Claim optimizations gone extreme There is a tendency that contracts in terms of copyrights and patent rights become more extreme. This is such an example resulting in plain idiocy. Imagine you do work for party B. However, you are hired by party A and they "lend" you to party B. This is called secondment. You stay employed at party A, with which you have an employment contract, but perform work at…
Time lapse experiment Having fun with a very old webcam and a plant. Yes, it is a miracle, both the plant and the webcam. Taking one picture every hour using a raspberry pi, hacked together lighting and very old webcam. Doesn't matter, it works and is fantastic. Nature still makes the most fascinating and wonderful imagery. Impatient? The banana is waiting patiently.
Most have come to accept the fact that it is getting warmer. Not all believe in who is responsible. But we will not go into that discussion here. I've had a significant feeling that the last 20 years have been rather exceptional, temperature-wise, just where I live and many other places too. Most have seen all those animations what will happen some time in the future (2050+ etc). But, what about…
A recent project highlighted the physical environment, where pupils were {t}asked to "Solve a problem at school". In other words, look at your school environment in the broadest sense, identify a problem and design a fix for it. Several groups focussed on the air quality in the classroom, which many experienced as poor. The hypothesized main culprit: CO 2 . It turns out that CO 2 has a huge impact…
Statistics, the old fashioned way, upgraded Lies, damn lies and statistics. You have a high school science fair and want to know how your project was perceived by the visitors. Modern online behaviour will direct you to "taking the online survey". That requires an extra step for the visitors, usually by taking hold of their mobile device and fiddling with a small screen. SmileyBox simply asks the…
How little do you need for a game An exercise in futility. That is what many would call this endeavor. How few elements (signifiers and affordances) do you need to not only recognize a game for what it is, but also are able to play it? It turns out that you only need very little to do very much.
Atmel Pack - Atmel device visualizer and fuse calculator. Looking for an up-to-date fuse-calculator for the Atmel AVR chips has been something of a long search. There are several online versions, but they have not been updated to the new chips (like the ATmega328PB). This is when you scratch that itch, and you make your own. And, while hacking that, you make it into something much more than just a…
Pain is no substitute for satisfaction Gamification is a modern way of saying to take a piss with reality and do what is, apparently, fun while creating something. An MBA would see gamification as another way to get what (s)he wants while the other side is just as bad off, but hopefully feels better about his/her situation. Whether or not a gamified system is useful remains to be seen and may be…
Fast HSV to RGB Conversion - When small CPUs need to do work. Many people use small small micro controllers. These small machines are fantastic for doing a specific job. We also see a lot of blinkenlights, especially with the Arduinos and lots of enthusiastic people hacking their merry way. Most of us have become accustomed with RGB LEDs and a large group has had experience with the lovely simple…
Reaction Tester - Design decisions are important Scenario: two buttons, one for each player, associated with two LEDs to indicate the winner, and one reset button. The players are called to press their button and the light will indicate who pressed first. An example showing some of the complexities of engineering with a simple circuit. The devil is always in the detail.
SNAFU Box - With a touch of Arrrgh! and Brainfart. Everybody gets frustrated once in a while and we all have different ways to cope with the stress that comes as a result. One thing we all have in common; we all need some kind of relief from stress. I for one start designing electronics to sort my thoughts and redirect the frustration into something more creative. Getting a grip on the emotional…
Sending faster and more using less. Sending SPI data to micro-controllers is often limited by the micro-controller's speed. The CPU needs to handle data and prepare a reply is a very short amount of time. This handling-time effectively limits the SPI clock to a low level. Using a tiny bit of hardware to manipulate the SPI clock creates a situation where the SPI clock can be increased by a factor…
Yet another 1D Pong game, but a nice one. What to do with a boring hall with lots of white wall? You put something on the wall. Preferably something that is attractive and can be used as a gathering point. The game of Pong has been done many times. Also the one-dimensional version has been created by quite a few. The charm is its shear simplicity. Take an Arduino, some LEDs on a strip and a couple…
A One-armed Bandit with 7-sement displays. The Fruit Machine is a remake of the very first program I created on an old 6802 dev-kit over 30 years ago. The modern version still uses 7-segment displays but uses a modern micro-controller to roll the reels. A simple yet intriguing game for whenever you get bored. A simple push of the buttons will make you wager without losing your wallet in the…
Push-button toggle function. Toggle functions are all around us in electronics. It is one of the basic functions to perform user-interfacing. However, the digital world and simple logic is not very forgiving when you put in a simple switch. Mechanical switches have a nasty habit of contact bouncing. I recently came across a simple diagram from a mixer-table that had the toggle function implemented…
A 7-Segment Clock Done Differently If you need a clock in your house, then you need to do so with style. Well, that is at least my conclusion when I make something. The last clock I had in my house was the clock on the old VCR. You know, that tape thingy, which got scrapped many years ago. And, no, that clock was not a 12-o'clock flasher. I do have a wristwatch, but you know lazy when you know it.…
JavaScript, don't you just hate it? A personal rant about sites using and abusing JavaScript.
Gcmc is a front-end language for generating G-code for CNC mills, lathes and other numerical controlled machines employing G-code. The language is a context-free syntax created to overcome the archaic format of G-code programming and aims to be more readable and understandable. Gcmc makes extensive use of vector mathematics to support the 3D nature of CNC machining. Gcmc can generate G-code in…
Professional decision making at your fingertips. Making decisions is a hard thing to do, so it seems to most of us. It is about time that others can join the club and be relieved of the heavy burden of decision making. Now you can with the Executive Decision Maker Pro. Now you can join the club and have decisions made easy from trivial household decisions to multi-billion dollar Mega-Corp venture…
Breaking ground-loops with galvanic isolation. NoLoop is a galvanic isolator for both signal and power connections. NoLoop separates the in- and out-put breaking any existing of a ground-loop in that connection path. The signals are transfered with an RF transfer method and have only very little delay. Power is transfered with a small 1:1 switching power supply and regulated with an LDO at the…
Flipdots and Core-memory - old tech meets old tech Using/abusing flipdots as core-memory by sensing the current of the changes. Both core-memory and flipdots use square hysteresis loop magnets. Core-memory uses the magnetic polarity to save ones and zeroes. Flipdots can do so too with added visualization of the memory content. Although a bit slower (about three orders of magnitude) it is a great…
Nerdy Jewelry - or - Jewelry for nørds Blinkring is an earring designed for the fashion aware nerds among us. Or, alternatively, for the person who wants something different. You can hang it in your ear(s) or on a necklace. Be assured to get some attention at your next party.
7x7 Flipdot module, large and small Active matrix modules consisting of 7x7 flipdots in 10mm and 15mm sizes. Together with a controller to flip dots at rates up to 1500 flips per second or 30 frames per second. These modules can be cascaded into a 16 module chain and controlled by serial, SPI and I2C communication at high speeds. The controller handles high level commands to reduce communication…
Battery operated Flipdots After getting involved with flipdots and doing some experimentation with fliptest , it was time to create a working prototype of a completely battery operated flipdot device. / A small micro-controller runs a standard program flipping one dot per second and controls the charge-pump to generate high voltage. The program is optimized to conserve as much energy as possible…
Flipdot 1x7 strip in a test-setup for battery powered operation. They are so nice, fast and have a fantastic sound. Also, the projects done with these flipdots are intriguing and make my fingers itch for experimentation. When asked to look into a battery operated device, it was the right time to start hacking.
The Multifunction Passive 7400 RFID Tag. Features include: Complete EM4100 emulation User settable ID Automatic calculation of checksums Two selectable encoding schemes, Manchester and Biphase Selectable baud rate between 1, 2, 4 and 8kbit Passively powered from the reader's EM field 7400 logic design Design details and complete build-log are available. If you want one too, let me know.
Transmission lines terminate your signal if not terminated Over at Dangerous Prototypes I got involved in a forum post about problems with an SPI bus, where the signals would not function anymore after some distance. There were two things that my experience told me: 1) check the power supply, 2) check the cabling for reflection. Then I realized, this must be a common problem for all hobby hackers.…
Hacking an Ikea DIODER gadget for use with a milled sign. Unlike most other hacks, it includes a complete new software stack for the PIC16F684 processor on the gadget. The software also implements extra LED outputs and a serial input. The hack includes a serial-to-usb converter so any computer can control the lightshow.
A blinkenbuttonlight gadget from loose parts for illuminating the winter solstice. RGB LEDs combined with a small micro-controller and a couple of buttons shaped as a little dude with button-hands and blinking eyes makes the day a bit brighter.
A bass-drum pedal trigger system from spare parts. Quadrature encoded angular position measurement on the pedal of a drumset to trigger a synthesizer. A good example of "poor-man" solutions, reusing materials found at the local hackserspace.
Bypassing currents in overdrive While enjoying the 7400 contest , it occurred to me that many of the submitted logic designs lacked some of the most elementary safeties to ensure a working result. One of the most disregarded aspects of the designs was the lack of bypass capacitors. Then, with an article about Murphy's law linking a Maxim application note , it was decided to write a bit about…
Instructables' idea of (not) sharing. The difference between intended open and free sharing and the TOS of the instructables site.
Building a touch panel for capacitive sensing using household equipment. Layered plastic sheets with wires embedded baked in an oven. See part 1 for a test of the touch panel.
Measuring capacity on a touchscreen using only 7400 logic. Complete description of a capacitive sensing device. The features implemented: 16 channel capacitive inputs dead input detection 55Hz constant time scan rate non-stop measurement overlapped acquire and data output 30MHz master clock operation 12 bit RC-oscillator period counter 8 bit fraction counter 4 bit channel indicator RS232 serial…
Lights Out game implemented in 7400/4000 logic. Features include: Lights Out game play Adjustable random initialization Solvability test Manual mode Game replay 7400/4000 logic design Design details and build log with all information.
Making decisions is a hard thing to do, so it seems to most of us. But we see plenty of examples where this does not apply. I must admit that randomness is key at the executive level (and I can tell from observational experience). Actually, executives love to postpone making decisions as much as they can. Only when forced, they will actually decide. The typical PHB reflex is about as good as you…
Having fun is important when making things. So, while discussing new and intelligent ways to do things at the local makerspace and hackerclub, I concluded that it was time to waste time bigtime. Some of you may be familiar with the ultimate machine or one of the successors with additional features. The sad thing is that I do not see a way (yet) to top the ultimate machine. But, I certainly can…
Proof of concept: Detecting mail in your mailbox using IR LEDs and receiver.