Congratulation to 56Effie and Kevin who were the winners last week. The prize this week is a bluetooth dongle. If your computer doesn’t have bluetooth built in this dongle will allow you to do some Wiimote hacking. This contest will run for this weekend only (May 26 – 27, 2007) . Ending time is based on central standard time. To enter, identify the item pictured above and give an example
Dutchtronix is selling AVR Oscilloscope Clock kits. No need to sit down for the kit price, at $35.00 this will make a great addition to any workbench! Video after the jump. “This AVR Oscilloscope clock is available as a kit, using all through hole components. The kit included ALL components necessary to assemble the board shown below, including a preprogrammed ATmega168 microcontroller. It does not include an oscilloscope. It also
Ross Smith from the University of South Australia gave an interesting microcontroller design presentation that contains some useful information for anyone that is considering using one in their next project. “This presentation looks at how to develop your own custom microcontroller hardware from scratch. Often laptops and general purpose computers are too powerful and too large to use for simple hardware projects. Often you can perform tasks like controlling DC
This Lighter Accelerometer hack by Bardlund demonstrates piezoelectric properties. “Piezoelectricity is the ability of crystals and certain ceramic materials to generate a voltage in response to applied mechanical stress. Piezoelectricity was discovered by Pierre Curie and the word is derived from the Greek piezein, which means to squeeze or press. The piezoelectric effect is reversible in that piezoelectric crystals, when subjected to an externally applied voltage, can change shape by
What looks to be a cute bear is more that meets the eye. This MIT Leonardo Robot packs some serious computing power. Watch some videos of it in action, Video 1, Video 2, Video 3. “Rather than requiring people to learn a new form of communication to interact with robots or to teach them, our research concerns developing robots that are natural for people to teach and collaborate with. In
If you need to judge some Pinwood Derby races this Pinewood Derby Finish Line Detector project will give you some unbiased results. Schematics and details are provided on the site. “A few years ago the finish line detector at my church’s AWANA Grand Prix track bit the dust. AWANA Grand Prix is the same thing as the Pinewood Derby to scouting folks. We did without for a couple years until
At first MERLIN may look like a normal remote control car, looking closer you will notice a host of sensors bolted to the frame. These sensors allow the car to learn about its surroundings and perform things such as obstacle avoidance. “MERLIN is controlled by 80C167 CR 16 bit-processor. The microprocessor is employed for interfacing sensor data acquisition, sensor data pre-processing, calculation of the control algorithms, and telecommunication with a
