RSSArchives: August 2007
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August 10, 2007
Transform an old laptop into a MP3 player
Tony took an old laptop and made it in to a big MP3 player, good reuse. I'm hoping he posts the Windows Media skin he made, looks handy - Link.
Posted by Phillip Torrone |
Aug 10, 2007 12:00 AM
Computers, DIY Projects, Green, Music |
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August 9, 2007
Fire Balloon at CCC
I'm not entirely convinced that this is a good idea, but it's beautiful in this video by gurkenwurst! - Link
Posted by Bre Pettis |
Aug 9, 2007 08:00 PM
Events |
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DARPA Urban Challenge semi-finalists announced
Today, DARPA announced the 36 semi-finalists for its Urban Challenge autonomous vehicle competition. The top 20 teams from the National Qualifying Event (to be held Oct. 26-31) will move on to the Urban Challenge final event on November 3. Teams will compete for cash prizes worth $2 million for first, $1 million for second, and $500,000 for third place.
DARPA Urban Challenge Home - Link
Press release (PDF) with list of semi-finalists - Link
Posted by Gareth Branwyn |
Aug 9, 2007 08:00 PM
Electronics, Events, GPS, Robotics, Transportation |
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Model, sport rocketry reference source
If you read Bill Gurstelle's "Happy Blastoff" piece, about last year's LDRS (Large Dangerous Rocket Ships) event, in MAKE Vol. 10, and it whet your appetite for building some LDRS of your own, INFOCentral is for you. Maintained by Rocketry Online, it's a decent beginner's online reference library covering all aspects of rocket design, construction, launching, tracking and recovery.
Rocketry Online's INFOCentral - Link
From the pages of MAKE:
Happy Blastoff. Smoke, sound, and fury at the Large Dangerous Rocket Ship launchpad. Read this article in MAKE: 10: Home Electronics, Page 48. Subscribers--read this article now in your digital edition or click here to subscribe.
Posted by Gareth Branwyn |
Aug 9, 2007 06:00 PM
DIY Projects, Flying, Science, Toys and Games |
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Datamancer talks steampunk in WSJ video
Richard Nagy, better known by his online moniker Datamancer, is the star of a new Wall Street Journal video on steampunk hardware hacking.
Peek Into a "Steampunk" Workshop - Link
Posted by Gareth Branwyn |
Aug 9, 2007 04:00 PM
Arts, DIY Projects, Electronics, Gadgets, Retro |
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William Kamkwamba's Malawi Windmill Blog
On William Kamkwamba's Windmill Blog, he describes himself as "a secondary school student in Malawi who is interested in wind and solar energy, irrigation pumps and anything mechanical or electrical." He's using his blog to document his ongoing project to bring electricity to his village. In the first post to the blog, he wrote:
Our family is poor like many families in Malawi and Africa, and as a result, we have no electricity in our village or my home. For many years we had only paraffin candles to light my home at night. They are expensive, smoky, smelly and have to be purchased about 8 km from home.During that time I decided to try to get as much education as possible by reading as many books as I could find. An organization called the Malawian Teacher Training Activity (MTTA), a project of USAID contributed a large quantity of books to the primary school library near my home. I read many of them. One of the books I read was called Using Energy, a primary school textbook about how energy is made. Inside the book there were plans for a windmill. I decided to build a windmill to provide power for my family.
William Kamkwamba's Windmill Blog. - Link [Thanks, Michael!]
Related
- Hacking my windmill: Inspiration from MAKE magazine via Baobab Health - Link
- Wind Powered Generator - Link
Posted by Brian Jepson |
Aug 9, 2007 03:00 PM
DIY Projects |
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Fire-powered, bean-tin battery charger
Here's one for the Hobo Tech file, it's allegedly a "battery charger" that employs the Peltier-Seebeck effect -- using a heat differential to generate a voltage (Seebeck Effect) and using a voltage to create a heat differential (Peltier Effect). Too bad there's no info on the site except this captioned image.
Seebeck battery charger - [via] Link
Posted by Gareth Branwyn |
Aug 9, 2007 02:00 PM
Electronics, Gadgets, Science |
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| Comments (4)
Multimeter tutorial, part 2: Resistance!
The most important debugging tool in any E.E.'s toolbox is a trusty multimeter. A multimeter can measure continuity, resistance, voltage and sometimes even current, capacitance, temperature, etc. It's a swiss army knife for geeks! Here's a great resistance tutorial - Link & more.
Related:
Multimeters - Link.
Posted by Phillip Torrone |
Aug 9, 2007 01:00 PM
DIY Projects, Electronics |
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Edible robotics
This is tasty, robots you can eat... -
Edible Robotics represents a sea change in thinking and action regarding our relationship with our friendly robot servants. Our goal in exploring this new territory is to report back from the frontier with our discoveries and observations in the hopes that others who follow will not fall prey to pitfalls we've stumbled across in the interest of science.Edible robotics - Link & photos.
Posted by Phillip Torrone |
Aug 9, 2007 12:00 PM
Arts, Robotics |
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Laser flashlight
Here's how to turn a MiniMag flashlight into a powerful laser pointer using a DVD player laser - Link.
From the pages of MAKE:
Mini High-Power Laser. MAKE 10 - page 142. Liberate a 200mW laser from a DVD burner. Subscribers--read this article now in your digital edition - Link.
Posted by Phillip Torrone |
Aug 9, 2007 11:05 AM
DIY Projects |
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| Comments (7)
DIY Homemade mini plasma gun
Huh, I need to check this out a bit more... but take a look at this DIY Homemade mini plasma gun (hand held Tesla Coil turns a light bulb into a plasma globe)... - Link.
Posted by Phillip Torrone |
Aug 9, 2007 11:00 AM
DIY Projects, Electronics |
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| Comments (1)
PopSci 5 min videos
PopSci took a took a bunch of their HOW 2.0 projects and turned them into little videos... Nice start! Link.
Posted by Phillip Torrone |
Aug 9, 2007 10:00 AM
DIY Projects |
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| Comments (3)
Compact Flash iPod
Mark Hoekstra brought his compact flash ipod to ccc. He's had a few challenges with the pinout but he's got it all set up with the cc licence printed on the board! He's also got a bunch of photos to check out on his site! - Link
Posted by Bre Pettis |
Aug 9, 2007 09:00 AM
Events |
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Flight sims external LCD gauges
Wow, check out these flight sims external LCD gauges... as the site mentions, these would be fun to hack around with - Link.
Posted by Phillip Torrone |
Aug 9, 2007 09:00 AM
Gaming |
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Cheap 3D plotter
Here's a cheap plotter for graphs, PCBs and masks for etching metal plates, thanks Alex - Link & translated site.
Posted by Phillip Torrone |
Aug 9, 2007 08:00 AM
DIY Projects, Electronics |
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The keg lathe
Fredan writes -
I have found instructions on how to convert kegs, using reciprocating saws, grinder, and plasma cutters. But in my experience, kegs which are ground or sawed generally produce uneven or oval openings. Plasma cutters on the other hand produce outstanding openings; unfortunately I don't have many friends who have them at their disposal. So I came up with a different way of cutting the opening. In essence, I have created a hand turned lathe for a keg. It cost me around 30 dollars, but depending on your own personal inventory of tools, the cost may be higher or lower. The project took about 3 hours which included the construction, cutting out the opening and smooth out the edges.KEG LATHE - Link.
Posted by Phillip Torrone |
Aug 9, 2007 07:00 AM
DIY Projects, Instructables |
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| Comments (12)
Make a Text Adventure Game
Inspired by yesterday's lecture by Nika Bertram and Jens Ohlig about text adventure games. I woke up and the first thing I did was play Reconnaissance at Finowfurt which is a text adventure in the tradition of zork. I grew up playing these kinds of games and they hold a special place in my heart.
Reconnaissance at Finowfurt is a game that is set here at Chaos Communication Camp 2007 and it took me about an hour to play. If you're interested, first go download a text adventure game viewer (mac, unix) and then download the game and you're off!
As I was finishing the game, Jens coincidentally showed up and I got to talk to him about text adventures and the future of mashing up text adventure games with ARGs. After expressing an interest in learning how to make a text adventure game, he got me set up with Inform 7 to make a super simple text adventure game adaptation of Charlie the Unicorn. It's a really interesting programing language because it parses and compiles English!
As a beginning programmer, this was easy to navigate with some over the shoulder help. With only a day or two of walking through the example code, you could have a game up and running pretty quick. The trick would become writing an awesome adventure rather than learning code. I found this tutorial for you if you don't have a Jens to walk you through. If you make a geeky text adventure game, make sure to drop a link to it in the comments! - Link
The latest flickr photos from Chaos Communication Camp 2007 are here: - Link
Posted by Bre Pettis |
Aug 9, 2007 07:00 AM
DIY Projects |
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| Comments (1)
Grab bag sorting how-to
David writes in -
How-to sort a 1 pound grab-bag of small electronic components. I sort through one of the $1 grab-bags I purchased at the Austin Summer fest 2007 HAM meet up. The reason these grab-bags are cheap is that you have to do a lot of work to make the collection of parts useful. I explain my method and give the tally for the parts.Grab bag sorting how-to - Link.
Posted by Phillip Torrone |
Aug 9, 2007 06:00 AM
DIY Projects, Electronics |
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| Comments (2)
Tricumbent hybrid
FrankG writes in with the latest on his Tricumbent hybrid -
This is the third installment of the Electric Recumbent trike project that started back in mid March of this year. On this page there is major reworking of the frame, adding the electronics and drive train with some basic testing.Tricumbent hybrid -Link.
Posted by Phillip Torrone |
Aug 9, 2007 05:00 AM
Bicycles, DIY Projects, Transportation |
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| Comments (0)
Ardustat - low cost Arduino based galvanostat/potentiostat
Dan has a cool low cost Arduino based galvanostat/potentiostat, he writes -
What?Ardustat - Link.
The Ardustat is my open source successor to Jonny Galvo. It uses a standard USB-Arduino unit with a custom designed daughterboard to provide:* A galvanostat with a current range from .1 µA to 10 mA
* A potentiostat with a potential range from 0 to 5V with 5 mV resolution.These features are provided from a single USB port on a testing computer. A java based GUI (again, open sourced, written with Netbeans) allows complete control of the ardustat unit, and a custom scripting language, JonnyScript (based on DUALFOIL convention) allows multiple potentiostat and galvanostat commands to be strung together. This lets the ardustat cycle batteries or capacitors for weeks on end with complex charging/loading parameters.
Each Arduino stat costs ~$60 in parts and involves minimal, simple soldering (no surface mount parts, etc). The software runs on just about any modern platform (tested on Windows XP, 2000, Mac OS X, Ubuntu Linux, Fedora Linux).
As a bonus I've written a small php package that allows Ardustat file management and plotting (via gnuplot) over the web. Currently this has only been tested with Ubuntu Linux. A stand alone gnuplot script will work with most any gnuplot distribution. The following links detail the software, hardware
Why?
Email any major manufacturer of battery testing equipment for a quote, wait three days, and see that a basic galvanostat/potentiostat costs $5,000 a channel, without software. The Ardustat does not replace these units (completely, at least). The Ardustat does enable easy, accurate and cheap long term cycling and pulse testing far more easily than most commercial solutions, and again, at a fraction of the price.
Posted by Phillip Torrone |
Aug 9, 2007 04:00 AM
DIY Projects, Electronics |
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| Comments (0)
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Current Podcast
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