We saw a project earlier this month that worked like an Ambilight system but this open source Light-Pack USB Ambient Lighting System seems to have much better effects. And since it’s open source you can get all of the info you need to make your own. I can’t wait till there is a system that doesn’t requite a computer to process the image.

“The software analyses the image on your monitor and transfers its data by USB to the Ligthpack board. This board lights the surface behind a monitor, TV or laptop by means of RGB LEDs of the corresponded colors.”

Chris from Pyroelectro demonstrates some Animatronic Mouth concepts to bring your next robot to life. I would like to have this animatronic face tied to my computer and raise an eyebrow when I have an email and raise both when there are more than 10 unread emails.

” In this tutorial I will show you two simple methods for building a believable robotic mouth. One articulated and moveable, the other an LCD flashing design. Both animatronic mouth designs create a believable illusion for your animatronic robot and can be built on a modest DIY budget. “

We have seen Plasma Speakers here before. They won’t replace your everyday speakers but they are sure cool. What’s better than reading about an interesting project? Building it! Instead of scrounging all the parts for a project a kit makes things real easy to duplicate and that is exactly what this is about. Matthew Chapman and Marshall Meng of Student RND have put together a Plasma Speaker Kit Kickstarter which will result in a Plasma Speaker Kit becoming a reality. The full funding has been achieved so it’s just a matter of time before you can be playing with some high voltage and make some interesting music at the same time.

I personally will probably wait till I have a bit of free time to build the kit before purchasing one since I seem to have a backlog of projects that are waiting to be built… If you are in the same boat why not just pledge $5 or $10 dollars to get your name in the instruction manual.  That is exactly what I just did!

“we want to make it easy for people to assemble a plasma speaker. By offering a kit with a custom-made PCB and a set of tested components, we will make everyone’s life easier. “

Halloween is right around the corner. If you are looking for something that can be whipped together quickly and scare the pants off the kids that will be terrorizing the streets, look no further than these DIY Halloween LED Blinking Eyes by Pete Mills. The microcontroller code is available here.

“I connected the LED pairs to an ATtiny2313 microcontroller via some comms wire and some 2n3904 transistors for each pair. Since humans blink at about 3-4 blinks per minute when concentrating I figured that would be a good blink frequency to use for my creature eyes.  The creatures could in fact have once been human before turning, we just don’t know.  Blink duration is 350mS. “

Christian Reed made this Instructable that shows us how to build a Grappling Hook Launch Cannon. Where was this Instructable when I couldn’t find my ladder last week.

“The final version begins with the CO2 coming from a paintball cylinder.  It enters the gun through a check valve (to ensure it does not come out once it enters the tank) and then a Quick Exhaust Valve (QEV).  The tank has a gauge on it to show pressure, a blow off safety valve which releases air over 175psi to ensure nothing bursts (although the system can probably handle up to 300psi).  When the air is fully charged, a blow gun is used to change the direction of flow in the valve to allow the air in the tank to exit through the barrel and hence launching the projectile. “

The prize this week is a solar flashlight, if you want to use this as a flashlight you better charge it during the day and not hidden in a drawer. I am thinking that the housing could make for a very small surface mount project. Not sure if the solar cell would have enough power to energize a very low current circuit but I would think it should. This contest will run for one week (August 20 – 26, 2011). Ending time is based on central standard time. To enter, identify the item pictured above.

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 September 18, 2011

Sorry for the delay in the winner announcement.

The item to guess was Arduino Thermocouple Interface

The winner is Travis S. (there were 92 entries)

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Below is a picture of the prize.

Instead of hiring a security guard why not make a Security Robot. There are tons of features in this Arduino based robot but the thing I find most interesting is that after it has driven around draining the battery it can charge by driving over the charging strips shown above. This solution seems much easier than the charging cradles that we have seen many other system doing.

Via: Adafruit