This is really sad that when a student like 14 year old Ahmed Mohamed shows off his passion for building electronic projects results in him getting arrested. He was resourceful and put his creation in a $5 box from target but apparently it made the project look like a suitcase bomb! He wants to leave the school and I don’t blame him. At least his electronic passion isn’t squashed, he wants to attend MIT after high school. All I can say is way to go Ahmed! Keep building!

If you are into photography and already have a DSLR camera you could turn it into a pinhole camera to get the tiny cheap camera effect. Your pictures will look like the ones taken with toy film cameras when you were a kid.

“For pinhole lens for your DSLR camera you will need a piece of aluminum can (beverage can), black electrical tape, a pin and (for the second option of pinhole lens) needless body cap. How to put it all together – watch in our video tutorial. We need to warn you, that the pictures made with a pinhole camera lens will not be sharp. But that smoothness and blur make them interesting and unique. By the way, you should set your shutter speed according to the light intensity (most likely you will need a tripod).”

If you have a few dead DVD players sitting on the shelf collecting dust you could rig up a quick and dirty power supply to make it into a burning laser. There are laser drivers available but what is the fun in that.

If you are in need of a great battery charger or want to learn some more about how a dedicated power management controller gets configured this project by K.C. Lee is worth a look. It uses the Microchip TC4426A Power Management IC to manage the charging and analyzing of two batteries.

“This is a useful tool for determining the charge/discharge characteristics of batteries which help you reuse or for fixing/maintaining batteries. With your own firmware, this could be used as a programmable dual electronic load/current source/power supply.

* Dual channels. Each channel can operate independently. (Scalable to higher number of channels and/or power)
* Efficient switch mode power supply for charging/discharging reduces cooling requirements
* High frequency (~200kHz) PWM – smaller L&C and less ripple current
* Battery parameters are user programmable for different battery types
* Stand alone or operate from a Windows PC
* Flexible power source – USB or external power supply
* Battery voltage is not limited by external supply voltage
* Reverse polarity protection “

When the power fails and you are stumbling around the house your flashlight batteries will inevitably be dead. A simple solution to this issue is to use a flashlight that doesn’t need batteries. With low current LEDs you can dynamically generate the power you need to light your path by just a few shakes. Of course you can purchase one but building one is much more fun!

“Materials needed: Small cut of PVC pipe, magnet wire, neodymium magnet, LED’s, 4 diodes or 1 diode bridge, capacitor, resistor, wire, breadboard, and electrical tape.”

When you are shooting handheld video you will usually get lots of camera shake. The solution is closer than you think, Matthias Wandel demonstrates how some common things that you already have laying around can dramatically improve the video quality without spending thousands on something like a steady cam rig. 

CNLohr has been playing with the popular addressable WS2812B LED lights and the powerful (and cheap) ESP8266.