Jigsaw Puzzle Lights Up With Each Piece

July 1, 2021 by Bryan Cockfield 5 Comments

Putting the last piece of a project together and finally finishing it up is a satisfying feeling. When the last piece of a puzzle like that is a literal puzzle, though, it’s even better. [Nadieh] has been working on this jigsaw puzzle that displays a fireworks-like effect whenever a piece is placed correctly, using a lot of familiar electronics and some unique, well-polished design.

The puzzle is a hexagonal shape and based on a hexagonally symmetric spirograph, with the puzzle board placed into an enclosure which houses all of the electronics. Each puzzle piece has a piece of copper embedded in a unique location so when it is placed on the board, the device can tell if it was placed properly or not. If it was, an array of color LEDs mounted beneath a translucent diffuser creates a lighting effect that branches across the entire board like an explosion. The large number of pieces requires a multiplexer for the microcontroller, an ATtiny3216.

This project came out of a FabAcademy, so the documentation is incredibly thorough. In fact, everything on this project is open sourced and available on the project page from the code to the files required for cutting out the puzzle pieces and the enclosure. It’s an impressive build with a polish we would expect from a commercial product, and reminds us of an electrified jigsaw puzzle we saw in a previous build.

Thanks to [henk] for the tip!

How Laser Headlights Work

March 22, 2021 by Lewin Day 142 Comments

When we think about the onward march of automotive technology, headlights aren’t usually the first thing that come to mind. Engines, fuel efficiency, and the switch to electric power are all more front of mind. However, that doesn’t mean there aren’t thousands of engineers around the world working to improve the state of the art in automotive lighting day in, day out.

Sealed beam headlights gave way to more modern designs once regulations loosened up, while bulbs moved from simple halogens to xenon HIDs and, more recently, LEDs. Now, a new technology is on the scene, with lasers!

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Your Plants Can Take Care Of Themselves Now

March 14, 2021 by Bryan Cockfield 41 Comments

One of [Sasa]’s life goals is to be able to sit back in his home and watch as robots perform all of his work for him. In order to work towards this goal, he has decided to start with some home automation which will take care of all of his house plants for him. This project is built from the ground up, too, and is the first part of a series of videos which will outline the construction of a complete, open-source plant care machine.

The first video starts with the sensors for the plants. [Sasa] decided to go with a completely custom module based on the STM32 microcontroller since commercial offerings had poor communications designs and other flaws. The small board is designed to be placed in the soil, and has sensors for soil moisture as well as other sensors for amount of light available and the ambient temperature. The improvements over the commercial modules include communication over I2C, allowing a large number of modules to communicate over a minimum of wires and be arranged in any way needed.

For this build everything is open-source and available on [Sasa]’s GitHub page, including PCB layouts and code for the microcontrollers. We’re looking forward to the rest of the videos where he plans to lay out the central unit for handling all of these sensors, and a custom dashboard for controlling them as well. Perhaps there will also be an option for adding a way to physically listen to the plants communicate their needs as well.

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Hello, Holograms

December 24, 2020 by Brian McEvoy 8 Comments

Holograms are tricky to describe because science-fiction gives the name to any three-dimensional image. The science-fact versions are not as flashy, but they are still darn cool. Legitimate holograms are images stored on a photographic medium, and they retain a picture of the subject from certain angles. In other words, when [Justin Atkin] makes a hologram of a model building, (video, embedded below) you can see the east side of the belfry, but when you reorient, you see the west side, or the roof if you point down. Holography is different from stereoscopy, which shows you a 3D image using two cameras. With a stereoscopic image, you cannot tilt it and see a new part of the subject, so there is a niche for each method.

There are a couple of different methods for making a hologram at home. First, you probably want a DIY hologram kit since it will come with the exposure plate and a known-good light source. Far be it for us to tell you you can’t buy plates and a laser pointer to take the path less traveled. Next, you need something that will not move, so we’re afraid you cannot immortalize your rambunctious kitty. The last necessity is a stable platform since you will perform a long-exposure shot, and even breathing on the setup can ruin the image. Different colors come from the coherent light source, so getting the “Rainbow Holograms” advertised in the video is a matter of mixing lights. Since you can buy red, green, and blue laser pointers for a pittance, you can do color remixes to your content.

Another type of hologram appears on things like trading cards as those wildly off-color (chromatic, not distasteful) images of super-heroes or abstract shapes. They’re a different variety, which can be printed en-masse, unlike the one-off [Justin] shows us how to make.

If you’re yearning for volumetric displays, we are happy to point you to this beauty capable of showing a jaw-dropping 3D model or this full-color blocky duck.

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Precision Optics Hack Chat With Jeroen Vleggaar Of Huygens Optics

November 30, 2020 by Dan Maloney 4 Comments

Join us on Wednesday, December 2nd at noon Pacific for the Precision Optics Hack Chat with Jeroen Vleggaar!

We sometimes take for granted one of the foundational elements of our technological world: optics. There are high-quality lenses, mirrors, filters, and other precision optical components in just about everything these days, from the smartphones in our pockets to the cameras that loom over us from every streetlight and doorway. And even in those few devices that don’t incorporate any optical components directly, you can bet that the ability to refract, reflect, collimate, or otherwise manipulate light was key to creating the electronics inside it.

The ability to control light with precision is by no means a new development in our technological history, though. People have been creating high-quality optics for centuries, and the methods used to make optics these days would look very familiar to them. Precision optical surfaces can be constructed by almost anyone with simple hand tools and a good amount of time and patience, and those components can then be used to construct instruments that can explore the universe wither on the micro or macro scale.

Jeroen Vleggaar, know better as Huygens Optics on YouTube, will drop by the Hack Chat to talk about the world of precision optics. If you haven’t seen his videos, you’re missing out!

When not conducting optical experiments such as variable surface mirrors and precision spirit levels, or explaining the Double Slit Experiment, Jeroen consults on optical processes and designs. In this Hack Chat, we’ll talk about how precision optical surfaces are manufactured, what you can do to get started grinding your own lenses and mirrors, and learn a little about how these components are measured and used.

Our Hack Chats are live community events in the Hackaday.io Hack Chat group messaging. This week we’ll be sitting down on Wednesday, December 2 at 12:00 PM Pacific time. If time zones baffle you as much as us, we have a handy time zone converter.

Click that speech bubble to the right, and you’ll be taken directly to the Hack Chat group on Hackaday.io. You don’t have to wait until Wednesday; join whenever you want and you can see what the community is talking about.

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“Artificial Sun” Lighting Via Old Satellite Dishes

November 13, 2020 by Lewin Day 53 Comments

Real sunlight is a beautiful thing, but due to the vagaries of Earth’s orbit and local weather systems, it’s not available all the time. [Matt] decided this wasn’t good enough, and set about building a rig to replicate the sun’s rays as closely as possible.

Rayleigh scattering is emulated by passing the light through a glass chamber filled with soapy water – taking advantage of the Tyndall effect.

The great distance between the Sun and the Earth means that the sun’s rays are essentially parallel from our local vantage point. Replicating this, and the soothing nature of a blue sky, were [Matt]’s primary goals with the project. To achieve this, an old satellite dish was pressed into service as a parabolic reflector, coated with mirror-finish vinyl strips. A 500W white LED with a good color rendering index was fitted at the focal point, outfitted with a water cooling system to shed heat. With a point source at its focal point, the parabolic reflector bounces the light such that it the rays are parallel, giving the sense that the light source is coming from an effectivelyl infinite distance away. To then achieve the blue sky effect, the light was then passed through a glass chamber filled with soapy water, which scatters the light using the Tyndall effect. This mimics the Rayleigh scattering in Earth’s atmosphere.

The final result is amazing, with [Matt] shooting footage that appears to be filmed in genuine daylight – despite being shot at night or on rainy days. He also features a cutdown build that can be achieved in a far cheaper and compact form, using Fresnel lenses and blue film. We’ve featured [Matt]’s daylight experiments before, though we’re amazed at the new level reached. Video after the break.

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Into The Belly Of The Beast With Placemon

September 17, 2020 by Brian McEvoy 11 Comments

No, no, at first we thought it was a Pokemon too, but Placemon monitors your place, your home, your domicile. Instead of a purpose-built device, like a CO detector or a burglar alarm, this is a generalized monitor that streams data to a central processor where machine learning algorithms notify you if something is awry. In a way, it is like a guard dog who texts you if your place is unusually cold, on fire, unlawfully occupied, or underwater.

[anfractuosity] is trying to make a hacker-friendly version based on inspiration from a scientific paper about general-purpose sensing, which will have less expensive components but will lose accuracy. For example, the article suggests thermopile arrays, like low-resolution heat-vision, but Placemon will have a thermometer, which seems like a prudent starting place.

The PCB is ready to start collecting sound, temperature, humidity, barometric pressure, illumination, and passive IR then report that telemetry via an onboard ESP32 using Wifi. A box utilizing Tensorflow receives the data from any number of locations and is training to recognize a few everyday household events’ sensor signatures. Training starts with events that are easy to repeat, like kitchen sounds and appliance operations. From there, [anfractuosity] hopes that he will be versed enough to teach it new sounds, so if a pet gets added to the mix, it doesn’t assume there is an avalanche every time Fluffy needs to go to the bathroom.

We have another outstanding example of sensing household events without directly interfacing with an appliance, and bringing a sensor suite to your car might be up your alley.