This Piezo Drum Kit from Spikenzie Labs looks like it could provide days of fun. They provide interface software that allows you to output MIDI data from your Arduino that this kit is connected to.

Thanks for the tip Andy, send us some pictures when yours is built!

"The kit contains the electronic parts required to make a drum kit. This includes the circuit board, resistors, diodes and pins. You supply the Arduino and the material to make the actual drum pads. Below you will find the easy instruction on how to make traditional looking drum pads, but you could also stick the piezos (the part the sense the hits on the drum) to many different surfaces. Imagine, playing your desk, lamp and telephone !"

Alberto Ricci Bitti has developed a cool touch controller called the Touch 8. I can see this programmable controller having the ability to replace lots of single purpose controls that are used to control equipment.

"Touch8 is a module that integrates a 3" LCD touch-screen and a RISC processor. The processor includes a powerful library to handle graphics and windows. The module also includes a DC power supply and RS485, CAN 2.0B and TTL-serial interfaces to connect to every kind of machinery. There are also I/O pins including SPI and I2C.
Touch8 uses free, open-source, ANSI compliant C compilers and IDE. The additional library for graphics windows comes ready-to-use, and many practical examples of programs ready are posted online. Few simple functions to learn, no frills, and reasonable default in all situations: it is our philosophy. So you can concentrate on your application and develop code quickly, without having to (re)write lots of code. "

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This small 8X8 LED array packs a ton of smarts in a small package. The code for the ATmega16 is available as well as the Eagle PCB layout.

Thanks Martin

"ATmega16 is powered from two CR2016 lithium cells. AVR is using internal RC oscillator @8MHz. The supply voltage is 6.0V. Lower voltages works too, but the image isn’t so bright, especially the green LEDs. There is a button connected to INT pin of ATmega16. If you press it for a while, the MCU suspends itself."

Seems like these multitouch tables are showing up everywhere. This one is done with a cute video that brightens up the build process. Best of all these old projectors are being thrown out in favor of the smaller, higher resolution and more portable versions.

Thanks Ravi

"The image processing software analyzes inferred light from the web camera and treats any light detected as a separate input source. Then this software sends the data to any other applications that have the ability to use the input (like a google maps plug-in). The multitouch table simply acts as a device that sends out IR light beams, so when a fingertip incepts them it appears as if the fingertips are producing Inferred light."

Technology is helping this guy find a girl. He rigged up a camera that detects smiles and takes a picture. Armed with tons of dogs he hit the street. They made some videos of the process which are quite funny. You can watch the entire process here on Youtube.

"With a bunch of puppies and a phone that automatically takes a photo when a girl smiles at it, I’m going to do a test to find out, once and for all, which breed will give a guy the most puppy pulling power."

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Thanks to DIY Audio Projects for sponsoring the contest this week. They offer a collection of Do-It-Yourself Audio Projects for audiophiles, hi-fi enthusiasts, music lovers, electronic hobbyists, woodworkers and those who just like to build, listen and enjoy. There will be a $25 gift certificate to Adafruit Industries as the prize so that you can get some new hardware for your next project. This contest will run for one week (May 16 – 21, 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 June 1, 2009

The item to guess was an Tomy Atomic Pinball  Game

The winner is Nasser M. (There were 142 entries)

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Below is a picture of the the prize product.

You may remember the Household AC Power Monitoring System using Clamp Meters  that Jason Winter made which was featured earlier this year. Web Monitoring of Water Usage using an ioBridge is his latest project. As you can see from the pictures he lives in a climate where water pipes don’t freeze. Up here in Canada we are not so lucky. If you prefer the instructions in an Instructables format it is located here.

"The water meter comes with a 6 ft section of cable. My ioBridge module was in my house above. I drilled a tiny hole in the floor and ran a long section on 2-conductor wire from my ioBridge module, through the hole in the floor, to the water meter. I just soldered the wires, covered them with heat-shrink tubing and tucked the wires behind the water line to keep them from getting exposed to the elements. I just connected one wire to ground and the other to a digital input. The water meter contains a reed relay contact switch. As the meter reads each gallon of water, it connects and disconnects the switch. All ioBridge needs to do is read the numbers of times the switch closes to get the number of gallons used. The latest revision ioBridge modules have built in pull-up resistors, so I didn’t even need to add them myself "