Prometreus has a great concept here. This plane has autopilot and a camera to capture the trip. With a 6 hour 200km range you can certainly cover a huge area.

“A SOLAR powered RC plane flies over 6 hours, only powered by the sun. The plane travels a distance of over 200km. It is self sufficient like the solar impulse system. ”

If you enjoy table tennis this trainer might be a great next project. Thomas Mayer created this as his bachelor thesis project. Two Playstation CL-eye cameras are used to view the play area and track the ball. A project is then used to display game elements that the players can interact with to play many game scenarios. The game was created using VVVV which is a visual/textual live-programming environment for easy prototyping and development.

Via: Technabob and Gizmodo

“The basic idea of my bachelor thesis was to track the ping pong ball in realtime to create data visualisations for trainers and players. After a few weeks of working I started developing a projected mapped interface for the ping pong table to show the collected data. By projecting game obstacles on the surface I figured out that I can change the game play totally.”

Worried that a site hack will compromise your passwords? This unit stores your passwords on the Mooltipass using AES-256.

“The concept behind this product is to minimize the number of ways your passwords can be compromised, while generating and storing long and complex random passwords for the different websites you use daily. It is designed to be as small as possible so it can fit in your pocket. Simply visit a website and the device will ask for confirmation to enter your credentials when you need to login. The mooltipass main components are: a smart card connector, an Arduino compatible microcontroller, a FLASH memory, an OLED screen and its touchscreen panel. The OLED screen provides good contrast and good visibility.”

Are you looking for a new project and have 3 or 4 months to dedicate to it this 3D LED Spectrum Analyser Project by Pianistos might be just the ticket. If you don’t have access to some of the equipment that he has it could take even longer though! He is able to make a bunch of jigs that allow him to quickly place and solder hundreds of connections where if you were using helping hands they would not be as accurate and would take 10 times as long. You can grab the software here if you are thinking of building your own. You can see it in action below with some amazing piano work by the project builder.

“I found the 8x8x8 ledcube project really cool but I did not want to blindly copy it because it would not have been new. After thinking a bit I got an idea to build a 3D spectrum analyser that reacts to music and here is the result! It is amazing to play piano with it.

HolKann (alias) is a friend of mine who wrote the code for this project. After I built the spectrum analyser I asked him to help me with the programming and he was happy to work on the project! It was a learning experience for both of us. Of course I had to have an idea on how and what should be programmed before building this thing but I needed someone to write an optimal code in order for the microprocessor to execute the algorithms at the desired speed. After some evenings of programming we finally got this thing working. We squeezed all juices out of the microprocessor to get a refresh rate of 80 fps and a beat response of about 12ms (the time it takes to process the audio signal and to show it visually)! If there is no input signal for longer than 1 minute the spectrum analyser turns off automatically.”

Louis Rossmann operates a Apple device repair business called Rossmann Repair Group in New York. His videos show a no bull view on what he thinks of Apple, Customers and running a Small Business. Even though Louis specializes in fixing Apple devices he doesn’t give them any slack in their business practices. He troubleshoots and fixes boards which allows him to install a few pieces of jumper wires and a few dollars of components instead of swapping hundreds of dollars of boards. I love the space that he works in, it is tiny and cramped since he is in a high rent area. But the amount of work that he can crank out of this space is amazing and inspiring to everyone with a home lab. He specializes in Apple devices since he can stock just a few components to fix most of their popular devices. And we know that there are lots of Apple devices out there since Apple is the most valuable company in the world.

The Howe & Howe RS-1 Gremlin – Mini Unmanned Tank is an flexible system that allows the user to scope out areas that would be dangerous to walk into with a human. Since this can be controlled remotely the human operator can be situated in a safe location while only the robot it put in harms way. All we need now are some autonomous quadcopters mounted to the frame which could also provide live aerial video of the scene.

Via: TechEblog
“Based on the RS‐1™ modular platform, the Gremlin ™ is a system designed to meet today’s needs and tomorrow’s safety. Howe and Howe Tech has designed this platform by addressing the dangers the first responders, military, and civilian clients encounter, and keeping them from dangerous environments. With a remotely controlled platform, remotely controlled payload the Gremlin package is perfect for active shooter neutralization, sniper applications, riot control, or for use as a hostage resolution tool. With the ability for a lethal or non-lethal payload this package is truly a versatile problem solving tool. The RS1‐G3 “Gremlin” ™ was developed for the U.S. Military and is not for private sector purchase.”

If you are looking for an interesting FPGA project this FPGA RGB LED Matrix Driver Project looks interesting. There is a great overview of how the project was designed. Interfacing to the large display is quite complex but by doing it using a FPGA they have control over every aspect of what the hardware is doing. The current design uses the display as dumb output which gets what is to be displayed from a bluetooth connected computer.

“The various components of the overall system (PLL, UART, and Display Controller) are shown along with the simulation data. The outputs of the Spartan-6 FPGA board are then measured using a Keysight S-Series oscilloscope. The design of the RGB matrix is also demonstrated using a custom clock interface sent wirelessly to the unit via Bluetooth.”