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The prize this week is a coax cable stripper, I think this is the first time we are giving away something that was the item to guess. This contest will run for one week (Sept 18 – 24, 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 October 9, 2010 The item to guess was a heat gun The winner is John C. (there were 228 entries) ————————————–———- Below is a picture of the prize.
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So you have probably heard all about the Open Hardware Summit which is being held in New York on September 23rd. If not you should click here to read what it’s all about. Hacked Gadgets is one of the sponsors of the event but I will unfortunately not be able to attend, this means that I have 2 tickets for a Hacked Gadgets reader who will be in New York on Thursday and would like to catch the event. If you would like to get one or both of the free tickets please send me an email, add a short blurb about how you could use the tickets (and if you need 1 or both). Please only send in a request for the ticket(s) if you can actually go to the event. You can see a schedule of the event after the jump.
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Jouni Vasama and a friend put together this little Plush Ghettoblaster that they call the Domoblaster. What fun it must be to be able to whip this out and crank out the tunes. Forget about the big plastic boxes that we are haul around to get our fix of tunes, this thing will give you just an equal amount of visual enjoyment as it does sound pleasure! A nice feature of the plush cover is that all of the connectors and displays are hidden until you go looking for them. |
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If you are getting a bit sick of all the microcontroller and complex IC projects this Line Following Breadboard Tank will be a nice break. There is no microcontroller in this puppy, in fact all you need to do if you want to make your own is buy the parts (or search for them in your junk box) and start building. The schematics and complete build instructions are provided. “The purpose of this project is to build a device that can sense the difference between black and white color so that the robot can follow a black line on a sheet of white paper. When the line-following mini-tank is built, the real fun can begin. I built a few simple tracks to test it out on at first like straight lines. Normal paper and a sharpee felt pen work very well for making courses.”
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Have a look at this cool project that our friends from Gadget Gangster put together. It is called the Web Clicker, it gives you an easy way to control IR devices from any web connected device such as an iPhone. I think I could through a wench into the demo with an IR Jammer though. “The Web Clicker is a web server & IR transceiver. You can record any IR command and play it back via an AJAX web interface or just by requesting a URL. It works great from a cell phone and it’s especially handy for home automation projects. The Web Clicker is a Propeller Platform USB and E-Net Module, and a very basic IR circuit. Web server code is based on PropTCP, by Harrison Pham, and I wrote a custom object (Magic IR) for capturing and playing back IR signals. I started researching IR control schemes – after a few days of work, I decided it would be better to code my own IR recorder – this way it’s compatible with any TV without having to look through a huge code list. It’s like a learning remote that has greater than 100ns accuracy & unlimited storage capacity. I’m using a 38kHz IR receiver, which is the most common (95% of devices). If your devices uses another frequency, it’s easy to use a different IR receiver.” 
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Dustin Evans sent in his newest creation, it’s an iTable. We have seen other tables with LEDs in them but I think this is the first one we have seen with a iPod dock and an LED light show to match. Dustin built this table with 64 LEDs which are all being controlled by an Arduino. If you would like some more details you can see the code that was posted on the Arduino Forum.
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You may remember the electronics podcast that we featured about a little more than a month ago. Back then the show had no name and only 2 episodes, since then the show has been making some great strides! Dave Jones and Chris Gammell have put another 6 one hour episodes in the can, there is also an all important name, it is now known as The Amp Hour. Thanks for the mention of Hacked Gadgets in the show by the way! Listen to The Amp Hour podcast here. |
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