TM4UrL: February 2011

Wooden quadcopter body

Wednesday, February 16, 2011

brings back memories of balsa wood gliders
[Greasetattoo] shares the process of building his wooden quadcopter body that won 2nd place in the Minnesota state fair. His plans were purchased as a kit back in 1999, but he never got around to actually building them. The original plans called for a foam board body, but he felt that a wooden piece of art would be much nicer. This build isn’t focusing on the electronics, they’re just a kit from Mikrokopter. Instead, it is a log of the entire process of making the beautiful wooden body. He really put some nice detail in there from the layered and nicely finished dome to the little oak sleeves for his motors. Great job [Greasetattoo].

Mercedes-Benz unveils SLS AMG E-Cell Electric Sports Car at the Detroit Auto Show

Thursday, February 3, 2011

There's been plenty of chatter over the last few months about Mercedes-Benz's next EV release, but all the speculation was put to rest today at the 2011 Detroit Auto Show where the famed company made the public unveil of their SLS AMG E-Cell prototype! The new supercar features four electric motors, and has a killer kick of 526 hp and 649 lb-ft of torque and is capable of reaching zero to 62 mph in just four seconds flat, all features that no one was really paying attention to because we were too busy ogling the jaw-dropping paint job on this sweet ride - a retina-searing electric yellow!

Artist Cal Lane Transforms Industrial Objects into Intricate Lace Sculptures

Using her trusty blowtorch, artist and welder Cal Lane burns delicate lace-like patterns into reclaimed steel objects. She says she thinks of the original materials - such as shovels, manhole covers, dumpsters, wheelbarrows and i-beams - as “male” because of their industrial nature. Lane enjoys pushing the dichotomy of feminine and masculine by combining patterns of domesticity with these cold, harsh symbols of masculine blue collar labor.

Keepon finally gets a cheaper version

Keepon, the adorable bot meant to help autistic kids with its jovial dance moves, seems to finally be getting a cheaper version. The original cost $30,000 and did a lot more than dance. Actually, we got to play with it a little bit at CES a couple years ago. The commercial version most likely won’t have facial recognition or any of the other fancy features of the first one, but we hope it can dance well. We’ve actually seen a couple home made versions and we’re hoping that the new one has some major hacking potential. The temptation to have one of these cute little bots around is made even stronger when you see that some of the money is going back into autism research.

Green Overdrive Video: The RAV4 EV (Via Tesla, Toyota)!

electric rav4, toyota, tesla, gigaom, green overdrive, ev rav4 test drive, green car, electric car, alternative transportation, green transportation, sustainable design, green design
In one of the most interesting electric vehicle partnerships of 2010, Tesla and Toyota announced last year that they would jointly build an electric RAV4, combining Toyota’s SUV with Tesla’s battery and EV tech. For this week’s episode of GigaOM TV’s Green Overdrive Show, we grab some time with the RAV4 EV’s chief engineer, learn about the partner’s future plans and check out the inaugural car!

Disco Death Ray

Wielding the power to melt glass or instantly ignite most day to day materials can be ~~intoxicating~~ pretty fun. With a little math, a lot of patience, and 5,800 1cm pieces of mirror, this build requires welding glasses just to look at the 1-2cm focal point. With an idea rumored to date back to Archimedes, this more portable parabolic project is perfect for your home burning needs. Unfortunately, this setup seems to have burnt itself to death at some point, though that makes room for version two, which will reportedly bump the mirror count to 32,000 or so.
There are plenty of other ways to make a death ray out there as well, including using lasers or lenses. Think you have a better tool of destruction? Be sure to tell us about it

Nook Color gets honeycomb

[Deeper-blue] has released all the files necessary to get Android honeycomb working on your nook color. We had a chance to play with the nook color for a bit, but ours was only on Android version 2.1. It seems like they’ve come a long way with the capabilities of this simple e-reader since then. While he’s built out the majority of the features, it is still lacking some fundamentals, like sound. As you can see in the video after the break, the scrolling is a tiny bit choppy but the applications themselves see to be fairly snappy. We can’t wait to see how this works after a little improvement.

Japanese Pals Recycle Old Truck into Transforming Two-Story Mobile Home

Everything about this crazy mobile home screams "made in Japan"; it's compact, it's a vehicle and it's extremely unique. In fact, we're wagering that it's the only hydraulic, double-decker, transforming, fully-equipped camper in the the world - well, at least the only one that features a Japanese-style zen loft space with rice paper windows and tatami mats on the second floor. Of course, the other thing that makes this vehicle so special is that it wasn't made by Honda or Nissan, but rather a group of pals who decided to convert an old truck into something way cooler, and have some fun doing it. Read on for more pics of the interior (it's amazing what they were able to fit in there).

Fermentation temperature control

[Eric Friedrich] needed to keep the wort warm enough for yeast to ferment it into beer. To solve the problem he built his own fermentation temperature controler using a microprocessor to turn some heating tape on and off. You can see the heating element embracing that diminutive fermentation bucket in the picture above. This was originally meant for keeping reptile cages warm. It costs less than similar products meant just for brewing and works well for [Eric]. A DS1820 temperature sensor gives feedback to an ATmega168 which then uses a relay to switch the heat on and off. The target temperature can be changed using a potentiometer on the board, with the setting displayed on a character LCD screen on the project enclosure.

Rotary dial authenticates sudo commands

[W1ndman] won’t win any security awards for this build, but it’s an interesting idea. On many Linux-based systems commands can be run with administrator privileges by prefacing them with the keyword ‘sudo’. Normally you’d be asked for a password but [W1ndman] used the Pluggable Authentication Modules (PAM) to authenticate via his own shell script. That script checks a code from this rotary dial for authentication. An Arduino takes care of listening for each digit that is entered and then sends the code via USB for comparison with a stored file. We’re not sure if that stored code is in a plain file or is otherwise protected, but at the very least this prevents you from using ‘sudo’ willy-nilly.

Company Turns LED Ceiling Lights into Wireless Internet Source

lvx systems, internet access ceiling lights, wi-fi lights, internet access lights, office lights internet, led lighting, leds, green lighting, lvx systems, green design

You could soon be getting your internet at the speed of light! Well, not literally, but one company is divising a system that uses LED ceiling lights to transmit data (namely the internet) to computers equipped with special sensors. What this means is that light waves could potentially replace radio waves as a method of transmitting data, since lights can ‘flick’ data faster than the eye can see. The company, LVX Systems, has already implemented the technology at several city offices in St. Cloud, Minnesota.

Water-dosing coffee maker augmentation

[Arthur Benemann] has the worst part of making coffee licked. His add-on for a drip coffee maker fills the water to the proper levels for you, saving the drudgery of rinsing out the carafe, carefully filling it to the appropriate level, then pouring it into the machine without getting everything wet. This isn’t limited to a full pot, but is user selectable by the cup based on how many times in a row you hit that red button. One LED gives feedback on the selected mode, then the device uses a washing machine water valve to turn on the tap for the appropriate amount of time. We’re a little bit leery of connecting homebrew hardware to the water pipes in our house. Make sure you’ve done a good job of debugging so that an infinite loop doesn’t flood you out.

Shiny acrylic MAME box

This nice table-top MAME arcade features a two-toned acrylic case. [Fabricio] spent about 50-60 hours designing the 29 parts that make up the enclosure. Originally the sides were meant to be orange but one design flaw meant he had to have them recut and only had enough black stock for the job. But we like it this way. The screen is just over ten inches and inside you’ll find a mini-ITX motherboard with a gig of ram and a solid state drive. The seven page build log features some bending, glue, screwing, and wiring that really show off the depth of the project.
This results a very modern look but if you like your retro gaming to appear vintage we recommend this cocktail cabinet.

Sliced Stable: Open-Air Kitchen Connects With the Land

sliced Stable, Overtreders W, green pavillion, post and beam, art pavilion, Netherlands art, green architecture, sustainable design

This Sliced Stable in the Netherlands is a little piece of community space set on a farm that is destined to become forested land again. Part of an art experience by Dutch design studio Overtreders W, the project is a vision for a community gathering place with an agricultural bent. Spotted over at Designboom, the simple, wistful structure is part of an exhibit called The Woods That See and Hear, and it consists of a kitchen and tables with a look-out seat rising above the din.

Building infra red light sources with regular lights

[Oneironaut] sent us another IR hack. This time it is a writeup on the best ways to create IR light sources from regular lights. Since normal flashlight bulbs emit a broad enough spectrum to include visible light and IR light, this basically comes down to filtering. [Oneironaut] explores different light sources and different materials in depth, along with great pictures to show his results. This is a great resource if you’re needing to do some night vision for cheap.

Automating automatic racing

Hackaday forum user [Nikescar] upgraded his XBox360 hard drive. During this upgrade, his Forza 3 game save was lost. He had accumulated millions of in-game dollars and really wanted to get back to where he was. We’re not familiar with the game, but he says that one easy way to make some money is to allow the AI to run races for you while you do other things. Unfortunately, this requries coming back to the system and starting a new race every hour or so. Luckily, [Nikescar] had an arduino lying around doing nothing, so he patched it into the controller and had it carry out a the correct button press sequence on a schedule. Now his virtual driver makes virtual money while his virtual-person keeps it going. His real person sleeps.

Fantastical New Salvador Dalí Museum in Florida is Also Hurricane Resistant

Salvador Dalí's surrealist artwork now has a new home in a spectacular and fantastical museum in St. Petersburg, FL. The HOK-designed museum, appropriately opened on 1-11-11 at 11:11 am, features a geodesic inspired glass atrium and walls so thick they can withstand a Category 5 hurricane. Sustainable design features abound in the new museum, which provides a "Dalí-esque" experience without being trite or cliched. The Salvador Dali Museum houses the world's largest collection of the master's artwork with over 2,000 pieces of art and highlights 100 of Dalí's most important oil paintings.

Bringing an LCD viewfinder back to life

[Foobarbob] posted a pretty simple job of bringing an LCD viewfinder back to life. He doesn’t specify what was wrong, but since he replaced the backlight, we’re guessing that was the main issue. It was pulled off of a JVC camcorder. The camcorders with LCD viewfinders are getting more and more common at garage sales, so we’re surprised we don’t see more of these used. [Foobarbob] cracked it open, traced out the power lines and replaced the backlight with an LED and a makeshift diffuser made from a bottle cap. His results look great, we could see this being perfect for an HMD, or possibly a home made VR helmet.

Digital measuring tape

You’ll never come up short with this measuring tape. That’s because there isn’t actually any tape in the device; it measures distance based on the rotation of a wheel. Roll it across the room and you’ll get an accurate measurement of the distance the little bugger traveled. Like the Etch-a-Sketch from Monday this uses the encoder wheel from a mouse as the input. The IR emitter and sensor from the ubiquitous peripheral find a new home on the PCB that hosts the PIC 16F819. It monitors the rotation, turns it into inches, then spits that number out on a 7 segment display. Handy, and cheap!

Swedish Company Harvests Body Heat to Warm Buildings

stockholm central station, body heat to heat buildings, body heat from stockholm central station, jernhusen, renewable resources, body heat heating system

Image © Tomislav Medak via Creative Commons

It’s no secret that crowds cause temperatures to rise, but all those bodies generating heat could be a large source of untapped energy. Inspired by the hordes of people passing through Stockholm’s Central Station each day, a Swedish real estate company, Jernhusen, has found a way to harness the energy created by the 250,000 moving bodies to heat an office building across the street. As a result, the building’s energy bill has decreased by 25 percent.

Emulating ink cartridges

[Smartie_on_computer] wanted to do some experimenting with an epson printer. After getting a somewhat disassembled one, the first step was to simply get it running. Unfortunately, one of the ink cartridges was missing and these printers refuse to do pretty much anything without all the cartridges installed. Rather than go purchase a costly cartridge that they didn’t intend to actually use, [Smartie_on_computer], chose to emulate the cartridge using a microcontroller. After some searching for the protocol used on the cartridge, the info ended up being in the patent. [Smartie_on_computer] now has a functional printer that is destined to be a 3d printer in the near future. You can see a video breakdown after the break.
Read the rest of this entry »

TI Evalbot development under Linux

We have some beefs about how Texas Instruments does things, the biggest of which is their lack of support for development under Linux operating systems. But if they build it, someone will try to get Linux involved in one form or another. This time around, [BLuRry] put together a guide to developing for the Evalbot under Linux. He got a shove in the right direction from the code package that went along with that nunchuck-controlled Evalbot. Picking apart that example to the bare essentials he wrote up the process of setting up the cross-compiling toolchain in a virtual machine so as not to clutter your system. From there he details how to set up and use Eclipse when starting a new project. What what did he choose for a Hello World experience? Well a plain “Hello World” was first but right on its heels is the “Hello Hack-A-Day” seen above. So if you’ve got one of these on hand get out there and start coding for it.

Nokia LCD, nunchuck, and MSP430 join forces

[JB's] driving a Nokia 6100 LCD using an MSP430 with input from a Wii Nunchuck. He’s using the G2211 microprocessor that came with the Launchpad, and developing his code with MSP-GCC. As you can see in the video after the break, this works but there’s some room for improvement. That’s being said, he is bumping up against the code memory limit, with just around 500 bytes left to work with. The LCD screen is SPI and currently it’s hogging the pins that are used for the hardware i2c. Since he needs an i2c bus to talk to the nunchuck he had to go with software i2c which explains part of his program memory troubles.
We’re in no way experts on this, but it seems like he could save space (and improve the input responsiveness) by rewriting his LCD drivers in order to remap the pins. Then again, it might just be better to move up to a larger MSP430. If you’ve got some advice, make sure to share it by leaving a comment.
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Have a face for radio?

The help of fellow members of the Austrian technology collective/hackerspace [Otelo] allowed [Georg] to develop a networked audio streaming board, with less than $20 worth of components. Dubbed the OggStreamer for obvious reason, it’s designed to relay audio from a mixing board to an Icecast server (an open source implementation of SHOUTcast) in real-time. The board is based on the STM8 Discovery kit and the Xport Pro. It features stereo input, an onboard OGG Vorbis encoder, and (to top it off) is running uClinux. We think it’s very well thought out - but don’t take our word for it… the OggStreamer won second place last year in the Lantronix XPort Pro Design Contest, and [Georg] has documented it extensively (pdf).

Robo Rainbow graffiti machine

[mudlevel] built this rainbow graffiti producing robot for an art exhibit in San Diego. While there are no build details we can easily pick this apart from the pictures. Looks like the brains are an arduino, the drive is a power drill with the trigger removed, and a few other servos for firing the spray cans. The counter weighted arm for creating the rainbow was a pretty good idea too. Watching this, we had an idea for a super simple purely mechanical way to do this that would be similar to a catapult. You could use the motion of the trailer to “wind up” the counter balance with a simple ratcheting spool of string attached to the axle. Engage your spray cans and let the balance drop and you’re done. Pedal on to re-wind the counterbalance for another rainbow.

STK200 pocket change programmer

A common complaints of beginners to microcontroller programming is the availability of DIY tools that do not require a parallel port. Using not much more than a couple of 74xx series chips and some protoboard, [Rue] was able to create an AVR programmer for less than the cost of some chips it can program – giving parallel programmers a run for thier money. [Rue] used Linux treat the ubiquitous PATA/IDE port as a parallel port. By having avrdude treat the programmer as an Atmel STK200, [Rue] was able to upload a blinky program to his AVR microcontroller through ISP. If anybody can think of an even lower cost unconventional solution give us a shout.

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