Category: Hacked

The Robotic Nintendo DS

DSrobot

Looks as if some enterprising hacker has built himself a robot that runs off a Nintendo DS handheld. The proposed specs are here:

# 20 Digital Input/Output for multipurpose use.
# Customizable with you own Motors and Sensors
# Wireless programming and controling.
# You can use your DSRobot with NinjaDS to make the robot works alone.
# Programmable in C or C++ with devkitpro and a custom library to manage the signals.
# You can use PAlib (very easy NDS library to program you first DSRobot
# Upgradable Software & Hardware.

The prototype has six sensors and two motors on it for now. DSRobot say that they will be selling kits, I wonder what Nintendo thinks of this…

[via Robot Gossip] 

DSRobot: A Nintendo DS Robot

Underwater CVS Camcorder hack

Underwater CVS Camera Mod

What a fantastic mod! I love the magnet and the reed switch. 

Connect this one to the contacts of the record button and mount it on the back of the case, right under the screen. Now, waving a magnet by the bottom of the screen will start and stop recording underwater, without breaking the seal of the case.

I’ve often thought of building an underwater case for a camera but doing the interfaces for the buttons has always been a daunting task. For a while I was thinking I would use a water proof IR remote but never worked quite right. Plus it was a pain to mess with underwater. The magnetic switches are perfect. I wish I would have had this while I was on the beach…

Underwater CVS Camcorder

Cheap ‘n Easy Digital Picture Frame

Sub $100 digital frame

 

 

 

Add one part Sony PS1 LCD screen and one part SanDisk Digital Photo Viewer bake for half an hour in a slow oven and you get a sub USD$100 digital picture frame. (I’m kidding about the oven part). I have an TFT LCD screen that I wired up as a remote TV monitor a few years ago that would be perfect for this. I’ll have ro find one of those SanDisk Digital Photo Viewers and build one of these. Funny, I remember seeing one in a store and I thought that it would be the perfect thing to load up and send to the relatives for them to see pictures of the kids. Now I can add a screen and presto! Zero instalation (ok, grandma will have to attach the wall wart, but that’s pretty easy). With 32 MB CF cards costing next to nothing this might be fun to do.

[via MAKE] 

Cheap ‘n Easy Digital Picture Frame

LED Christmas Lights Hacked to Low Voltage

LED Christmas lights

I saw this and just had to share. You know those very neat LED Christmas lights that you could find on the clearance tables a few months ago, you remember them now because your going to kick yourself for not buying a crap load of them. Anyway, ‘ol Joe has a tutorial on how you can hack them to run on low voltages, like 12VDC. Just like the voltage you get from your computers power supply. I think you can see where this is going…

Red-tag Joe’s introduction to LED lighting and how to connect 120 volt LED christmas lights for low-voltage applications redtag

DIY Hollow Out A Light Bulb

Lightbulb project

You can never have enough projects, right? Well I think that’s true. Tonight I finished my tutorial on how to hollow out a light bulb and re-use it for other things like art projects and science stuff. So don’t throw out that dead light bulb, make it into a salt shaker or something… 

DIY Hollow Out A Light Bulb

Camera Coil-Gun

Coilgun 

Now this is the sort of project I can sink my teeth into. What do you get when you cross a disposable camera flash with a bit of wire, and steel BB’s? A coil gun! Yeah… That’s the good stuff. Jeff provides plans and links to build your own weapon of choice. Have fun and be safe, if you can do the two at the same time. If not you can go as a pirate for next Halloween.

Jeff’s Camera Coil-Gun