Giant POV Tube For Light Painting

June 28, 2011 by Mike Nathan 29 Comments

writing_in_the_night_with_the_light_scythe

When you really want your feelings known, we always say that bigger is better. [Gavin Smith, aka The Mechatronics Guy] must come from the same school of thought, because there’s absolutely no mistaking what he is trying to say with his latest project.

Inspired by this WiFi signal painter we featured a while back, the LightScythe is a 2 meter long bar composed of multi-color LED strips that he bought from Adafruit. The light bar is controlled by a Seeduino micro controller, which takes direction from his laptop via a pair of XBee units. Once he generates an image from text with ImageMagic, a Python script is used to match the colors as close as possible to the RGB color space. The image is then converted to raw serial data for playback on the Scythe. When he is ready to go, he triggers his camera to take a 10-15 second exposure, during which he walks across the frame, painting his images with the LightScythe.

We always enjoy seeing creative derivations of previous projects we have covered, and the LightScythe does it well. He actually built a pair of these that can work in concert or independently, which we imagine can make for some pretty awesome pictures.

Be sure to check out his Flickr photostream for more examples of what the LightScythe can do.

Tweeting Bird Feeder Keeps A Picture Record Of All Visitors

June 28, 2011 by Mike Nathan 18 Comments

If you weren’t aware, Adafruit Industries is sponsoring the “Make it Tweet” contest over at Instructables, and this Twitter-enabled bird feeder is [quasiben’s] entry into the competition.

His bird feeder not only sends messages to Twitter, it also sends a picture of each bird to Twitpic. The feeder itself is a standard off the shelf model which has been fitted with a LinkSprite camera. A LilyPad Arduino controls the camera, sending images to his computer via a pair of XBee modules. To detect when a bird has stopped by for something to eat, [quasiben] used an infrared LED and an IR detector. The emitter and detector are positioned at opposing sides of the feeder’s opening, triggering the Arduino to snap a picture whenever the beam is broken. Once the image has been transferred to his computer, it is posted to TwitPic.

We’re pretty sure [quasiben] built this Tweeting bird feeder just because he could, but we think it’s a pretty smart idea for people who don’t necessarily have the free time to gaze out the window into their yard. It’s a great way to keep tabs on all your new winged visitors while on the go.

Prototyping The New Office Clock

June 1, 2011 by Mike Szczys 10 Comments

[Damage] was tapped to build a new clock to hang on the wall at the office. He got a hold of some 6.5 inch seven segment displays for the hours and minutes, as well as some 4.5 inch modules for the date and month. Rather than jump right in with the large hardware (especially because he’s waiting for the PCB order to arrive) he built this prototype with more commonly sized displays.

His build is Arduino powered. In the video after the break he mentions the temperature compensated crystal oscillator that keeps the time. We’d wager that’s the DS3234 based RTC module that Sparkfun sells. This is the same chip family as the Chronodot and it was our choice for the Ping Pong Clock.

The finished clock will hang high on wall, out of reach when you need to set the time. This shouldn’t need to be done much – if ever – since that RTC includes a backup battery. But [Damage] took the time to develop a remote programming device anyway. Using another Arduino, an LCD display, and an Xbee pair he whipped up a remote that can be used to navigate and change the main unit’s settings.

Continue reading “Prototyping The New Office Clock” →

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” →

Automated Faucet Keeps Your Cat Watered

May 24, 2011 by Jesse Congdon 21 Comments

Like many of us [Chris Dillon]’s cat prefers to drink cold fresh water directly from the tap. However, unlike us, [Chris]’s feline buddy is too preoccupied with cat stuff to bother flipping off the faucet after its use. As it turns out, this was an excellent opportunity not only for [Chris] to flex his project muscles, but also to lay the groundwork for future home automation projects. While most of us may go for a simple solenoid [Chris] had to make the rig completely reversible. The result is an automated faucet control which involves an infrared sensor, Arduino, and tight fitting rail system with a servo to operate the sink handle.

After getting all of the hardware and the sensor sorted [Chris] went on to add a data logging PC to the mix. The faucet setup communicates with a Linux server via Xbee modules, and populates a MongoDB database. The setup even allows [Chris] to flag false positives (human sink use for example) and produce charts of his feline friend’s water usage. We suspect the cat will be none too pleased when it gets its water bill.

Don’t forget to check out [Chris Dillon]’s site for details on the project including code and a list of lessons learned. Also, since this is the internet after all, we have several other cat related projects for your viewing pleasure.

[Thanks Chris Burrows (and nephew)]

Check out a video of the setup in action after the jump.

Continue reading “Automated Faucet Keeps Your Cat Watered” →

Large Remote-controlled Game Of Life Display

May 3, 2011 by Mike Nathan 5 Comments

game_of_life

Sometimes it’s just plain fun to over-engineer. [Stephanie] gets a warm fuzzy feeling when she successfully adds way more electronics components to a project than she really needs – just because she can. We can’t really argue with her if that is the intended goal, nor can we find fault with the sweet Game of Life display she put together.

She started off with six Game of Life kits from Adafruit, but she quickly caught the LED bug and her collection grew until she had 20 kits (that’s 320 LEDs for those of you keeping count). After piecing them all together, they were mounted in a wooden frame and placed behind a dark piece of acrylic. It looked great and worked just fine, but it wasn’t overdone enough for her tastes.

In the end, she added a small Arduino and Xbee module to the Game of Life display, which enables it to be controlled by her network-enabled thermostat we featured a few weeks back. The thermostat was fitted with an Xbee unit as well, which allows it to turn the Game of Life on and off at whatever times [Stephanie] specifies.

We’ll take two please.

[via Adafruit Blog]

The Start To Finish Of An Interactive Exhibit

April 29, 2011 by Mike Szczys 7 Comments

[Andrew & Deborah O’Malley] were tapped to created an interactive exhibit. The mission was to show that social problems take continual support from a lot of people before they can be solved. The piece needed to be architectural in nature, and they ended up building this touch-sensitive model building with individually lighted windows.

The project log that the [O’Malleys] posted shows a well executed battle plan. They used tools we’re all familiar with to achieve a highly polished and pleasing result. The planning stages involved a virtual mock-up using Google SketchUp. The details needed to order the shell from a fabricator were pulled from this early work, while the team set their sights on the electronics that shed light and that make the piece interactive. The former is provided by a Shiftbrite module for each window, the latter comes from the Capacitive Sensing Library for Arduino. Despite some difficulty in tuning the capacitive grid, and getting all of those Shiftbrites to talk to each other, the exhibit went swimmingly. It’s not hard to imagine how easy it is to start a conversation once attendees are attracted by the seductive powers of touch sensitive blinky lights.