Robotic doodle clock

This clock has a robotic twist to it. It will show you the time by drawing it in dry-erase marker. There’s a bit of play in the arm joints and some loose motor precision which results in a wavy font that prompted [Ekaggrat] to name his project the Doodle Clock.

The shape and building material used here really make the timepiece look great. We think if the arm holding the acrylic writing surface had been at right angles this would not look nearly as pleasing. The video after the break shows the bot in action, at first flexing its wrist to switch back and forth between marker and eraser. From there it starts to draw the time, tracing the segments of each digit multiple times to achieve a readable number. The entire thing is driven by an Arduino compatible board mounted on the base of the clock.

This reminds us of that felt-tipped Turing Machine. A variation on that would also make a really nice clock display.

[Read more…]

Poking machine

We may be showing our age here, but we have no idea what a ‘poke’ on Facebook actually means. Whether it’s the passive-aggressive manifestations of online stalkers or an extension of  the ‘like’ button, all we know is [Jasper] and [Bartholomäus] built a machine that translates virtual pokes into our analog world.

The “Poking Machine” as [Jasper] and [Bart] call it, syncs to your phone over a Bluetooth connection. The build is incredibly simple: just an ATtiny running Arduino for ATtiny, a Bluetooth controller (possibly this one from Sparkfun), and a servo. When the Facebook app on [Jasper] and [Bart]’s phone receives notification of a ‘poke’, the servo is powered and gently taps the wearer on the arm.

One thing we really like about this project is the case made of several layers of laser-cut acrylic bolted together. This case offers a very clean look even if it is a bit ungainly. We suppose the guys could have used a simple vibration/pager motor for this build, but it wouldn’t exactly be a poking machine at that point. Check out the build video after the break.

[Read more…]

Live out your inner animist with animatronic cat ears

While having a great white shark as your spirit animal may sound cool, we’ve found walking around in public wearing a gigantic set of mechanical jaws to be a bit of a hindrance. [abetusk] doesn’t have that problem; he can wear his awesome animatronic cat ears anywhere he pleases.

The build was inspired by these extremely Japanese animatronic ears loaded with EEG hardware to read the emotional state of the wearer. [abetusk] decided that tearing apart some brain scanning hardware was too much work for not enough benefit, so he decided servos controlled by push buttons would be just fine.

On the electronic side of the build, servos attached to a head band are controlled by an ATtiny13. A single button goes through three states for the ears: a long button press is surprise, a tap followed by a long hold is angry or sad, and tapping three times is an ‘ear wink.’ All of the code is up on GitHub, and you can check out these cat ear emotions with [abetusk]’s lovely assistant in the video after the break.

[Read more…]