Posted March 3, 2014 by Chris

"Inspired by Andre’ Michelle’s Tone Matrix flash applet I decided to make a physical version – i.e. a box with buttons, flashing lights and knobs to turn. I wanted 16×16 – the Bliptronic 5000 just doesn’t have enough lights."

Posted March 2, 2014 by Chris

"The Cramp uses an old HDD as its base, with the crane spinning around the main bearing that previously supported the platter. A system of spools and pulleys provides a reasonable range of motion to the rest of the build. Relocating the entire assembly, however, is evidently an unpleasant task."

Posted March 1, 2014 by Chris

"The goal is to get a ~100 Euro unit to do 10 million key guesses per second. This device is built for the fun of building it and to see what’s possible with current hardware."

Posted February 27, 2014 by Chris

Thanks to continued support and feedback from all of YOU, we are excited to announce that the 4th course of PyroEDU: An Introduction To Microcontrollers will begin next month! Here’s a preview of the course overview:

“This course is meant to create a pathway into learning about microcontrollers, for people who are scared of the hardware and software trickery that comes with it. A hands-on approach is taken in this course through a combination of lecture and experimentation to teach you about the different functions that microcontrollers have. Additionally, visuals are used throughout lectures like step-by-step schematic building and line-by-line code explanations.”

This course comes right on the heels of An Introduction To Digital Electronics and An Introduction To Analog Electronics and as such, it will use knowledge from both of those courses to further expand to the world of processors, microcontrollers and programmed devices in general. Also, thanks again to all of our kickstarter backers who originally got us started! Read more at the course page at PyroEDU

Posted February 26, 2014 by Chris

"As a result of building something for Red Bull’s Creation contest a team consisting of Jeff Waeglin, Chris Horne, Justin Griggs and Greg Needel (me) Built the ‘Pour Master Pro.’ The intention of this robot is to pour a perfect beer in any size glass automatically."

Posted February 25, 2014 by Chris

"Lately, I’ve been working with different sensors as part of my day job at TI. TI happens to have recently released a booster pack for the Stellaris and Tiva launchpads that contains (among other things) an accelerometer, a gyroscope, and a magnetometer. I figured I’d use my recent experience to do something fun with sensors in my free time :)."

Posted February 24, 2014 by Chris

"The Magic 8-Ball Pumpkin was my 2012 entry in the Rosenwinkel pumpkin carving competition….My entry this year was a working Magic 8-Ball, powered by an Arduino Mega and a set of sensors to detect motion. A gyroscope and an accelerometer are used to detect when the 8-Ball has been picked up and/or shaken, while an IR receiver is used to power on or off in response to a remote control. "

Posted February 21, 2014 by Chris

"There are two CPU in our project, ATmega328 and ATmega1284. We set up the wireless communication by two Xbee chips. One of them connects with ATmega328 working as the transmitter to transmit the signal, another one is connected with ATmega1284 to be the receiver. We pick up ATmega328 to be our transmitter part because there is a microphone on it which could receive and store the voice signal from people."

Posted February 19, 2014 by Chris

"The goal of this project is to collect heartbeat information on a computer with minimal cost and minimal complexity. I accomplished this with fewer than a dozen components. It serves both as a light-based heartbeat monitor, and an electrocardiogram (ECG) to visualize electrical activity generated by heart while it contracts."

Posted February 18, 2014 by Chris

"LED Reflectometer is a device which used to measure this property. Mainly it transmits pulses of LED light into the environment, and monitors the strength of the LED light reflected back from objects nearby. This instrument can transmit different pulses and can detect the reflected signal and can show the difference between those two signals."