[Adam Wolf] sent along this excellent idea for transporting projects. He chopped out the center section of a deal with box clearing the method for two breadboards to be stuck to the lid. The boards are spaced for a DIP40 chip. two binding publish are epoxied in location to supply power. now you can step your jobs as well as parts without knocking wires loose. a lot more details at his blog.
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vintage gaming lovers take note: this joystick is what you requirement to play any type of Atari game on the original console. It plugs best into the original console hardware as well as removes the requirement to select the joystick, paddle, or keypad controller separately. You just leave this puppy hooked up as well as relocation your hands to the set of controls utilized on each game.
[x2Jiggy] developed the thing from scratch. The enclosure is a wooden box from the craft store. He holds it closed with a couple of magnetic latches like you may discover on old fashioned kitchen area cabinets. The buttons of the keypad are mounted on a chunk of protoboard however he did take the time to provide it a coat of matching paint to ensure that it doesn’t look out of place. inside you’ll discover some much more protoboard as well as point-to-point soldering to total the rest of the connections.
You can see a quick movement video of the develop process after the break. This reminds us of the universal controller developed for job Unity.
We wouldn’t want to let a week slip by without something new being made to twitter would we? this time it is a toilet. Don’t worry, they are sparing us the graphic details, it pretty much tweets each time it is flushed. As you can see in the picture above, they’re using an Arduino for the toilet/PC connection. If you really want to make something twitter, this might be a good starting point. It’s essentially twittering each time a button is pushed. You can download the source code on the site as well as find a tutorial on Arduino basics.
[via astera]
A reverse geocache – a box that only opens in a certain geographical area – is a perennial preferred right here at Hackaday. We see a ton of different implementations, however a lot of of the time, the develops are fairly similar. Of program dedicating a GPS receiver solely to a reverse geocache isn’t an low-cost prospect, so [Eric] came up with a much better solution. He’s utilizing a wise phone as the brains of his geocache, enabling him to keep the GPS as well as screen outside the locked box.
The develop began by discovering an old box as well as modifying it so it can be locked with a servo. The only other bits of electronics inside the box are an IOIO board, a battery pack, as well as an I2C EEPROM for storing a few settings. On the phone side of things, [Eric] composed an Android app to serve as both the programming interface, UI, as well as GPS hardware for his reverse geocache. It’s precisely like all the other reverse geocaches we’ve seen, only this time around the controls are wireless.
[Eric] put up a video demoing his reverse geocache. You can inspect that out after the break.
Make: jobs has published an fascinating method to shed styles into wood. instead of doing the conventional technique of utilizing a hot iron to hand draw or trace patterns on the wood, they show us exactly how to utilize a chemical process to make things easier. They are utilizing a service of Ammonium Chloride, used with a foam stamp, then heated. When it is heated it breaks down to ammonia gas as well as hydrochloric acid, burning the surface. The advantage right here is that you can quickly utilize a stamp to produce patterns whereas doing it by hand may be difficult. They do point out that enhancements might be made, such as adding something to keep it from soaking into the wood as well as blurring the edges.
After a long day sitting around airports watching one flight after another get cancelled due to the storm in new York, I finally made it. unfortunately I missed the entire first day, but luckily RedBull put out a recap of Day1. They also have a live feed if you want to check in.
I got a chance to run around this morning and check everything out. The 6 teams are already in the heat of competition, rushing to get their musical instrument built before the time runs out.
I apologize ahead of time for the noise. I don’t have a better microphone for this environment. I’ll do my best to try to pull them into a quieter area if I’m going to talk to them in the future. also I can now see that the footage is over exposed. I’ll fix that, though you can see the gallery of pictures turned out well.
I’ve had several emails asking about what it is actually like to BE one of the teams here competing. So, I’ll share what they are working with.
1. They have a small budget given to them by RedBull. I haven’t asked if any of them are infusing their own money.
2. They get raw materials at any place they want. There’s a “pick n place” down the street as well as several hardware stores. Some have ordered things online. There are big vans that will drive them wherever they want to go.
3. There are many tools available to them here. You can see that a plasma cutter, some big metal working tools, some 3d printers, a couple laser cutters and welding materials are available on top of some electronic workstations and a couple welders.
4. They aren’t being secretive about their creation at all. They all share their ideas and have gone team to team for help when needed. someone called it an “un competition”, I think at this point they all feel like they’ve already won an awesome trip just getting to come here.
If there’s anything you want to know, please leave a comment.
electronics workstation
electronics workstation
electronics workstation
plasma cutter
plasma cutter
3d printers
3d printers
laser cutter
fs lasers
supplies
pipe bender
plasma cutter
metal working
metal working
electronics
tools
tools
the lounge
the vans that can take them to get parts
[Niko1499] had a plan. He’d built a cool hardware controller for the game Kerbal space Program (KSP). He got a lot of positive reaction to it and chose to form a company to produce them. As numerous people have found out, though, that’s simpler said than done, and the planned company fell short of its goals. However, [Niko1499] has taken his controller and documented a lot about its construction, including some of the process he used to get there.
If you haven’t run into it before, KSP is sort of half simulator, half game. You take command of an alien space program and develop it, plan and execute missions, and so on. The physics simulation is quite realistic, and the game has a large following.
When we first saw the photos, we thought it was an old Heathkit trainer, and–indeed–the case is from an old Heathkit. However, the panel is laser cut, and the software is Arduino-based. [Niko1499] covers a few different methods of letting the Arduino control the game by emulating a joystick, a keyboard, or by using some software to take serial data and use it to control the game.
The project isn’t quite an exact how-to, although he does offer a bill of materials and the software. However, you’ll certainly want to customize the layout to fit your case and your preferences anyway.
We are always amazed we don’t see much more dedicated hardware control panels for popular software like Gimp (or Photoshop) or video editing. Faking mouse and keyboard input is pretty easy and having dedicated buttons for common functions could be pretty productive if you plan it out right.
We have, however, seen a number of controllers for KSP for quite a while. Of course, everyone has their own take on exactly what one ought to look like.
You’ve got to admit the thought of tooling around the lake on your own personal water jetpack is a seductive proposition. This is the second summer in which [Toby Gardner] has been trying to work out the kinks on his build. Last year he got out of the water, but the jetpack was pretty hard to control. Over the winter he redesigned the nozzles of the water jets and they seem to be doing quite a bit better.
The fact that the build will be in frequent contact with water makes it a bit harder. They need to have parts that won’t corrode but can stand up to the pressure. Stainless steel was the obvious choice, and for the refinements they were able to get quite a few off the shelf parts to start from. He built a mold for forming the backpack and took it out for a spin. We don’t get a terrific look at the new version from afar. but view the videos below and you’ll see last year it tried to drown him, this year it seems to float.
Why is he building rather than buying? have you seen the price of the original version?
Version 2
Version 1
[Dino] has been featured here at [HAD] on numerous occasions, so I was thrilled to see some of his inventions in person and meet the man himself. [Dino] didn’t disappoint, bringing a display that included a working demonstration of his upcoming cover story for Make magazine – an automatic doggie ball-thrower. also there were some crazy musical instruments, what appeared to be a cylindrical oscilloscope display, and a robot rolling around with the thrown balls (and kids).
As seen in the video, one thing to remember if you’re displaying at a Faire, kids will certainly be there, and will interact with anything they can. This can be good or bad, so make sure you design your display, like [Hackaweek]’s to be the former. [Dino] also had a projector pointed at the wall playing some video. This made for a terrific attention-getter! check out the short videos below of his ball thrower in action and a view of the show from one of his robots!
[Ben] just finished building this time-lapse dolly and decided to share his experience. We think he struck just the right balance of diy and commercially available materials to create a rig that is stable yet relatively inexpensive.
The project was inspired by project Chronos. It gives a lot of details about the drive electronics and code used, but there are some gaps in the instructions for building the track itself. [Ben] forged ahead, purchasing linear bearings and a double-guide rail from IGUS. He didn’t mention the price on that item but we found 1000mm of the stuff (about 40 inches) for under $75 so it’s not outrageous. The part he couldn’t get for a reasonable price was precision thread bar. He ended going with regular threaded rod and a couple of nuts combined with a spring mechanism to keep the sled steady. That seems to work just fine. You can see the rod bouncing a bit in the clip after the break but it doesn’t harm the stability of the captured images.
The end stops including the one to which the stepper motor is mounted are his own work. It sounds like they required a bit more fabrication work than he was planning on but we figure if you don’t challenge your skill set you never get any better.