When a father makes a gadget for his unborn son, that’s true dedication. Corey Menscher designed and built the Kickbee for his pregnant wife. The baby kicks her stomach, a piezo sensor reads it and another module twitters the response for all to see. Can you guess what microcontroller is used to control all of this? Take a guess.
Yup. The Arduino. Specifically, an Arduino Mini with a Bluesmirf Bluetooth module. I’m no Twitter fan but this is badass.
Few things in this world possess the security that an apelike creature from the Himalayan region provides. Yet, if you can’t find the abominable snowman you can always name your portable security device after it. The difference? This yeti is no myth and it just might save your hide when everything goes SNAFU.
Enter the YETI Portable Security System YT-100. This handy device is a fully self contained rechargeable battery with motion and bump sensors, 110 dB siren and high intensity flashing lights to scare off any actual yetis interested in mating with this thing. The most notable feature is its Bluetooth capability. With the YETI, you can set it up so that if the alarm trips your Bluetooth equipped cell phone will ring, notifying you of the intrusion even if you’re miles away. For $250, your security is assured. I wish I could say the same thing about the abominable snowman.
I’ve always wanted to integrate a touch pad into my clothing and thanks to Hannah Perner-Wilson (aka Plusea), that dream could become a reality. For those not familiar with Plusea, she’s all about wearable computing. Her latest work, the Knit Touchpad, is just like the touchpads we use on our notebooks, except this one is made of fabric.
It works with an anti-static glove that Plusea uses to scale the four corners of the fabric pad. Thanks to her intricate walkthrough at Instructables, this DIY yields a lot of potential for wearable touchpads in the future. I can’t wait to add one to my built-in keyboard pants.
Check out Guilherme Martin’s first attempt at making a robot. He uses an Arduino and motor shield with one servo for steering and a standard DC motor for movement. It’s dubbed “baratinha” meaning “little cockroach” in Portuguese. Using two micro-switches as if they were antennae, baratinha is able to detect obstacles in its way. It’s just like a real cockroach except it won’t eat your food or leave a foul odor in its wake. I wonder if it’d survive an atomic blast?
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Apparently, NXT STEP blog reader DTAAX’s watch must have broke, which would explain why he designed this LEGO sundial. This DIY finds a new way to tell time the old way. It was built using the LEGO NTX platform (plus a PDA for trigonometric functions) using a slew of light and touch sensors, allowing the sundial to perform like any other sundial save that it’s powered by three motors.
After the LEGO set rotates for some time, Bluetooth communications are sent out which detail the exact magnetic point in which the maximum level of light had been seen. It is accurate within fifteen minutes of actual time, so don’t go using it for your next dentist appointment despite it having a better track record than traditional sundials. Unfortunately, it will not fit in your LEGO backpack like a normal watch or clock would.
Remember that fishy business about the potential for hackers to prematurely shut off a pacemaker via a wireless communicator? Since many people use pacemakers to keep their heart beating, scientists are taking this loophole extremely seriously and have raised a solution to the issue.
Proposed is a cloaking device, an external attachment that the pacemaker owner would wear, resembling a medical bracelet. The cloaking device would prevent any harmful form of remote access to the pacemaker, keeping the wearer safe from any malicious wireless attacks. The cloaking device would be removable just in case doctors need to modify the pacemaker as needed. Ain’t nobody shuttin’ my heart down, girlfriend!
That Nintendo Wii sensor bar isn’t what it’s all cracked up to be. Alan Parekh explains it’s simplicity by exposing it’s composition of just a few IR LEDs. Then, he manages to turn an ordinary TV remote control into a working Wii sensor bar. All it requires is a few holes drilled in that old remote of yours. And if it turns out that the remote has some extra IR LEDs inside of it, then you’ve just saved yourself from making a trip to the store to get more.
For the finale, you just disconnect the existing battery connection to the remote control circuit and connect it to the LEDs you just mounted in the drilled holes. With that, you’ll have the most unique sensor bar around town, but you won’t be able to switch the TV to input.
In The Matrix, robots are self-aware of their existence. This is a bad thing as it eventually leads to the enslavement of mankind. The idea of a human brain inside a robot is intriguing for anyone whose ever wanted to put their brain in a robot body to become an Adrian Barbobot. Scientists are getting closer to that vision, having equipped a small robot with rat neurons to control itself.
An interesting trait of the artificial brain is that it can get bored. If it doesn’t receive any information from the electrodes it’s connected to, the neurons will break the connections, likewise, when the neurons are stimulated, more connections are formed. The robot that was built runs on wheels with an ultrasound sensor enabling it to spot when it is approaching a wall and redirect itself accordingly. That’s great and all but could’t you just do that with an Arduino?
We’ve seen artificial corneas that could replace damaged organic corneas, but how about a digital image sensor that adjusts itself like a human retina? That’s exactly what John Rogers at the University of Illinois is creating. An improved method of transferring silicon sensors onto a curved surface allowing for the sensor to capture wide-angle views with low distortion. Because it avoids using a conventional flat surface for image capturing, this digital retina is able to perform feats that ordinary cameras cannot. It’ll eventually lead to advancements in security surveillance and capturing wildlife footage.
Using conventional chip manufacturing technology, John Rogers and his colleagues have found a way to bend silicone without forming creases in it. The camera they built has only 256 pixels, making it a low-resolution camera, but they claim the same technique used to craft this camera could be used to craft a wide-angled megapixel camera. The ladies dorm just got more accessible, Porky’s-style.
This robot may not be well versed enough in sports to partake in Robot Soccer, but it’s certainly lazy enough to be a sports fan. With three different modes of control: universal remote, beacon navigation, and thermal sensor following, the RoboStool tries its best to find you, so it can take the weight off your feet or die trying.
Labeled as furniture on demand, the RoboStool was created by Norris Labs, which was kind enough to post schematics to build your very own RoboStool. You could have it eerily stalk your guests, unwilling to let anyone take a seat without having a comfortable footrest, but you’ll probably turn it into something that can make drinks, like a robot bartender.
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