Tech Writer

DIY Home Automation - using Voice activated commands
Crazy Hacks

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  Check out this wonderful project that you can use to automate your home using voice commands without spending big bucks. To build this, you will only require few popularly used components like: a VRbot voice recognition module an AVR ATtiny2313 a 433MHz RF send module low-cost wireless light swiches (or relays)  VRBot speech recognition module is basically the core of this project. It recognizes 32 custom voice commands.  Once a command is recognized,

Cost-effective replacement for CdS Light Sensor
Cool Gadgets

  CdS (Cadmium Sulfide) photo-resistors are fairly cheap and widely used light detectors. Since CdS cells contains Cadmium, a toxic heavy metal, has now become hard to find. The reason is because of the RoHS directive. Electronics-lab has reported an excellent alternative for CdS that is more versatile and cost-effective. The idea is that when you are building a micro-controller based circuit such as a PIC or Arduino, then you can use a simple LED

Sensing 3D surfaces with Gelsight
Cool Gadgets

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  GelSight, a new 3D surface sensing material can be used to visualize and measure surfaces. Zedomax member reports that GelSight is a pretty top-notch stuff that can detail at even microscopic levels. “The optical property of the material is making it very complicated to see the surface structure”, said Johnson, co-founder of GelSight, Inc. For more information, you can read the paper presented at SIGGRAPH 2011 named: “Microgeometry Capture using

Crazy hacked Monitor looks Invisible unless you are wearing special Glasses
Complex Hacks

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  Instructables member Dimovi shares a wonderful hack where you can turn your old LCD monitor into a privacy monitor!  The crazy thing with this privacy monitor is that it  looks all white to everybody except you, because you are wearing “magic” glasses! People might think you are crazy, staring at a blank white screen wearing sunglasses! But I guess that makes it even more fun! Materials required for this build are: An

Crazy Walking Machine Project
Crazy Hacks

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  Have you ever heard of a walking machine made from bent wires and run by a single 1.5V AA battery wherein the motor and battery can rotate with crank? Hackolog member brought this amazing concept, where you can build your own walking machine just by using fewer components.  You can start by connecting the motor to the crank to which the wheels are fitted. Now when the wheels meet an obstruction the motor starts

Ultrafast Camera - capturing light particles moving through space
Complex Hacks

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  Researchers at MIT’s Media Lab have developed an imaging system that can capture visual data at a rate of 1 TFPS. With such a speed of visual data acquision, the researchers were able to create virtual super-slow-motion videos of light particles traveling and scattering through space. The technique to create the videos relies on what’s called a streak camera. The complete virtual slow-motion movies are created by stitching together each scan

Hacked Typewriter with Magical Effects
Crazy Hacks

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  Makezine in its blog reported that Yoonjo Choi has modernized her old typewriter by adding force sensors and monitor connectivity, so that her old photographs can now be flipped quickly through projection. The way in which her old photo displays on the monitor possesses a magical effect. The project draws attention to the photos in a way that a digital slideshow or picture frame cannot. The most amazing feature is that you can only see the photo