Maker creates an Arduino lightning detector

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Now you can use an Arduino to detect lightning along with an approximate distance.

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Lightning is both beautiful and terrifying, and should generally be enjoyed indoors. You could watch the weather report to see what is on the horizon storm-wise, but if that’s not available, you can instead turn to your own personal lightning detector.

Texas-based engineer Kevin Palivec decided to build his own, based on the AS3935 lightning sensor. This sensor interfaces with an Arduino Nano (ATmega328), which provides the brains of the operation. The Arduino, in turn, is hooked up to a Nokia LCD display for output, as well as a few buttons in order to select the needed options. As seen in the video below, Palivec has designed a neat interface for his sensor, including a cloud that floats around onscreen.

As for the design’s functionality, Palivec claims that “the MOD-1016 can detect storm fronts up to 40km away, trigger interrupts on your microcontroller to let you know about weather events and changes in storm distance — you can even tell as storm fronts move closer and move further away.”

Pavilec does videography for a local high school football team, so besides being an interesting project, he could see this device being a useful tool for that endeavor. Perhaps, something like this could even be used for lightning photography, though one would need to engineer a way for it to interface with the camera’s shutter release.

Intrigued? Head over to the project’s page here.

Turn an image into a full-color edge-lit lithopane

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The Lit-O-Pane! 

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A lithopane is an etched or molded artwork in thin translucent porcelain that can only be seen clearly when backlit with a light source. Ryan Branch’s creation, the Lit-O-Pane, however is something much different, involving more colors, an Arduino, RGB LEDs and several panes of acrylic. It might not be immediately obvious from the video below what’s going on, but the idea behind it is really neat, and took a lot of experimentation to perfect.

To make this ‘Pane, red, green, blue, and white from a single picture were separated out using the GIMP image manipulation program to form four images. These separate images were then etched with a laser onto their respective panes. Each pane was lit up the correct color, and when one looks through the four panes together, a coherent image containing all the colors is produced. A separate white pane is needed because combining the three colored panes didn’t display white as needed.

An Arduino Mega (ATmega2560) is used in this assembly to control the NeoPixel RGB LEDs because the colors need to be adjusted slightly depending on the image. Using a microcontroller makes things really convenient adjustment-wise, since instead of having to play with resistors, a value can simply be programmed in as needed. Branch warns that you shouldn’t program this device with the LEDs hooked up, as you could end up drawing excessive power from your computer’s USB port.

Intrigued? Head over to Branch’s project page here.

Build your own e-waste 3D printer for $120

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As the saying goes: One man’s trash is another Maker’s 3D printer.

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Electronic waste (or e-waste for short) is an interesting side-effect of our high-tech world. Sure, your Pentium II computer was still pretty cool after it survived “Y2K,” but by 2010 or so it was probably in a landfill. Making this even more wasteful is the fact that there were probably working motors and mechanical components that could have been salvaged from it. If there were a good way to collect these components, and something they could easily be used on, that might make a dent in e-waste.

Though it might not solve the world’s pollution problems, this 3D printer, made in part with e-waste, at least lets people reuse some of the good parts from old computers. Per this project’s excellent writeup: “By upcycling e-waste such as old DVD drives and PC power supplies, the Curiosity not only costs less than $150, but also educates children and adults about e-waste, environmental issues, recycling and upcycling while learning everything about 3D printing!”

The kit that they have available includes a laser-cut frame and an Arduino Mega (ATmega2560) with a RAMPS shield for print control. You, as the end-user, need to supply two DVD drives and a floppy drive, as well as a power supply and tools. I could definitely see this printer being quite a bit of work to build, since you have to “harvest” parts, but coming in at just under $150, their build kit is attractively-priced and should teach you quite a bit about how a 3D printer works.

Save yourself from procrastination with this lock box

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This anti-procastination box is perfect for those who are a little too obsessed with their smartphones and need to be productive.

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Technology, it seems, has advanced past the point of only being there to help us. It now helps, then takes back by wasting our time watching cat videos or checking Facebook for the fourth time in the last minute. If you need to get something done, Alexis “DigitalJunky” Matelin has a solution: his Arduino-based timed lock box.

With his box, you simply place the phone inside, set a timer for when you’d like to be disconnected from the little screen, then get to work on what needs to get done. Interestingly, Matelin was inspired by the parts available, not necessarily his need for peace and quiet. According to him, “I had a spare segment display and wondered about what I could make out of it. Hence was born the idea of the anti-procrastination box.”

Besides the display, the custom-cut box features an Arduino Nano (ATmega328), buttons, wire and various other electrical bits. Physically, locking is accomplished with a solenoid and a small piece of modeling clay for it to rest against, securing the lid.

The final result looks quite clean, and surely something like this could be more useful than the typical hack. As clever as this lock box is, we wouldn’t be surprised to see someone ripping it open if the urge for a digital fix gets too strong to resist!

[h/t Hackaday]

Building a robotic switch to automate your air conditioner

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This Maker created an Arduino-powered, servo-based device to turn his AC unit on and off. 

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If you want to control AC power with an Arduino or other platform, the simplest way is (normally) to use a relay. In Tyler Bletsch’s case, he moved into a new office with a manually-controlled air conditioning unit. As he puts it, “I’m not going to put up with a hot office in the morning, nor will I let the unit blow cold air all night and weekend when nobody’s around. Instead, I will build some crap.”

Well said. Since it’s generally a good idea to keep office equipment unmodified, this “crap” took the form of an Arduino Nano (ATmega328)-controlled servo to physically turn the switch on and off — as seen in the video below. This could, we suppose, be considered to be a very complicated form of a physical relay.

An interesting feature is that, since the horn swings out of the way when not in use, you can flip the switch manually “like a barbarian.” According to Bletsch, the bracket allows control of any U.S. standard wall switch. Because of this flexibility, you should be able to use this technique to control nearly anything, though it usually makes many folks uneasy to automatically power things when they’re not around.

Additionally, the interface consisted of a few tactile buttons and an OLED screen, which displays information like the day and time. In terms of software, he used the Time Library for real-time clock logic, the Adafruit GFX Library to show pixels, and the Native Servo Library to run the servo.

If you’d like to make your own, the Maker has made the code available on GitHub and the 3D-printable files on accessible on Thingiverse.

Syncing sensor data with video to create an onscreen display

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Build a ‘black box’ data logger for adding onscreen display gauges to your highlight videos. 

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If you enjoy motorsports, mountain biking or “extreme tricycling” (aka riding a drift trike), you may take videos of your rides. This kind of presentation can be interesting by itself, but how much cooler would it be if you could display stats like speed, altitude, or even the temperature outside?

Well now you can, using an Arduino Mega (ATmega2560) equipped with several sensors, including a GPS and accelerometer. Instructions for making your own can be found on Fluxaxiom’s Instructables post on this ‘black box.’ The parts list is fairly involved, and although it doesn’t look like a ridiculously-hard build, you’ll definitely spend some time soldering components.

Once everything is soldered together, it’s attached to an anti-vibration mount reminiscent of something that would be used on a quadcopter. The assembly is then inserted into what is physically a clear box. Since it’s important (or at least less confusing later) for the box to be kept in a known orientation, the box is labeled with X, Y and Z direction labels.

After the data is obtained, it can be combined with your video using software called “Race Render 3.” There are other possible solutions to put this kind of data onscreen, but Fluxaxiom has gotten good results with it — as seen in the drift trike video below.

Chalkaat is an augmented reality-based laser cutter

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Created at MIT’s Media Lab, Chalkaat is a direct manipulation laser cutter that’s aware of the strokes being drawn on the workpiece. 

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Laser cutters are one of the more interesting tools you can have around your home (or professional) shop. Normally, you load what you want to cut or engrave into the unit, place the material to be cut inside of it, start the process, and some time later you hopefully everything has been cut correctly. As amazing as this technology is, the MIT Media Lab decided to take it one step further with their augmented-reality Chalkaat laser cutter system.

This laser cutter setup, using a camera and a projector, allows you to put or even draw an object to be duplicated via laser in the cutting field. The object is then scanned and a representation of it is projected where it will be cut. The camera that originally scanned the image then tracks a red and blue marker, which, allow you to move and resize the now-projected object.

Once things are ready to cut, a homebrewed Arduino (ATmega328P) moves the laser into position via stepper motors, and turns it on at the needed intensity. Although code was available that could take care of some of the control details, for this project the MIT Media Lab decided to write their own firmware for the sake of learning.

Many tend to have a bit of an aversion to making their own “DIY laser” setup, and as noted on their instructions, “Working with lasers is extremely dangerous. A 2W laser can blind you instantly even if looked indirectly. Always wear proper laser safety glasses.” This is a really cool project, but don’t try something like this unless you know what you’re doing and take the proper precautions.

Intrigued? Head over to the team’s project page here, or simply see it in action below!

Hack an aux input into your old ride to play your favorite MP3 jams

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This Maker hacked the stereo in his 2007 Volvo V70 and successfully added his own AUX input. 

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Karl Hagström wondered why his 2007 Volvo didn’t have an AUX (AKA line-in) input on its head unit. As he puts it, “2007 was before the big era of smartphones, but everyone owned a couple of dirt cheap MP3 players and iPod was a big thing.” I’ve personally often wondered why my 2006 automobile has “DVD audio” capability, but lacks this far more useful and much simpler input method.

Unlike me, however, Swedish engineer Hagström decided to do something about this deficit, using an Arduino Nano clone (ATmega328) and several other components. This allowed him to run an AUX connector into the eight-pin connectors on the back of the head unit. The hack itself reportedly cost him less than five dollars, unlike the 80-dollar off-the-shelf solution.

The trick to this setup (and the reason for the Arduino) is that the CD changer input that the AUX goes into can’t be selected unless it is actually connected to the changer, which gives the head unit an initialization routine. Once the Arduino simulates this, it’s just a matter of connecting the left and right audio channels plus ground into the correct socket and pins.

If you accomplish this hack yourself, you can pipe all of your favorite Limp Bizkit and No Doubt songs from your SanDisk MP3 player into your car — all without even using a cassette adapter! Check out the Maker’s entire project here.

Hacking an Amazon Echo to control a wheelchair

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This Maker modified his electric wheelchair to be voice-controlled using Amazon Echo, Raspberry Pi and Arduino.

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Amazon Echo is a device that listens to what you say, and can respond with information or even some simple home automation tasks. Turning lights on is interesting, but Bob Paradiso wondered if he “could push Echo’s utility a little further.” In his case, he was able to modify an electric wheelchair to be voice-controlled using the Echo with a Raspberry Pi and Arduino Uno (ATmega328).

Although Paradiso considered using Echo to add things an Amazon to-do list and IFTTT to carry out an action based on the list, he decided to instead setup the Raspberry Pi to emulate a Hue lighting hub. This meant more direct control of the chair, and less delay between voice command and action.

As seen in the first video below, this type of interface might be cumbersome for day-to-day use, but could possibly serve as an alternate input method. Paradiso is quick to point out that his control method is a demonstration, and “lacks CRITICAL safeties that need to be in place for anyone (but especially someone with significant disability) to use safely.”

Paradiso also tried this out using only Pi-based software PocketSpinx, which, according to him gave “acceptable but worse results.” This can be seen (with a functioning fan at 1:25) in the second clip below.

Intrigued? Head over to the Maker’s entire project page to read more.

This dress can sense its surrounding environment

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Talk about a fashion sense! This smart dress measures the aggressiveness of the environment to analyze how it affects the mood and behavior of individuals.

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According to co-creator Marìa Castellanos’ website, her custom dress is “equipped with sensors to analyze questions such as variations in noise, temperature, atmospheric pressure, ultraviolet radiation or the amount of carbon monoxide present in our daily life. All this information will be transferred, via Bluetooth or open Wi-Fi networks, to a mobile phone connected to the Internet and it will generate a big database set up with the geolocated references collected.”

This may see like a lofty goal for Castellanos and fellow co-creator Alberto Valverde, but a very good prototype has already been made as seen in the video below featuring model Irene Arroyo in this futuristic (Matrix-esque even) ensemble. Giving this project further credence, the dress was the winning project for Next Things 2015 – Conducta, a Spainish art and technology challenge.

To accomplish environmental monitoring, sensor modules with 3D-printed housings take environmental data and displays this in other modules via an Arduino Yún (ATmega32U4). Interestingly, some of these modules use LED lights to interact with humans, while others use a servo to spin a dial in a clock-like display.

Intrigued? You can head over to the project’s page more information to learn more. The site is in Spanish, so depending on your linguistics skills, you may have to dust off your high school Español or use Google Translate to do the heavy lifting for you!

[h/t Adafruit]