June 2011

Name the Thing Contest - 175

The prize this week is a mini tripod to help you get some great pictures of your next project. This contest will run for one week (June 11 – 17, 2011). Ending time is based on central standard time. To enter, identify the item pictured above. Please do not give the answer in the comments. Send an email to contest @ hackedgadgets.com with “Name the Thing Contest” as the subject,

Wi-Fi RC Car controlled by Android Phone

RC cars are tons of fun but driving a RC car using your Android Phone would be even better! Antoine Monmarché used an OpenPicus module mounted in the car to get the job done. There is documentation and source code available here. “The RC car (battery powered) is completely controlled by Flyport. The module manages Wi-Fi link to an Android Smartphone and it drives the servo motors (PWM signal). On

Jazari - Electronic Music

There are lots of cool instruments that can be played but normally you are limited to enjoying one at a time. Patrick Flanagan has that concept licked with his Jazari Musical Instrument. He is able to control an entire room full of instruments by creating loops on them using his unusual looking hand interface. It uses accelerometers to detect the position of his hand and adjusts the instruments sound accordingly.

DIY Function Generator

If you need a Function Generator, this DIY Function Generator project is a simple way to get one built. If you would rather build a kit version take a look here. It uses a LM324N quad OpAmp at the heart of the project. “The box I put the generator in is an old radio transcever box that already had the BNC Bulkhead attached, this was good for me as I

Warm Nixie Tube Clock

Remember the Nixie Clock with LED Accents that we featured last year? Well our friend Muris has made a new version with lots of updates. “Important hardware changes between this new version and the previous one are: – Timekeeping is more accurate and is done by DS3231 (or DS3232) RTC IC – There is no DS18S20 temperature sensor – the internal one of RTC IC is used instead – Backup

Aurora RGB LED Ring Project

If you like LED projects as much as I do you will love the Aurora RGB LED Ring Project from The LED Artist. For so many LEDs the color changing is very smooth, the board layout is very nice with just a small center area left for the few surface mount components needed to run the show. Aki has been kind enough to share the schematic for the project but

Pool Playing Robot

This Pool Playing Robot is one heck of a project! Not quite a robot that you could walk into a random pool hall with since the cameras are mounted above the pool table but I still think you would be able to win a few wagers with it. “Thomas Nierhoff, a masters student at Technische Universität München (TUM), used a human-sized mobile robot with dual 7-DOF arms that’s able to