Solar-powered Bird House Tweets Using B-Squares

May 30, 2011 by Mike Szczys 13 Comments

This bird house will tweet to let you know when the occupants pass through the door… err… hole. It uses solar panels to keep a battery topped off, and an Arduino along with an optical sensor which monitors the doorway to pass along an alert via an XBee module.

Admittedly, the video after the break is a bit tongue-in-cheek and doesn’t safeguard against the elements, or even against bird poop. AND it’s basically an advertisement for B-Squares. But we still like it.

These squares use magnetic corners to connect the solar squares together, as well as the squares that house the Arduino and the battery. These magnetic corners also act as the power and ground rails. Two nails have been pounded through the roof of the bird house, acting as a surface to magnetically attach the solar panels to, as well as a conductor to pass the power rails through the wood. It’s no wonder that B-Squares are closing in on raising five-times their Kickstarter goal.

Continue reading “Solar-powered Bird House Tweets Using B-Squares” →

Internet Enabled Drip Coffee

January 7, 2011 by Mike Szczys 23 Comments

A fresh pot of coffee is never more than a tweet away with the Tweet-a-Pot. It works in much the same way that our Troll Sniffing Rat does. For that build we used a Python script to monitor our comments, and this does the same except that the script read tweets through the Twitter API. It watches for a specific hash tag (#driptwit) and when found it sends a serial command to an Arduino. The microcontroller then writes a digital pin high to actuate a relay, powering up the coffee maker.

Sure, you have to preload the pot with grounds and water, but what do you expect, automatic coffee roasting and brewing? That’s quite a bit more work.

Peggy2 X2, With Video

December 19, 2009 by Caleb Kraft 10 Comments

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ImjfHxXGfc]

Being avid fanatics of flashing lights, we always love to see the peggy2 in action. The video above shows another improvement, which is two peggy2 units working together as one. [iservice2000] chained the two together and wrote new code for the display. Using an Arduino to drive it all, he has gotten them to act as one. While video on the peggy2 isn’t new, this is the first time we’ve seen two of them chained together. The end result is going to be a scrolling sign that can be updated via the web, or that can display tweets. We did notice a bit of tearing, is that from the camera or the software?

[via littlebirdceo]

Tweetidor, The Tweeting Humidor

September 21, 2009 by Matt Schulz 20 Comments

As cigar aficionados will tell you, cigars should be stored in climate controlled humidors to keep them in best condition for smoking. Most of the time a humidor is just a simple air-tight box with a hygrometer attached, which measures the relative humidity inside the box. Feeling as though he needed more control over the environment he kept his cigars in, [Justin] created the Tweetidor, a humidor that tweets its current temperature and humidity. Yes, you guessed it; the project is built around an Arduino. It’s a simple, useful project that is well documented and would be fun to recreate if you’re into cigars (and not tired of Twitter or Arduinos yet.) Combine this with the laser lighter and you’ve got a pretty nice setup.