This mini sumo robot was developed without using a microcontroller. Using circuits as an alternative to a microcontroller makes its implementation cost efficient since there isn’t much to it. Watch the video to see the machine demonstrated against a stationary object (I guess actual robot testing is the next step). Best of all there is no programmer needed to make a change, just tweak the detection wings a bit and you are ready to test. If you are eager to find how it was made you can go through read about it here.

“Bottom panel’s height can be adjusted. This allows the skirt to be moved close to the floor, preventing opponents from wedging under 
-To save cost even the battery connectors were homemade. By taking apart two used 9-volt batteries, I was able to solder wires to the top pieces and use them as connectors
-Total price: 15$, way better then buying a kit

-Super sticky wheels are made using foam tape covered with exercise band material. The foam tape compresses to allow for more surface contact, and the band’s rubber sticks to the floor”.

The video above demonstrates what Vijay Kumar and his team are building. We have seen some toy quadcopters that have some impressive capabilities but I can’t wait till a tiny and smart quadcopter as agile as these are available. If you don’t have the time to watch the entire video make sure you see the flight demonstrations at 10:05.

Thanks for sending this in Matt.

 ”In his lab at Penn, Vijay Kumar and his team build flying quadrotors, small, agile robots that swarm, sense each other, and form ad hoc teams — for construction, surveying disasters and far more.”

The prize this week is a pair of ESD Tweezers, just what you need to work with those tiny SMD parts. This contest will run for one week (March 4 – 9, 2012). Ending time is based on central standard time. To enter, identify the item above and what it can be used for.

Please do not give the answer in the comments.

Send an email to contest @ hackedgadgets.com with “Name the Thing Contest” as the subject, and the message body consisting of:

• The name of the item in the above picture
• An example of what the item pictured above can be used for

The winner will be chosen at random from all of the correct entries.

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Added March 25, 2012

The item to guess was a Dave Mellis ATTiny programmer

The winner is Perry H. (there were 147 entries)

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Below is a picture of the prize.

Becky Stern from Make magazine shows us how to make a cool hair band with LED lights. If you want to get this hair band for yourself then you can make one by watching this amazing video and follow the steps!

“Build a pulse-sensing headband that flashes a heart-shaped LED display to the beating of your heart! Uses a scratchbuilt perfboard Arduino build from Mintduino parts, the Open Heart LED display, Yury and Joel’s pulse sensor, and a rechargeable lithium battery and power board. The circuit is built into a brocade headband with elastic at the back”.

Giorgos Lazaridis from PCBheaven has transformed a discharge mercury gas lamp from his workshop into a powerful UV light source. A UV lamp usually generates UV radiations that cause the internal coating of the surface to glow and produce light. If you have any discharge mercury gas lamp out there in your storage room don’t throw it in the garbage since you can follow Giorgos’s steps for changing it into a powerful UV light source.

“It looks like UV to me! I mean, the lamp originally had a very bright cold white light. Now that i removed the cover, the lamp glows a dark violet color. I only had to re-try cure the UV paint and see the results. So, here are the results: Before i break the glass, with 10 minutes of exposure from a distance of about 30cm, the paint did not cure at all. With the glass removed, from a distance of about 10cm, after 10 minutes of exposure, the paint cured completely. As a matter of fact, the board was over exposured under UV and some paint was cured even under the mask. The difference is obvious. This means 2 thing:

• 1: By removing the glass, the UV radiation is radically increased
• 2: I have to find out what consequences will have the broken glass on the lifespan of this bulb”.

Are you  color blind? Then it would be hard for you to recognize the resistor value while working on projects. Rich Olsan from nothinglabs developed a cool iPhone application for you guys which helps identifying the resistor values through its camera. All you need to do is install application on your iPhone and follow these steps.

“Using resistor ID is easy:

1. Take a photo of a 4-band resistor using the app

2. Drag the numbered bars over the corresponding resistor bands

3. Resistor Photo ID provides you with the resistance and tolerance of the resistor!

If for any reason Resistor Photo ID doesn’t detect the correct color for a band – you can easily override it”.

If you know Minecraft you will get a kick out of this Virtual Weather Station for Minecraft Game. This is actually a weather station named “Minestation” which gets the weather data for Minecraft game using a shield to connect to an Arduino which is connected to a PC via USB while you are playing the game. The video is a must watch to review the details of this amazing weather station. 

Translated page.

“ As the project progressed Minestation decided that would be a shield for Arduino. In this way, based on a widely used platform among us like to tinker with electronics. Thanks to Arduino code we communicate with the “watcher” that analyzes the conditions and real-time data from the game and every 100 milliseconds, we updated data on the screen. After the first tests with prototypes fruitful shield that worked without problems it was decided to make a small run of boards manufactured in series”.