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Hacked Gadgets - DIY Tech Blog (10 unread)

Worlds most Powerful Private Rocket

Posted: March 8th, 2010, 3:07pm EST by Alan Parekh

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Jonathan from iTrends.dk gave us the heads up about a Denmark team who is building the Worlds most Powerful Private Rocket. Their goal is to send a person into space! Sounds like a blast, but I’m not sure I would want to be the first one to test it out.

“This is a non-profit suborbital space endeavor, based entirely on sponsors and volunteers.
Our mission is to launch a human being into space. We are working fulltime to develop a series of suborbital space vehicles - designed to pave the way for manned space flight on a micro size spacecraft. Two rocket vehicles are under development. A small unmanned sounding rocket, named Hybrid Atmospheric Test Vehicle or HATV and a larger booster rocket named Hybrid Exo Atmospheric Transporter or HEAT, designed to carry a micro spacecraft into a suborbital trajectory in space.”

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Olympic Interactive LED Globes

Posted: March 7th, 2010, 9:53pm EST by Alan Parekh

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Tangible Interaction and Macetech (makers of the Shift Bright) were part of the Olympics! They had a hand in quite a few LED installations but the coolest are these Olympic Interactive LED Globes. Macetech talks about the hurdles they had designing and building these devices, due to time constrains and part shortages they had to make some quick decisions in order to meet the deadline.

“The globes are about six feet across, translucent, filled with helium, and contain LEDs that light the sphere in different colors as they slowly bounce across a crowd. We had a solid idea how to proceed at the beginning of the project, but due to worldwide semiconductor shortages, necessary parts were dropping out of stock as fast as they were specified. Every time a part became unavailable, it caused a cascade of design changes that required changing other components, which then became unavailable…and so on. Some parts of the project were completely redesigned several times.”
How Ball Bearings are Made

Posted: March 7th, 2010, 8:47pm EST by Alan Parekh

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We use ball bearings all the time. They are used in everything from CNC machines to cars. After you see how much work goes into making one the price of a few dollars seems like such a deal!
Name the Thing Contest - 122

Posted: March 6th, 2010, 10:02pm EST by Alan Parekh

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The prize this week is a cable tester to help you with troubleshooting. This contest will run for one week (March 6 - 12, 2010) . Ending time is based on central standard time. To enter, identify the item pictured above and give an example of what can be done with it.

Please do not give the answer in the comments.

Send an email to contest @ hackedgadgets.com with “Name the Thing Contest” as the subject, and the message body consisting of:
- The name of the item in the above picture
- An example of what the item pictured above can be used for
The winner will be chosen at random from all of the correct entries.

Below are some pictures of the prize.
Strobeshnik Hard Drive Clock

Posted: March 6th, 2010, 9:36pm EST by Alan Parekh

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Svofski sent in a neat hard drive clock design he calls Strobeshnik. The clock looks wonderful and he has documented the entire build including how he etched through the aluminum hard drive platters to make the number cutouts. There is a full schematic and code for the microcontroller provided.

“Strobeshnik uses stroboscopic effect to create the illusion of persistent numeric display. The hard drive platter has 10 digits, colon and dash marks, cut all the way through it. Behind the platter, in the HDD chassis, there is a PCB with groups of diffused LED’s. Groups of LED’s in each character position can be strobed independently at any given time. By careful timing of the light strobes, an illusion of still-standing numbers can be created.”
Time Delay Door Alarm Project

Posted: March 5th, 2010, 2:57pm EST by Alan Parekh

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BlackCow from Homebrew Tech has a curious cat who likes to open the front door if it wasn’t properly latched. This Time Delay Door Alarm Project solves that problem by monitoring the door and producing a tone if it has been left open for more than around 30 seconds. This way it isn’t buzzing every time you use the door normally. The schematic is available on his site if you are interested in making your own.

“When the door opens and the magnetic switch is disconnected the pull up resistor (R2) sets the trigger, on the first 555, high and allows the 33uF capacitor (C1) to charge through the 1 meg-ohm resistor (R1). When the charge reaches 2/3 of the supply voltage the output pin on the 555 is set low. The time it takes for the capacitor (C1) to reach 2/3 of the supply voltage is found by this equation, Time(sec) = (1.1) x (Resistance) x (Capacitance)”
Pain Toy

Posted: March 4th, 2010, 3:53pm EST by Alan Parekh

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When you think of toys normally you think of something that is fun and pleasurable. Well this toy by Harcos Labs is anything but pleasurable! It senses your brain waves using a Mindflex brainwave reader and if you are caught thinking hard about something…. ZAPPPPP, you get an electric shock. I think I need a reverse model of this to keep my productivity up all day, just think about the extra work I could get done if I harnessed all those 2 minute day dreams…

“The Mindflex utilizes a wireless headset to detect the frequency of your brain activity. If you are calm and idle, no LEDs will light up. If you are concentrating strongly, all of the LEDs will light up (and a little motor will levitate a ball). I happened to know that Eli, the other founder here at Harcos Labs, absolutely hated being shocked. This project was going to be DELIGHTFUL.

I decided that I would output the top two LED’s leads to a transistor/resistor/relay network that would activate an electroshock unit I ordered off QKits. The first LED would power on the electroshock unit and give a painless tingle through a resistor network. The second LED would activate a transistor that would activate a relay that would bypass the resistor network and give the user the full brunt of the electric shock. Initially, I was going to use a separate shocking unit for 3 of the LEDs, but when I put together the unit from QKits, I found that only one was too painful to hold on to for more than few.”
Portable Full Colour Laser

Posted: March 3rd, 2010, 5:21pm EST by Alan Parekh

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Carl has built some lasers that have been featured here in the past. Well he has sent in his latest creation. It is a small metal box filled with a microcontroller driven array of lasers!

Thanks Carl.

“My latest work using three lasers (red, green, blu-ray) combined with optics from a HD DVD drive mounted in something called an white fusion kit. I designed a driver circuit to control the lasers with PWM from a PIC to make millions of colours and it has lot of built-in effects.“
iPhone Controlled Dalek Robot

Posted: March 2nd, 2010, 3:27pm EST by Alan Parekh

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Using a bubble bath bottle Steve from BotBuilder.co.uk has made a cool Dalek Robot that is controlled using an iPhone (or iPod Touch).

“The ipod sends out OSC signals over WiFi to processing which then talks over serial to my Servo Board.

The Dalek moves around when you tilt the ipod/iphone. I am getting the accelerometer data out for this. I also have a turret that can be rotated and some leds that are switch-able.”
Wise Time Clock 2

Posted: March 1st, 2010, 8:06pm EST by Alan Parekh

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If you have been looking for a minimalist case design for some of your projects have a look at the Wise Time 2 Clock. Some acrylic front and back keeps your fingers off the electronics, acts as a stand and doesn’t hide the electronics. This case was cut using a laser cutter but you can also do a nice job with a CNC machine or a bit of time and some hand tools. If you are determined to have a perfect laser cut result have a look at online services such as Ponoko, eMachineShop or Pololu.