Posted September 5, 2012 by Chris

“Robots are becoming a common educational resource. Together with other applied science fields like wearable computing, or music instrument design, robotics provides an alternative door into traditional fields like math and physics, as well as into more contemporary ones like computer science and complex systems.”

Posted September 4, 2012 by Chris

“The classic pong game. Two players. Press the buttons to move paddles up/down. Ball bounces back and forth. If you fail to catch it, your opponent gets one point. Score difference is showed with blue LEDs. Blue LED = lead by one point. If you then win another point, you win the game, and your player number ("1" or "2") is displayed.”

Posted September 3, 2012 by Chris

“This project is an extension to two-phase Unipolar Stepper motor interfacing with AT89C51. In the previous project, transistor switches were used to interface the stepper motor with the microcontroller. Here the transistors have been replaced by using a ULN2003 IC to drive the stepper with 8051 microcontroller.”

Posted September 2, 2012 by Chris

“Controlled by an AVR ATtiny13, powered by ~3v (unregulated to save on parts), one button operation and sleep mode when the menorah “burns out” after an hour or so”

Posted September 1, 2012 by Chris

“An on-off controller is the simplest form of a temperature control device. The output from the device is either on or off, with no middle state. This on-off controller will switch the output only when the temperature crosses the set-point. For heating control, the output is on when the temperature is below the set-point, and off above set-point.”

Posted August 31, 2012 by Chris

“So far, I have only played around with the PIC16F84 PIC chip, with exception to using a PIC16F876 with the HamHUD. I have found the most documentation is on the 16F84. I have also found the most homebrew programmers for this PIC. I am starting to use 16F877 PICS now for larger projects.”

Posted August 30, 2012 by Chris

“In this article we will explore how to use an IR transmitter and receiver break-beam pair similar to the PIC Tachometer project I built a few months ago, but because of popular demand, the Arduino system will be used for all the processing and break-beam interruption counting. The end result will be a 16×2 LCD displaying the RPM of some computer fans.”

Posted August 29, 2012 by Chris

“The IR blaster that came with our TiVo was lost long ago, in a time when no unnecessary electrical-optical-electrical sillyness was required for it to function. Rather than spend $3 on eBay and wait a week to get a replacement, I decided to make one out of spare parts in my junk bin.”

Posted August 28, 2012 by Chris

“Imagine this: you have your headphones on. When you turn your hand to the right there are the dark and low sounds. Turn your hand to the left and you hear bright shining bells. The other hand lets you shift the sound left or right as you like or just make more space as you turn forward. You can slowly turn from one side to the other, from dark to bright, from closed to wide, and the sound in your head follows your motion.”

Posted August 27, 2012 by Chris

“Sometimes it’s tempting to re-invent the wheel to make a device function exactly the way you want. I am re-visiting the field of homemade electrophysiology equipment, and although I’ve already published a home made electocardiograph (ECG), I wish to revisit that project and make it much more elegant, while also planning for a pulse oximeter, an electroencephalograph (EEG), and an electrogastrogram (EGG).”