If you are in the Bay Area you better be checking out the Maker Faire this weekend. It is running May 19th and 20th. The Light Cycle above from Frog is sure to be a big crowd draw! This device is loosely based on the light bikes from Tron, the two players are back to back riding one their own light cycle and has a dedicated view, this is a great spectator project since there is a center screen which shows the aerial view of the playing field. The bike is based on a Schwinn bike and was hand welded by the crew. The electronics are Arduino based and are networked together to allow sharing of game sensor data.

The Microchip dspic33f  is used for this Self Balancing Robot that chayben from Australia put together. Bluetooth modules are used to achieve communication link between the robot and the computer running Matlab. On the computer you are able to see the many tiny changes that are needed to keep the robot upright.  The stacked round disk PCB design looks and works great in this design.

“Processor: Microchip dspic33f
Sensor: bma180 & itg3200
Sensor Fusion: modified complementary filter
Controller: PID
Motors: DC motors with Quadrature Encoder (not yet utilised)
Telemetry Module: Bluetooth to UART “

We have featured some Wall-e builds in the past, you can see by the video above that Mike Senna’s Wall-e Build is coming to an end. He just posted a video of the current state. It is almost complete and is looking great! He has built some cool macro modes that allows some pre-programmed movements to be done while he drives the robot around.

 Blair Kelly has designed a fun looking RC car. It has an Arduino mounted in the car, there are a number of sensors that allow Blair to drive the car around viewing the drive on a computer screen. There is even force feedback so when the car goes over a large bump or bangs into something he can feel it. With a head mounted display this thing would be very immersive. The camera is mounted so that it can be moved from right to left. I can just imagine what it would feel like if this right and left camera movement was linked to head movements when wearing a head mount display!

Via: Make

When someone rings your doorbell wouldn’t it be nice to know about it when you aren’t home? Well this project will do just that. Pressing the doorbell will send a message to your cell phone and send you a picture of who is there. You often hear that robbers often ring the doorbell to make sure no one is at home before breaking in. I am thinking that a few of the Arduino outputs could be purposed to spray a water gun and turn on a siren. 

Thanks for the tip Clement.

 ”How does it work ?

• 1. When the doorbell is pushed, the Arduino sends an HTTP request to the PushingBox API.

• 2. PushingBox launches the user’s scenario and gets a picture from the web camera.

• 3. PushingBox sends a Push notification to the user’s phone and a mail message with the picture attached.”

Check out this great looking Binary Burst Clock that Mike Szczys from Jumptuck has built. At first glance you might be a bit confused on how to read the clock but it is actually quite simple. Mike ordered the boards from Seeed Studios and had a good experience and it was cheap! In this design a MCP7940 RTC chip is keeping track of time with the help of a coin cell mounted on the back of the board. An ATtiny84 is controlling the board, it is mounted on the back of the board also so in these pictures it isn’t visible (see the full project page to see pictures of the back) .

Via: Dangerous Prototypes

This project by some 4th year engineering students will get them ready to build the next Segway.

“This project consists of prototype lab module for Control Systems II. The purpose of this lab is to teach 4th year electrical engineering students how to implement control systems to a real life mechanical system.

The controller seeks to balance the ball on the beam. It is also possible to set a desired position or motion for the ball.”