2012

Name the Thing Contest – 211

    The prize this week is a credit card knife, it has a ton of features to get you out of a jam in a network closet or your next camping trip. This contest will run for one week (November 18 – 23, 2012). Ending time is based on central standard time. To enter, identify the item above and what it can be used for. Please do not give

POV Wheel Display for a Longboard

    A ATTiny24 is running the show here. This POV Wheel Display for a Longboard from ch00ftech looks like it took quite a bit of time to put together. Those tiny surface mount parts on the home made board must have taken a steady have to get right! There are more LEDs than microsontroller outputs but instead of using a serial to parallel  chip to do the work the

8x8x8 LED Cube

  If you have been listening to the latest episodes of The Amp Hour you have probably heard of Club Jameco. Chris from Pyroelectro has checkout it out, he purchased the 8X8X8 LED Cube to check it out.  It is Arduino based and looks like a well thought of design. If you decide to give it a try it looks like you will need to set aside a large amount

RoboBrrd by RobotGrrl

  We have seen RoboBrrd before but very soon you may be able to purchase your very own RoboBrrd kit! Check out this Indiegogo. If you can please support RobotGrrl (Erin Kennedy) in her quest to have this kit become reality since I can see this platform helping all sorts of youngsters get excited about electronics and mechanics. You can pledge as little as $1 and you will still get the warm

Name the Thing Contest – 210

  The prize this week is a credit card knife, it has a ton of features to get you out of a jam in a network closet or your next camping trip. This contest will run for one week (November 10 – 16, 2012). Ending time is based on central standard time. To enter, identify the item above and what it can be used for. Please do not give the

DIY Spot Welder

  Using a transformer for an old audio amp and a case made from an old computer power supply sure does make for a good looking DIY spot welder. It also has some smarts built in to detect when the welding electrode has been lowered to allow for a slight delay before the welding power is turned on. A pot is adjusted to change the actual weld time so you

Automated Dartboard Score Monitoring

  Dan sent in a cool Automated Dartboard Score Monitoring project that he just completed. It is based around a dartboard that already has a ton of smarts built into it. The cheap ($15) dartboard has built in sensors that can detect what score area was hit and keeps track of the score on a built in LCD screen. How can this system be made better? Well you could install