TRINKET EDC CONTEST DRAWING #5 RESULTS

December 30, 2014 by Adam Fabio 4 Comments

The final random drawing for Hackaday’s Trinket Everyday Carry Contest was held tonight, and the winner is [flaming_goat] with Trinket Pocket IR Analyser/Transmitter!

In addition to having an awesome username, [flaming_goat] loves IR protocols. Trinket Pocket IR Analyser/Transmitter is a standalone device to read, analyze and transmit Infrared (IR) signals. The IR portion of the project is handled by a Vishay TSOP38238 (PDF link) The 382 series is a 3 pin module. It comes in several variants, each tuned to a specific carrier frequency. The 38238 will decode IR signals at 38 kHz.

The demodulated IR signals are fed into the Pro Trinket, where they can be analyzed. Data is either sent through the serial terminal or displayed on the on-board 1.44″ TFT LCD. Source code for the whole project is up on [flaming_goat’s] GitHub repo.

[flaming_goat] will be receiving a Teensy 3.1 and an Audio+SD adapter from The Hackaday Store. If the Pro Trinket is a gateway drug, then Teensy 3.1 is the hardcore stuff. Powered by a Freescale Kinetis ARM Cortex M4 processor in a tiny package, the Teensy 3.1 packs quite a punch. You might think all that power would mean complex tools, but Teensy 3.1 is still easy to program using the Arduino IDE. The Audio+SD adapter board gives Teensy 3.1 the ability to create some pretty decent audio, thanks to the Teensy Audio Library.

This was the last weekly drawing for the Trinket Everyday Carry Contest, but there is still time to enter and win the big prizes! The deadline is January 3 at 12am PDT. That’s just about 3 days to enter – so procrastinators, get in the game!

Trinket EDC Contest Entry: Shorty

December 29, 2014 by Adam Fabio 9 Comments

Sometimes finding a short-circuit is easy, especially after the magic smoke has escaped. Finding a short on a newly etched or milled board though, can be a maddening task. Many of us have been there – wrestling with multimeter probes under a magnifier trying to find the offending bit of copper that is the source of all our problems. [Jaromir] designed Shorty to make this task a little bit easier.

Shorty is a short-circuit finder – but it’s not exactly like the one you would find on a typical multimeter. [Jaromir] used MCP6041 Op-Amp to detect resistances down to the order of tens of milliohms. Determining an exact resistance measurement at these levels would require a heck of a lot of calibration. When looking for a short though, [Jaromir] is only concerned with the relative value – is he getting closer to or further away from the short. He determines this by sound. The Op-Amp output is sent to the Pro Trinket’s ADC input. The trinket drives a speaker with lower or higher tones based upon the ADC voltage. Much like the childhood game of “hot and cold”, Shorty will direct you right to your short!

There’s still time to enter the Trinket Everyday Carry Contest. The main contest runs until January 2, but we’re having random drawings every week! Don’t forget to write a project log before the next drawing at 9pm EST on Tuesday, December 30th. You and all of the other entrants have a chance to win a Teensy 3.1 from The Hackaday Store!

Trinket EDC Contest Entry: Can I Borrow A Feeling?

December 24, 2014 by Kristina Panos 11 Comments

We got a case of the Mondays just reading about [Sascha]’s work environment. Get this: every morning, first thing, the whole team gets together to check in and share how they’re all feeling. And they can’t even be candid about it—there’s actually an approved list of feeling descriptors, both good and bad. It’s an admittedly big list that includes, interestingly enough, both ‘tortured’ and ’embarrassed’. Yeah. We think something like group t’ai chi on the roof each morning sounds a lot more relaxing. Since [Sascha] is between a rock and a hard place on this one, it was time to let chance take over. He raised his HaD-imprinted Trinket skyward and Can I Borrow a Feeling? was born.

The gist is simple: [Sascha] abstracts his disposition out to either ‘good’ or ‘bad’ and pushes the corresponding button. The Trinket accesses an array and returns a randomly selected feeling to the LCD. Since the official list of feelings is about 300 words long, [Sascha] has to push the data into PROGMEM. He used good old Excel to split the list in twain, and her formulas came in very handy for centering the result on the LCD. Once [Sascha] knew how it would all fit together, he designed a cool enclosure in CorelDRAW and turned on the laser cutter. See the Spreadsheet of Acceptable Words for yourself on GitHub, and pick up the code and enclosure file while you’re there.

TRINKET EDC CONTEST DRAWING #4 RESULTS

December 23, 2014 by Adam Fabio No comments

The fourth of five random drawings for Hackaday’s Trinket Everyday Carry Contest was held tonight. The winner is [davish] with his entry, Trinket Watch.

[davish] loves the current crop of smartwatches, but he wants one he can truly call his own. He’s using the Pro Trinket along with an Adafruit 1.3″ OLED for display duties. That little OLED can show a lot more than just numbers though. [davish] already has Adafruit’s logo demo running on the device. Trinket Watch is going to start out as a simple Arduino coded “dumbwatch”. After the basics of time and date are out of the way, [davish] hopes to add a Bluetooth module and turn Trinket Watch into a full-fledged smartwatch.

We hope [davish] enjoys his new Cordwood Puzzle from The Hackaday Store. No jigsaws here, cordwood is a puzzle that involves solder! If you get a piece wrong, it’s time to break out that solder wick and fix your mistake. The puzzle is built using the cordwood assembly technique which was popular in the 1950’s and 1960s. We’re not kidding about it being a puzzle either – there are no instructions for this kit! [davish] will know he’s got it right when all 3 LEDs light up.

If you didn’t win this week, all is not lost, you still have one more chance to win a random drawing! Our next drawing will be on 12/30/2014 at 9pm EST. The prize will be a Teensy 3.1 and audio adapter as a prize. To be eligible you need to submit your project as an official entry and publish at least one project log during the week.

The main contest entry window closes on January 2, 2015 – but don’t wait for the last minute! Hit the contest page and build some awesome wearable or pocketable electronics!

TRINKET EDC CONTEST ENTRY: Lazydoro

December 19, 2014 by Adam Fabio 3 Comments

[Vasilis] has entered Lazydoro in the Trinket Everyday Carry Contest. Lazydoro is designed to get him up off his backside, and walking around. Recent medical research has determined that sitting too long is a bad thing. In fact, Dr. David Agus has been quoted by Nike as saying that sitting for several hours is as bad as smoking (wayback machine link). While we’re not exactly up on the latest medical trends, we can definitely see that getting up and walking around a bit never hurt anyone. Lazydoro will alert [Vasilis] once every 20 minutes or so to get up and stretch his legs a bit.

[Vasilis] plans to pair a Pro Trinket with an accelerometer module, specifically an ADXL377 from Analog Devices. The accelerometer will allow Lazydoro to determine if [Vasilis] has moved around. If 20 or 30 minutes go by without major movement, Lazydoro will nudge him to get up and take a walk.

Since shipping to Greece takes awhile, [Vasilis] is developing with an Arduino Uno and a ADXL345 while he waits for his parts to arrive. He’s hacked this into a wrist mounted device for testing. One thing [Vasilis] hasn’t figured out yet is how to alert the user to move around. A small vibrating motor would probably work – but we’d suggest electric shocks. A good zap always puts the spring in our step!

There is still plenty of time to enter the Trinket Everyday Carry Contest. The main contest runs until January 2, but we’re having random drawings every week! Don’t forget to write a project log before the next drawing at 9pm EDT on Tuesday, December 23. You and all of the other entrants have a chance to win a Cordwood Puzzle from The Hackaday Store!

Trinket EDC Contest Drawing #3 Results

December 16, 2014 by Adam Fabio 6 Comments

We’ve held our third drawing for the Trinket Everyday Carry Contest. Once again we’ve used a Pro Trinket to pick the random winner. This week’s winner is [Scissorfeind] with his project Stylin’ safety jacket

In true hack style, [Scissorfeind] went into this project with two goals: A jacket that will be visible at night, and keep him “looking f*cking sick”. The jacket itself is a faux leather affair from a thrift store. [Scissorfeind] added some studs for bling, and he’s working on adding a ton of electronics for light.

The Pro Trinket will be driving a series of LED matrices, which [Scissorfeind] is working on turning into POV displays. The matrices come from an LED clock which [Scissorfeind] saved from the landfill. In fact, most of the parts in the jacket are upcycled from e-waste. The jacket is just starting to come together. We can’t wait to see the final results!

We hope that [Scissorfeind] enjoys his Bus Pirate V3.6 from The Hackaday Store. The Bus Pirate was designed by former Hackaday writer [Ian Lesnet] as a Swiss Army knife of electronic communications. If you’re trying to connect to a circuit with SPI, I²C, JTAG, or UART, the Bus Pirate has you covered. It can do plenty more though – from reading analog data to programming components. Check out [Brian Benchoff’s] full review on the Bus Pirate V3.6 product page!

If the pseudo random number gods didn’t smile on you this week, don’t worry, there are still two more chances to win a random drawing! Our next drawing will be on 12/23/2014 at 9pm EST. The prize will once again be a Cordwood Puzzle! To be eligible you need to submit your project as an official entry and publish at least one project log during the week.

The main contest entry window closes on January 2, 2015 – but don’t wait for the last minute! Hit the contest page and build some awesome wearable or pocketable electronics!

Trinket EDC Contest Entry: Shame On You!

December 15, 2014 by Adam Fabio 7 Comments

[BDM] is helping others keep WiFi safe with “Shame On You!“, his entry in Hackaday’s Trinket Everyday Carry Contest. We all have that family member, friend, or neighbor who just can’t seem to get their WiFi locked down. Shame On You will show them how easy it is to detect such a hotspot, which hopefully will motivate them to correct the issue. [BDM] was a bit worried when he learned that Adafriut already has an open WiFi detector as one of their Pro Trinket example projects. However, we think he has added more than enough features to make his project stand out.

Shame On You is using a Pro Trinket running at 3.3 volts, along with an ESP8266 WiFi module. Power comes from a LiPo battery and is handled by an Adafruit LiPo backpack. Like several other EDC contest entries, Shame On You is using a cell phone shell as a case. The display is a 1.27″ color OLED with an SD card. A disc style vibrator motor will also help get the user’s attention.

[BDM] hasn’t made much progress this last week, as he’s been battling some Christmas light cutting bandits. Logging each week’s work doesn’t always have to be technical, sometimes life intervenes!

We’re heading into our third week here in the Trinket Everyday Carry Contest, but there is still plenty of time to enter! The main contest runs until January 2, but we’re having random drawings every week! Don’t forget to write a project log before the next drawing at 9pm EDT on Tuesday, December 16th. You and all of the other entrants have a chance to win a BusPirate 3.6 from The Hackaday Store!