Just like the garage computer explosion of the 70’s through the 80’s, which brought us such things as Apple, pong, Bill Gate’s hair, and the proliferation of personal computers, the maker movement is the new garage hardware explosion. Today, 135 million adults in the United States alone are involved in the maker movement.
Enthusiasts who want to build the products they want, from shortwave radios to personal computers, and to tweak products they’ve bought to make them even better, have long been a part of the electronics industry. By all measures, garage-style innovation remains alive and well today, as “makers” as they are called continue to turn out contemporary gadgets, including 3D printers, drones, and embedded electronics devices.
Making is about individual Do-It-Yourselfers being able to design and create with tools that were, as of a decade or two ago, only available to large, cash-rich corporations: CAD tools, CNC mills, 3D printers, low-quantity PCB manufacturing, open hardware such as Arduinos and similar inexpensive development boards – all items that have made it easier and relatively cheap to make whatever we imagine. For individuals, maker tools can change how someone views their home or their hobbies. The world is ours to make. Humans are genetically wired to be makers. The maker movement is simply the result of making powerful building and communication tools accessible to the masses. There are plenty of projects from makers that show good engineering: Take this Arduino board with tremendous potential, developed by a young maker, as example.
The maker movement is a catalyst to democratize entrepreneurship as these do-it-yourself electronics are proving to be hot sellers: In the past year, unit sales for 3D printing related products; Arduino units, parts and supplies; Raspberry Pi boards; drones and quadcopters; and robotics goods are all on a growth curve in terms of eBay sales. There are many Kickstarter maker projects going on. The Pebble E-Paper Watch raises $10 million. The LIFX smartphone-controlled LED bulb raises $1.3 million. What do these products have in common? They both secured funding through Kickstarter, a crowd-funding website that is changing the game for entrepreneurs. Both products were created by makers who seek to commercialize their inventions. These “startup makers” iterate on prototypes with high-end tools at professional makerspaces.
For companies to remain competitive, they need to embrace the maker movement or leave themselves open for disruption. Researchers found that 96 percent of business leaders believe new technologies have forever changed the rules of business by democratizing information and rewiring customer expectations. - You’ve got to figure out agile innovation. Maybe history is repeating itself as the types of products being sold reminded us of the computer tinkering that used to be happening in the 1970s to 1990s – similar in terms of demographics, tending to be young people, and low budget. Now the do-it-yourself category is deeply intertwined with the electronics industry. Open hardware is in the center in maker movement – we need open hardware designs! How can you publish your designs and still do business with it? Open source ecosystem markets behave differently and therefore require a very different playbook than traditional tech company: the differentiation is not in the technology you build; it is in the process and expertise that you slowly amass over an extended period of time.
By democratizing the product development process, helping these developments get to market, and transforming the way we educate the next generation of innovators, we will usher in the next industrial revolution. The world is ours to make. Earlier the PC created a new generation of software developers who could innovate in the digital world without the limitations of the physical world (virtually no marginal cost, software has become the great equalizer for innovation. Now advances in 3D printing and low-cost microcontrollers as well as the ubiquity of advanced sensors are enabling makers to bridge software with the physical world. Furthermore, the proliferation of wireless connectivity and cloud computing is helping makers contribute to the Internet of Things (IoT). We’re even beginning to see maker designs and devices entering those markets once thought to be off-limits, like medical.
Image source: The world is ours to make: The impact of the maker movement – EDN Magazine
In fact, many parents have engaged in the maker movement with their kids because they know that the education system is not adequately preparing their children for the 21st century. There is a strong movement to spread this DIY idea widely. The Maker Faire, which launched in the Bay Area in California in 2006, underlined the popularity of the movement by drawing a record 215,000 people combined in the Bay Area and New York events in 2014. There’s Maker Media, MakerCon, MakerShed, Make: magazine and 131 Maker Faire events that take place throughout the world. Now the founders of all these Makers want a way to connect what they refer to as the “maker movement” online. So Maker Media created a social network called MakerSpace, a Facebook-like social network that connects participants of Maker Faire in one online community. The new site will allow participants of the event to display their work online. There are many other similar sites that allow yout to present yout work fron Hackaday to your own blog. Today, 135 million adults in the United States alone are involved in the maker movement—although makers can be found everywhere in the world.
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Tomi Engdahl says:
AutoFan – Machine Vision Based Control of Air Flow
https://hackaday.io/project/12384-autofan-machine-vision-based-control-of-air-flow
A prototype for automatically controlling the direction of air flow using face detection.
AutoFan is a prototype for controlling the direction of air flow of a fan based on face detection. It uses a low-cost camera (e.g. a webcam), a Raspberry Pi 2, a face recognition algorithm and two servo motors controlling the lamellae of a custom-made fan. By inferring the position of a face from the camera images the servo motor angles are adjusted to point the airflow into (or away) from the face.
The lamellae of the fan are controlled by a Raspberry Pi 2, which also takes care of the algorithms for face detection and the estimation of the relative position of the head. The software framework is written in Python making use of libraries such as OpenCV (e.g. by using a haar-cascade classifier for face detection) or multiprocessing (e.g. for making efficient use of the Raspberry’s four CPU cores).
All design files and the corresponding code can be found in my GitHub repository.
https://github.com/hgmeyer/AutoFan
Tomi Engdahl says:
Arduino, EEG, and Free Will
https://hackaday.io/project/12318-arduino-eeg-and-free-will
Using an open source platform to investigate the “readiness potential” and what it says about human free will
My project aims to allow the DIY community to participate in the discussion by recreating Libet’s experiment using just an Arduino and a simple open source shield.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Bright Idea for a Name Tag
http://hackaday.com/2016/06/27/bright-idea-for-a-name-tag/
PCB Name Tag
http://rasterweb.net/raster/2016/06/14/pcb-name-tag/
I started by designing in Inkscape with a canvas slightly larger than what I needed, and a cutting guide the exact size of my copper board.
Etching took over 75 minutes, but after it was done and cleaned off I dropped it into the Liquid Tin.
I soldered a blinking LED and a resistor in place, and since I still don’t have a tiny drill at home I went with surface mount of through-hole components, which works fine.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Home automation on the cheap
https://hackaday.io/project/11922-home-automation-on-the-cheap
Using an esp8266, arduino nano, a salvaged usb power supply, and a couple relays you can automate anything
This project covers how to setup the esp8266 as a serial bridge, shows simple program for the arduino, and for the more advanced, how to write a webpage in php to control your lights and optionally how to integrate a webcam attached to a raspberry pi into the webpage without the need of port forwarding for the camera. I will also be talking about how to set up your phone to control the lights as well.
As a side note there is usually some delay in any commercial solution. With my design, the latency is taken to milliseconds instead of seconds.This project uses WiFi to serial bridge using tcp connections to port 23 so there is an exchange for security however this isn’t a large problem as there are some security options available
I will also be covering a couple other projects later, a firework display control and an RC car controlled using an xBee so stay tuned. This project will be updated periodically as I am writing this after the completion of the projects.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Hackaday Prize Entry: MyComm Handheld Satellite Messenger
http://hackaday.com/2016/06/27/hackaday-prize-entry-mycomm-handheld-satellite-messenger/
We live in a connected world, but that world ends not far beyond the outermost cell phone tower. [John Grant] wants to be connected everywhere, even in regions where no mobile network is available, so he is building a solar powered, handheld satellite messenger: The MyComm – his entry for the Hackaday Prize.
The MyComm is a handheld touch-screen device, much like a smartphone, that connects to the Iridium satellite network to send and receive text messages. At the heart of his build, [John] uses a RockBLOCK Mk2 Iridium SatComm Module hooked up to a Teensy 3.1. The firmware is built upon a FreeRTOS port for proper task management.
2016 will be an interesting year for the Iridium network since the first satellites for the improved (and backward-compatible) “Iridium NEXT” network are expected to launch soon.
Yet, it’s still there, with maker-friendly modems being available at $250 and pay-per-use rates of about 7 ct/kB (free downstream for SDR-Hackers).
MyComm
https://hackaday.io/project/11802-mycomm
A portable, solar powered, handheld device that provides truly global messaging when you have no alternative.
Iridium Hacking
please don’t sue us
https://media.ccc.de/v/camp2015-6883-iridium_hacking
Tomi Engdahl says:
Google Research Blog:
Google announces Project Bloks, a new open hardware platform to make coding physical for kids, still in development — Posted by Steve Vranakis and Jayme Goldstein, Executive Creative Director and Project Lead, Google Creative Lab — At Google, we’re passionate about empowering children to create and explore with technology.
Project Bloks: Making code physical for kids
https://research.googleblog.com/2016/06/project-bloks-making-code-physical-for.html
At Google, we’re passionate about empowering children to create and explore with technology. We believe that when children learn to code, they’re not just learning how to program a computer—they’re learning a new language for creative expression and are developing computational thinking: a skillset for solving problems of all kinds. In fact, it’s a skillset whose importance is being recognised around the world—from President Obama’s CS4All program to the inclusion of Computer Science in the UK National Curriculum. We’ve long supported and advocated the furthering of CS education through programs and platforms such as Blockly, Scratch Blocks, CS First and Made w/ Code. Today, we’re happy to announce Project Bloks, a research collaboration between Google, Paulo Blikstein (Stanford University) and IDEO with the goal of creating an open hardware platform that researchers, developers and designers can use to build physical coding experiences. As a first step, we’ve created a system for tangible programming and built a working prototype with it. We’re sharing our progress before conducting more research over the summer to inform what comes next.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Taming the Beast: Pro-Tips for Designing a Safe Homebrew Laser Cutter
http://hackaday.com/2016/06/29/taming-the-beast-pro-tips-for-designing-a-safe-homebrew-laser-cutter/
Homebrew laser cutters are nifty devices, but scorching your pals, burning the house down, or smelling up the neighborhood isn’t anyone’s idea of a great time.
Despite the danger, the temptation to build one is irresistible. With tubes, power supplies, and water coolers now in abundance from overseas re-sellers, the parts are just a PayPal-push away from landing on our doorsteps. We’ve also seen a host of exciting builds come together on the dining room table.
Tomi Engdahl says:
The Citadel is the King of K’nex Builds.
http://hackaday.com/2016/06/29/the-citadel-is-the-king-of-knex-builds/
Following one’s passion can lead to amazing results. Sometimes this results in technological marvels; other times, one marvels at the use of the technology. An exemplary display of the latter is The Citadel.
Over the course of three years, redditor [Shadowman39] pieced together this monstrous K’nex structure. With over 17 different paths(!), 45 different elements, and over 40,000 parts, you would expect some meticulous planning to go into its construction
Citadel Knex Ball Machine
https://www.flickr.com/photos/99304214@N05/sets/72157634772768364
These are construction pictures of my newest ball machine, Citadel!
Tomi Engdahl says:
Hackaday Prize Entry: A Universal Glucose Meter
http://hackaday.com/2016/06/28/hackaday-prize-entry-a-universal-glucose-meter/
If you need an example of Gillette’s razor blade business plan, don’t look at razors; a five pack of the latest multi-blade, aloe-coated wonder shaver is still only about $20. Look a glucose meters. Glucose meters all do the same thing – test blood glucose levels – but are imminently proprietary, FDA regulated, and subsidized by health insurance. It’s a perfect storm of vendor lock-in that would make King Gillette blush.
For his Hackaday Prize entry, [Tom] is building what was, until now, only a dream. It’s a universal glucometer that uses any test strip. The idea, of course, is to buy the cheapest test strip while giving the one-fingered salute to the companies who release more models of glucometers in a year than Apple does phones.
After reviewing the literature from TI, Maxim, Freescale, and Microchip, and a few research articles on the same subject, [Tom] has a pretty good idea how to build a glucometer.
The trick now is figuring out how to build an adapter for every make and model of test strip.
Universal Glucometer
https://hackaday.io/project/10865-universal-glucometer
Did your test strips just get more expensive? Has the drug store run out of strips for YOUR meter? Like to be able to use any test strip?
Tomi Engdahl says:
Will Open-Source Work For Chips?
http://semiengineering.com/will-open-source-work-for-chips/
So far nobody has been successful with open-source semiconductor design or EDA tools. Why not?
Open source is getting a second look by the semiconductor industry, driven by the high cost of design at complex nodes along with fragmentation in end markets, which increasingly means that one size or approach no longer fits all.
The open source movement, as we know it today, started in the 1980s with the launch of the GNU project, which was about the time the electronic design automation (EDA) industry was coming into existence. EDA software is used to take high-level logical descriptions of circuits and map them into silicon for manufacturing. EDA software starts in the five digits, even for the simplest of tools, tacking on two or three zeros for a suite of tools necessary to fully process a design. On top of this, manufacturing costs start at several million dollars.
In addition, a modern-day chip, such as the one in your cell phone, contains hundreds of pieces of semiconductor intellectual property (IP cores or blocks), and each one of these has to be licensed from a supplier, often paying licensing fees and royalties for every chip manufactured. The best known are processor cores supplied by ARM, but there also are memories, peripherals, modems, radios, and a host of other functions.
The industry would appear ripe for some open source efforts so that the cost of designing and producing chips could be lowered, or perhaps better designs could be envisioned by drawing on the creativity of a huge number of willing coders. But while some projects have existed in both EDA tools and IP, none have even dented the $5B industry.
Momentum is building again for change. At the design automation conference (DAC) this year, a number of speakers, executives and researchers addressed open-source hardware, and some new business models are emerging that may get the ball rolling. Some believe that once it gets started, it will be a huge opportunity for the technology industry, but most within the industry are doubtful. The problem is that without the full support of the fabs, IP suppliers and the EDA industry, it is unlikely to happen.
There are significant differences between hardware and software, even though the languages are similar. One language in particular, SystemC, was meant to finally close that divide by adding constructs necessary to describe hardware into the C++ language. However, even if SystemC was a perfect language, it would not enable software developers to create hardware.
“We can often do a lot of interesting hardware developments at RTL, but when the rubber meets the road, there is a capital cost associated with going to the fab,” says John Leidel, a graduate student at the data-intensive scalable computing laboratory at Texas Tech University. “This includes doing the masks and all of the verification. That capital cost is often not well understood, especially in academia and national labs.
This is in stark contrast to open-source software. “In an open-source software environment you can develop software and it is just software,” Leidel notes. “If it doesn’t work, just rewrite it. There is only a human capital cost to do that. You don’t have to drop another million dollars on a mask set in order to fix your bugs.”
There are also significant differences in business models. “Innovation starts out as being proprietary,”
The timescales are also very different. “With silicon spins, it takes two years to get to market,” adds Teich. “No matter what you do, or how good the idea is, that is how long it will take to actually see functioning gates on the market.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Embedded entrepreneurs get a boost from Arrow and Indiegogo
http://www.edn.com/electronics-blogs/about-embedded/4442243/Embedded-entrepreneurs-get-a-boost-from-Arrow-and-Indiegogo?_mc=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_today_20160630&cid=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_today_20160630&elqTrackId=43c47715242e453795dc081c142f7f70&elq=505ea0e4be9d42c5b47580089b06eb3c&elqaid=32898&elqat=1&elqCampaignId=28728
There have been a lot of innovative ideas entering market tryouts through crowdfunding organizations like Kickstarter and Indiegogo. But as experienced embedded developers know, there is a large chasm between getting a prototype to work and manufacturing a cost-optimized finished product. Arrow and Indiegogo are teaming up to help bridge that gap for the small developer.
The advent of powerful microprocessors, standardized development platforms, and an ecosystem supporting small (or one-person) development efforts is changing the way embedded systems get created, by simplifying development. While the traditional, large-scale product development team is still the norm, there is increasing industry energy going into individual and small-team development. Such development efforts have been responsible for considerable innovation and experimentation in defining new products, and markets, and this is getting notice from some major players. From semiconductor vendors, to service providers, to electronics distributors, support is now growing for these individual efforts in hopes that when one of them strikes it big the developers will continue to work with the folks who helped get them started.
The advent of crowdfunding organizations has likewise changed the industry.
But this manufacturing barrier is also coming down. Crowdfunder Indiegogo began addressing it with the introduction of its fulfillment support services. The services help crowdfunded entrepreneurs pair up with suitable marketing and production partners.
Now the obstacles confounding the transition from prototype to production are becoming even easier to scale with a new alliance between Arrow and Indiegogo. In this alliance, Arrow will assist select crowdfunded projects in bringing ideas to market by providing access to Arrow’s engineering and manufacturing expertise and to its production partners. Design tools, engineering experts, prototype services, and even supply chain management will be available to developers through online services.
This alliance represents a logical next step in the trend toward the democratization of electronics design and production. The advent of open source platforms – both hardware and software – that entrepreneurs could use to develop and prove their design ideas without needing extensive engineering expertise was the first step. Crowdfunding took the second step by making development capital available through public sources. Now, the Arrow and Indiegogo alliance is making productization, production, marketing, and even retail placement available to small-scale but innovative development teams.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Transcend Wifi SD Card Is A Tiny Linux Server
http://hackaday.com/2016/06/30/transcend-wifi-sd-card-is-a-tiny-linux-server/
[jamesone111] bought a Transcend WifiSD card, presumably for photography, but it may just have been because he heard that they’re actually tiny Linux servers.
He read a post about these cards on the OpenWRT forums. They’re all a similar configuration of a relatively large amount of memory (compared to the usual embedded computer), a WiFi chip, and an ARM processor running a tiny Linux install. The card acts as a WiFi access point with a little server running on it, and waits for the user to connect to it via a website. It also has a mode where it will connect to up to three access points specified by the user, but it doesn’t actually have a way to tell the user what its IP address is; which is kind of funny.
Transcend WifiSD / PQI AirCard / FluCard Pro
https://forum.openwrt.org/viewtopic.php?id=45820&p=1
Exploring the Transcend Wifi-SD card
https://jamesone111.wordpress.com/2014/03/19/exploring-the-transcend-wifi-sd-card/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Hackaday Prize Entry: DIY Foot Orthotics
http://hackaday.com/2016/07/01/hackaday-prize-entry-diy-foot-orthotics/
What does your gait look like to your foot? During which part of your gait is the ball of your feet experiencing the most pressure? Is there something wrong with it? Can you fix it by adding or removing material from a custom insole? All these answers can be had with an expensive system and a visit to a podiatrist, but if [Charles Fried] succeeds you can build a similar system at home.
The device works by having an array of pressure sensors on a flat insole inside of a shoe. When the patient walks, the device streams the data to a computer which logs it. The computer then produces a heat map of the person’s step. The computer also produces a very useful visualization called a gait line. This enables the orthotist to specify or make the correct orthotic.
Insole Pressure System for Mass Customised Shoes
Insole gait analysis system for the design of mass customised 3D printed shoes
https://hackaday.io/project/12314-insole-pressure-system-for-mass-customised-shoes
My aim is to build an insole pressure distribution system to collect gait data. This data will then be used to inform the 3D model of a shoe which will be 3D printed using SLS technology.
By doing so we are able to diagnose some anomalies which can be corrected by adding/removing material or by modifying the behavior of the shoe by tweaking the structure. Even in the case where a the user has no anomalies we can improve comfort by tailoring.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Makerspace North, from Empty Warehouse to Maker Magnet
http://hackaday.com/2016/06/30/makerspace-north-from-empty-warehouse-to-maker-magnet/
Makerspace North is unique out of the 5 makerspaces in the Ottawa, Canada area in that it started life as an empty 10,000 square foot warehouse with adjoining office spaces and large open rooms, and has let the community fill it, resulting in it having become a major hub for makers to mix in all sorts of ways, some unexpected.
Other organizations also host various events or classes either in the remaining open warehouse space or in the adjoining rooms and offices.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Hackaday Prize Entry: An MRI Machine
http://hackaday.com/2016/06/30/hackaday-prize-entry-an-mri-machine/
Magnetic resonance imaging devices are one of the most fantastically incredible machines humans have ever built. They’re capable of producing three-dimensional images of living tissue by flipping protons around with a magnetic field. Ninety percent of the population doesn’t know what that sentence means, yet you can find an MRI machine inside nearly any reasonably equipped hospital in America.
For his Hackaday Prize entry, [Peter Jansen] is building a magnetic resonance imager, capable of producing the same type of images you’d get from the radiology department at a hospital. It’s going to be a desktop unit, capable of scanning fruit and other similarly sized objects, and can be built using tools no more advanced than a hot air gun and a laser cutter.
low-field MRI Continued
https://hackaday.io/project/12352-low-field-mri-continued
An attempt at a prepolarized Earth’s-field compressive
magnetic resonance imager
Tomi Engdahl says:
The Dragonfly: Nature’s Guided Missile
https://hackaday.io/project/12359-the-dragonfly-natures-guided-missile
Examining the neural activity of dragonfly predatory behavior to discover the mechanics of its highly accurate prey capture
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This project was created on 06/22/2016 and last updated a day ago.
Description
The dragonfly can capture its prey mid-air with a 95% accuracy rate. What biological equipment does the dragonfly have that allows it to do this amazing feat? To examine this very question, I will be replicating Paloma T. Gonzalez-Bellido’s 2012 PNAS paper using DIY open source tools. Gonzalez-Bellido found that there are neurons that run from the dragonfly’s compound eyes to its wings that help the dragonfly track and catch its prey with such accuracy. My version of this experiment will control a laser using a laser-light show set up (instead of a expensive custom-made projector) that shines a laser dot (representing a fly) as the stimulus. I will simultaneously be recording on open source bio-amplifiers the activity from these target selective neurons as the dragonflies watches its “prey” move across a screen.
The goal of this experiment is to provide a way for amateur scientists to replicate professional research.
Tomi Engdahl says:
3D Magnetic Field Scanner
Capture interactive models of magnetic fields with your 3D print
https://hackaday.io/project/11865-3d-magnetic-field-scanner
There are several ways for amateur scientists and students to visualize magnetic fields, including traditional compasses, iron filings, magnetic viewing film, or even ferrofluid. None of these methods give a comprehensive picture of the field over 3D volumes, however. While commercial devices for scanning 3D magnetic fields exist, their cost puts them out of reach of individuals and many organizations.
This project will provide an open-source (MIT License, where possible) way to convert an existing 3D printer into a magnetic field scanner with which you can visualize the field surrounding permanent or electro- magnets, and explore the field’s interactions with various materials.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Cheap Arduino HMD
Building an HMD display with no special parts.
https://hackaday.io/project/12211-cheap-arduino-hmd
Trying to build a cheap HMD for everybody.
The challenge is, that It should be constructed out of common materials that can be found easily.
The project is more about how to build the optical system for this HMD
I have a few ideas and one of them is to connect it to a Multimeter over Bluetooth to get the Data right in front of my eyes.
One thing is clear, you can not just place a screen in front of your eyes, because it will not be possible for them to focus it.
Here are the first tests with a cheap optic lense
Tomi Engdahl says:
Removing a Broken Tap From Something Really Really Expensive
http://hackaday.com/2016/07/02/removing-a-broken-tap-from-something-really-really-expensive/
A MDM is basically half of a typical wire EDM set-up. In EDM you used an electrode to punch a hole through the material. Then you thread a wire through the hole, thread it through a sometimes startling array of pulleys, and get going.
[Tom] used the MDM with an appropriately sized electrode to precisely disintegrate the middle of the tap out.
Tomi Engdahl says:
1024 “Pixel” Sound Camera Treats Eyes to Real-Time Audio
http://hackaday.com/2016/07/01/1024-pixel-sound-camera-treats-eyes-to-real-time-audio/
A few years ago, [Artem] learned about ways to focus sound in an issue of Popular Mechanics. If sound can be focused, he reasoned, it could be focused onto a plane of microphones. Get enough microphones, and you have a ‘sound camera’, with each microphone a single pixel.
Movies and TV shows about comic books are now the height of culture, so a device using an array of microphones to produce an image isn’t an interesting demonstration of FFT, signal processing, and high-speed electronic design. It’s a Daredevil camera, and it’s one of the greatest builds we’ve ever seen.
[Artem]’s build log isn’t a step-by-step process on how to make a sound camera. Instead, he went through the entire process of building this array of microphones, and like all amazing builds the first step never works.
The Daredevil Camera
http://www.ribbonfarm.com/2016/06/29/the-daredevil-camera/
Once upon a time I was reading a Popular Mechanics article, the title of which eludes me. Something about playing different music for different parts of a dance floor. They were describing a way to focus sound towards different people.
What struck me about the idea was that there was a way to focus sound. It was a piece of mesh of some sort, which acted as a lens for ultrasonics.
Imagine using such lenses to focus sound onto a plane of microphones. Just like light in a camera. One microphone is one pixel. An ability to see sound
Then, I read an article about the FFT telescope — how you can resolve an image from a grid of wave sensors using zero optics and a lot of mathematics.
That was the first breakthrough: I didn’t need to build the box or the mesh optics! The project suddenly collapsed into something portable and plausible.
Each microphone gets its sound, which is a waveform. FFT is something that can split this waveform into its constituent frequencies, a set of amplitude and phase for a set of “buckets” representing a frequency. This lets us get the intensities of the sound waves of different frequencies, rather than a trace of the microphone’s membrane going up and down.
So, what would we get if we apply 2D FFT to THESE waves, and plot them based on the deflection angle?
An IMAGE.
And that’s all the magic there is.
a MEMS microphone is etched directly in the silicon, and comes with the pre-amp and ADC already on chip. It’s a DIGITAL OUTPUT microphone!
Suddenly, the project collapsed in complexity, and for the first time it was on the edge of feasibility.
With the digital microphones, all I really needed were microphones and an FPGA to process it.
I settled on a 32×32 array, made out of 8×8 cells.
With 64 channels of data to be sampled at 3Mhz, an FPGA was the only real option
Tomi Engdahl says:
Hacklet 114 – Python Powered Projects
http://hackaday.com/2016/07/02/hacklet-114-python-powered-projects/
Python is one of today’s most popular programming languages. It quite literally put the “Pi” in Raspberry Pi. Python’s history stretches back to the late 1980’s, when it was first written by Guido van Rossum
Tomi Engdahl says:
Hackaday Prize Entry: Dtto Modular Robot
http://hackaday.com/2016/07/03/hackaday-prize-entry-dtto-modular-robot/
A robot to explore the unknown and automate tomorrow’s tasks and the ones after them needs to be extremely versatile. Ideally, it was capable of being any size, any shape, and any functionality, shapeless like water, flexible and smart. For his Hackaday Prize entry, [Alberto] is building such a modular, self-reconfiguring robot: Dtto.
Dtto v1.0 Modular Robot
Dtto v1.0 – Modular self-reconfigurable robot, focused on bio-inspired locomotion mechanisms
https://hackaday.io/project/9976-dtto-v10-modular-robot
“You must be shapeless, formless, like water. When you pour water in a cup, it becomes the cup. When you pour water in a bottle, it becomes the bottle. When you pour water in a teapot, it becomes the teapot. Become like water my friend.” Bruce Lee
The Dtto v1.0 Robot is a modular transformable robot designed to be versatile, flexible and self-reconfigurable. The idea of modular robots is that they can adopt any shape they want, by changing the position and the connection of their modules.
The versatility of the robot will allow it to be able to perform RESCUE OPERATIONS, exploration of unknown environments and SPACE EXPLORATION.
Full project: https://github.com/otrebla333
Tomi Engdahl says:
Solar Wobbler Modification
http://www.scorchworks.com/Blog/solar-wobbler-modification/
Somewhere along the line the flower broke off of the solar wobbler that we had lying around the house. When it broke I shoved it in a drawer thinking that I would modify it into something new someday. I finally got around to pulling it back out of the drawer and fixing it up.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Custom Firmware Unlocks Fitness Tracker
http://hackaday.com/2016/07/03/custom-firmware-unlocks-fitness-tracker/
He takes a Bluetooth LE fitness tracker dongle and reflashes it spit out the raw accelerometer data and trigger events. He then wrote a phone app that receives the data and uses the device as an alarm, an on/off switch, a data-logging device, and more.
Inside the device is a Nordic NRF51822, their ARM Cortex + Bluetooth chip, an accelerometer, and a bunch of LEDs. [Mikhail] mapped out the programming headers, erased the old flash, and re-filled it with his own code. He even added over-the-air DFU re-flashing capability so that he wouldn’t have to open up the case again.
The cellphone side of the equation is equally important, and equally impressive.
In the end, [Mikhail]’ fitness tracker does a lot more than the original developers intended, and the project has a professional level of attention to detail.
Tomi Engdahl says:
The (Copper) Crystal Method
http://hackaday.com/2016/07/03/the-copper-crystal-method/
One of the staples of kitchen chemistry for kids is making sugar crystals or rock candy. Why not? It is educational and it tastes good, too. [Science with Screens] has a different kind of crystal in mind: copper crystals. You can see the result in the video
To grow pure metal crystals, he used copper wire and copper sulfate. He also used a special regulated power supply to create a low voltage to control the current used to form the crystal. The current needed to be no more than 10mA
Experiment 53: Growing Large Copper Crystals
https://sciencewithscreens.blogspot.fi/2016/06/experiment-53-growing-large-copper.html
Tomi Engdahl says:
IPhone Polarizing Camera Solves Filter Orientation Problem Using Flash
http://hackaday.com/2016/07/04/iphone-polarizing-camera-solves-filter-orientation-problem-using-flash/
One of last year’s Hackaday Prize finalists was the DOLPi, [Dave Prutchi]’s polarimetric camera which used an LCD sheet from a welder’s mask placed in front of a Raspberry Pi camera. Multiple images were taken by the DOLPi at different polarizations and used to compute images designed to show the polarization of the light in each pixel and convey it to the viewer through color.
[Dave] wrote to tip us off about [Paul Wallace]’s take on the same idea, a DOLPi-inspired polarimetric camera using an iPhone with an ingenious solution to the problem of calibrating the device to the correct polarization angle for each image that does not require any electrical connection between phone and camera hardware.
[Paul]’s camera is calibrated using the iPhone’s flash.
Arduino Mini which sets the LCD to the correct polarization
iPhone Polarisation Camera
http://ynformatics.com/2016/iphone-polarisation-camera/
This project describes the construction of an iPhone accessory which allows pictures of polarised light to be captured. It is based on previous work by David Prutchi which should be referred to for more details.
The device is based on a screen from an auto-darkening welder’s mask purchased on eBay. This is constructed from a liquid crystal panel sandwiched between two cross polarised sheets. When no voltage is applied to the liquid crystal it rotates incident light by 90 degrees and so the light passes through fairly unimpeded.
Removing one of the polarised sheets produces a voltage-controlled polariser.
Tomi Engdahl says:
R/C Hot Rod Built Completely From Scratch
http://hackaday.com/2016/07/04/rc-hot-rod-built-completely-from-scratch/
[ossum]’s R/C hot rod shows what’s possible when a talented hacker takes full advantage of all the modern resources available to them. The results are stunning.
[ossum] had a stack of Amazon and Shapeways credits lying around after winning a few competitions. He had this dream of building an R/C car for a while, and decided now was the time. After ordering all the needed parts from Amazon, he made an extremely nice model of the car in Fusion 360. The CAD model is a great learning resource.
Scratch Build an RC Car with CAD and Rapid Prototyping
http://www.instructables.com/id/Scratch-Build-an-RC-Car-With-CAD-and-Rapid-Prototy/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Hackaday Prize Entry: ESP Swiss Knife
http://hackaday.com/2016/07/04/hackaday-prize-entry-esp-swiss-knife/
The best equipment won’t help you if you don’t have it with you in the moment you need it. Knowledge, experience, and a thick skin may help you out there in the mud of the hardware battlegrounds, but they can’t replace a multimeter, an oscilloscope, a logic analyzer, a serial console or a WiFi access point. [Arcadia Labs] has taken on the challenge of combining most of these functions into a single device, developing the Hacker’s equivalent of a Swiss Army Knife: The ESP Swiss Knife.
With the hardware up and running, [Arcadia Labs] went on with building a couple of applications to provide the functionality that would make the device earn its name. Among them is a basic oscilloscope, a digital NTP based clock, a thermometer, a WiFi tester, a weather station and a 3D printer status monitor.
ESP Swiss Knife
https://hackaday.io/project/11869-esp-swiss-knife
This battery powered device is a all-in-one toolbox : WiFi AP, 3D printer remote, clock, serial console, sensors hub, and many more…
Tomi Engdahl says:
Universal Glucometer
https://hackaday.io/project/10865-universal-glucometer
Did your test strips just get more expensive? Has the drug store run out of strips for YOUR meter? Like to be able to use any test strip?
Glucose test strips are expensive (especially in the long run) and each type only works for the meter they are made for. This is one reason many people do not test enough, since they can’t really afford to. The goal of this project is to produce an accurate blood glucose measuring system that does not require proprietary strips from a single manufacturer but can (ideally) use any test strip from any meter.
A Universal Glucometer would make it possible for people to use strips from any manufacturer for any meter allowing you to use any strips that are available. This would allow people to shop for the best priced strips, without having to buy a new meter.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Web Enabled Microscope
https://hackaday.io/project/12045-web-enabled-microscope
Enhance a microscope with web control, enabling gigapixel panoramic or focus stacked shots, live streaming/control and more!
Starting with a basic microscope, this project provides vastly improved capabilities by pairing it with an Android phone to enable live streaming, high quality video, and panoramic/focus stacked photos. By adding a pair of disk drive motors and a focus motor, enables automated panoramas, web control, and ability to select multiple samples.
This project started when I was tired of looking through a narrow eyepiece of my cheap microscope, and decided to add a cellphone mount to take high quality photos/videos. I then realized I could use it with the live streaming software that I use when I go on vacation or to check who’s at the front door, and stream the microscope view to Youtube or other places and share the experience in real time.
So far the project cost is projected to be under $200, making this relatively accessible for schools or small labs/citizen scientists.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Hackaday Prize Entry: Cheap, Open LiDAR
http://hackaday.com/2016/07/05/hackaday-prize-entry-cheap-open-lidar/
industrial LiDAR 3D scanners are quite expensive. His Hackaday Prize entry, the Open LIDAR, is an affordable alternative to the expensive industrial 3D scanning solutions out there.
LiDAR — Light Detection And Ranging — is the technology that senses the distance between a sensor and an object by reflectively measuring the time of flight of a light beam between the two. By acquiring a two-dimensional array of multiple distance readings, this can be used for 3D scanning. Looking at how the industrial LiDAR scanners capture the environment using fast spinning mirrors, [adam] realized that he could basically achieve the same by using a cheap laser range finder strapped to a pan and tilt gimbal.
The gimbal he designed for this task uses stepper motors to aim an SF30-B laser rangefinder. An Arduino controls the movement and lets the eye of the sensor scan an object or an entire environment.
Open LIDAR
https://hackaday.io/project/11598-open-lidar
This project is to build a motorized gimbal mount to convert a laser distance module into a 3d LIDAR.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Niklas Roy’s Music Construction Machine
http://hackaday.com/2016/07/05/niklas-roys-music-construction-machine/
an entire ensemble with real musical instruments, a drum kit, keyboard, and electric guitar. His Music Construction Machine is no simple music box with a single tune though, it generates a constantly changing melody through a mechanically implemented algorithm with a complex interaction of cyclic variables that periodically alternate between harmonic and discordant.
http://www.niklasroy.com/articles/188/my-current-project
Tomi Engdahl says:
The Sunday Morning Breakfast Machine
http://hackaday.com/2016/07/05/the-sunday-morning-breakfast-machine/
three months and a thousand man hours creating their “Sunday Morning Breakfast Machine“, designed to cook and serve a slice of toast and a boiled egg alongside a cup of tea or coffee and the morning paper. Prototyping was done in Meccano , could there be any other medium for a machine like this one?
Barking mad mechanic made Wallace and Gromit style breakfast machine
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WRkJn5N77jM&feature=youtu.be
Tomi Engdahl says:
Seeing the Truly Invisible with DIY Shortwave UV Imaging
http://hackaday.com/2016/07/06/seeing-the-truly-invisible-with-diy-shortwave-uv-imaging/
We’ve all seen how to peel IR filters off digital cameras so they can see a little better in the dark, but there’s so much more to this next project than that. How about being able to see things normally completely outside the visual spectrum, like hydrogen combustion or electrical discharges?
[David Prutchi] has just shared his incredible work on making his own shortwave ultraviolet viewers for imaging entirely outside of the normal visible spectrum – in other words, seeing the truly invisible. The project has not only fascinating application examples, but provides detailed information about how to build two different imagers – complete with exact part numbers and sources.
There is more to the process than simply slapping a UV filter onto a camera, but happily he addresses all the details and the information is also available as a PDF whitepaper.
diy Shortwave UV Image Converters for Solar-Blind and RUVIS Imaging
http://uvirimaging.com/2016/07/03/diy-shortwave-uv-image-converters-for-solar-blind-and-ruvis-imaging/
Imaging in the shortwave ultraviolet spectrum (wavelengths below 300 nm) enables some very exciting applications. Light in these wavelengths is completely invisible (but potentially very harmful) to the unaided eye. I am most interested in a band known as “Solar Blind UV” or SBUV. As shown in the following figure, solar radiation in the 240 nm to 280 nm range is completely absorbed by the ozone in the atmosphere and cannot reach Earth’s surface, thus allowing ultraviolet-emitting phenomena (e.g. electrical discharges, hydrogen combustion, etc.) to be detectable in full daylight.
Unlike infrared and visible light, ultraviolet light has very little penetrating power into otherwise transparent or semitransparent materials. Because of its short wavelength, it is easily scattered by surface scratches and imperfections that are not apparent at longer wavelengths. These characteristics make ultraviolet imaging an ideal inspection tool in production lines.
Unfortunately, these same characteristics make traditional camera sensors very inefficient at ultraviolet wavelengths because UV light can’t penetrate through the silicon bulk to the photosensitive sites on a camera sensor. Cameras specifically designed for ultraviolet or for very low light level imaging commonly use a “back-illuminated” sensor. Thinned-down back-illuminated sensors improve the sensitivity of a camera to UV light quite dramatically, but silicon imaging technology nevertheless reaches its sensing limit at around 300 nm.
A simple, inexpensive and very effective trick used by camera companies to enhance a camera sensor’s UV response for shorter wavelengths is to coat the sensor with a substance that fluoresces under ultraviolet light.
In the same way, a very thin fluorescent layer or “phosphor” (not to be confused with the element phosphorus) deposited on the sensor can be used to convert UV outside of the sensor’s range to a longer wavelength that the sensor can easily detect.
sodium salicylate – a close relative to Aspirin – which glows around 400 nm when exposed to light with wavelengths below 350 nm
Lumogen glows in the 540 nm to 580 nm range when illuminated by violet/ultraviolet light with wavelengths shorter than 450 nm.
The dedicated phosphors are not easy to come by just for experimenting. That is why I decided to mention sodium salicylate and coronene, which can be easily purchased from chemical supply houses
Shortwave-UV cameras with lumogen-coated sensors are simply too expensive for the small number of things that I could imagine doing with one.
I thus decided to build a simple image converter to photograph shortwave-UV phenomena by projecting the ultraviolet image onto a translucent screen coated with a phosphor that fluoresces in the visible spectrum in response to shortwave ultraviolet light. The visible image can then be viewed by a standard camera using a macro lens.
As the phosphor, I used one of the shortwave-UV fluorescent powders sold by LDP LLC
Commercial fluorescent UV converters are produced in a similar manner, and are commonly available as accessories for laser beam profilers
I built a shortwave-UV image converter using an image converter tube that I found on eBay®. The tube, made by RCA has a cesium-telluride (CsTe) photocathode and a quartz window, making it sensitive below 280 nm.
The power supply for the tube needs to produce around 15,000 Volts at low current.
in “solar blind” band between 240 nm and 280 nm, solar radiation is completely blocked by ozone in the stratosphere, leaving virtually no in-band background radiation reaching the Earth’s surface. Without interference from background light, even very weak levels of ultraviolet light are detectable, making it possible to image electrical discharges, rocket plumes, industrial fires and other sources of short-wave-UV even in bright daylight.
However, the Sun is such a powerful light source that nearly all photons outside the 240 nm to 280 nm range must be eliminated to make it possible to distinguish the ultraviolet emitters from background light outside the SBUV band. Conventional optical filters cannot provide sufficient attenuation of sunlight outside the solar-blind band, so special filters based on dye-doped polymer films are needed to achieve the critical rejection of all out-of-band light. A popular filter for these applications is made by Ofil.
Ofil’s filters and cameras are well beyond the typical enthusiast’s budget.
a shortwave UV bandpass filter (centered at 254 nm with maximum 25 nm bandwidth) can be used for RUVIS
Tomi Engdahl says:
Man Builds Giant Homemade Computer To Play Tetris
https://hardware.slashdot.org/story/16/07/05/2157210/man-builds-giant-homemade-computer-to-play-tetris
A man has finished building an enormous computer in the sitting room of his bungalow in Cambridge. James Newman started work on the “Megaprocessor,” which is 33ft (10m) wide and 6ft (2m) high, in 2012. It does the job of a chip-sized microprocessor and Mr Newman has spent $53,000 creating it. It contains 40,000 transistors, 10,000 LED lights and it weighs around half a ton (500kg). So far, he has used it to play the classic video game Tetris.
http://www.megaprocessor.com/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Using The Vive’s Lighthouse With DIY Electronics
http://hackaday.com/2016/07/06/using-the-vives-lighthouse-with-diy-electronics/
The HTC Vive is the clear winner of the oncoming VR war, and is ready to enter the hallowed halls of beloved consumer electronics behind the Apple Watch, Smart Home devices, the 3Com Audrey, and Microsoft’s MSN TV. This means there’s going to be a lot of Vives on the secondhand market very soon, opening the doors to some interesting repurposing of some very cool hardware.
[Trammell Hudson] has been messing around with the Vive’s Lighthouse – the IR emitting cube that gives the Vive its sense of direction. There’s nothing really special about this simple box, and it can indeed be used to give any microcontroller project an orientation sensor.
HTC Vive Lighthouse
https://trmm.net/Lighthouse
Contents
1 HTC Vive Lighthouse
2 Sensor selection
3 Timing data
4 Position calculation
4.1 Calibration
4.2 Calculation
5 External links
HTC Vive Lighthouse
The HTC Vive uses a really innovative way to add 3D pose estimation and position sensing to their VR experience. The “Lighthouse” design works like classic naval lighthouses, updated to work in 3D at 60Hz 30Hz and using IR instead of visible light.
Gizmodo tears one down to show how the internals work; I’ve built an Arduino / ESP8266 library to make it easy to add indoor position sensing to smaller projects.
This Is How Valve’s Amazing Lighthouse Tracking Technology Works
http://gizmodo.com/this-is-how-valve-s-amazing-lighthouse-tracking-technol-1705356768
Tomi Engdahl says:
42,300 Transistor Megaprocessor Is Complete
http://hackaday.com/2016/07/06/42300-transistor-megaprocessor-is-complete/
As it turns out, the answer is not 42, it’s 42.3 — thousand. That’s how many discrete transistors spread across the 30 m2 room housing this massive computation machine. [James Newman’s] Megaprocessor, a seriously enlarged version of a microprocessor, is a project we’ve been following with awe as it took shape over the last couple of years.
http://www.megaprocessor.com/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Build A 3D Printer Workhorse, Not an Amazing Disappointment Machine
http://hackaday.com/2016/07/06/build-a-3d-printer-workhorse/
3D printers have become incredibly cheap, you can get a fully workable unit for $200 – even without throwing your money down a crowdfunded abyss. Looking at the folks who still buy kits or even build their own 3D printer from scratch, investing far more than those $200 and so many hours of work into a machine you can buy for cheap, the question “Why the heck would you do that?” may justifiably arise.
The answer is simple: DIY 3D printers done right are rugged workhorses. They work every single time, they never break, and even if: they are an inexhaustible source of spare parts for themselves. They have exactly the quality and functionality you build them to have. No clutter and nothing’s missing. However, the term DIY 3D printer, in its current commonly accepted use, actually means: the first and the last 3D printer someone ever built, which often ends in the amazing disappointment machine.
This post is dedicated to unlocking the full potential in all of these builds, and to turning almost any combination of threaded rods and plywood into a workshop-grade piece of equipment.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Hackaday Prize Entry: Open Source FFT Spectrum Analyzer
http://hackaday.com/2016/07/06/hackaday-prize-entry-open-source-fft-spectrum-analyzer/
Every machine has its own way of communicating with its operator. Some send status emails, some illuminate, but most of them vibrate and make noise. If it hums happily, that’s usually a good sign, but if it complains loudly, maintenance is overdue. [Ariel Quezada] wants to make sense of machine vibrations and draw conclusions about their overall mechanical condition from them. With his project, a 3-axis Open Source FFT Spectrum Analyzer he is not only entering the Hackaday Prize 2016 but also the highly contested field of acoustic defect recognition.
For the hardware side of the spectrum analyzer, [Ariel] equipped an Arduino Nano with an ADXL335 accelerometer, which is able to pick up vibrations within a frequency range of 0 to 1600 Hz on the X and Y axis. A film container, equipped with a strong magnet for easy installation, serves as an enclosure for the sensor.
From there, another Python script filters the captured waveform, applies a window function, calculates the Fourier transform and plots the spectrum into a graph.
Open Source FFT Spectrum Analyzer
An FFT spectrum analyzer for machinery vibration analysis, using open source hardware and software
https://hackaday.io/project/12109-open-source-fft-spectrum-analyzer
Tomi Engdahl says:
The Champagne of Light Bulbs
http://hackaday.com/2016/07/07/the-champagne-of-light-bulbs/
We’re all used to making our own lighting projects. Triac dimmers, LEDs, Neopixels, EL wire, there is a huge array of lighting components and technologies at our fingertips. But how many of us have made our own lighting rather than buying off-the-shelf? [Confined Maker] set out to do just that by creating an incandescent light bulb from scratch, and since he’s obviously a hacker with a bit of class he did it in an empty Dom Perignon champagne bottle.
Light bulb from scratch
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D70GDTfG0kE
make a light bulb from scratch using a champagne bottle, hand-made tungsten filament, and Argon gas.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Incredible Luminosity in a Portable Package
http://hackaday.com/2016/07/07/incredible-luminosity-in-a-portable-package/
If you’ve ever wanted to bring the brightest day into the blackest night, this flashlight shall give you sight. With a 100W LED array powered by up to 32V, this thing is exceedingly bright — it clocks in at about 9000 lumens! But the best part is that all every little detail of the build was documented along the way so that we can tag along for the ride.
It’s powered by a custom-assembled 6400 mAh 11.1V lipo battery or DC 20V 10Amp power supply
100W LED Flash light build + Full build video
http://imgur.com/a/ch6ku
Tomi Engdahl says:
Hackaday Prize Entry: Shakelet
http://hackaday.com/2016/07/07/hackaday-prize-entry-shakelet/
A person who is deaf can’t hear sound, but that doesn’t mean they can’t feel vibrations. For his Hackaday Prize entry, [Alex Hunt] is developing the Shakelet, a vibrating wristband for that notifies hearing impaired people about telephones, doorbells, and other sound alerts.
[Alex] now has a working prototype. The wristband features a pager motor and is controlled by an ATMEGA168. Two NRF24L01+ 2.4 GHz wireless transceiver modules take care of the communication. The sound sensors run on the smaller ATTiny85 and use a piezo disc as microphone.
Shakelet – alerts for the hard of hearing
https://hackaday.io/project/10531-shakelet-alerts-for-the-hard-of-hearing
A wireless vibrating wristband to notify hard of hearing people of telephones, doorbells and other sound alerts.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Mumai
Use the power of your muscles to interact with the world
https://hackaday.io/project/10411-mumai
Mumai is an open-source muscle-machine interface that connects your body to any kind of electronic or mechanic device through the myoelectric (EMG) signals generated by your muscles.
The uses of this interface are limited only by your imagination. It can be used to control assistive robotic devices such as prostheses or exoskeletons. Alongside some of the freely available machine learning libraries (Scikit-learn, TensorFlow, Dlib…) it can be used to implement a gesture recognition controller to interact with electronic devices such as computers or smartphones. In the sports field, it can be used to optimize the level of exercising. At a university level, it can be used in biosignal processing courses, working as a biomedical instrumentation device. How this device will be used depends on you.
Electromyography, or EMG, is a technique from the medical field that comprises the recording and the study of the electric signals generated when a muscle contracts. EMG is widely used in clinical applications: kinesiological studies, medical diagnosis or rehabilitation, among others. Also, EMG is the preferred method to control robotic prosthesis or exoskeletons, since using the user’s cognitive processes is a natural and intuitive way of interacting with such devices. Besides these applications, EMG can also be used in hands-free computer control, physical training optimization, interactive art…
The aim of this project is to develop an affordable and open-source wearable wireless network of EMG sensors that can be placed on any muscle.
Each EMG sensor is connected to a ESP8266 module, forming a Mumai node. The nodes send the EMG data through WiFi to a computer, smartphone or other devices, such as a robot or a home automation system.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Hackaday Prize Entry: Modular, Low Cost Braille Display
http://hackaday.com/2016/07/09/hackaday-prize-entry-modular-low-cost-braille-display/
A number of people have been working on refreshable Braille displays, including [Madaeon] who has created a modular refreshable Braille display.
The idea is to recreate the Braille cell with a set of tiny solenoids. The cell is a set of dots, each of which can be raised or lowered in a particular arrangement to represent a letter or other symbol. With a set of solenoids, this can be accomplished rather rapidly.
A modular, low cost braille display system
https://hackaday.io/project/12442-a-modular-low-cost-braille-display-system
A project that I started in 2014, aimed to develop a low cost, working modular Braille system
Tomi Engdahl says:
Hacklet 115 – More Quick Tool Hacks
http://hackaday.com/2016/07/09/hacklet-115-more-quick-tool-hacks/
Some of the best hacks are the tools people make to help them complete a project. I last looked at quick tool hacks back in Hacklet 53. Hackers have been busy since then, and new projects have inspired new tools. This week on the Hacklet, I’m taking a look at some of the best new quick tool hacks on Hackaday.io.
We start with [rawe] and aquarium pump vacuum pickup tool.
Next we have [David Spinden] with ViaConnect Circuit Board Test Tool,
with Improved Allen Wrench / Hex Key Holder.
Finally we have [Solarcycle] with Cordless Foam Cutting Tool
Tomi Engdahl says:
In Bed With an Arduino, Fighting Sleep Apnea
http://hackaday.com/2016/07/13/in-bed-with-an-arduino/
Sometimes the journey is as interesting as the destination, and that’s certainly the case with [Marc]’s pursuit of measuring his sleep apnea (PDF, talk slides. Video embedded below.). Sleep apnea involves periods of time when you don’t breathe or breathe shallowly for as long as a few minutes and affects 5-10% of middle-aged men (half that for women.) [Marc]’s efforts are still a work-in-progress but along the way he’s tried a multitude of things, all involving different technology and bugs to work out. It’s surprising how many ways there are to monitor breathing.
His attempts started out using a MobSenDat Kit, which includes an Arduino compatible board, and an accelerometer to see just what his sleeping positions were. That was followed by measuring blood O2 saturation using a cheap SPO2 sensor that didn’t work out, and one with Bluetooth that did work but gave results as a graph and not raw data.
Next came measuring breathing by detecting airflow from his nose using a Wind Sensor
But while [Marc]’s list of approaches to monitor sleep is long, he hasn’t exhausted all approaches.
http://www.freetronics.com.au/products/mobsendat#.V4dBqjXeI65
Tomi Engdahl says:
Hackaday Prize Entry: A Simple CNC
http://hackaday.com/2016/07/14/hackaday-prize-entry-a-simple-cnc/
3D printers are all the rage, but there’s still space for more traditional CNC machines. For their Hackaday Prize entry, [Andy], [Tim], and [Chris] are building the Sienci Mill – a simple desktop CNC mill that’s able to cut drill and carve everything from wood to circuit boards.
As far as desktop CNC machines go, it doesn’t get much more simple than this. They’re using steel plates for the rails, NEMA 17s for the motors, and a simple stepper motor driver Arduino shield for the controller. The more complex parts are 3D printed, and the BOM doesn’t add up to much.
Sienci Mill One: Simplifying Desktop CNC Milling
https://hackaday.io/project/10433-sienci-mill-one-simplifying-desktop-cnc-milling
CNC desktop machines are expensive and complicated. This machine changes all that.
The Sienci 1 is a high performance desktop CNC milling machine designed to be simple and cost effective. By focusing on simplification, we have made a device that is easy to assemble, repair, and modify, making it more accessible for the typical user
https://sienci.com/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Hackaday Prize Entry: The World’s First Tampon Monitor
http://hackaday.com/2016/07/13/hackaday-prize-entry-the-worlds-first-tampon-monitor/
[Amanda], [Jacob], [Katherine], and [vyshaalij] had a class project for their ‘Critical Making’ class at UC Berkeley. The task was to design a ‘Neo-Wearable’ that would fulfill an unmet need. Realizing women make up about 50% of the population and experience monthly periods for about half of their lives, they decided to make what can only be described as a tampon monitor. It’s a small device that monitors the… uh… ‘fullness’ of a tampon. Yes, it’s wearable technology that is actually useful, and a great entry for the Hackaday Prize.
The my.Flow, as the team are calling it, uses mechanical means to measure the saturation level of a tampon. Why would anyone want to do this? Because of leakage, anxiety, and risk of Toxic Shock Syndrome (TSS).
my.Flow
https://hackaday.io/project/11407-myflow
my.Flow is the world’s first tampon monitor; it tracks saturation level with the goal of eliminating period anxiety, leakage, and infection.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Learn Resin Casting Techniques: Cold Casting
http://hackaday.com/2016/07/14/learn-resin-casting-techniques-cold-casting/
Sometimes we need the look, feel, and weight of a metal part in a project, but not the metal itself. Maybe you’re going for that retro look. Maybe you’re restoring an old radio and you have one brass piece but not another. It’s possible to get a very metal like part without all of the expense and heat required in casting or the long hours in the metal fabrication shop.
Before investing in the materials for cold casting, it’s best to have practical expectations. A cold cast part will not take a high polish very well, but for brushed and satin it can be nearly indistinguishable from a cast part. The cold cast part will have a metal weight to it, but it clinks like ceramic. It will feel cool and transfers heat fairly well
Parts made with brass, copper, and iron dust will patina accordingly. If you want them to hold a bright shine they will need to be treated with shellac or an equivalent coating afterward
It is best to think of the material as behaving more or less like a glass filled nylon such as the kind used for the casing of a power tool. It will be stiff. It will flex a relatively short distance before crazing and then cracking at the stress points. It will be significantly stronger than a 3D printed part, weaker than a pure resin part, and depending on the metal; weaker than the metal it is meant to imitate.
Cold casting is especially forgiving if the part is mostly cosmetic. The resin used to bind the particles together can be just about anything. While I am using my favorite, Innovated Polymers IE-3075, practically anything will do.
The metal can be any fine powder. For this example I used 500 mesh (30micron) aluminum powder.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Open Source Solar
http://hackaday.com/2016/07/10/open-source-solar/
What’s the size of a standard euro-palette, goes together in 15 minutes, and can charge 120 mobile phones at one time? At least one correct answer is Sunzilla, the open source solar power generator. The device does use some proprietary components, but the entire design is open source. It contains solar panels, of course, as well as storage capacity and an inverter.
http://sunzilla.de/