Hacking Gets A Cover Story

April 17, 2011 by Mike Szczys 13 Comments

We do see hacking in mainstream print media from time to time, but you know the movement must be gathering steam when a collection of hacks gets the cover story in a local paper. This week’s issue of The Isthmus – the premiere free newspaper here in Madison, WI – features the local hackerspace and a handful of green hacks.

The man seen riding the pedal-powered plow above is [Kevin Blake], a mechanical engineer for Trek Bicycles which is headquartered in Waterloo, WI. He built the rig with the chassis of a riding lawnmower, adding shovel blades in a V-shape on the front, with cranks and other parts salvaged from bicycles.

The article goes on to feature the local hackerspace, Sector67, by interviewing its founder, [Chris Meyer]. The paper tracked down some other local hackers (and Sector67 members) who have been prototyping wind turbines.

The largest feature in the story goes to [Ben Nelson’s] Geo Metro electric vehicle conversion. The self-employed video producer picked up the diminutive car for about $500 and dropped in a forklift motor which he picked up at a garage sale ($50 + $50 for new brushes makes for a steal at $100). But here’s the best part of the project: after ripping out the unneeded parts for the car he sold them for $550. Anyway, all said and done he’s got about $1300 invested in the project and now has an all-electric car that gets up to 45 mph with a range of twenty miles in between charges. Maybe a big tail cone would help extend that reach.

This is the most interesting stuff we’ve read in the newspaper in years. Maybe you should contact your local journalists for a feature in your area? If they’re not receptive, don’t fret… we’re always looking for great builds to feature here at Hackaday.

Lilypad Bicycle Computer Reads Back Distance In Beeps

March 7, 2011 by Mike Szczys 6 Comments

[Mark Fickett] finished his own interesting take on a bicycle computer. These wristwatch-sized devices normally mount to the handlebars and give feedback for current speed, trip distance, and many have options like cadence and heart rate. [Mark’s] has fewer features but it’s clean, simple, and does more than you’d think.

He used some denim to house the electronics which you can see mounted inside the frame of the bike. He’s chosen to use Lilypad components which are Arduino bits meant to be sewn into textiles. We’ve seen a Morse Code keyer using these components and this project is along the same lines. It reads wheel revolutions from a magnetic sensor mounted on the front fork. It has no LCD readout, but when you want to know how far you’ve traveled just press one button and the computer reads it back to in Morse Code played on a tiny piezo buzzer. This package hides one more nice option. Once you arrive home the trip data can be dumped onto a computer for easy graphing. Check out the video after the break to see these features in action.

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Racking Up Miles On A Bicycle Odometer

February 25, 2011 by Noah Dunker 27 Comments

[jonh] religiously tracks the miles he rides on his bicycle. When his odometer’s battery started getting low, he wanted a way to run the miles up to where they were before, since replacing the battery resets everything to zero. [jonh] used an Atmel microcontroller to run up the miles on his bike computer so he could pick right back up where he left off. There is definitely a Ferris Bueller’s Day Off joke in here somewhere.

The bike computer itself is designed to plug into a base that connects to a magnet-triggered reed relay. It uses a wheel-mounted magnet to count the number of revolutions made and thus the distance traveled. [jonh] hooked up a simple microcontroller-driven circuit to these connectors to trick the bike computer into thinking it was moving, and moving fast! Since he knew the number of miles he wanted to sandbag onto the odometer, he was able to program it to run up the proper amount of miles and then stop. There’s no source code listing for the project, but this shouldn’t be too hard to reproduce. He provides a pencil-drawn schematic for the connection to the cyclometer from the microcontroller. At the end, there’s also some sage advice for those of you who are interested in building a decent hardware hacking lab on the cheap.

Hackaday Links: February 21, 2011

February 21, 2011 by Mike Szczys 15 Comments

PCB Stand

Part PCB, part old IC, and held together with hot glue. It doesn’t take much to make this electronics stand, but it’ll certainly add to the geek level of your desk.

Decorate with light

This busy living room is actually decorated all in white. The patterns that give it life are on lend from a projector and what we’d imagine is some fantastic software. [Thanks MDV]

Flashing butt on your bike

[Eli] sewed lights and flex sensor into her jeans. Now her butt flashes in heart-shaped patterns as she rides. She actually robbed one of the flex sensors from this project to complete that explosive high-five project.

Mini-rake’s progress

A lathe and some sand that needs tending is all that [Spatula Tzar] needed to get this zen garden rake under way. We like how she used a vacuum bag to infuse the wood with mineral oil.

Paper and electrons

This collection of musical projects forsakes common substrates and builds the mess of circuit boards on pieces of paper. Not much information but the strangeness is worth a look.

SkyWalker: A Really Really Tall Bike

January 12, 2011 by Mike Szczys 37 Comments

[Brad Graham] enjoys building bikes. He threw together a tall bike called the SkyWalker and then shared the build details (link dead, try the Internet Archive version). It’s got everything you’d expect in a fixed-gear bike; a seat, pedals, steering, and two wheels. You’ll have to do a bit of climbing to get into the saddle but the incorporated ladder doubles as passenger space. [Brad] says the thing has no problem supporting up to four riders at a time. Check out the video after the break to see that the ladder and large-height steering frame make the bike easy to stop and start without leaning on something. Wow.

We’re thrilled and scared at the same time. At least that over-under tandem had full-sized wheels. But those tiny rims on this oblong creation? Yikes!

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Steam Cycle Feels Like Your Pants Are On Fire

January 8, 2011 by Mike Szczys 54 Comments

Usually we don’t like to feature projects that have zero build details, saving them instead for a links post. But this steam-powered bicycle is too… peculiar to pass up. In between the rider’s legs is the firebox that contains a wood-fueled fire. Watch the clip after the break and you’ll find just how noisy this contraption can be. In addition to the mid-range “chug-a chug-a” there’s also the constant whistle we’d attribute to the pressure regulator. It’s surprising that the whole bike doesn’t heat up, but it must not be all that bad since the test pilot isn’t wearing asbestos pants. All kidding aside, it looks like this beast has no problem getting up to a running pace (based on the movements of the camera) and that’s thanks to a renewable energy source.

We’d be much more comfortable seeing this in a mechanized tandem form factor since we just can’t get over having a fire between our legs.

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More Bike-controlled Google-travelling

January 3, 2011 by Mike Szczys 16 Comments

This is becoming such a popular hack we figure someone needs to come up with a name for it like Google-travelling or Google-cising (exercising with Google). It’s a bike controller for Google Earth. [Braingram] broke out his road bike, setting it up in the trainer in front of his laptop. If you already have a computer with a cadence sensor this will be a snap. These measure the crank rotation using a magnet and reed switch. So as not screw up his summer biking [Braingram] spliced into the sensor while leaving it attached to the bike computer. From there it is read by an Arduino which also monitors an analog joystick attached to the handlebars. A little bit of Python scripting and you’ll be ready to go.

Be sure to check out some of the other variants like using an exercise bike, or adding a wearable display.