Makers
The Hardware Innovation Workshop is LIVE on Make: Live Right Now!
MAKE’s 2nd annual Hardware Innovation Workshop is happening live right now! You can tune in by streaming the video above, showcasing 25 hardware demos and 40 speakers from the workshop stage. Don’t miss a minute of MAKE’s hardware workshop—tune in now to the live stream of this exciting 1-1/2 day […]
Power Racing Ups the West Coast Ante
Nothing tests maker mettle quite like time and budget constraints. West Coast makers: Now is the time to step up and show off your modding skills. This weekend, May 18 and 19, at the 8th annual Maker Faire Bay Area, we are hosting the season opener of the Power Racing Series (PPPRS). Come race us!
One game controller connects to many consoles
[Dave Nunez] wanted arcade quality controls when gaming at home. The problem was he couldn’t decide on just one console to target with his build, so he targeted them all. What you see above is a single controller that connects to many different gaming rigs.
He took a simple-is-best approach, keeping the main goal of high-quality inputs at the forefront. To start, he built the face plate out of thick MDF to ensure it wouldn’t flex or bounce as he mashed the buttons. To keep the electronics as simple as possible he soldered connections to actual controller PCBs (well, reproductions of controllers), breaking each out to a separate DB9 connector on the back of the case. These connectors interface with one of the three adapter cables seen to the right. This lets the controller work with NES, SNES, and an Atari 2600 system.
To pull the enclosure together [Dave] designed the rounded corner pieces and cut them out with a CNC mill. These connect with flat MDF to make up the sides. To give it that professional look he filled the joints with Bondo and sanded them smooth before painting.
Filed under: nintendo hacks, peripherals hacks
Building a Punchtape Reader
NYC Resistor’s phooky built a punchtape reader to read some old punchtapes. After an initial attempt, he built a new reader: This time I used proper phototransistors and IR LEDs I scrounged up around the space (thanks, Miria and Raphael!). Because they’re 5mm in diameter (and the spacing between channels […]
Retrotechtacular: First laser transmitter built 50 years ago
Most of the time we feature hokey film footage in our Retrotechtacular series, but we think this hack is as cool today as it was fifty years ago. [Clint] wrote in to tell us about Operation Red Line. It was an experiment performed May 3rd and 4th, 1963, which means the 50th anniversary just passed a few weeks ago. The hack involved sending data (audio in this case) over long distances using a laser. But back then you couldn’t just jump on eBay and order up the parts. The team had to hack together everything for themselves.
They built their own helium-neon laser tube, which is shown on the right. The gentlemen involved were engineers at a company called Electro-Optical System (EOS) by day, and Ham radio enthusiasts by night. With the blessing of their employer they were able to ply their hobby skills using the glass blowing and optical resources from their work to get the laser up and running. With that side of things taken care of they turned to the receiving end. Using a telescope and a photomultipler they were able to pick up the beam of light at a distance of about 119 miles. The pinnacle of their achievement was modulating audio on the transmitter, and demodulating it with the receiver.
[Clint] knows the guys who did this and wrote up a look back at the project on his own blog.
Filed under: laser hacks, radio hacks
Big Robot Makers at Maker Faire
As someone who shares the hobby of making robots, I really have to look up to Dave Shinsel, who has come up with some truly impressive designs. His robots have appeared in Popular Mechanics and on the cover of Servo Magazine. He has also competed in RoboMagellan, a challenging contest that tests a robot's ability to navigate successfully.
Introducing New Column from Arduino’s Massimo Banzi
MAKE is excited to announce a new monthly column all about Arduino, by platform co-creator Massimo Banzi. In this month's post, Massimo introduces the Arduino Robot!
Bob Ross Paint-Along Class at i3 Detroit
You think hackerspaces are all about Arduinos and 3D printers? Guess again! i3Detroit is holding a Bob Ross Paint Along class, where you can learn how to paint like the mighty Bob Ross of “Joy of Painting” fame: The late Bob Ross left a legacy of artistic genius and inspiration. […]
Master lock auto-cracker built as coursework at University
We love the beginning of May because the final projects for college coursework start rolling into our tips line. Here’s one of the latest, it’s an automatic Master lock combination cracker which was built by [Ross Aiken] and his classmates as part of their ECE453 Embedded Microprocessor System Design class at the University of Wisconsin – Madison.
We’ve talked about the ease with which these locks can be cracked. But [Ross] points out that the resources we linked to before are flawed. To get the combination as quickly as possible the team has implemented an algorithm discussed here. Their machine uses a stepper motor to turn the dial with a big solenoid to pull on the shackle. The system is sensitive enough to detect the “sticky” spots of the lock, which are then used to narrow the number of possible combinations before brute forcing the combination. As you can see in the video after the break, the shackle moves slightly when pulled after an incorrect combination. The long vertical pin near the solenoid will pass through an optical sensor when the correct combination is found.
Do you have your own final project to show off? What are you waiting for, send us a tip about it!
Filed under: security hacks
The Inside Angle on DIWire
Pensa is an eight-member NY-based design consultancy founded in 2005 by Marco Perry and Kathy Larchian. They’ve done product design work with major brands like OXO and Samsung mobile, and first appeared on our radar back in May of last year, when they first announced plans to develop a low-cost, […]
Mauro and His Fiery Piano
Bay Area Milanese artist Mauro Ffortissimo is well versed in the visual arts as well as classical piano. Earlier this year, these two passions converged in the form of the Sunset Piano, the name given to a castoff grand piano that Mauro acquired. In a poetic act that brought joy […]
50% Off MAKE Ebooks And Videos
In celebration of Maker Faire Bay Area 2013, O'Reilly is taking 50% off of MAKE's ebooks and videos (there are a bunch of books from other great publishers too).
DIY Hacks & How To’s: Make a Magic Wand
Do you know a kid that likes to pretend that they are a wizard or a fairy princess? Well, this is a project for them. This project shows how you can make a toy wand that can turn on/off electronic devices like magic. Or more specifically with a magnet.
The Hackaday Newsletter is growing!
I’ve been having fun with the newsletter, and we have over 2500 people subscribed. Up to this point they have mainly just been composed of information about the videos I’m making. I’m going to change that this week. The emails will now also have 10 random hacks, probably the most popular hacks that week. Maybe something from the past of hackaday. It all pretty much just depends on what people end up enjoying. You’ll find the sign up form here, or over there –> in the side bar.
I’m going to keep this extremely informal. I’ll let you know what projects I’m working on, and share some hacks with you. Sign up if this sounds like something you’d enjoy! I plan on sending out 1 to 2 emails per week.
Filed under: Featured, news
GoPro hack delivers live video feed for piloting your Quadcopter
The GoPro line of HD cameras seem like they were specifically designed for use with quadcopters. We say that because the small, light-weight video devices present a payload which can be lifted without too much strain, but still have enough horse power to capture video of superb quality. Here’s a hack that uses the camera to provide a remote First Person View so that you may pilot the aircraft when it is out of your line of sight.
The camera in question is a GoPro Hero 3. It differs from its predecessors in that the composite video out port has been moved to a mini USB connector. But it’s still there and just a bit of cable splicing will yield a very clear signal. The image above shows the camera in the middle, connecting via the spliced cable to an FPV transmitter on the right. This will all be strapped to the quadcopter, with the signal picked up by the receiver on the left and piped to a goggle display worn by the pilot. You can see the cable being construction process in the clip after the break.
If you’re looking for other cool stuff to do with your GoPro camera check out the bullet-time work [Caleb] did with ours.
Filed under: digital cameras hacks, video hacks
Build a “Boomcase” and Upcycle that Old Suitcase
Portable, loud, and fashionable. Take a vintage suitcase and install a set of speakers, passive crossovers, an amplifier, and a couple of rechargeable batteries. Now, you have a portable, albeit heavy, stereo that will make your ears bleed. It’s a “boomcase.”
Arduino-Controlled $200 Robotic Hand
Aaron Thomen’s DIY $200 Robotic Hand looks and works great without costing a lot of money! It consists of servo-controlled and spring-loaded fingers delicate enough to pick up small objects. In another video Aaron shows how to build it. Going to Maker Faire Bay Area? Aaron will be there showing […]
Geiger counter tells you if your dishes are radioactive
[Henrik] really turned out a nice little Geiger counter board based on a cold war era Geiger tube.
It works in much the same way as other projects along the same lines. It does run on batteries if needed, which is no small feat since the tube wants high voltage to operate correctly. And the video after the break shows it spitting out readings to a terminal window when connected to a computer via USB.
But what really caught our eye is the radioactive source material he used for testing. Since he didn’t have anything on hand he had to order something, and ended up going with a couple shards from a dinner plate. A radioactive dinner plate to exact and it’s a brand name you’ve probably heard of before. Red Fiesta Ware apparently used to be radioactive. It’s even mentioned in the intro to the Wikipedia article. Go figure!
One other thing we noticed was [Henrik's] method of interfacing his multimeter with a breadboard. One of the project photos shows the probe with thin wire wrapped around the tip. We assume this is to make it easy to plug into the breadboard.
Despite this little digression away from the main project we did really enjoy learning about his build. And you can see him showing it off in the clip after the break.
Filed under: misc hacks
Penny Sierpinski Triangle
Here's a project we did a long time ago in collaboration with Vi Hart, that somehow never made it into Math Mondays. The idea is simple: lay out pennies on a large horizontal surface, such as a floor, in the pattern of a Sierpinski triangle. How many? Well, the basic triangle with a one-penny size hole
Answering Common 3D Printing Questions
We get a lot of questions about 3D Printers, especially when it concerns their use in an educational setting. Here's an exchange between me and a 7th grade science teacher. I imagine my reply could be helpful to others as well.
Pages
