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If you are looking for something to do with your old PS2 keyboards or those junk ones that you sometimes get with new systems why not make a cool Computer Keyboard Rubik’s Cube out of them. Sit this on the coffee table and you will sure have a conversation starter with any geek. Via: TechEBlog
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We are following along with the build of the Electric Dune Buggy Conversion that Frank from TheWorkshop.ca has been working on. We featured the second part in the build back in January. This time around in Part 3 of the Dune Bug E – Dune Buggy Electric Conversion we see some of the frame take shape from bent and welded steel tubing and an innovative light roof made from thin plywood that has been coated with fiberglass and painted. “The reason for the diversion to bodywork & paint was so that I could install the front-end (just once) and establish the relative position of the rear shock mounts. And this is the beauty of Camo paint, if minor welding of additional fixtures or fasteners is applied, it is a simple matter of cracking open the nearest can of paint and the new parts will blend right in as though they were always there. Once spring is here and we have a good selection of native foliage to pick from, I can see touching-up the camo again with the indigenous stock for templates.”
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Thanks to StarBurn Software for sponsoring the contest this week. They will be providing a 10 copies of StarBurn to 10 lucky winners ($250 worth of licenses). They also offer a free version if you are interested. “StarBurn’s features:
This contest will run for one week (February 27, 2010 – March 5, 2010) . 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 winner will be chosen at random from all of the correct entries. ———————————–———- Added Mar 27, 2010 The item to guess was a Camera CCD The winners are Steven M., Bruce P., Michael A., Sascha G., Jorge L., Andy R., David R., Stacy K., Steven S., Dan B. (there were 78 entries) ————————————–———- Below is a pictures of the prize.
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We have seen a DIY WiFi radio here before, it was built by Jeff Keyzer from mightyOhm. Well it turns out that Jeff’s project inspired this Wifi Radio Project based on a Atmel ATmega8 to be built, this one was made by Gary Dion. As you will read, Gary didn’t copy the project that Jeff did but rather get inspiration from it, many things are done in a different way. Nice thing about both projects is that when you look at the final product it doesn’t look like a DIY project that is held together with hot glue and Popsicle sticks like some other projects we have seen (not that there is anything wrong with that). If you want to make your own Gary have provided the code at the bottom of his article. “First things first, I had to collect all the parts I wanted to fit into the radio. There would be the Asus WL-520gu router, the USB audio adapter, the vacuum fluorescent display (VFD) I recently found on ebay, various knobs/buttons, and some sort of processor board to pull everything together. For small projects like this, my trusty ATmega8 has never let me down, so I felt it was up to the task.”
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Inside those inexpensive digital calipers is a data output. The guys from NerdKits has sent this data to a NerdKit to make an inexpensive DRO (Digital Read Out) for their new metal mill. As usual they have provided a great tutorial so you can also make your own or just learn from the process. Thanks Humberto. “These calipers output a synchronous (clocked) digital signal. The caliper periodically outputs a group of 48 bits, with a bit period of about 12μs. The first 24 bits are a signed integer representation of distance, with 20480 bits per inch. The relative timings are important because, although it is a synchronous protocol and each data bit is aligned with a clock edge, the relative times between clock edges (idle times) indicate when a new group of data starts. In particular, we wait for at least ~50μs of quiet in order to indicate that a new set of data is about to begin.”
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Csaba Bleuer sent in some pictures and a video of his new creation. It is a LED Wave Display, you just wave it back and forth and text is displayed in mid air. You might remember the Fan Motor Spinning LED Display of his that we featured here in the past. If you think this device looks similar you would be right, he took the display from the spinning display and mounted a 4 X AA battery holder to it, mounted a small circuit board onto the new device and made a switch that detected motion to the top. If you would like to make your own Csaba has made the code available.
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Colin Merkel sent in his cool PIC 16F877a Microcontroller based Digital Effects Guitars Pedal. I don’t play myself but I can imagine how fun this pedal would be to jam with. Colin has provided the schematic and code so that you can also build your own if you’re musically inclined. “I used a number of ICs in the construction of this project, they are listed below. - PIC16F877a with 20MHz oscillator
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Next step is to make it into a working keyboard, now that would be impressive!
