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In colder climates the indoor temperature is not always ideal for things like aquariums. This is especially true these days when most people have smart thermostats that turn down the temperature when there is no one in the house or everyone is sleeping. So what can be done to solve this issue? Well You can purchase a heater for the aquarium but what is the fun in that? Instead why not monitor the temperature and control the localized heat yourself. That is exactly what this LEGO NXT Aquarium Temperature Control byPlastiBots is doing. “How does it work? Pretty simple really. dSwitch allows you to programmatically control a 120V (also available in 240V for other countries) outlet to switch a power source on/off as desired. The NXT is programmed to monitor the temperature using the LEGO temperature sensor and the dSwitch NXT-G block is used to turn the light on and off based on temperature thresholds. My current setup has the dSwitch turn the light on when the water temperature is below 72F and turn it off when it hits 79F. With NXT-G I am also able to control how often it polls the temperature to ensure that the granularity of monitoring is over a longer period of time (e.g. we don’t want the light flicking on and off when the temp is near 72F and 79F). Currently I have it set to evaluate the temperature every 10 minutes and switch the light on/off as necessary.” |
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Next time you are picking out a Christmas gift for someone why not get something that is hackable and improve on the original design. With a ton of electronics stuffed inside this Big Mouth Billy Bass it now makes for the ideal gift! If you are interested in seeing how it was all put together there is a schematic available. “The CPU board has a pair of 18F452 PICs. One controls the BMBB and MP3 player. The other is dedicated to the display. Various LEDs and the 10 position switch are connected to both PICs. The fish has three motors to move its head, tail and mouth. I used TIP3055’s t0 drive the mouth and tail. I used two relays to move the head due to its large current draw. The stock BMBB used 6vdc to control all three motors. I used 6vdc for the mouth and tail and both 4 and 6vdc for the head. If you apply only 4 volts to it, it will move half way and stop. This allowed me to make the BMBB more animated.”
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This NicoletoMK Mikrokopter Quadrocopter is not your department store variety flying toy. This 4 blade Quadrocopter is powerful enough to lift a 500 gram payload, this means camcorders, cameras or water balloons are fare game for this machine. It can be flown by an operator or run in autonomous mode which would make it great as an automated surveillance system. There is a video of the unit in operation here and pictures of it in flight here.
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This tiny Hexapod Walker costs only about $70 to build. It is based around the Micro Maestro 6-channel USB Servo Controller by Pololu. It only takes three servos and some paperclip legs to get this thing in motion and with a few distance sensors for eyes it can see obstacles and get around them. Thanks for the tip Paul. “This tutorial shows you how to build a very simple autonomous hexapod robot using just three servos. The 2″-high hexapod is capable of walking forward and backward, and can turn left and right. Two forward-looking distance sensors provide obstacle avoidance. The brain of the hexapod is the Pololu Micro Maestro, a 6-servo controller that can read inputs and play motion sequences in a stored script.”
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BS2ILH from the Parallax forum posted an interesting project, it’s a Model Train Rotary Dumper. Say goodbye to having to push your train cars around using your hands, instead with a push of a button you can see automation take over and complete the task of unloading all the coal from your model railroad. You can see lots of build videos here, it is a very well laid out project! Schematics and code are available here. “A locomotive positions a unit train at the gate servo arm. Either a button on the hardwired control box or the IR remote control (from a Sony DVD) is pressed to activate the sequence. The positioner lifts its arm and moves to the rear of a car and lowers the arm to grab the coupler. The gate arm is turned to clear the track and the brake servo arm is lowered. The positioner pushes the train cars forward, the the gate is swung and the brake arm raises to grab the leading car axle. The sequence is repeated and thus 1 car is inside the dumper. The dumper rotates to unload the coal from the car and back to upright. The sequence of moving a car and dumping it is continued until a light detector mounted under the tracks signals that there are no more cars to dump - a car is not over the detector when it is checked prior to the positioner moving another car in the sequence. When the sequence is complete the Siren sounds and ‘Frere Jacques’ plays thought the piezo speaker.”
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If you have 3 servo motors, some scary eyes, a few Popsicle sticks and an Arduino you can also make a some crazy eyes! Just add a white sheet and stick these Servo controlled Eyes under it and you will have the scariest ghost on the block. "It consists of the following components: |
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In the video the Spooky Dropper is setup to deliver a bat right in front of the victim. It could drop a spider, ghost, rat or anything else you can dream up! It can reset itself automatically using one normal servo and one that has been modified for continuous operation. This is begging to be hooked up to a motion detector or even the door bell circuit to launch at just the right time. If you have a Halloween project of your own, why not add it to the list of projects in the Show us your Halloween Project Contest. |
To see the full documentation of Vern Graner’s project have a look at the Halloween edition of