We have seen single color LED detection before, fjordcarver has built a DIY Color Detection using an RGB LED that can detect the actual color of the object placed in front of the home made sensor. “For this sensor you will need a breadboard (not required, but it is how I will walk you through it.) an RGB LED (alternatively you could use 3 LEDs) A 220 ohm resistor A
Ben goes over some basics of CPLD and FPGAs. If you need a ton of power and a microcontroller just won’t cut it, it might be time to move up to a CPLD or an FPGA. Watch as Ben shows us some results of the first few Hello World like programs he runs on an Altera CPLD. Looks like there would be a steep learning curve to become proficient in
Thanks to Jeremy Lane from FastLane Technologies and Steve from Podnutz for inviting me onto the Podnutz show (episode 333). Podnutz is a podcast for Computer Repair Technicians. They were interested to hear first hand about the Global IT / Global PC Protection Scam. Wow I didn’t realize I said um and ah so much, I have to work on that…
Remember the game Breakout? These days with game controls like the Kinect who wants to use the old style joysticks anymore? ECE 5760 students Meng-Ling (Maxwell) Liu, Thu-Thao Nguyen and Yang Yang designed a game that they call HAND BREAKING BRICKS. They are using an FPGA to display the game on the monitor while it is also monitoring a Terasic CCD module which allows the game to “see” the location
Remember the geeky computer aquariums we featured about 5 years ago? Instead of using a computer case this XBOX 360 Aquarium uses a gaming console case. Thankfully the donor XBOX was a not working, if you think the window cut looks great that is because it was cut out using a waterjet. “The tank itself is made of glass, and is approximately 6″ long, 8″ tall, and 2.5″ wide. Water
If you have taken some CS courses you have no doubt seen Conway’s Game of Life, if you are a kit builder you have probably seen some nice Conway’s Game of Life kits also. Where the basic kit version has 16 elements Cornell University student Cooper Bills wanted to design a system that had 307,200 elements. What this boils down to is an incredible looking visual effect that requires a
This DIY Animated LED Christmas Display is sure to get you in the spirit of Christmas. The sign is built from 134 different colored LEDs, to make this happen some 74HC595 and 74HC14 chips are used. The sign is built to permanently display one message. I am thinking a great upgrade to this project would be to build it with LED matrix boards so it could be used to display
