This R/C Moon Hack is a great example of taking an existing product, adding some electronics and enhancing the functionality of the device. By adding a microcontroller and a realtime clock this R/C moon display now shows the actual moon phase with no user intervention.

"I first saw this R/C Moon Phase light at ThinkGeek some time ago and decided it would be ripe for hacking. Essentially, the R/C Moon Phase light is a nightlight that comes bundled with an infrared remote control. The controller allows the user to change the moon’s current phase with the press of a button – or automatically cycle through the standard phases of the moon (ie. waning crescent, waxing crescent, full, etc…) which it accomplishes with six LED’s and an impressively designed outer shell. I decided that it would be more interesting if the model moon actually reflected the current phase of the moon based on the current date. Using an arduino and a DS1307 realtime clock module from Sparkfun, I was able to make that it do just that. The DS1307 module contains a coin cell battery backup that enables the internal clock to maintain the proper time, even without power, for up to 17 years!"

If you like to keep track of what’s going on in your house why not track the in and out activity of your pets. This Tweeting RFID Cat Door does exactly that! Have a look at the Twitter results of Gus and Penny. The other beneficial side effect is that it keeps all of the neighbor cats out of the food you buy for your animals.

"Each cat has a small RFID tag on the collar. When a cat is in the close proximity of the door, a small RFID reader reads the tag and if the cat is authorized, a servo will unlock the cat door. The RFID reader and the servo controller are connected to an old laptop. The software on the laptop is written in Delphi and for each "cat door event" is sending a Twitter message and a picture to twitter.com:"

Muris over at Elektronika.ba has built a 250mW Range Extender for the CC1101 RF Modem. At first glance it does not look anything like a DIY project until you read further and realize that the surface mount components on the board were soldered using a clothes iron. Full project details are included so even if you don’t need this project you can learn some techniques from it.

"Here is my home-built, cloth iron soldered, range extender for CC1101 (included onboard) RF transceiver chip from Texas Instruments. You could say that it is a CC1101+CC2591, but for 868/920MHz band. I used MAX2233 RF amplifier from Maxim-IC. It can deliver up to +24dBm (250mW) of RF amplification with +10dBm of input. For testing I used two modems and two antennas (it figures). At the transmitting side I used monopole antenna for GSM – 900MHz, and for the receiving side I used directional yagi also for GSM. In this quick test I easily achieved over 1000 meters (or 3300 feet) of range and the test-location/terrain configuration can be seen on the map: Transmitter location, and receiver location."

The prize this week is a hard drive enclosure. This contest will run for one week (April 4 – April 9, 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 April 16, 2009

The item to guess was a Rubens Tube The picture was from here.

The winner is Michael I. (There were 321 entries)

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Below is a picture of the prize.

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If you want a battery box that would look at home at the cottage have a look at this Vintage 9 Volt Battery Box creation made by JingleJoe. Before you pass it by as a quick hack keep in mind that everything was custom made including the terminals.

"Here is one of my most recent creations, a "casemod" of sorts for a 9 volt battery. Made all but the terminals myself the terminals were made for me by a friend with a lathe, I aged and stained the wood myself and made my own stencil for number/letter the whole thing is about 8cm x 8cm."

Looks like the cheap prepaid Motorola cell phones that you can find at many of the convenience stores can be used for projects such as this Open GPS Tracker project. It would be interesting to make a device that worked like a poor mans LoJack.

"The Open GPS Tracker is a small device which plugs into a $20 prepaid mobile phone to make a GPS tracker. The Tracker responds to text message commands, detects motion, and sends you its exact position, ready for Google Maps or your mapping software. The Tracker firmware is open source and user-customizable. The current supported hardware platform is:
* Tyco Electronics A1035D GPS module
* Motorola C168i AT&T GoPhone prepaid mobile phone
* Atmel ATTINY84-20PU AVR microcontroller"

Using the SHARP GP2Y0A02YK Long Distance Measuring Sensor (PDF), a few servos and an Arduino this 3D Arduino Scanner project is able to make a polar coordinate scan of its surroundings.

"The Arduino is only listening, the PC is sending commands where to set the Servos and to feedback the Analog value. On the PC a VB.net programm is running letting the Servos do a "meander style" motion and scanning the area. The analog Sensor signal is then first convertet to Distance, and then the polar is convertet to cartesian. This is stored as .obj file, that is then manualy "nice made" with MeshLab."