Super Angry Birds Is A Physical Controller For The Game

August 12, 2012 by Mike Szczys 8 Comments

This role reversal is quite entertaining. While the game Angry Birds is a virtual realization of knocking over stuff with a sling-shot, Super Angry Birds adds a physical control element back to the virtual game. It’s silly, but well-executed. The main controller takes advantage a part which we don’t see used very often. It’s a motorized linear actuator which would most often be seen on a high-end audio console.

Check out the video after the break to see the controller in action. The linear encoder is used to simulate pulling the rubber sling shot back. It uses the motorized feature to spring back in place, but we’re not sure whether or not the motor also provides resistance during the pull. The laser cut case also includes a companion in the form of a TNT trigger box al-a Wile E Coyote.

If this isn’t real enough for you perhaps this slingshot controller will suffice.

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An Easy To Build Cat Feeder Driven By A DIY Linear Actuator

April 21, 2012 by Mike Nathan 15 Comments

[Will Finucane] of Revolt Labs/Mad Science Blog was looking for a way to keep his cats happily fed while away on a short vacation, so he put together a cheap and easy automatic feeder to ensure that his pets didn’t go hungry while he was away.

We’ve seen different iterations of automatic pet feeders here before, some relying on rotating false bottoms, while others use crank-style feeders to get the job done. [Will’s] solution is a bit different, employing a cheap linear actuator to deliver feedings.

He emptied out a glue stick, replacing the glue with a brass tube. This gives him the rigidity that the glue lacked, allowing him to easily move a platform full of cat food up and down. He mounted the glue stick on a continuous rotation servo, installing the actuator and a feeding platform inside a cardboard box.

Using an Arduino, he lowers the movable platform every 12 hours, allowing a bit of cat food to fall from the hole he cut in the side of the box. While his creation might not stand up to years of use, it’s a quick solution that can cost very little, depending on what you have sitting around.

Check out the video below to see [Will’s] cat feeder in action.

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Glue Stick + Servo = Linear Actuator

March 29, 2012 by Jeremy Cook 24 Comments

What do you get when you cross a glue stick with a hobby servo motor? A linear actuator, of course! Although this could be done with other household implements, the form factor of this glue stick seems perfectly suited to sit on top of a servo horn.

The servo, as you might have guessed, has to be converted to rotate fully instead of the 180 degrees or so that is typical of these types of motors. The trick to this, and what really makes it shine in our eyes, is that instead of attaching two resistors in a normal continuous rotation mod, the potentiometer is used on the glue stick allowing for position feedback.

The resulting force from this gear-reduced actuator is quite impressive, giving an “err” (over 3 Kilograms) on the scale used for testing. [Gareth] or [Chiprobot] gives a great tutorial of how to make one of these after the break, but if you’d rather just see it in action, skip to around 8:20! Continue reading “Glue Stick + Servo = Linear Actuator” →

Linear Motor Can Be Built From Trash

October 9, 2011 by Brian Benchoff 13 Comments

[Raul] built a cheap linear actuator out of a drawer slide and a surplus flatbed scanner.

A few builds we’ve seen, like the PCB drill press or the horribly inefficient thermostat, used linear actuators as key components of their builds. These linear actuators are fairly expensive compared to other parts we usually have lying around so going the homebrew route to reduce costs is always a welcome idea.

The first step of [Raul]’s build is to mount a drawer slide to a piece of wood. A stepper motor is attached to one end of the actuator and a timing belt is strung along the length of the assemblage. After a bracket is connected the drawer slide and the belt, you’ve got a very inexpensive linear motor.

In our days of dumpster diving, we can’t count the number of times we’ve passed up on drawer slides in unwanted furniture. Stepper motors, gear trains and timing belts from old ScanJets can be found for pocket change any day of the week. For cheap and accurate linear motion, we couldn’t come up with a build that does better than [Raul]’s.

Sustainability Hacks: Automatic Window Control

September 29, 2011 by Brian Benchoff 43 Comments

Sometimes, changing one little bit of a green hack turns it into a build that wastes as much energy as our gaming rig. [Dr. West]’s automatic window controller is one of these builds. The good news is the window controller can be easily modified to cut energy costs in the fall and spring.

[Dr. West] doesn’t have any control over the heat in his apartment and for the entire Canadian winter, his apartment gets really hot. He doesn’t pay for his heat, so he does what any of us would do – crack a window. Inspired by this post, he put a linear actuator in the frame of his kitchen window. [Dr. West] didn’t want to damage the window frame, so he attached the actuator to a piece of square aluminum tubing that mounts to the existing screw holes.

The electronics, [Dr. West] used a Rabbit 2000 dev board, LCD display and keypad, and built an H-bridge circuit on a bit of breadboard. Because of a port conflict and admitted laziness, an Arduino is used to read the thermistor. The display shows the current and desired temperature, and the Rabbit opens and closes the window accordingly. All the source code is posted in the forum post.

While it’s not the most ‘green’ idea to dump heat from a building’s HVAC system out into a frozen tundra, this would be a great build to automatically open and close windows in the more temperate seasons. Open windows during the day, close them at night and you’ll have no more problems coming home to a house that’s either too hot or too cold. Check out a video of the automatic window after the break.

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Motion Detecting Window Closers Keep Train Noise At Bay

September 13, 2011 by Mike Nathan 57 Comments

motion_detecting_window_closers

[Ed Rogers] has the unfortunate privilege of living right next to a set of train tracks, and as a man who holds his sleep in high regard, he needed to find a way to keep the noise in his bedroom to a minimum. To combat the sound of passing trains, he built himself a system that automatically closes his windows when a train passes by his apartment.

The setup relies on a web cam, which uses motion-sensing software to detect a passing train. The video is analyzed by a computer in his room which passes a message to an Arduino when a train is near. The Arduino then sends a pair of window mounted linear actuators into action, slowly (and quietly) shutting his windows.

The linear actuators move pretty slowly as you can see in the video below, but we doubt that matters. Since it looks like [Ed] lives in a slow zone, it likely takes quite a bit of time for a freight train to pass, making the 40-second closing period more than reasonable.

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Servo Hacked Linear Actuator

January 19, 2010 by Jakob Griffith 22 Comments

[AntonB] has modified a servo into a powerful linear actuator (think: changing rotational motion into linear motion). The process is simple enough, modify a servo for continuous rotation and then add the custom built actuating shaft. You do of course lose the precision of the servo, but a small price to pay to be able to lift ~20 pounds straight up. Inspiration for such a cheap solution came from his Planetary Surface Exploration Rover. Check out a video of both after the break.

[Thanks Eric]

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