Posted October 15, 2012 by Chris

“The purpose of this project is to develop a more efficient method for performing real-time object tracking….The project has two main components: the support hardware, and the tracking hardware. The support hardware provides the interface to the real world. The on-screen display is used to display the mouse pointer overtop of the video signal for simple point and click object tracking.”

Posted October 14, 2012 by Chris

“Super Angry Birds is a force feedback USB controller for Angry Birds that simulates the feeling of a slingshot. All the controls found in the game are available in this device. You can control the pull, the angle, and of course trigger the special power of the bird.”

Posted October 13, 2012 by Chris

“A few months ago I took an interest in the layer 2/3 protocols for mobile networks. I quickly arrived at SIM card hacking and like a young schoolboy thought, ‘man if only I could MitM the hardware communication I could spoof other’s SIM cards and use free Internet!’ Nope. Well, not nope, but it’s not that easy.”

Posted October 12, 2012 by Chris

“I have been wanting to make a variable-speed clock for a while, so this weekend I picked up a cheapish clock unit (thrift stores are a great source!), and played around with using the Arduino to control it.”

Posted October 11, 2012 by Chris

“In this article we’ll explore what it takes to build a simple rf transmitter at 27 mhz, the different stages that go into the transmitter, how those stages interact and we’ll test it out with some measurement equipment. The ultimate goal will be to pair this transmitter with a receiver, so that when we transmit, the receiver turns on an LED. Simple as that.”

Posted October 10, 2012 by Chris

“Using an IR remote as a teach pendant on a homebuilt 6-axis arm. PicAxe 20M2 controller records arm joint positions in EEPROM for later playback. After further programming the robot can be ‘taught’ to spell words using small letter blocks. Don’t miss the youtube demonstration videos!”

Posted October 9, 2012 by Chris

“I decided to use an ATtiny84 as the heart of the project. It’s way under-utilized here, but I didn’t have any ATtiny25s in stock. I could have used a 555 instead of a microcontroller, but then I wouldn’t have gotten a cool fade-in and fade-out PWM effect. Plus the 555 at one minute or higher time scales is a little ungainly, with the high value capacitor required. And I REALLY wanted a smooth fade-in.”

Posted October 8, 2012 by Chris

“ For our final project, we used an Atmel AT90S8535 microprocessor to create a hangman game. The letters are displayed on a 16-character LCD, and are input using a 16-button keypad. The 8 LED’s on the Atmel development board are used as our “hanging man” – one lights up for each wrong guess. We also attached a speaker to our game which adds sounds to our game.”

Posted October 7, 2012 by Chris

“This is my electronic combination lock to use with an outdoor gate. The functionality is implemented in software. It turns on a relay (usually to open a door) for a few seconds if someone enters the valid code. Alternatively, it works as an ON/OFF switch, which toggles the relay each time the code is entered.”

Posted October 6, 2012 by Chris

“Why a working, wearable air guitar? Bottom line, it’s just that cool. Who doesn’t want a machine that will take their jamming and turn it into rock they can hear? With just a glove, a pick and a little practice you can rock the synthetic acoustic guitar like no one else in the world.”