Birdwatching Meets a Computer-Controlled Water Cannon, Awesomeness Ensues

March 20, 2012 By Leave a Comment

squirrel turret

Sure, squirrels may bother the average home owner, but few have attempted as creative a way to control them as this automated water turret. Check out the video after the break to see how this was accomplished, but if you’d rather just see how the squirrels reacted to getting squirted, fast forward to around 16:00. According to [Kurt] he was sure this would be his solution, however, his conclusion was that “squirrels don’t care.”

As for the presentation, it’s more about how to use [OpenCV], or Open Source Computer Vision. It’s quite a powerful piece of software, especially considering that something like this would cost thousands of dollars in a normal market.  An Arduino is used to interface the computer’s outputs to the real world and control a squirt gun. If you’d rather not program something like this yourself, you could always simply use a garden hose as someone suggests just after the video. [Read more…]

Filed Under: arduino hacks, toy hacks, weapons hacks Tagged With: , , , , ,

Connecting toy blocks with a universal construction set

March 20, 2012 By Leave a Comment

We were all children at one time, and surely some of us remember the pain of trying to make one type of building block work with another type of block. The folks at the Free Art and Technology Lab have an answer for your inner child: adapters that connect any type of building block to any other type of building block.

The project is called the Free Universal Construction Kit. This  “gee, I wish I thought of that ideas” is a set of 79 play set adapter that allow any child to mix up their Duplo, Fischertechnik, Gears! Gears! Gears, K’Nex, Krinkles, Lego, Lincoln Logs, Tinkertoy, ZomeTool, and Zoob building sets in any way imaginable. Most of these adapters are up on Thingiverse, ready to be printed out with a 3D printer or sent to Shapeways.

An interesting aspect of the work of the F.A.T. Lab is the legal and intellectual property aspect; since this is the product of reverse-engineering several building sets,  it’s entirely possible the manufactures of these toys wouldn’t want adapters out in the wild. The team really covered their bases, though. Of the ten toy systems included, eight are no longer patent protected, much to the chagrin of the company behind MEGA Bloks. Adapters for the  two remaining systems – Zoob and ZomeTool – won’t be released until the patents run out in 2016 and 2022, respectively.

Check out the video after the break for the wonderful ‘a-ha moment’ one of the inventors had when watching his 4-year-old son playing with Tinker Toys and K’Nex.

[Read more…]

Filed Under: toy hacks Tagged With: , , , , ,

RFID jukebox for the kids

March 14, 2012 By Leave a Comment

[Dominik] built a fun musical toy for his daughter [Anna]. It’s a jukebox that lets her play her favorite tunes using RFID tags to select between them.

The project is simple, yet robust. The enclosure is a wooden craft box that you can pick up for a couple of bucks. Inside there’s an Arduino with a Wave Shield which handles the audio playback. An RFID reader takes input from the set of card-tags he procured. An internal Lithium battery powers the device, with a USB port for charging.

Sure, those guts have some cost involved in them. But there’s no LCD which can be broken, and we thing the boards will hold up well to abuse if mounted correctly. Plus there’s a lot of future potential here. When we saw the cards we thought of those toys which make the animal sounds (“what does the cow say… mooo”). This could be used for that with really young children. Then repurposed into this jukebox as they get a bit older. If you put the guts in a new enclosure it will appear to be a brand-new toy, right?

See a demo of the project in the clip after the break.

[Read more…]

Filed Under: digital audio hacks, toy hacks Tagged With: , , , ,

Browser-based circuit simulator boasts a mountain of features

March 2, 2012 By Leave a Comment

CircuitLab is an electronics simulator which you can run in a browser. Above you can see one of the example circuits provided to help show the power of the application. You can build your schematic (perhaps you want to try [Jeri’s] psu shut-off timer?) in the editor mode, then switch over to the simulator to get data back from the components. In that mode, your cursor becomes a probe, and clicking on different parts of the circuit will return the calculated input and output voltages for that component. But wait, there’s more. It’s got time and frequency simulation in addition to the voltage simulator. This lets you look at waveforms fed through analog filters, or timing data like in the 555 timer circuit above.

Where does this fantastic tool come from? [Humberto Evans] and [Mike Robbins], the guys behind NerdKits developed this site. We’ve seen a lot of their hacks around here, like milling solenoids and making them play a xylophone. Check out the CircuitLab quick start video they put together after the break. [Read more…]

Filed Under: toy hacks Tagged With: , , ,

$15 toy becomes fully programmable robot

February 28, 2012 By Leave a Comment

[Kevin] undertook a robot build partly for his own enjoyment, but also to include his kids in the action. He acquired a cheap toy and packed it full of programmable goodness. The starting point was a $15 toy called Rad 2.0. It’s a great starting point as it already included some motorized parts, and takes care of much of the mechanical issues like joints and structure.

The image on the left is the fourth update which [Kevin] has posted. The robot now responds to voice commands (with the same syntax as Chippu uses), moving its gaze to face forward or to either side. You’ll notice there’s a wireless webcam which lets him spy on what’s in front of the robot’s gaze. An ultrasonic range finder makes itself at home in the beak of the bot, and a Larson Scanner is nestled in the brow using the kit from Evil Mad Scientist Labs. Check out the video after the break for an overview of the hardware modifications.

The build log for this project is a forum post. That forum is run by [DJ Sures], a veteran at taking cheap toys and making them awesome. It seems like he’s taken a web forum and made it awesome too because the conversation about [Kevin’s] project is packed with constructive tips and encouragement.

[Read more…]

Filed Under: robots hacks, toy hacks Tagged With: , ,

Worried about Haloween this Year? Why not a Giant T-Rex Costume?

February 23, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Although some might note that [Jamie]’s creation could mistaken for a Velociraptor or even Allosaurus, his giant T-Rex costume/model is quite a feat of artistry. It stands at over 14 feet tall and 10 feet long. For comparison, the room that you see in the picture above measures 25 x 25 feet. If you happen to live in the Atlanta area, or are willing to travel, this costume is expected to make an appearance at Dragon*Con in 2012, so be sure to look for it there.

The whole thing is made from poly foam plank cut with a CNC router.  It also has a metallic support structure. As noted in the article, you could, in theory, cut all these parts out by hand. Persistence would be required though, since there are over 140 parts!

[Jamie]’s making capabilities are obviously quite advanced at this point, but he’s trying to expand them by winning a router in the Instructables Shopbot contest. If you like his creation, be sure to vote for him! Check out the video of this costume in action after the break. [Read more…]

Filed Under: contests, misc hacks, toy hacks Tagged With: , ,
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