It Sucks To Pick Up The Pieces

August 1, 2015 by Kristina Panos 11 Comments

Jigsaw puzzles are a fun and interactive way to spend an afternoon or twelve, depending on the piece count and your skill level. It’s exciting to find the pieces you need to complete a section or link two areas together, but if you have poor dexterity, excitement can turn to frustration when you move to pick them up. [thomasgruwez] had the disabled and otherwise fumble-fingered in mind when he created this pick and place jigsaw puzzle aid, which uses suction to pick up and transport puzzle pieces.

The suction comes from an aquarium pump running in reverse, a hack we’ve seen often which [thomasgruwez] explains in a separate Instructable. A large, inviting push button is wired in line to turn the pump on and off. An equally large and inviting momentary switch turns off the vacuum temporarily so the piece can be placed.

At the business end of this hack is the tiny suction-cupped tip from a cheap vacuum pen. To interface the pen head with the pump, [thomasgruwez] designed and printed a rigid straw to bridge the gap. With utility already in mind, [thomasgruwez] also designed a ring that can be bolted to the straw to house a steadying finger of your choice, like the pinkie hook on a pair of barbers’ shears.

Our favorite part of this hack has to be the optional accessory—a tiny platform for quickly flipping pieces without cutting the vacuum. Check it out after the break.

Continue reading “It Sucks To Pick Up The Pieces” →

Puzzle Box Is Rigged To Blow

July 23, 2015 by Rick Osgood 23 Comments

[Sande24] needed a gift for his father’s birthday. He decided that rather than simply give his father the gifts, he would present his father with a unique challenge. The gifts are locked inside of a multi-stage puzzle box. This isn’t your average puzzle box though. This one is rigged to blow.

The puzzle box was designed to test his father’s reflexes, mind, and luck. The finished product looks sort of like a wooden crate made from particle board. The box contains three levels, each with its own gift and its own task to be completed.

With the lid opened, the first compartment and puzzle is revealed. Inside of the compartment were a new pair of gloves, meant to protect the father’s hands when working on the puzzles. The first puzzle is built into a sheet of wood with several custom-made levers. The levers must be moved into position in order to remove the wooden sheet and reveal the next level.

The first lever triggers a home-made detonator that eventually lights a series of fireworks placed around the box. You need to solve the puzzle box fast enough to prevent the fireworks from destroying the gifts that lay inside. [Sande24] was unable to legally purchase fuses where he lived, so he had to make his own.

The second level held a gas mask, also meant to protect the father from the booby traps of this mysterious box. This level, also made from a sheet of wood, has nine squares drawn on it. Each square is labeled with a different number which goes into solving a mathematical function (x^5-25x^4+233x^3-995x^2+1866x-1080 = 0). The solution to the function would reveal the safe path to be used to cut the wooden platform in half. Unfortunately [Sande24’s] father cut the wrong squares and released a huge amount of vinegar into the box. Oops.

The bottom level contained the final puzzle and the locked treasure compartment locked with an ordinary padlock. To find the key, another puzzle had to be solved based on a series of wooden levers labeled with different shapes. The shapes provided clues to the order in which the levers should be pulled. Once the levers were moved into position, two compartments were unlocked. One of them contained the key to the treasure box. The other contained another booby trap which would set off more fireworks, destroying the final gift of four cans of Kuld beer. That’s a lot of work to get a a few cans of frothy beverage!

[Thanks Ellery]

Captain Hermano’s Mystery Box Is Full Of Puzzles

December 28, 2014 by Rick Osgood 9 Comments

[Raffi] needed a birthday present idea but he wanted to do something extra special. He realized that a big part of gift giving is the anticipation and excitement of opening the present. In order to prolong this experience, [Raffi] built an electronic puzzle box. The box contains the final gift, but first a series of puzzles must be solved in order to open the box.

The project runs on an Arduino Mega. This is hooked up to several sensors, including a temperature sensor, GPS unit, and CO sensor. There is also an LCD screen and numeric keypad for user input and output. The project page contains a flow chart that shows all of the puzzles and their solutions. One of the more interesting puzzles requires the user to blow tobacco smoke into a tube. The CO sensor detects the smoke and unlocks the next puzzle.

Some of the puzzles require interacting with outside systems. For example, one puzzle requires the user to send an email to the fictional Captain Hermano’s email address. If the correct keyword is included in the email, the user will receive a reply with the code to enter into the box. Another puzzle requires the user to call a particular phone number and listen for another riddle. We’ve included the video demonstration below.

This isn’t the first puzzle box we’ve seen, but each one has its own special flair. This one is very well made and looks like a lot of care was put into it. We’ve seen another that uses only discrete components. We’ve seen yet another that uses Morse code. Continue reading “Captain Hermano’s Mystery Box Is Full Of Puzzles” →

SAINTCON Badge (Badge Hacking For Mortals)

October 28, 2014 by Mike Szczys 11 Comments

[Josh] attended his first SAINTCON this weekend before last and had a great time participating in the badge hacking challenge.

The 2014 SAINTCON is only the second time that the conference has been open to the public. They give out conference badges which are just an unpopulated circuit board. This makes a lot of sense if you figure the number of people who actually hack their badges at conferences is fairly low. So he headed off to the hardware hacking village to solder on the components by hand — it’s an Arduino clone.

This is merely the start of the puzzle. We really like that the published badge resources include a crash course on how to read a schematic. The faq also attests that the staff won’t solder it for you and to get your microcontroller you have to trade in your security screw (nice touch). Once up and running you need to pull up the terminal on the chip and solve the puzzles in the firmware’s menu system. This continues with added hardware for each round: an IR receiver, thermistor, EEPROM, great stuff if you’re new to microcontrollers.

[Josh] mentions that this is nothing compared to the DEFCON badge. Badge hacking at DEFCON is **HARD**; and that’s good. It’s in the top-tier of security conferences and people who start the badge-solving journey expect the challenge. But if you’re not ready for that level of puzzle, DEFCON does have other activities like Darknet. That is somewhere in the same ballpark as the SAINTCON badge — much more friendly to those just beginning to developing their crypto and hardware hacking prowess. After all, everyone’s a beginner at some point. If that’s you quit making excuses and dig into something fun like this!

Winning Game-App Contests With Computer Vision

October 6, 2014 by Mike Szczys 10 Comments

[Gadget Addict] found out about a contest being held by a shoe seller. Their mobile app has a game very much like Bejeweled. The high scorer each month gets £500. His choices were to be better at the game than everyone else, or to be smarter. He chose the latter by writing a computer vision program to play the game.

There are two distinct parts of a hack like this one. The first is just figuring out a way to programmatically detect the game board and correctly identify each icon on it. This is an iPad game. [Gadget Addict] is mirroring the screen on his laptop, which gives him easy access to the game board and also allows for simulated swipes for automatic play. Above you can see two examples where black pixels may be counted in order to identify the icon. A set of secondary checks differentiates similar entries after the first filtering. The other part of the hack involves writing the algorithms to solve for the best move.

If you liked this one, check out a super-fast Bejeweled solver from several years back. We should also mention that this was just a proof of concept and [GA] never actually entered the contest.

Electronic Puzzle Box Uses Only Discrete Components

May 14, 2014 by Rick Osgood 13 Comments

Puzzle box

Do you need an idea for a fun do it yourself gift for a friend or significant other? Look no further, [conductance] has you covered. He put together an awesome electronic puzzle box using all analog electronics. The puzzle case is shaped like an over sized die and is made out of wood. It also requires a small jumper cable and an external magnet to complete the puzzle.

This is a six-sided die, where each side has something different to offer. The “five” side of the die shows the progress you’ve made in completing the puzzle. Each of the five dots contains a green LED that will light up when the corresponding puzzle has been successfully completed.

The “one” side is completed by placing the included magnet over the dot. The magnet activates a reed switch which lights up the first LED. The “two” side contains a tilt switch. In order to solve this piece of the puzzle you must ensure the two side is facing up, as if you rolled a two. The “three” side contains three key switches. Each switch must be turned to a particular orientation. Once all three keys are configured properly, a third LED lights up.

The “four” side contains four sockets that fit the included jumper cable. This puzzle is solved by jumping the two correct sockets together. Finally, the number “six” side just has six momentary push buttons. All six buttons must be pressed simultaneously in order to light up the final LED. The tricky part is pressing all six buttons while simultaneously “rolling” a two in order to ensure the tilt switch is also activated.

Once all five LED’s are lit up, a relay is triggered which then activates a solenoid. The solenoid unlocks the door and reveals the prize. It’s always great to see electronics circuits like this that use all discrete components. This could have been accomplished any number of ways, but there’s something satisfying about a simple circuit that’s just right for the job. Be sure to check out [conductance’s] schematic if you want to see how this puzzle works.

[via Reddit]

Hackaday Space: Final Transmission Minecraft Puzzles Explained

May 2, 2014 by Ben Delarre 9 Comments

This is the last part in our round up of the ARG that we ran throughout April. Just in case you’ve had your head buried in a hole this last week, it was a month-long series of puzzles that lead up to the announcement of the frankly awesome Hackaday Prize. During the week we’ve covered Transmissions 1, 2 and 3 detailing how we put the puzzles together and the things that went wrong. For the final stage we wanted something a bit different. Throughout the ARG we had been inspired by the book Ready Player One, so in this stage we wanted a high score table that people could compete over.

Since we’d managed to get reasonably far ahead of ourselves during Transmission 3 we had just over a week to plan this round. We pitched some ideas around the office for video games we could make with high score tables. None of these really stuck and we soon realized we didn’t have the resources to get the graphic design work done for most games. Someone suggested that we try making a MUD themed around a space port with rescue for Major Tom being the last stage. This seemed like a great idea at first and I began work on it using the RanvierMUD framework. It soon became clear however that writing all the text for a full featured MUD is actually a massive endeavor and I frankly am not that great of a writer.

Learn the secrets and watch a video tour of the Minecraft world below.

Continue reading “Hackaday Space: Final Transmission Minecraft Puzzles Explained” →