Ben Heck shows us how he used an XBox 360 Chatpad as the keyboard input to a small computer. The Chatpad has only a few pins to connect to the external circuit (which is normally the XBox controller). Microsoft has been nice enough to provide a programming header on the circuit board. Ben flashes the integrated PIC chip with some custom firmware to allow the device to simply output
Check out this cool DIY Pandora Player called the PandoraBar that Jianyi Liu built. His inspiration was the Mighty Ohm radio that we saw back in 2009. The initial thought was to use a router as the main processor but in the end Jianyi used the Beagle Board since it had the processing power needed to run the device. The case looks great, and it looks like it works
If you enjoy biking this Open Source Smartbike project will be of interest to you. Luis Cruz who brought us Eyeboards last year is now enrolled in the University of New Orleans and has started this new project. Luis will make the code and schematics available in December so you could make your own. If you would prefer to buy one you could support his Indiegogo. “The Smartbike is
We have seen lots of these word clock builds. Our friend Muris has just completed his word clock build, he is using a ATmega328P microcontroller to command the 248 LED matrix to show the time and a little something special (watch the video at around the 32 second mark). Atmel AT42QT1011 touch sensors add a nice way to interface with the clock and I am impressed by the professional
Check out this cool tour through a speaker manufacturing plant. I am quite surprised to see how much manual labor is involved and how much wasted movement of parts and pieces goes on. With some thought behind the production line I think the process could be greatly simplified. Although with a high end, high price product I guess you don’t need to be as fast and efficient as other
Youtube user TopCityGear has really gone all out in this PVC Nerf Air Gun project. A used cordless drill provides the ergonomic handle for the gun, the trigger of the drill activates a sprinkler solenoid which releases the air and propels the projectile down range. I have always been surprised how well sprinkler valves work with high air pressures since it isn’t what they were designed for. The video
 John Baichtal from Make shared this cool Cocktail Making Machine that is based on the Arduino. Enjoying a great drink is one thing but watching it being made by this machine would be just as fun. The Inebriator isn’t open source as mentioned by John but I don’t think everything needs to be. It is nice when something is since everyone can see how it was done and
