How would you like to know when your doorbell is pressed even when you are out of the house? If you have a camera system you could even see who is there and if you know them you might as well give them a call to let them know when you will be back in. 🙂 Martin’s Hobby Projects site has the details on the Wireless Doorbell sends SMS
Andy Rawson built an open hardware Thermal Imaging Device for use with Smart Phones (the code and details will be posted soon I am assuming). We have seen the commercial version of these Thermal Imaging Cameras used on home renovation shows to pinpoint insulation issues. As Andy mentions these cameras are much more than the average home owner could afford to spend to learn where his house is lacking
Seems that reverse engineering remote control toys is becoming quite popular. Last week we saw an RC toy car get hacked so it could be controlled by an Arduino. Kerry Wong recently completed a project where he reverse engineered a toy helicopter. Many inexpensive remote control toys use IR light to transmit commands instead or conventional RF signals which is what Kerry is dealing with in this project.
If you want to learn about microcontrollers in a classroom setting but don’t have the time (or money) to attend university lectures you are in luck. Bruce Land who teaches the popular ECE4760 Microcontrolle course has just posted the lecture videos online. This means you can get the benefit of this great Cornell course from the convenience of your own home and it will not cost you a cent.
Jon Bennett from JBProjects.net has just completed his latest creation. He purchased a cheap $9 remote control car, added a bit of electronics and now has a car that allows complete control using an Arduino. He has PWM control over the motors to give the car some refined control. All of the code has been made available so you could make your own.
Who said you need to upgrade your motherboard to get USB? Just buy this $100 adapter and magically upgrade your parallel port to USB. I wonder if it has drivers for the Windows 95 you have on the computer though. I guess another option would be to just purchase a used computer that has USB and 10 times the computing power for about half the price of the adapter.
I enjoy fishing and try to get out at least 2 or 3 times a year. Sometimes the fish are biting like crazy but other times they are just not very active. I think with a Underwater Exploration Vehicle like the Nøkken 3 ROV the fishing experience would be totally changed. I can imagine scouting the bottom of the river looking for the best spot and it would be
