Congratulation to Peter D. who was the winner last week. The first prize this week is a 2.5″ PATA hard disk enclosure that allows you to take your data on the road. Just slide in a drive (not included) and plug into your USB port. I use thumb drives a lot but quite often I am left using FTP to transfer files, this would certainly solve that problem. A mini
Benjamin Tang and Rishi Ramchand are Cornell University students who made an Autonomous Blimp as their final project in the ECE 476 Microcontroller Design course. The project uses a GP2Y0D340 IR sensor to see if there is an obstacle in the way that needs to be maneuvered around. That IR sensor looks to be the type that is normally found in the automatic water taps that are found in most
I could just imagine seeing a large data entry center using rows of these Think Lights! The light plugs into the USB port and measures how quickly the user is typing on the keyboard. The faster the user types the brighter the bulb gets, no productivity means no light. Video after the jump. “Features: # The faster you type, the brighter the light # Great for practicing your typing skill
The Microsoft Milan Surface Computing system represents 5 years of development. We have seen similar demonstrations in the past, the SensitiveWall Towers and Ultimate Gaming Touch Screen come to mind. The Microsoft system looks more refined however new product demos always look great… Videos after the jump. “At its core, Milan is powered by a fairly standard high-end Vista PC with an off-the-shelf graphics card, 3GHz Pentium 4 processor and
This robot arm uses potentiometers to determine where the human arm is and then a servo controls the robot arm to match the position. “Each joint on the master arm is a potentiometer(a variable resistor). A joystick port basically checks the resistance. By itself, this resistance means nothing, so I wrote a little routine that converts a resistance into an angle that the servos can understand. To do this
Eight bit microcontrollers can get some real work done but the Parallax Propeller chip puts most microcontrollers to shame. The Parallax Propeller boasts eight – 32 bit processors on one chip! This example of Manic Miner running on the Propeller is an example of the power this chip wields. Hook up a TV, keyboard and a handful of components and you are ready to get your game on! If you
There are tons of hacks floating around the net these days that claim you can open vehicle doors using various methods. I haven’t tried any of them, and I am skeptical of most of them. I am sure that most of them use some tricks like a second person manning a second key fob, pressing it at the right moment. The only one that seems technically feasible is the cell
