Limor has documented the process she used to expand the functionality of one of those off the shelf Kill-a-Watt power monitoring devices. Hacking into the Kill-a-Watt circuitry she added a wireless transmitter that is now able to sent data to a central collection receiver.

"This project documents my adventures in learning how to wire up my home for wireless power monitoring. I live in a rented apartment so I don’t have hacking-access to a meter or breaker panel. Since I’m still very interested in measuring my power usage on a long term basis, I will build wireless outlet reporters. Building your own power monitor isn’t too tough and can save money but I’m not a fan of sticking my fingers into 120V power. Instead, I’ll build on the existing Kill-a-watt power monitor, which works great and is available at my local hardware store. My plan is to have each room connected to a 6-outlet power strip which powers all the devices in that room (each kill-a-watt can measure up to 15A, or about 1800W, which is plenty!). That way I can track room-by-room usage, for example "kitchen", "bedroom", "workbench", and "office". "

Green Power Science has made a simple DIY Hydrogen Generator. The thought was that it would be run from the alternator in your car and the Hydrogen would be pumped into the engine for combustion. I am no expert but I think the energy used to create the gas would be much greater than the energy that would be produced when burning the gas. What would be interesting though is to have a large scale hydrogen generator in your garage running from solar energy and a means of using it in your car.

CAUTION – Before attempting this experiment please read comment 4 since it could be hazardous to your health if not performed with some precautions.

If you still want to relive your Atari 2600 game playing days and simply modding your Atari 2600 controller isn’t enough then why not bring back the entire console by hacking it into a new form factor and use a new LCD screen on it? That is exactly what Kyo did, have a look at all the build details here.

"It is true, you have heard me. I am making an Atari Jr. 2600 (PAL) portable Why? -I had a board available -I’m using a PSOne screen anyway, so it can be a little bigger without contributing to additional size but most of all, -Challenge"

It is nice to see the youth of today being inventive. For his science fair Charlie Sobcov designed a plastic film that is in the shape of a falcon. This plastic is tinted with a color that humans can’t see under normal lighting conditions but birds can. The tint was already being produced for the Glow Bowling industry so it was just a new application of the color. I wish Charlie great success with his inventing future!

Thanks for the tip Bill.

DoctorBass showed is that he can jump start his car using a powerful battery pack that can fit in the palm of your hand. He is also into building Powerful Electric Bikes. This is one impressive battery pack with some wheels bolted to them. Have a look at the battery pack specs below!

"432 Sony 18650V (known as Konion).used in Makita, Bionx an, 3.75 Volt, Lithium-Ion
2.21 Kilowatt-hour LiMnO2
I built this pack myself with engineering knowledge for thermal management and safety protections.
I used many used 18V 3Ah LXT power tools battery pack of Makita.
These cells are 1600mAh each and are mounted in 24s 18p groups.
The total pack give 100.8V fully charged and 24Ah.
can take 10C discharge"

This contest will run for one week (Jan 24- Jan 29, 2009) . 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.

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Added February 10, 2009

The item to guess was a Laser Diode 

The winner is Roger S. (There were 183 entries)

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Below is a picture of the prize.

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Here is a nice new shield for the Arduino. This Audio Shield allows you to record and playback audio using the popular Winbond ISD4003 chip. One thing that looks like it was a bit of a pain was having the 3 volt Windbond chip to interface to the 5 volt Arduino.

Windbond ISD4003 datasheet (PDF).

"The Voice Shield™ (VS) is an analog audio shield for the Arduino that allows you to play audio sound bytes. It could be used in many different Arduino projects, such as; a talking clock, DIY Arduino talking GPS, robots, alarms, motion based sound effects etc …"