Fan Lets RC Car Drive On The Ceiling

September 4, 2021 by Lewin Day 7 Comments

Downforce is a major part of modern motorsport, keeping cars glued to the track at high speeds. However, for small radio control cars, adding a fan for a little suction can achieve even greater feats, as demonstrated by this build by [DD ElectroTech].

The build began as a simple two-motor, skid-steer RC car build with a fan for suction. Controlled by a smartphone app, a cheap Arduino board with an HC-05 Bluetooth module ran the show. However, when this was all assembled, the car was too heavy to climb walls or stick to the ceiling.

Thus, a weight-saving plan was in order. Wheels were swapped out for lighter 3D printed parts. The electronics saw significant re-engineering, too, with the multiple separate modules all condensed down into one single custom PCB. After a few other tweaks, the new lighter car was able to easily drive on the ceiling and even climb walls, albeit with some difficulty.

It’s a fun little build and a good demonstration of how easy it is to whip up cool projects with modern electronics and 3D printed parts. We’ve seen other printed fan car builds before, too, but did you know the concept was first trialed in real-world motorsport competition? Video after the break.

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3D Printed Gesture-Controlled Robot Arm Is A Ton Of Tutorials

January 20, 2021 by Donald Papp 2 Comments

Ever wanted your own gesture-controlled robot arm? [EbenKouao]’s DIY Arduino Robot Arm project covers all the bases involved, but even if a robot arm isn’t your jam, his project has plenty to learn from. Every part is carefully explained, complete with source code and a list of required hardware. This approach to documenting a project is great because it not only makes it easy to replicate the results, but it makes it simple to remix, modify, and reuse separate pieces as a reference for other work.

[EbenKouao] uses a 3D-printable robotic gripper, base, and arm design as the foundation of his build. Hobby servos and a single NEMA 17 stepper take care of the moving, and the wiring and motor driving is all carefully explained. Gesture control is done by wearing an articulated glove upon which is mounted flex sensors and MPU6050 accelerometers. These sensors detect the wearer’s movements and turn them into motion commands, which in turn get sent wirelessly from the glove to the robotic arm with HC-05 Bluetooth modules. We really dig [EbenKouao]’s idea of mounting the glove sensors to this slick 3D-printed articulated gauntlet frame, but using a regular glove would work, too. The latest version of the Arduino code can be found on the project’s GitHub repository.

Most of the parts can be 3D printed, how every part works together is carefully explained, and all of the hardware is easily sourced online, making this a very accessible project. Check out the full tutorial video and demonstration, embedded below.

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DIY Baby MIT Cheetah Robot

July 5, 2020 by Orlando Hoilett 7 Comments

3D printers have become a staple in most makerspaces these days, enabling hackers to rapidly produce simple mechanical prototypes without the need for a dedicated machine shop. We’ve seen many creative 3D designs here on Hackaday and [jegatheesan.soundarapandian’s] Baby MIT Cheetah Robot is no exception. You’ve undoubtedly seen MIT’s cheetah robot. Well, [jegatheesan’s] hack takes a personal spin on the cheetah robot and his results are pretty cool.

The body of the robot is 3D printed making it easy to customize the design and replace broken parts as you go. The legs are designed in a five-bar linkage with two servo motors controlling each of the four legs. An additional servo motor is used to rotate an HC-SR04, a popular ultrasonic distance sensor, used in the autonomous mode’s obstacle avoidance mechanism. The robot can also be controlled over Bluetooth using an app [jegatheesan] developed in MIT App Inventor.

Overall, the mechanics could use a bit of work — [jegatheesan’s] baby cheetah probably won’t outpace MIT’s robot any time soon — but it’s a cool hack and we’re looking forward to a version 3. Maybe the cheetah would make a cool companion bot?

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Light Up The Night With A Tetrahedral LED Hat

June 10, 2020 by Kristina Panos 7 Comments

People get into electronics for all kinds of reasons, but we would guess that the ability to blink the blinkenlights is probably pretty high on the survey results. [Kuchbert] has been going to Deichkind shows for the last decade and has wanted to build one of the German techno-rap band’s signature tetrahedral LED hats for about as long.

Up inside the hat is an Arduino Nano driving WS2812B LEDs and a portable battery to power everything. Thanks to an HC-05 Bluetooth module, the show can be controlled with an Android app. The many, many holes in the acrylic panels were milled out, but they could just as easily be laser-cut, or if you have infinite patience, drilled by hand. The code is coming once it has been cleaned up a bit. Everything else you’d need is already there waiting. This helmet even has its own lil’ music video, which we’ve carefully beat-matched in after the break.

Naturally, this makes us think of all the Daft Punk helms that have blinked by on this blog over the years. This hand-soldered one might be the most meticulously made.

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Booting The Game Boy Advance Into Bluetooth

June 21, 2019 by Tom Nardi 8 Comments

While it might not be quite as revered as its predecessor, the Game Boy Advance is arguably the peak of “classic” handheld gaming, before things got all 3D and dual screen on us. One of its best features is the so-called multiboot mode, which allows the GBA to download a program from its link port. Officially this feature was introduced so you could play multiplayer with your friends even if they didn’t have the game cartridge, but naturally it didn’t take long for hackers to realize you can use it to run arbitrary code on an unmodified system.

[Shyri Villar] has put this capability to excellent use with a plug-in board that allows a stock GBA to be used as a general purpose Bluetooth HID controller. Now you can emulate GBA games on your computer while using the real thing as your input device. Or if that’s a bit too redundant for you, then any 2D game you think could benefit from the classic Game Boy control layout.

An ATmega328P on the board initiates the multiboot sequence when the system powers up, and feeds it the GBA program that’s stored on a W25Q32 chip. Once the code is running on the GBA, it communicates with a common HC-05 Bluetooth module through the same link port. To perform this handoff, [Shyri] uses a HCF4066 switch IC to literally change the pin assignments in the connector from the SPI used to upload the ROM to the UART lines of the Bluetooth module.

With everything powered from the 3.3 V provided by the GBA’s link port, and some software niceties like the ability to store Bluetooth pairing information for subsequent device connections, this is actually a very practical gadget. The fact that you can do this on a completely stock GBA is very compelling, especially considering some of the previous Bluetooth Game Boy modifications we’ve seen. Granted the market might be somewhat limited, but with a custom PCB and a 3D printed enclosure, we could see this potentially being a popular accessory for the classic handheld. It’s not like it can be any more niche than using the GBA as a remote display for your multimeter.

Miniature 3D Printed Forklift Is Quite Pallet-able

March 10, 2019 by Brian Benchoff 4 Comments

If you have a small logistics problem, we have the solution for you. [Leon] built a tiny little forklift with LED lighting, working forks, and remote control using a combination of 3D printing tech, some CNC work, and fine soldering skills.

The electronics for this build are based around a few servos and a pair of geared DC motors and are driven via an Arduino Mega. Connectivity and remote controllability are what you would expect from an Arduinified project. There’s an HC-05 Bluetooth module on the board and remote control is handled by a custom Android app.

Of note in this project are the forks that actually work, almost like a real forklift. This allows the mini Arduino forklift to pick up mini pallets, drop them somewhere, and have mini DIY enthusiasts come up to build mini-furniture for mini-Etsy, which will be prominently featured in the mini foyer of a mini two-story walkup. No, it’s not mini-gentrification; this mini forklift is helping the mini local economy.

You can check out the entire build video below, filmed in the usual maker demo method of speeding up the entire build process but somehow keeping the no-talking audio. We have a lot to thank [Jimmy DiResta] for, and it’s not just cinematography. All the files for this forklift are up on the Github should you want to build your own.

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Adding Bluetooth To Original SNES Controllers

October 10, 2018 by Tom Nardi 14 Comments

There’s a bunch of companies selling wireless Super Nintendo style controllers out there. You can go on Amazon and get any number of modern pads that at least kinda-sorta look like what came with Nintendo’s legendary 1990’s game console. They’ve got all kinds of bells and whistles, Bluetooth, USB-C, analog sticks, etc. But none of them are legitimate SNES controllers, and for some people that’s just not good enough.

[sjm4306] is one of those people. He wanted to add Bluetooth and some other modern niceties to a legitimate first-party SNES controller, so he picked up a broken one off of eBay and got to work grafting in his custom hardware. The final result works with Nintendo’s “Classic Edition” consoles, but the concept could also work with the original consoles as well as the computer if you prefer your classic games emulated.

A custom ATMEGA328P-powered board polls the controller’s SPI serial shift register in much the same way the original SNES would have. It then takes those button states and sends them out over UART with a HC-05 Bluetooth module. The controller is powered by a 330 mAh 3.7V battery, and a charging circuit allows for easily topping the controller off with a standard USB cable.

A particularly nice touch on the controller is the use of custom light pipes for the status LEDs. [sjm4306] made them by taking pieces of transparent PLA 3D printer filament, heating and flattening the end, and then sanding it smooth. This provides a diffusing effect on the light, and we’ve got to say it looks very good. Definitely a tip to file away for the future.

On the receiving side, this project was inspired by a custom NES Classic Edition Advantage controller we featured last year, and borrows the work creator [bbtinkerer] did to get his receiver hardware talking to the Classic console over I2C.

We’ve seen a number of projects which have added wireless functionality to the classic Super Nintendo controller, but most tend to be more invasive than this one. We like the idea of reading the controller’s original hardware rather than completely gutting it.

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