Red Bull has selected their finalists in their latest competition. Have a look at the cool entry above by North Street Labs, it is a huge tic tac toe game. You stomp on large buttons in the center of the game board to register your space selection. The buttons are great, they are made from plumbing parts and some old bed springs. The use of RGB LED strips really makes the game stand out. Be sure to check out all of the other entries at the Red Bull Creation site and see them in person at the Northside Festive in June.

Our friend Max from Zedomax has introduced a new wireless mic to his video recording setup. If you make videos and need some distance from the camera his review of his new mic is sure to be of interest. He picked up a Sennheiser EW122PG3 which isn’t cheap but check out his video at the 10:20 mark where he demonstrates the range and clarity during a tarp board demo. If you hadn’t heard of tarp boarding before I was in the same boat…

This Magic Wand project can be used to get someone young interested in electronics since instead of simply doing something practical this project appears to be magic. The project uses a magnetic reed switch and a magnet embedded into a magic wand to turn things on just by bringing the wand close to them. There are a ton of possibilities here such as hiding the magnet between your fingers and amaze your friends that you have the ability to turn on the items just by the force of your hand and they don’t.

Thanks for the tip Jason.

We have machines that wash and dry our clothes. I am still surprised that there aren’t more wash and dry combo units available since it would save so much space and eliminate one machine from the house. Folding is still one of those tasks that needs to be done by hand. This might be a thing of the past though! The FoldiMate is a Robotic Laundry Folding Machine that could change this. It is still in the prototype stage and will initially be targeted at laundromats and other places that have a need for large volumes of folding but like most good ideas, we will see them in the consumer side as soon as they have been perfected and made inexpensive enough for households to afford.

Via: Make

With this hack you will be able to Hack a Sigma Lens to operate with Canon Cameras. The lens being demonstrated is an older lens and the camera that it is being adapted for is a DSLR. The issue is that the signals from the DSLR for adjusting the aperture of the lens are not recognized by the lens. By adding a small microcontroller in the mix, the camera can now talk to the microcontroller and the microcontroller can now control the lens appropriately. The system is not entirely stable so this doesn’t sound like a solution for professionals but for a hobbyist that wants to get some use out of an old lens this might be just the hack needed.

Via: Hackaday

“Components required

• ATTiny24 x1

• 10k resistor (colour code: brown-black-orange + precision_colour) x1

• 47k resistor (colour code: yellow-purple-orange + precision_colour) x1

• 100nF ceramic capacitor (with 104 written on it, to be precise) x1

Tools required

• A computer: to program the microcontroller
• An AVR programmer (I used an usbasp, which can be found en ebay).
• A solderless breadboard and some jump wires
• A soldering iron (not too powerful, obviously) and some solder
• Some screw drivers to open your Sigma lens and pliers”

While watching the video I was wondering why there was so much complex electronics for the AZIZ – LED Microscope Illuminator Project. I was thinking that a simple dial to vary the intensity would be all you would need. If you are thinking the same thing have a look at the video starting around the 4 minute mark. By having modes that allow you to spin lighting patterns and vary the light between the diffused and bright white LEDs you can enhance chip markings tremendously.

The system controls 64 LED using a Texas Instruments TLC59116 constant-current PWM LED driver chip, and an Atmel ATTiny1634 8-bit microcontroller. Code and schematics are available if you would like to make your own.

Thanks for the tip Stephan.

These Rave Shade – LED Glasses look like a ton of fun. They are Arduino based and use 74HC595 shift registers to light all the LEDs. At first I though it was a silly design since with a PCB sitting on your face you would not be able to see anything. But later I saw the small circles that are cut into the board which allows you to presumable see most things in front of you. To program new pattern some computer software is used which generates the pattern code to be downloaded to the Arduino. eXtremeSomething is selling kits but he is waiting till 10 people pays for a kit before pulls the trigger on the order. Sort of like a mini Kickstarter (he lives in the UK and Kickstarter doesn’t operate there). Be sure to follow the project Facebook page if this interests you!