ultra, and it works exactly as we imagined it should have all those years ago.

The most noticeable change is the 3D-printed attachment that hosts the Bluetooth module, a combination USB charger and voltage booster, and a Metro Mini(ATmega328) board. On top of a 20-hour battery life, a 9-axis accelerometer, gyroscope, and compass gives the Power Glove Ultra full 360-degree motion tracking and upgrades the functionality of the finger sensors with a custom board and five flex sensor strips with 256 possible positions for far more nuanced input. [Cosenza] has deliberately left the boards and wires exposed for that cyberpunk, retro-future look that is so, so bad.

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Repaired Manned Multicopter Flies Without Horrifying Crash

July 28, 2016 by Gerrit Coetzee 81 Comments

[amazingdiyprojects] has been making lots of test flights in his crazy eight propeller gasoline powered danger bucket.

We last covered the project when he had, unfortunately, wrecked the thing in a remote-controlled test flight. He later discovered that the motor’s crankshaft bearings had, well, exploded. The resulting shrapnel destroyed the motor and crashed the drone. He described this failure mode as “concerning”.

Also concerning is the act of stepping into the seat once all the propellers are started up. He tags this as “watch your step or die”. Regardless, he also describes flying in the thing as so incredibly fun that it’s hard to stay out of it; like a mechanical drug. It explains why his channel has been lately dominated by videos of him testing the multicopter. Those videos are found after the break.

The device drinks 0.65-0.7 liters per minute of gasoline, and he’s been going through reserves working out all the bugs. This means everything from just figuring out how to fly it to discovering that the dust from the ground effect tends to clog up the air filters; which causes them to run lean, subsequently burning up sparkplugs. Dangerous, but cool.

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Manned Multicopter Project Undaunted By Crash

February 13, 2016 by Gerrit Coetzee 97 Comments

We have to be impressed by [amazingdiyprojects] who completely totaled their manned multi-copter build, which has been spanning over eight videos. He explained the crash in video number eight and is right back at it, learning from the recent mistakes.

When you get right down to it, this is as dangerous as this seems. However, a giant multicopter is probably the easiest flying machine for a hobbyist to build. It’s an inefficient brute-force approach, but it sure beats trying to build a helicopter from scratch. This machine is a phenomenally un-aerodynamic chair on a frame that has a lot in common with the lunar rover; with engines on it. Simple.

There are a lot of approaches to this. One of the crazier ones is this contraption with a silly amount of electric motors. [amazingdiyprojects] went with eight gasoline engines. We’re really interested in his method for controlling the rpm of each engine and dealing with the non-linearity of the response from a IC engine throttle. Then feeding that all back into what is probably the exact same electronics from a regular diy drone.

Honestly, we’re surprised it worked, and we can’t wait for him to finish it so we can see him zooming around in his danger chair. Videos after the break.

Thanks [jeepman32] for the tip!

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Introducing: Hackaday Projects

February 18, 2014 by Mike Szczys 71 Comments

Today Hackaday is launching a new site that furthers our goal of being a Virtual Hackerspace. Now you can host your own hacks and builds in a place truly worthy of what we’re all about. We present to you: Hackaday Projects.

What’s so great about it? It has a dark theme, just like the blog! Actually, the awesome of the new site is a combination of what’s already available and what we have planned. First and foremost, the site has been built from the ground up with open data in mind. This means you own what you create on Hackaday Projects. You can export your work, delete it, and use a public API to extend the usefulness of the data. Secondly, we have a range of different tools which are extremely easy and quick to use, but allow rich styling and presentation when you need it. Want to see what we mean? Go check out the NFC Voting Rig that was at The Gathering.

Where do we go from here? A huge part of that is up to you. We need Hackaday readers to get in there and tell us what works, what doesn’t work, and what needs to be added. Are you up to the task? Request your alpha testing invite now and guide Hackaday Projects to be the hosting site the Hackaday community has always dreamed about!

Twitter-enabled Candy Machine Dispenses Treats On Command

December 15, 2011 by Mike Nathan 4 Comments

[Michael Nilsson] and [Markus Olsson] were contemplating how to motivate members of their dev team when they came up with the idea of a candy machine that automatically dispenses treats when someone has earned it.

They picked up a candy machine, a continuous rotation servo and a controller, then got busy automating the dispenser. The mechanism behind the operation is actually pretty simple as you can see in [Michael’s] writeup. They disassembled the machine, removing the gear from the manual crank, attaching it to the servo. Once the servo was mounted place, they installed the servo controller and connected it up to a spare laptop.

The heavy lifting is done by a Ruby script that uses the Twitter API to scrape any mentions of @_macke_ or @sidpiraya. Incoming messages are checked for the words “give” and “candy”, triggering the machine to fork out some sweets.

If you think that their hard work deserves a bit of recognition, feel free to send them some candy by tweeting “give @_macke_candy” or “give @Sidpiraya candy”. Just remember to be considerate – nobody likes spam, not even candy machines!

If you’re interested in seeing the machine in action, be sure to check out the candy dispenser’s live stream at giveawaycandy.com.

Hand Made Carbon Fiber Violin Is A Stunning Work Of Craftsmanship

December 8, 2011 by Mike Nathan 40 Comments

carbon-fiber-violin

Building a violin by hand is no easy task, but constructing one out of carbon fiber is an amazing feat! Carpenter [Ken] had never made a violin before, nor built anything substantial out of carbon fiber, and he figured the best way to learn was by doing.

He spent a good bit of time measuring and drawing out his design before making fiberglass molds of the violin’s front and back plates from carved plaster plugs. The process was extremely time consuming, requiring him to make 10 different infusion-molded carbon fiber body plates before he was satisfied with the sound they produced.

With the larger parts of the violin’s body built, he started on the rib molds, which took him 5 hours apiece to set up before injecting the resin. With the body complete, [Ken] was ready to cut the f holes into the violin – a process that required a lot of time hunched over a tank of water with Dremel in hand.

As you can see in the picture above, the final result is stunning – we just wish we could give it a listen to see if it sounds as good as it looks.

Stress Testing Robots…with Baseball Bats

May 13, 2011 by Mike Nathan 39 Comments

robot_stress_test

When you are working on constructing ~~the first Cyberdyne Systems Model 101 prototype~~ a super-robust robotic arm, you’ve got to test it somehow, right?

You probably recognize the robot being abused in the video below, as we have talked about the construction of its hand once once before. The German Aerospace Center has been working on the DLR Hand Arm System for some time now, and are obviously really excited to show you how their design performs.

In case you are not familiar, the arm you see there uses 52 different motors, miniaturized control electronics, and a slew of synthetic tendons to behave like a human arm – only much better. The system’s joints not only provide for an incredible amount of articulation, they are specially designed to allow the unit to absorb and dissipate large amounts of energy without damaging the structure.

We think that any human would be hard pressed to retain their composure, let alone be able move their arm after suffering a blow from a baseball bat, yet the robot arm carries on just fine. It’s awesome technology indeed.

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