Many power tools have the potential to cause serious harm, but few are as dangerous as table saws. But table saws are also indispensable for woodworking, which means that people are willing to risk their fingers to use them. There is a manufacturer called SawStop that builds table saws that automatically stop the blade if they detect flesh. Unfortunately for hobbyists, SawStop table saws start at around $900 for even the most compact models. After receiving a free table saw from a friend, Ruth Amos decided to add DIY SawStop-style finger protection on a friendlier budget.
SawStop table saws have braking systems built to work with special blades. They use capacitive touch sensing, just like a touch-sensitive button, to detect when a finger (or any other body part) touches the blade. When that happens, it deploys the brakes and brings the blade to stop in just a few milliseconds. As SawStop advertisements love to demonstrate, the blade stops before it can do more than knick a finger. The emergency brakes destroy SawStop blades, but that’s a small price to pay to save a finger. Amos’s DIY safety precaution works in a similar manner, but without destroying the blade.
Amos used an Arduino Uno for the capacitive touch sensing. Originally she attempted to use a spring-loaded metal bar to stop the blade, but found that to be inadequate because it didn’t work fast enough. Then she came across electric PTO (power take-off) clutches for lawn mowers. Those perform the same function as clutches in cars: to engage and disengage a mechanical linkage. But unlike a car’s clutch, which operates with springs or hydraulics, a lawn mower PTO clutch operates electrically.
In a normal configuration, a clutch provides gradual engagement between a driven shaft and an output shaft. But in this setup, the clutch is fixed in place. In the disengaged position, it allows the blade to rotate as usual. In the engaged position, it acts like a strong brake. The Arduino only needs to fully engage the electric clutch when it detects a touch. In tests, this braking system seemed to work very well and it should save fingers if they ever touch the blade. But we do need to stress caution if you attempt to build something similar yourself, because there is a lot of danger here.
Auf euch wartet wieder eine riesige Auswahl an spannenden Spielen zu absoluten Knallerpreisen: Vom 20. Juli bis zum 17. August laufen dieSommerangebote 2022 im PlayStation Store, mit bis zu 90 % Rabatt auf ausgewählte Games. Wenn ihr noch ein paar gute Tipps für den Einkauf braucht, schaut euch doch diese acht Spiele unter 15 Euro an.
ACT IT OUT! Ein Scharadespiel
Beginnen wir unsere Empfehlungen mit dem perfekten Spiel für die nächste on- und offline Party. Bei ACT IT OUT! geht es darum, einen Begriff zu beschreiben, der von euren Mitspielern erraten werden soll. Wie ihr das macht, das bleibt euch überlassen. Ihr könnt wortreiche Umschreibungen finden, eine Zeichnung machen oder auch aus vollem Hals singen, Hauptsache der gesuchte Begriff wird nicht genannt. Die spaßige Scharade der Partyspiel-Spezialisten von Snap Finger Click spielt ihr mit bis zu acht Teilnehmern und beinhaltet mehr als 1500 Begriffe aus den Bereichen Film, Musik und Videospiele.
Deadlight: Director’s Cut
So habt ihr eine Zombie-Apokalypse garantiert noch nicht erlebt: In Tequila Works emotionalem Deadlight: Director’s Cut übernehmt ihr die Rolle des ehemaligen Polizisten Randall Wayne, der nach dem Ausbruch einer verhängnisvollen Seuche durch Seattle hetzt, um seine Familie zu finden. Im Vordergrund steht dabei eure Geschicklichkeit, denn es gilt den schemenhaft dargestellten Zombies durch Klettereinlagen und Sprünge zu entfliehen, immer wieder Umgebungsrätsel zu lösen und dabei auf keinen Fall eure Ausdaueranzeige aus den Augen zu verlieren. In allergrößter Not greift ihr zu Schlag- oder Schusswaffen, aber Weglaufen ist meist der bessere Weg. Die einzigartige Optik der in Schatten getauchten Areale sowie das stimmungsvolle Sounddesign sorgen für eine bedrohliche Atmosphäre, die euch garantiert packen wird.
Kingdom: New Lands
Ihr möchtet eine Aufbausimulation mit Tiefgang, habt aber nicht die Zeit oder Lust, euch erst in ein komplexes Menüsystem einzuarbeiten und hunderte von Optionen abzuwägen? Dann dürfte Kingdom: New Lands genau das richtige für euch sein. In der herrlich unkompliziert zu bedienenden Retro Pixellook-Simulation baut ihr auf Inseln ein eigenes Fantasy-Reich. Dazu sammelt ihr das nötige Kapital ein und weist eure Handwerker, Jäger sowie Landwirte an, Gebäude zu errichten, Nahrungsmittel anzubauen und die wachsenden Siedlungen gegen gefährliche Kreaturen zu verteidigen. Klingt überschaubar, ist es auch – allerdings müssen alle Entscheidungen genau überdacht werden, sonst geht euch schnell das Geld aus und steht dem nächsten Monsterangriff wehrlos gegenüber oder die Menschen darben. Ziel ist es, ein Schiffswrack wieder zu reparieren und sich auf den Weg auf die nächste, größere, Insel zu machen.
Old Man’s Journey
Wir schämen uns nicht, dass wir bei dem melancholischen Puzzle-Adventure Old Man’s Journey des Indie-Studios Broken Rules mehrfach feuchte Augen bekommen haben. Die völlig entspannt erzählte Geschichte eines alten Mannes, der in den Erinnerungen seines langen Lebens schwelgt und dabei sämtliche Höhen und Tiefen Revue passieren lässt, dürfte wohl niemanden unberührt lassen. Durch das Lösen von ebenso entspannten Umgebungsrätseln folgt ihr dem Lebensweg des Protagonisten, dessen hoffnungsvollen und niederschmetternden Momente in einzelnen Episoden erzählt werden.
Plague Inc: Evolved
Uns hat es schon ordentlich gegruselt, als wir zum ersten Mal die Seuchen-Simulation Plague Inc: Evolved ausprobiert haben und feststellten, wie schnell ein Krankheitserreger die gesamte Welt infizieren und die Menschheit ausrotten kann. Glücklicherweise nur rein virtuell, aber die Entwickler von Ndemic Creations nutzen für die Darstellung der Verbreitung ein authentisches System, von dem sogar das CDC, die amerikanische Behörde für Disease Control and Prevention, begeistert ist. Infiziert mit zehn unterschiedlichen Krankheitserregern Patient Null, verbreitet die Seuche so schnell es geht rund um den Erdball und überlebt als Virus alles, was die Menschheit zur Verteidigung entwickelt.
The Bard’s Tale: Remastered and Resnarkled
Dass nicht immer der edle Ritter in strahlender Rüstung der Protagonist eines erfolgreichen Fantasy-Rollenspiels sein muss, das beweist eindrucksvoll der Klassiker The Bard’s Tale. In dem epischen Abenteuer übernehmt ihr die Rolle eines egoistischen Barden, der sich nicht um entführte Prinzessinnen oder von Monstern bedrohte Bauern schert, sondern nur sein eigenes Wohl und einen immer gut gefüllten Geldbeutel im Sinn hat. Es ist ein Scherz des Schicksals, dass euer Antiheld ausgerechnet in einen Rettungsversuch für eine Prinzessin hineingezogen wird und sich als Retter beweisen muss. Oder vielleicht doch nicht? Das entscheidet ihr. Die Neuauflage The Bard’s Tale: Remastered and Resnarkled wurde nicht nur optisch überarbeitet, sondern mit noch mehr witzigen Sprüchen und schnippischen Bemerkungen versorgt. Gut 30 Stunden beste RPG-Unterhaltung für nicht mal zwei Euro, wenn das kein gutes Angebot ist?
The Darkside Detective: A Fumble in the Dark
Im zweiten Abenteuer des gar nicht mal so dynamischen Duos Detective McQueen und seines leicht beschränkten Partners Officer Dooley geht es erneut um Straftaten im Bereich des Übernatürlichen. In Twin Lake City ist die normale Kriminalitätsrate zwar nicht sonderlich hoch, aber aus einer höllischen Spiegelwelt kommt es immer wieder zu Besuchen von Tentakelmonstern und anderen gruseligen Kreaturen. Als Darkside Detective ermittelt ihr nun wieder in einem umwerfend witzigen und mit zahllosen Anspielungen auf Point-and-Click-Adventures gespickten Pixel-Abenteuer und löst hoffentlich alle sieben Fälle.
UNO
Zu einem gemütlichen Spieleabend im Freundes- oder Familienkreis gehören eigentlich immer auch einige Partien UNO. Das klassische Kartenspiel bietet in der digitalen Version für PlayStation noch mehr Möglichkeiten, so spielt ihr alleine oder in 2 vs. 2-Duellen, stellt eure eigenen Hausregeln auf oder spielt mit neuen, spannenden Decks, die spezielle Karten für besondere Aktionen enthalten.
Stimmt für die Summer Sale Awards ab
Jetzt seid ihr gefragt: Welche Spiele aus den Sommerangeboten stehen bei euch ganz oben auf der Wunschliste und haben eine Auszeichnung verdient? Wählt aus den folgenden Kategorien euren Top-Favoriten, wir sind schon ganz gespannt, welche Games gewinnen werden. Wenn ihr ein Spiel in der Auswahl vermisst, dann schreibt uns gerne euren ganz persönlichen Hit-Kandidaten in die Kommentare.
An omni wheel, sometimes referred to by the more specific trade name “Mecanum” wheel, is a unique type of wheel with “tread” made up of several rollers oriented at an angle relative to the wheel’s spin direction. They allow for forward driving like any other wheel, but also sideways and rotational locomotion depending on the vectoring of all of a vehicle’s wheels working in concert. James Bruton used omni wheels on many of his robots in the past and in his most recent project he equipped a go-kart with an omni wheel for endless drifting.
The go-kart has three drive motors. Two Hoverboard-style hub motor/wheel combos sit at the front of the go-kart on a steering rack. They provide normal front-wheel drive dynamics. But at the back of the go-kart there is a large omni wheel oriented perpendicular to the front wheels (at their neutral position). That means that the omni wheel’s rollers are inline with the vehicle. Those rollers spin freely, so the go-kart drives normally. But when Bruton spins the omni wheel motor, the rear end of the go-kart slides out in a drifting maneuver.
To coordinate the power going to each of the three motors, Bruton used an Arduino Uno board for torque vectoring. The driver controls the spin direction of the omni wheel using a pair of e-bike throttles mounted to the steering wheel. They also control the speed of the front two Hoverboard motors using an accelerator pedal with a Hall effect sensor. All three motors receive power through large ESCs (electronic speed controllers), but the Arduino is necessary to calculate how much power each motor receives. For example, if the driver pushes both e-bike throttles, the Arduino will check to see which throttle is turned further and then tell the omni wheel’s motor to spin in the corresponding direction.
As you can see in Bruton’s videos, this setup worked quite well. The go-kart drifted easily anytime Bruton wanted. It was a bit tippy, because there is only one wheel in the back, but Bruton says that the addition of a second wheel would solve that problem.
This coffee machine lets you know when you’ve had too much caffeine
Arduino Team — July 21st, 2022
You’ve probably heard that caffeine is a drug. That is true and it is possible to overdose on caffeine and die. Heathline reports that a lethal dose of caffeine is around 10 grams. But a typical cup of coffee only contains around 100-200 milligrams of caffeine, so you’d have to drink at least 50 cups to reach a lethal amount. However, some coffee, such as from Death Wish Coffee Co, contains much more caffeine and that makes it easier to overdose. With that in mind, Michael Pick used an Arduino to build a custom coffee machine.
According to Pick, Death Wish coffee contains up to 728mg of caffeine per 12oz cup. Theoretically, that makes it possible for a person to drink enough coffee to overdose on caffeine. There aren’t many people out there who drink that much coffee, so this project is entirely tongue-in-cheek. But it is still fun to see an actual progress meter counting up to your death with every cup of joe that you brew. That is exactly what Pick’s coffee machine does. It tracks each cup of coffee brewed and displays the caffeine overdose progress on a small OLED screen attached to the front of the coffee machine.
Pick started with a basic Keurig K-Express coffee machine that features single-button operation. He connected an Arduino Uno to that button to count each press. The Arduino’s sketch tracks the number of button presses and calculates the “Death Percentage,” which is based on 20 cups of 8oz each. It then shows that percentage on the OLED. Pick mounted the Arduino inside the Keurig’s enclosure and 3D-printed a custom front cover that houses the display. With this hardware, Pick now has a coffee machine that will tell him if he is going to die.
In 2020, for the first time since the ’80s, vinyl records outsold CDs. Digital music — particularly streaming — outpaced both by a wide margin, but the popularity of vinyl records increased while the popularity of CDs decreased. That’s because the analog sound of vinyl adds a dimension that many find pleasing and because there is something appealing about the tangible act of putting on a record. In a fun twist, students at LDLC School in France came up with a new way to put a record on: by inserting the record cover instead of the vinyl.
Students Ibrahima, Scott, Antoine and Arthur came across an old Arduino project that their teacher, Jean Noël, created years ago. He converted a “slot-in” record player to accept record sleeves instead of vinyl. But it would still play the correct music, thanks to RFID. An RFID tag on the record sleeve would trigger an Arduino inside the record player to queue up the correct playlist on an SD card. The Arduino would then play the music through an Adafruit Music Maker MP3 shield connected to a 7W mono amplifier.
In keeping with Hackaday’s Hack it Back contest, the students decided to revive their teacher’s project. While the general concept and much of the hardware remained, the students made a few improvements. They added an RGB LCD display that shows information about the current music and also rewrote the Arduino sketch to make it easier to update playlists without reflashing the Uno. If they win the Hackaday contest, the student team plans to develop a hardware kit that will make it easy for others to tackle similar RFID music projects.
CNC machines (both CNC mills and CNC routers) are very useful to makers. With them, you can fabricate custom wood, plastic, or metal parts to the exact dimensions that you define in a CAD (computer-aided design) model. But CNC routers are expensive and CNC mills capable of cutting metal are even pricier—to the point where they are out of the reach of most makers. However, if you have a 3D printer, time, and a modest budget, you can build Ivan Miranda’s CNC mill from scratch.
Miranda designed several CNC routers and mills over the years. Like those, this is possible to build using common materials and doesn’t require any special tools except a 3D printer. Its frame is a combination of sturdy, yet affordable, aluminum extrusion and 3D-printed joints. The various hardware, like linear rails, belts, and bearings, is similar to what you would find on a 3D printer. That keeps costs down and makes the parts easy to find.
To control the stepper motors for the machine’s three axes, Miranda’s design calls for an Arduino Uno board paired with a Grbl-compatible CNC shield. It will accept g-code commands from a connected computer via the Serial port and will coordinate the movement of the motors. This mill uses a handheld Makita router for the spindle motor, so there is no need for spindle control provisions.
This machine will easily cut wood and can also handle soft metals, such as aluminum. That capability can do a lot to extend a maker’s fabrication abilities.
Bears on tricycles aside, animals are not very good at piloting vehicles. But maybe that is because we haven’t given them controls that suit their thumbless bodies. If a vehicle had controls adapted to a particular animal’s anatomy, could they drive? Back in 2019, researchers at the University of Richmond found that rats could. Inspired by that study, this Instructables user built their own RatCar with touch-sensitive steering.
This RatCar relies on classic behavioral principles established by B.F. Skinner throughout the mid-20th century. Through positive reinforcement, many animals can learn to perform simple tasks. In the case of the RatCar, the tasks are touching one of three touch-sensitive copper meshes that cause the vehicle to move forward, turn right, or turn left. A rat can learn to operate the vehicle through reinforcement training as they receive treats for their actions.
This RatCar consists of a generic robot car chassis paired with an Arduino Uno board. The Uno controls the robot’s two drive motors through an Adafruit Motor Shield v2.3. The rat sits inside of a one-gallon clear plastic container with the three copper mesh panels in front of it. The panels connect to the Arduino through an Adafruit Capacitive Touch Sensor board. The sketch tells the RatCar to move forward, left, or right depending on which panel senses a touch from the rat.
With the hardware ready, everything was in place to ensure the rat’s driving success. From there, it was a matter of using treats to teach the rat what would happen when it touched each panel. Both the university study and this project seem to indicate that rats enjoy the driving experience once they grasp the concept.
Normally, robotic arms are controlled by a GUI running on a host PC, or with some kind of analog system that maps human inputs to various degrees of rotation. However, Instructables user Maurizio Miscio was able to build a custom robotic arm that is completely self-contained — thanks to companion mobile app that resides on an old smartphone housed inside a control box.
Miscio started his project by making 3D models of each piece, most of which were 3D-printed. These included the gripper, various joints that each give a single axis of rotation, and a large circular base that acts as a stable platform on which the arm can spin. He then set to work attaching five servo motors onto each rotational axis, along with a single SG90 micro servo motor for the gripper. These motors were connected to an Arduino Uno that also had an HC-05 Bluetooth® serial module for external communication.
In order to operate the arm, Miscio developed a mobile app with the help of MIT App Inventor, which presents the user with a series of buttons that rotate a particular servo motor to the desired degree. The app even lets a series of motion be recorded and “played back” to the Uno over Bluetooth for repeated, accurate movements.
Traditional control of RC cars and other small vehicles has typically relied on some kind of joystick-based solution, often with one for adjusting direction and the other for speed. But YouTuber James Bruton wanted to do something different: make a rideable go-kart that is entirely driven with one’s voice.
His solution is based around Deepgram’s speech recognition service, which enables users to send small snippets of audio samples up to its cloud via an API and receive replies with a transcript of what was said.
As for the kart itself, its chassis was created by first welding together several steel tubes and attaching a based of thick plywood on top. The front cutout allows for a large caster wheel to spin left or right with the aid of a chain driven by a repurposed windshield wiper motor assembly. Absolute positioning of this wheel was achieved by measuring the voltage of a potentiometer that spins along with the chain.
And finally, a pair of hub motor wheels, akin to the ones found on hoverboards and scooters, were placed at the rear for propulsion. Each motor was connected to its specific driver, and in turn, were connected to an Arduino Uno.
When the user wishes to move a certain direction or change their speed. They simply have to speak into the accompanying USB microphone.
That lets a Raspberry Pi receive a transcript and pass a command to the Arduino.
As seen in the video below, Bruton’s voice-controlled go-kart is a blast to use, albeit a bit dangerous too.
Deepgram has a speech recognition API that lets developers get fast and accurate transcripts for both pre-recorded and live audio. Deepgram has a whole set of SDKs to make it even easier to get started in your language of choice. Features include profanity filtering, redaction, and individual speaker detection to make your transcripts as useful as possible. Deepgram can be run locally or using the Deepgram cloud service. I’m going to be using the cloud service with this Raspberry Pi computer to control some hardware. But first I need to build something!
Instructables users Monserrath Velasco and Santiago Guerra have created an LED matrix that not only features classic Pac-Man characters, but also shows the current ambient temperature by coding it as the Ghost’s color which ranges from blue (cold) to red (hot).
The matrix itself was fashioned out of several WS2812B LED strips, which contain a total of 71 individually-addressable LEDs. After soldering them together using some wire and gluing them to a cardboard backing, the team connected the strip to an Arduino Uno along with a BME280 environmental sensing module. The final component was a single momentary pushbutton switch that gives users the option to change between the Ghost and Pac-Man figures.
With the hardware now assembled, Velasco and Guerra then moved onto the next step of constructing a small enclosure. This process involved slotting strips of cardboard into a matrix configuration and covering the entire thing in white translucent paper in order to diffuse the light. Buil;ding the housing required cutting small notches into another square of cardboard, attaching four side panels to each edge, and then placing the matrix onto the front face.
After loading the code into the Arduino, it was finally time to see the illuminated sprites in all of their glory. Pressing the side button begins the Pac-Man animation, while subsequent presses cause the matrix to switch to displaying the temperature-sensitive Ghost. You can read more about this project here on Instructables.
A common question asked by new makers is “what is the difference between a microcontroller development board and a single-board computer?” Or, in more common terms, “what is the difference between an Arduino and a Raspberry Pi?” There are many technical differences, but people are really asking about why you would use one over the other. The answer, in most cases, is that you use an Arduino to handle low-level control of sensors, motors, and so on, and you use a Raspberry Pi for computing processor-intensive tasks. If, however, you need both, then MrDemonFrog’s Minecraft-controlled LED array illustrates how to do so.
MrDemonFrog’s project is simple. The hardware consists of an Arduino Uno board and four LEDs: red, blue, green, and amber. Those LEDs light up depending on what the player looks at inside of Minecraft. MrDemonFrog built a special map to demonstrate this. It has four huge walls in those primary colors. If the player looks at the red wall, then the red LED illuminates. The same is true for the other colors.
This project is interesting because it shows how users can combine the power of a computer (including a Raspberry Pi) with Arduino’s ability to interface with hardware components. MrDemonFrog utilizes a Python script and OpenCV to detect the color in front of the Minecraft player. Once it determines the color, it sends a command to the Arduino through the Serial communications port. Instead of the Arduino making decisions on its own, as you probably experienced in beginner tutorials, it offloads that decision-making to the computer and simply acts as an interface for the low-level hardware (the LEDs).
Art is a strange thing. Sometimes its purpose is purely aesthetic. Sometimes it makes a statement. And sometimes it exists to disturb. Kinetic art is no different and some robots fall into this category. Graham Asker’s art elicits pondering on the relationship between humans and robots, as well as the relationships between different robots. But as Brenda, a classical-style automaton, demonstrates, Asker’s art can also induce nightmares.
Brenda and her companion Brian are strange, bodiless robots designed to mimic the aesthetics of automatons from myth and history. Each robot is a construction of beautiful brass, mechanical joints, linkages, and cables. Servos hidden inside the bases of the robots actuate the various joints, giving Brenda and Brian the ability to emote. Most of their “facial” movement is in their eyes. Lifelike eyeballs look around from within heavy eyelids, while pivoting eyebrows help to convey expressions.
Arduino boards, also hidden within the robots’ bases, control the servos that actuate the joints. Asker programmed the Sketches with a variety of different servo movements that correspond to facial expressions and eye movements. Brenda even received lips, so she can smile – or frown. Both robots’ bases rotate, so the robots can turn to look at their surroundings. Brenda and Brian do not have any communications hardware and so they can’t interact with each other, but Asker can sync their pre-coded movements to create the illusion that they do.
Asker, who is a retired engineer with a Master’s degree in fine art, displayed Brenda at London’s Espacio Gallery and on the Walthamstow Art Trail.
Inspired by his time as a scorekeeper in elementary school, now-high schooler Collin Wentzien wanted to recreate this setup by building a DIY scoreboard several years ago. His idea involved making a bright display composed of several seven-segment displays that could all be controlled by an external device in order to set scores, start/stop the clock, and more.
The controller sits inside of a small custom box that contains a pair of button matrices, which either increment the score for the home/guest team or provides a keypad that can be used to enter numerical values and set the clock. Below its custom PCB is an Arduino Mega 2560 that handles all of the button inputs, along with a character LCD for showing what has been entered and an nRF24L01+ wireless transceiver for sending new data to the scoreboard.
Originally, Wentzien had planned on using hundreds of individual LEDs, but due to the resulting wiring complexity, instead opted for a single string of WS2812B LEDs which were not only cheaper, but also allowed for fun animations and colors. Similar to the controller, the scoreboard houses an Arduino Uno as well as an nRF24L01+ in order to receive the commands. Best of all, the it even features a loud horn that can be used to signal the start and end of each quarter.
To see how Wentzien built this highly interactive project, you can read his write-up here on Hackster.io or watch his video below!
Some things, like voltage, are very easy to measure. Other things, like the chemical composition of a compound? Not so much. Emissions from internal combustion engines are one of those things that are hard to measure. But Janis Alnis needed a way to measure his diesel soot emissions so he could pass inspections in his home country of Latvia. So he used an Arduino, spectroscopy expertise, and some plumbing hardware to build his own Diesel Car Exhaust Smoke Meter.
As luck would have it, Alnis is a lead researcher at the Institute of Atomic Physics and Spectroscopy of the University of Latvia. That means that he knows his stuff when it comes to spectroscopy, which is a field that uses light for analysis of different materials—including gases like diesel exhaust. In this case, he needed to measure how much soot was in the exhaust, which would let him know if his catalytic converter was warmed up and working well enough to pass inspection.
To do so, he built his own spectrometer that works in the same manner as the AVL DiSmoke 280 commercial instrument that the inspectors use. It consists of a light source and a photodetector at opposite ends of a 21.5cm long tube. When diesel exhaust fills the tube, the light that reaches the photodetector will dim proportionally with the soot in the exhaust.
Alnis made the analysis tube using brass plumbing pipes. At each end is a custom-cut glass window. A small LED flashlight acts as the light source and an Arduino Uno board measures the strength of the light through an OPT101 photodiode with built-in amplifier. Power comes from three 18650 LiPo battery cells and the Arduino displays data readings on a 128×64 LCD screen.
With this device in hand, Alnis was able to measure his diesel emissions and determine when they were below the threshold required to pass inspections.
Modern humans have forgone their tails in favor of walking upright, and this fact left maker Pengfei Zhang wondering what it would be like to have such an appendage. From this idea, she along with Sarvenaz Sardari and Xi Peng created the Cyber Tail, which integrates embedded electronics into a small device that moves with its wearer.
The Cyber Tail’s design revolves around a central base that houses a set of four servo motors. In order to move the tail in various directions, each servo motor can either pull or release a single string, which causes the tail itself to bend, akin to how a finger works except in four possible directions. The Arduino Uno controlling these motions relies on an external IR sensor within a pair of glasses that detects whenever the user blinks.
If a blink is recognized, two of the servo motors move in opposite directions to bend the tail in a particular way, and if a blink is not present, then they move in the other direction. Lastly, the MPU-6050’s accelerometer is read and used to compute the angles for the other two servo motors that also bend the tail. Put together, these three steps allow the Cyber Tail to move in a myriad of different ways.
About 25 million years ago, our ancestors lost their tails during the evolution, to better adapt the the environment. As we are now living in the digital age, our bodies are evolving together with the cyber world. What would a cybernetic tail bring to our daily life?
For more information on this project, be sure to read the team’s write-up here on Instructables or watch their video below!
Pen plotting projects are everywhere nowadays, with the vast majority using a couple of stepper motors for moving the writing utensil and a servo to raise or lower it. But they are quite slow due to the lack of rigid assembly and because the servo motor takes around a second to move the pen. This problem is what drove YouTuber IV Projects to create a very novel design that swaps out the servo for another stepper motor and drastically increases drawing speed.
Just like most other pen plotters, the X-axis is driven by a NEMA17 stepper motor with a timing belt attached to the central pen carriage. However, the Y-axis takes a different approach by relying on a pair of rollers that are covered in 120-grit sanding bands, which help to grab the paper securely and move it whenever the stepper motor rotates the drive wheel. This helps to minimize slipping compared to rubber rollers and is much faster than a belt-driven design.
Perhaps the most interesting aspect of this plotter is the lack of a servo motor for lifting the pen during travel movements. At the top sits one more NEMA17 stepper that spins upwards or downwards to lift a paddle which, in turn, raises the pen off the paper. Controlling the three motors is an Arduino Uno running the GRBL firmware that receives G-code and transforms it into physical movements.
You can watch IV Projects’ video to below see the design in more detail.
Nearly everyone is familiar with the mercury thermometer and how it uses the expansion of the element to display ambient temperatures. But in Instructables member TurboSnail’s latest project, they attempted to turn this concept on its head by making a thermometer that uses the iconic Freddie Mercury to show the temperature without the need for the toxic liquid metal.
The plan for this project involved a quite simple circuit. An Arduino Nano Every would read the current temperature and humidity levels using an Adafruit AHT20 sensor module and map them to Freddie’s arms and a set of LEDs, respectively. To help reduce current consumption in this battery-powered display, the servo motor only receives power when a transistor is switched on by the microcontroller for brief periods of time.
After assembling the circuit and getting the code to work, TurboSnail then moved their attention to designing a cool-looking PCB that features the dial face complete with temperatures and sayings, a smaller humidity scale at the bottom, and a large silkscreen figure of Freddie along with pads on the back for soldering the larger components. Freddie’s arm was 3D-printed and attached to the micro servo motor while the Nano Every was replaced by a lower-power DIY Uno board. Last of all, the PCB was fitted inside of a custom wooden enclosure and switched on.
To see more about the Mercury Thermometer, you can read TurboSnail’s write-up here on Instructables or watch the demo video below!
Nearly everyone is familiar with the mercury thermometer and how it uses the expansion of the element to display ambient temperatures. But in Instructables member TurboSnail’s latest project, they attempted to turn this concept on its head by making a thermometer that uses the iconic Freddie Mercury to show the temperature without the need for the toxic liquid metal.
The plan for this project involved a quite simple circuit. An Arduino Nano Every would read the current temperature and humidity levels using an Adafruit AHT20 sensor module and map them to Freddie’s arms and a set of LEDs, respectively. To help reduce current consumption in this battery-powered display, the servo motor only receives power when a transistor is switched on by the microcontroller for brief periods of time.
After assembling the circuit and getting the code to work, TurboSnail then moved their attention to designing a cool-looking PCB that features the dial face complete with temperatures and sayings, a smaller humidity scale at the bottom, and a large silkscreen figure of Freddie along with pads on the back for soldering the larger components. Freddie’s arm was 3D-printed and attached to the micro servo motor while the Nano Every was replaced by a lower-power DIY Uno board. Last of all, the PCB was fitted inside of a custom wooden enclosure and switched on.
To see more about the Mercury Thermometer, you can read TurboSnail’s write-up here on Instructables or watch the demo video below!
If you’ve ever stuck a balloon to your head, you know that static energy is powerful enough to overcome gravity. It is also possible to produce that energy on demand by running electrical current through some materials, including metalized Mylar sheets. In a recent project from Carnegie Mellon University’s Future Interfaces Group, researchers utilized this effect to inflate 3D Mylar forms.
As demonstrated in the ElectriPop video, cutting a slit into a sheet of metalized Mylar will cause it to separate when electricity passes through. This is electrostatic energy causing the two flaps to repel each other. Similarly, the same force can cause the Mylar to lift and stand up as it repels from a charged base. By cutting complex shapes and patterns into Mylar sheets, the researchers were able to create 3D forms that come to life when they apply electricity.
To apply that electricity when needed, the team built a device controlled by an Arduino Uno board. This is essentially a miniature Van de Graaff generator. With this device, the researchers can also control the voltage going through the Mylar sheets. That lets them introduce motion so they can animate their 3D forms. One possible use case is a cheap, animated visual notifier. But the more likely market potential is in greeting cards. This ElectriPop technology would enable exciting new pop-up greeting cards at a cost similar to the musical cards already available today.
When it comes to driving a car, one must always be on alert for possible obstacles and other drivers in the next lane over for changing lanes. But because older vehicles that lack built-in blind spot detection or parking sensors would require quite pricey upgrades, Redditor cisco_s_spedgang decided to make a DIY distance sensing system for far cheaper.
The idea was to take a total of six HC-SR04 ultrasonic sensors and place them around a vehicle, with two on either side, one at the front, and one at the back. From here, the connected Arduino Uno gets the distance measurements and performs several checks based on the resulting values as well as show a corresponding red LED for when the car gets too close to something else. Upon hitting the turn indicator stock for signaling a lane change, the blind spot assistance system will see if there is another vehicle on the same side as the turn signal and sound a loud alarm if it’s unsafe to cross over.
In its current form, this Arduino-based setup relies on a series of wires that span the entire length of the car, although cisco_s_spedgang does plan on tidying things up in the future. To see more about how this project works, you can read its post here on Reddit.
Back in 1980, the video game Battlezone was released, and it marked a major advancement in the world of computer graphics since it was the first game with a 3D first-person perspective. In it, the player must pilot a tank around a battlefield and fire at targets in an attempt to rack up the highest score possible. So as a way to commemorate the groundbreaking game, Mark Wilson created an approximation that runs on an Arduino Uno.
Wilson has previous experience with vector graphics on embedded targets, as evidenced by his work on ElitePetite, an approximation of the loading screens from Acornsoft’s Elite game. Based on prior effort, he started the project by attempting to reverse engineer the original 6502 assembly and replicate its behavior. This process was a challenge owing to the complexity of the code, but after designing a clever sparse pixel encoding algorithm, the game could be completed, albeit with some minor graphical problems that appear when the game is being displayed on the attached 320×240 LCD shield.
Wilson’s LittleZone project is an impressive feat that showcases how 3D graphics with a first-person perspective can be generated. And although some features have not yet been implemented, it’s still a very well-done tribute to Battlezone.
For more details on how Wilson designed this project, be sure read his Hackaday.io write-up here and watch his demo below!
In the Star Wars Universe, the Jedi and Sith use The Force for battle and mayhem. But in the real world, people would use The Force for much more mundane everyday tasks. Obi Wan even does this in the prequel trilogy when he closes a door using the force. Star Wars fanatic Nick O’Hara leveraged an Arduino to replicate that trick.
Despite his wishes, O’Hara lacks the midochlorians to actually wield The Force. But he has technology and that is almost as good. Automatic doors are already a thing, but they conveniently open anytime someone walks up—whether or not they possess The Force. O’Hara wanted his door to only open when he waves his hand. To accomplish that, he needed two things: some way to recognize the hand wave gesture and a method for opening the door.
The door in question is quite heavy, but O’Hara had a beefy motor with a gearbox to increase the torque. That pulls the door open by reeling in a wire via a pulley. An Arduino Uno controls the motor through a driver board. It receives the command to open the door from a Raspberry Pi running gesture recognition software. The Raspberry Pi looks in front of the door through a webcam and sends the open command to the Arduino when it sees O’Hara wave his hand. It isn’t quite The Force, but it is as close as one can get in our universe.
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