Posted December 22, 2012 by Chris

“This week I want to build an audio and light beacon for my final project. My high elevation baloon tracker sends its GPS position by radio and by SMS, but for example if you land in a forest, the GPS can be innacurate and have an error of 100m or more, so it can be difficult to find the device if stuck on a tree or a rooftop, etc. So I want to build a device that when the tracker lands, outputs some sound and light to help finding the tracker.”

Posted December 10, 2012 by Chris

“I built a remote-controlled robotics platform using a 4WD mobile platform, an Arduino (Seeeduino Mega), an Adafruit motor shield, and two XBee radios for communication. There are also some super-bright white LEDs on the front for headlights. The point of the project was to show how an XBee radio can be used to send joystick sensor data without using a microcontroller on the remote.”

Posted December 9, 2012 by Chris

“For our final project, we designed and built an RFID-based proximity security system for use with Cornell Identification cards, which have been RFID-embedded since fall of 2003. The idea for this project was sort of spawned from our general interest in RFID technologies and the near-simultaneous occurance of Lab 2 and the antiquated lock system at our fraternity house breaking.”

Posted December 2, 2012 by Chris

“In this article, I want to take you through the process of creating your own hardware project. I hope it can serve as an example that working in hardware can be an approachable and a fun hobby for people that are already smart enough to know how to code.”

Posted November 14, 2012 by Chris

“After completing my first Security Bot, I had come across the DFRobot 4WD platform. Once viewing some projects made with it, I was inspired for my second creation. This time around I decided to cram as many sensors into it as possible. My goal was to make this my main robot that I could continually expand upon.”

Posted October 18, 2012 by Chris

“In this article we will build a simple rf receiver module that works at 27 mhz and turns on an LED anytime the signal from the transmitter is detected. A very simple idea, but as you will soon find out, a lot goes into making it a reality. We’ll be making our own PCB for this circuit, so get out the ferric chloride and copper clad PC board.”

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 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 September 15, 2012 by Chris

“Control up to 8 devices by this easy constructable remote control. It can work as a radio or infrared remote control, depending on the components. Each device output can be configured to be momentary (turned on while you press the button) or latched. Latched outputs can be toggled on/off by one button per channel, or turned on and off by two buttons per channel.”

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.”