Image Projector Can Be Built In Minutes

There’s a pretty good chance that you already have everything needed to make this image projector. We thought that yesterday’s video projector was simple, but this one makes it look like a super-computer in comparison. [Esrun] grabbed a flood light, some transparency film, and a common magnifying glass for use in his still-image project. This is more-or-less an overhead projector without the mirror, but we though it was worth sharing in hopes that it would spark your imagination and produce some other projector-oriented hacks.

The real tricks in this build are alignment and focal length. A single piece of lumber was used to help keep everything in a straight line, leaving just the vertical alignment to account for. In order to get the image in focus, [Esrun] had to do some testing for positioning the transparency film and the lens. In the end he added strips of velcro to the base to make the components easy to move. He plans to add an enclosure and change from an incandescent bulb over to a set of LEDs. We’d like to see the addition of a carousel that can house multiple transparency sheets. That or a side-scrolling roll to give it more of a film-strip feel.

Video Projector From An Old Single-slide Unit

Here’s a video projector that [Matt] hacked together. He needed a small and inexpensive solution to use with his R2D2 build. As you can see in the video after the break, it has no problem playing back the Princess’ distress call. But even if R2D2 is not one of the droids you’re looking for, we think this can be useful in other ways. One use that pops into mind is for projector-based Halloween displays.

As with past projector hacks, all you really need to pull this off is a light source, an LCD screen on which you can playback video, and a lens to focus the light onto a screen. Usually the LCD is the most expensive part of the project and building an enclosure to the correct dimensions can be a bit difficult. [Matt’s] solution was to use an MP4 knockoff media player. The rest of the setup is a ’50s era slide projector. The screen from the media player is about the same size as a single film slide, so he removed the screen from the case and put it where the slides go.

Continue reading “Video Projector From An Old Single-slide Unit”

Force Feedback Rig

Strap yourself in, it’s going to be a bumpy ride. No really, if you don’t believe us, check out the video after the break of this bouncing and rolling game system. [Shawn McGrath] built it to compliment the gaming experience for Dyad, an indie game for which he is a developer. His wife was kind enough to demonstrate the machine, which utilizes one motor to rotate the display and cockpit, and another to add vibration to the experience. The parts for the system were mostly salvaged, with the addition of a projector for the display and a PlayStation SixAxis controller to sense the motion of the rig. The motors are powered by a 600W computer PSU and controlled by an Arduino. It helps that [Shawn’s] a developer because he was able to add feedback hooks to sync with the gameplay.

It’s not as intricate as the best flight simulators we’ve seen, but it will be fun for that next kegger.

Continue reading “Force Feedback Rig”

Hackaday Links: February 21, 2011

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.

Projector Tricks Make Use Of Kinect 3D Mapping

[Don’t stop the clock] is doing some work with a projector, a camera, and the Kinect. What he’s accomplished is quite impressive, combining the three to manipulate light with your body. The image above is a safer rendition of the Hadouken from the Street Fighter video games, throwing light across the room instead of fire. This comes at the end of the video after the break, but first he’ll show off the core features of the system. You can hold up your hand and wave it to turn it into a light source. In other words, the projector will shine light on your hand, moving it, and manipulating the intensity based on hand location in 3D space. Since the Kinect is sending fairly precise data back to the computer the projected image is trimmed to match your hand and arm without overflowing onto the rest of the room until you touch your hand to a surface you want illuminated or throw the light source with a flick or the wrist. It may seem trivial at first glance, but we find the alignment of the projector and the speed at which the image updates to be quite impressive.

Continue reading “Projector Tricks Make Use Of Kinect 3D Mapping”

R2D2 Wannabe Lacks Lightsaber Launcher, Autonomy

Is this what the lovable Star Wars droid would look like without its protective skin? This R2D2 inspired robot is another Olin College of Engineering (where that CNC cake decorator came from) build developed by [Nathaniel Ting] and his classmates. Alas, it lacks autonomy, relying on an operator for guidance. But we enjoy it for the build quality. Two motorcycle batteries supply DC motors on the two rear legs of the trike. It can be driven with a wireless Xbox controller or through a Python interface that also randomly plays droid audio clips from the movie. That’s a tilting projector on top, which would be used to show Princess Leia’s pleas for assistance. That is, after the operator plugs in an extension cord to power it up. Oh well, it’s still a lot of fun to watch. See for yourself after the break.

Continue reading “R2D2 Wannabe Lacks Lightsaber Launcher, Autonomy”

Open Source Your Rave With OpenLase

Without a doubt, Laser Projectors are a great way to project large, bright images on any surface you can imagine. With a high enough quality projector and software package, excellent images and visualizations can be displayed in real time. [marcan], of the openkinect project, decided that there were not any open source laser projection packages out there that suited his wants or needs, so logically he decided to write his own. Because home-made laser projectors often use the audio out port of a PC, building the framework on top of the JACK unix sound software to control the hardware made perfect sense. OpenLase includes plugins for audio visualizations, 2D and 3D gaming, as well as converting video streams into laser format in real time.

Be sure to check out the Chaos Communication Congress presentation [marcan] gave after the break, as well as all the extra demo videos on his website.

Continue reading “Open Source Your Rave With OpenLase”