 Rob Hemsleysent in this great hack that he did using the Crayola ColorStudio HD Pen. By swapping our the stock Microchip PIC 16F505 controller with a Attiny 44 (same pinouts) he is now able to make the $30 device operate as he would like. If you are interested in doing some hacking of your own have a look at the code which is available here. “The Crayola ColorStudio HD
 If you are a bike rider and hate wearing a helmet this Invisible Bike Helmet might be for you. I am not sure how sensitive it is, I am hoping a strong pat on the back doesn’t activate the sensor. 🙂 “Hövding is a bicycle helmet unlike any other currently on the market. It’s ergonomic, it’s practical, it complies with all the safety requirements, and it’s also subtle and
We have seen some pulse jet builds before but this Pulse Jet Kettle has to be once of the funniest builds I have ever seen. You can see the kettle in operation at the 3:20 mark of the first video. It has an added bonus of waking up everyone in the house to get ready to have a cup of tea. Via: Hackaday
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
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
 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
