Owner: Hacked Gadgets URL:http://hackedgadgets.com Join Date: Wed, 14 Mar 2007 23:16:33 -0500 Rating:0 Site Description: Many articles about hacking gadgets. Examples of extreme technology. DIY projects describing how to build electronic projects. Fun top 5 and top 10 lists. Site statistics:Click here
Remote Controlled Pigeons 2007-03-14 11:01:00
Looks a bit nasty but this is a fantastic demonstration of electronics and computers interacting directly with an animal. Will this put an end to designing tiny drone spy planes?
“Scientists with the Robot Engineering Technology Research Center of east China’s Shandong University of Science and Technology say they implanted micro electrodes in the brain of a pigeon so they can command it to fly right or left or up or down.
The implants stimulated different areas of the pigeon’s brain according to signals sent by the scientists via computer, and forced the bird to comply with their commands.
It’s the first such successful experiment on a pigeon in the world, said the lead researcher, who hopes the work will have “practical use” in the future.
In the United States, similar work on animals has been of interest to the military. For example, the pigeon news follows the equally amusing animal tale about the Pentagon’s attempts at creating remot Read more:Remote
, Pigeons
5 Cool Self Balancing Skateboards 2007-03-12 18:42:12 Balancing
One-Wheeled Scooter
Link
“It’s very similar to a snowboard to ride, requiring no user input other than the movement of your body mass. Leaning forwards and backwards controls the velocity and moving your weight from heal to toe controls the turn radius. It’s easy and very intuitive to ride.
The main controller is a PIC16F876A running at 20mHz. Pitch angle feedback is provided by an ADXRS300 Rate Gyro and a ADXL202 dual axis accelerometer from Analog Devices. The gyro signal is integrated and mixed with 0.5% of the gravity signal from the accelerometers (this corrects for drift). There’s a better way to do this - it’s called a Kalman Filter and is one of the next improvements I’ll make to the control.”
Via: Make
Skatanova, a Self-Balancing Skateboard
Link
“The control electronics are fairly simple, just a couple of regulators to step the 28.8 volts from the drill batteries to 1
Recorded Audio Doorbell 2007-03-12 12:05:49
This project was constructed by Apnoe, a member of the Hacked Gadgets forum. His entire article has been reproduced here since he doesn’t have a Web server that is on 27/4. If you have any questions you can ask them here or email Apnoe directly at apnoe at gmx.de.
“This is my self-assembled doorbell. I wanted a doorbell that can play a audiosample of my own choice and not that boring ugly noise. Well, of course the doorbell must be able to record/play some audio for at least some few seconds. Because I like the TV-Show STARGATE a lot I wanted that special alarm sound when somebody is pushing the button outside.
When someone now is pushing that button outside I hear the STARGATE-Alarmsound with that voice saying “Unplanmäßige Aktivierung von Außen!” (german). I took the sample from one of the episodes I have on videotape. I already prepared some active PC-Speakers for giving external power supply and receiving the audio-signal. They are not connected at th Read more:Audio
Dissection of a Blu-Ray reader Assembly 2007-03-11 12:22:02
Back in November we featured an article where Wicked Lasers took new Blu-Ray players to harvest the laser. It looks like there is now a cheaper option. Leslie Wright used a replacement laser reader assembly as the source of the Blu-ray laser for his Blu-ray laser project.
“I recently purchased a SONY playstation-3, replacement Laser reader assembly, with the sole intent of taking it apart, for the violet Laser diode. The pin-out was determined by eye, at first. I extracted the laser diode, and looked through the end window, with the aid of a microscope, to determine, where the internal wires went. Then tested my conclusions with the multimeter. The case is negative with respect to BOTH laser diodes, and photodiodes (there are two diodes in the same can! hence the wierd pin out).
I have tested and run mine at the rather conservative settings of 4.4v and 40mA, even at these low values, the output is VERY bright. Therefore I havent tried to extract any more power out of it. I Read more:Assembly
AmateurLogic.TV Episode 12 2007-03-10 12:42:11
Check out this great episode of Amateur Logic TV.
Video after the jump.
“Jim discusses two Network Tools that everyone already has. George digs into the junk box and comes up with a 9-volt battery clip tip. Tommy talks about using the Burn and Dodge tools to get better detail out of your photos. This month’s spotlight is on the Basic Stamp Microcontroller. We tell you what it is, and show you how to use it with a simple project. Plus your viewer mail and other interesting bits. It’s 55 minutes of Geek entertainment that’s sure to get the electrons flowing!”
Read more:Episode
Erebus Scarecrow - Computer Controlled Intelligent Scarecrow 2007-03-10 12:36:39
These University of South Florida students built this Computer
Controlled IntelligentScarecrow
to enter a Microsoft design contest, their entry won second place.
Video after the jump.
“Our idea for this project was to develop an “intelligent scarecrow” called the Erebus Scarecrow. The system is designed to protect ponds at a fish farm from bird predators that can cost farmers thousands of dollars in losses. The Erebus Scarecrow helps the environment by introducing an effective non-lethal method of pest deterrence to protect the birds and to prevent the spread of disease and contamination of the raised fish.
As a requirement for the Windows Challenge, our environment of development was Windows CE 5.0. We were provided an eBox II with Windows CE and tools to develop for it after being accepted as one of the top 200 teams worldwide. I was in charge of everything Windows CE related, from creating the custom operating system image with Platform Builder 5.0 to deployin
Hacked Gadgets Comment Contest 2007-03-10 04:22:36
Nuts and Volts is a fantastic electronic magazine with articles about new technology and great project ideas every month. Have a look at the article line up for March for examples of this. Hacked
Gadgets is giving away a one year subscription to a lucky Hacked Gadgets reader.
Entry into the contest is simple, just leave a comment for any article during the remainder of March 2007. The email address of the post will be used to identify and notify the lucky winner. For full contest details please click here.
Here is a bit more information about the magazine…
“Nuts & Volts is the leading magazine for those seriously interested in electronics. There now remain only a few magazines written for the electronics community with Nuts & Volts being the highest readership, longest running electronics publication left in the US today. And we still have readers and advertisers that have been with us since the early 80s.
Nuts & Volts is written for the hands-on ho Read more:Comment
, Contest
Shotgun Flashlight 2007-03-09 11:22:40
Security guards that don’t have guns carry around big long metal flashlights for protection. If they have this flashlight made by ARES Defense Systems they won’t have anything to worry about…
“A grenade-style pin removes the safety, and the flashlight fires a .410 shotgun round out the back when a button is pressed. A Mini-Mag size fires a .380 round”
Via: TechEBlog and The Raw Feed
Read more:Shotgun
, Flashlight
Plasma and High Voltage Electricity Kirlian Photos 2007-03-08 12:50:32
Check out RMCybernetics for instructions on taking these wild pictures.
“A kirlian photo is a photograph of electrical corona produced around objects under the influence of high voltages.
There are two common methods for producing kirlian photos. One is a little tricky, but the other method is quite simple if you have access to a few basic bits of equipment. You can see how to make a high voltage power supply supply on the DIY ignition coil driver page and others.”
Read more:Plasma
Shootable Simon Game 2007-03-15 12:47:37
Check out this cool hack of the Simon
game from Sparkfun that the guys at I make Projects made. If rings of plexiglass were used a target practice game could be made using a small microcontroller.
Video after the jump.
“This is a Simon game from Spark Fun Electronics which you play by shooting plexiglass plates with an Airsoft gun instead of tapping buttons with your fingers. It’s fun and playing it well is harder than it looks.
The Simon game was from Spark Fun, and the shootable plates are made from plexiglass and piezo elements. When a piezo element is subjected to a sudden vibration/jolt/impact (such as when the plexiglass it’s attached to is hit by a BB from an Airsoft gun), electricity flows in the form of a voltage spike. Some simple circuitry is used to detect this and turn it into a digital signal. This digital signal is used to trigger the Simon game’s button input in the place of an actual button. So in other words, the Simon game works perfect
Lego Mindstorms Warehouse Project 2007-03-16 12:19:51
This WarehouseProject
shows the power and flexability of the LEGO Mindstorm kit. It uses Microsoft BizTalk, Windows Workflow Foundation and C# to stitch everything together. Watch the demo of the system in action where a SMS message from a cell phone activates the system, the first robot grabs a box from the warehouse and delivers it to the second robot which drives the package to its destination.
BillaBoop - Real-Time Audio Driven Drum Controller 2007-03-18 12:35:49
BillaBoop was created by Amaury Hazan who is a PhD Student at the Music Technology Group and is specialized in Machine Learning and its applications in the Music Technology field.
Video after the jump.
“BillaBoop is a real-time audio driven drum controller which allows the user to control up to 3 drum instruments. The user can control any drum synth with the voice (beat box), or any object or musical instrument.
Unlike other audio-driven systems wich require a lot of parameter tuning to be able to discriminate the sounds you are playing, BillaBoop incorporates an efficient Machine Learning component which enables the system to learn by demonstration. In a few seconds you show the system what are the sounds you aim to use and you can start using them.”
Via: The Gadget Blog
Read more:Audio
, Driven
PIC 16F73 based Guitar Tuner and Preamp 2007-03-17 13:44:58
This GuitarTuner
and Preamp project built by Rob uses a PIC microcontroller and an old stereo to allow visual tuning of a guitar. LEDs indicate how well tuned each string is.
“I recently had to make a guitar amplifier and thought it would be cool to include a PIC based guitar tuner. I had an AIWA 3-disc stereo lying around with a non-functioning CD player. The tuner and tape deck still worked fine, and it was rated for I think 30 watts/channel.
I started by extricating the entire CD changer mechanism, including the spindle drive and laser unit, and the board with the DAC circuits. It was a simple matter to find where the audio inputs on the main board where that the CD audio signal was fed into. I would use these to feed the guitar signal into the stereo amplifiers (so I can still use the tuner and tape decks normally. When I want the guitar on, I just select “CD” for the input source)
The guitar’s input is buffered by an Analog Devices AD620 instrument
Stretched Ferrari Limo 2007-03-19 12:26:40
Seems like a shame to chop up such a nice car… But I guess the rich and famous must have the best of the best, and how else would you and five of your friends get to ride in a Ferrari
at the same time?
Video after the jump.
“To determine the optimum stretch length of the conversion, and to account for a further six passengers whilst retaining minimum deflection of the body structure. The stiffness and overall weight increase of the conversion will determine how the vehicle performs under acceleration, braking and cornering. It is recognized due to the increase in wheelbase the vehicle dynamic cornering ability will be affected.
The existing chassis is an AA6063T6 extruded alloy with an AA6022T6 floor which has undergone a Cataphoresis process to prevent corrosion. The new chassis will replicate the sections of the extruded alloy, but will be made from 12k carbon fibre reinforcement with a high modulus epoxy resin. The laminate is engineered to give maximum stiffness t
DIY Audio Spectrum Monitor using a Atmel AVR Microcontroller 2007-03-20 12:30:03
This DIY AudioSpectrumMonitor
by a Japanese engineer looks and works great, there are full construction details and code available on his site. You have to watch the video, it’s very impressive.
Video after the jump.
“This is an experimental work to monitor a spectrum pattern in radio band, and is a continuous project from Audio Spectrum Monitor. To analyze the spectrum of an input signal, I chose an Atmel AVR microcontroller that used in the Audio Spectrum Monitor to process FFT. When think it easy, it can be thought that sample an input RF signal directly and analyze it will do. However, you will able to recoginize that there are some techinical difficulties from following reasons.
In this project, an intermediate frequency signal from mixer output of an AM radio (fC=455kHz) is used as an input signal. It is converted again down to zero hertz in complex signal, so that the signal path, mixer and local oscillator, must be composed for complex signal processing. The Read more:Microcontroller
Solar Powered Roller Blading Chariot 2007-03-21 11:57:58
Bob Schneeveis was featured on The Hippy Gourmet where he demonstrated his solar powered roller blading chariot.
Video and more pictures after the jump.
“In this segment from the Hippy Gourmet TV show, we visit with Bob Schneeveis, the inventor of the Solar
Powered Walking Chariot
! Bob is a brilliant and eccentric character who studies nature and then turns it into sustainable, solar-electric vehicles and gadgets… Bob also donates his time to students studying robotics, and certainly gets our award for being the truest of nutty professors! Check out how clean powered engine drives these legs and rollerblades in such a human-like fashion…amazing! This thing actually has a lot of kick to it and is capable of covering all kinds of terrain it seems. Best of all, this chariot demonstrates that earth-happy innovations and creativity are all around us.”
Thanks for the tip James.
Read more:Roller
Springverb - Hard Drive Spring Speaker 2007-03-23 12:16:08
Here is another cool idea for your old hard drives. The device is called a Spring
verb, it’s a Hard Drive Spring Speaker
. There are lots more of sound clips and videos on the site.
Video after the jump.
“Inspired by the wealth of hard-drive recycling ideas on hacked-gadgets and the >springverb research posted at Electronic Peasant. When looking at both these pages… this hack becomes pretty obvious. It helps that i had all the materials laying around already.
One drive was bolted to a metal plate and the plate bolted to a heavy vice. The vice was bolted to a piece of wood. The other drive is just held in place with a smaller vice. as can be seen in the first picture at top, the circuit board was removed from the drive and 2 connectors on the back are connected via alligator-clips to the speaker output of a normal stereo amplifier.
It took a bit of searching to find which pins were actually connected to the voice-coil. I used an amp which has electronic circuit-
Rusty Nail LED Night Light 2007-03-22 20:36:05
After seeing the Rusty Nail LED Night
Light I am thinking that Dick Cappels may be the off set name of MacGyver. If you don’t have any CAT-5 wire handy why not use some of the wire out of an old transformer.
“Those who are familiar with some aspects of coil core selection would quickly point out that the eddy currents would be huge since iron has a low resistance compared to ferrite, or air for that matter, and that there would also likely be other types of large losses. The point here is not that you should run out and buy some flooring nails to make LED lamps, but that this circuit was not “designed”, but was thrown together and worked quite readily. If a rusty nail and some telephone wire is enough to light up a white LED, then the inductor is not so critical. So, relax, go buy a ferrite core and get started on your project.”
Pedal Powered Roller Coaster in Japan 2007-03-22 12:19:52
I don’t think you would catch me on this Pedal
Powered RollerCoaster
. Sounds like work if you have to pedal yourself to the top before the ride starts…
“Here is the future of the green amusement park: The Skycycle at Washuzan Highland Park in Okayama, a pedal-powered roller coaster. They clearly have some dramatic topography to take advantage of here, and it looks truly frightening. Most North American amusement parks are on pretty flat terrain but they often build artificial mountains- Demand a green ride like this on the Magic Mountain.”
Via: Treehugger and Trend Hunter
Read more:Japan
, Roller Coaster
DIY FM Transmitter 2007-03-24 12:00:38
Here is a nice and simple FM transmitter from David at Volunteer Lab Rat that will let you blast your iPod tunes on your stereo. Full details are provided on the site.
“You know these smart FM transmitters you can use to stream music from your iPod into your car stereo? Here’s a nice little project that I’ve made and that you can build yourself for around 5$. It’s my homebuilt FM transmitter that I use for streaming music into my car stereo and the old-school stereo at the metal workshop at my university! The awesome thing is that the transmitter is based on only one transistor, and is really simple to construct.”
Read more:Transmitter
Robots by Hubert - Solar Lawnmower and Mop Bot 2007-03-23 18:57:41
Tired of building projects that need a programmer for the microcontroller and data books for all the chips. Why not keep it simple? That is what Hubert did when he built these two robots.
Solar
Lawnmower:
“Cutting the grass can be boring…. You can buy a commercial robot… But you must spend about 3000 $ and install special cables…
This one works alone, your grass must be surrounded with a, at least 10 cm high border. Then the robot will go everywhere, cutting the grass and, once the job done, it charges itself freely with the sun!
A plywood chassis is equipped with the cutting motor attached to a standard (in Europe) 310 mm metal sawblade: you can easily find another one and change it if break down. There are 4 x 12 V reductor motors, each one equipped with a children toy wheel. An internal 12V 2Ah NiCd rechargeable battery power it. A front bumper (in wood and gray plastic) can move and actuate 2 switches: when robots meets an obstacle, it can avoid it.
Fire Breathing Jumping Spider Robot 2007-03-25 19:08:24
This robot doesn’t mow the lawn, it doesn’t shoot you a beer, it doesn’t even solve a Rubik’s cube. But what the JumpingSpiderRobot
can do is shoot FIRE! This robot is guaranteed to keep any nosy neighbors out of your business.
Video after the jump.
“The spider project began with the idea of making a machine that could crawl, after several attempts I found the easiest solution was to install an air bag under the mechanism to raise and lower machine during leg movements. Each leg can be operated in dependably and an air bag allows the spider to jump two feet straight up in the air on command. A flamethrower is incorporated into his tail for our fire shows. This is very fun to operate! Women seem to like this project the best, I don’t know why!”
Thanks Lance.
Amega 1000 S-Video Upgrade 2007-03-25 13:44:56
David from My-PC-Help.com sent in this video that shows how to use a Neobitz video board to upgrade the Amega 1000 video output.
“The Amiga 1000 comes only with a composite video and RGB output. Neither of those are suitable for use on a modern television. I used a Neobitz-S board to make an internal modification so that the Amiga can output S-video, which is many times more clear on the small text than the original composite.”
Nokia 3310 Cell Phone LCD Digital Thermometer 2007-03-26 19:58:34
If you have an old Nokia
3310 cell phone collecting dust in a drawer why not put it to use? This Nokia 3310 Cell Phone
LCD Digital
Thermometer project uses a one wire DS18B20 and a Microchip PIC 12F629 microcontroller to take control of the old LCD directly. There is code, schematic and a foil pattern available on the site.
Via: Team Droid
Dog Playing Virtual Soccer 2007-03-26 13:47:03
I can see a cheap knockoff of this technology coming to market for pet entertainment, first there was the pet DVD, next will be virtual games projected on the floor…
“Dog going crazy for the interactive soccer ball on the Reactrix interactive floor display”
Read more:Soccer
120,000 Volt Van De Graaff Generator 2007-03-28 21:16:22
This Van De Graaff project allows you to play with high voltage on the cheap.
“The base is an old laundry bucket , inverted. Lay the power roller and motor on top of the bucket and mark the location of the mounting holes and roller location. Using those markings locate the closet flange and mark it’s mounting holes and the area inside to be cut out. Cut out the hole to match the closet flange and drill out all the locations for assembly bolts.
The column is easy, simply mark down one end a distance equal to the height of one mixing bowl, now mark four points equidistant around the pipe at that location. Drill a 2″ hole through the pipe through two opposite points and a pair of 1/8″ holes through the other two points.”
Via: Make
Read more:Generator
Bobster Trike by Zeel Design 2007-03-28 13:44:20
It is hard to believe that this trike machine was built in 10 days.
“All parts copper plated. Engine hand engraved. Reversed handle bars. Internal throttle and clutch. No downtube with triple top tube. hand made fuel and oil tank combined in one. Hand made seat. Engine fully modified with Screaming Eagle parts. Upcoming Discovery biker build off participant. Built in 10 days!”
Via: Brass Goggles, Quelli-della-Mala and The Kneeslider
Alarm Phone Dialer - uses MT8880 and PIC 16F84A 2007-03-27 22:17:51
Just hook this Alarm Phone Dialer up to something you would like to monitor, for example, a high water alarm, low temperature alarm, back window, garage door, etc. When the system is activated it will call a number of programmed numbers to let you know the alarm has been activated. This would be great to get alerts of alarm conditions from your home when you are at work. The microcontroller code is provided on the site.
The circuit uses a MT8880 DTMF dialer chip and a PIC 16F84A microcontroller.
“After putting together this little device, you must enter programming-mode to learn some phone numbers which this module will call after detecting an input on it’s sensor pin.
After programming just supply power to the device. After pressing the button “Pokreni dojavu alarma” it will start to dial (tone or pulse, depending on the jumper setup). When the phone call is successfully established, the called party should press pound key “#” to stop the devi
Wiimote Controlled LEGO Mindstorms NXT Robot 2007-03-29 21:40:21
Here is another cool video of a Nintendo Wiimote
controlling a robot.
Video after the jump.
"Control a LEGO NXT mindstorms robot with your Nintendo WiiMote and a S60 3rd edition phone"
Read more:Robot
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