Craft & Design

From traditional crafts to modern crafts, we’re covering news and interesting projects to educate you and keep you inspired. Design trends and pop culture related projects are here to inspire.

BTC Optical Mouse Hack

BTC Optical Mouse Hack

Mouse Cover OffMac writes “A while back, I happened upon the application note “Interface to Optical Mouse Sensor” on the Kronos Robotics website. It discusses the use of a sensor from an optical mouse for use in position sensing coprocessor on a robot. The application note did not go beyond the proof-of-concept stage. That is, could the sensor be directly interfaced and controlled? Since I didn’t have easy access to the GE mouse described in the application note, I wanted to see if there were other optical mice available that had an Agilent optical mouse sensor, which I could use in its place. I also wanted to go beyond the proof-of-concept stage and acutally use an optical mouse sensor in a robotics application. Before developing that application, though, I first needed to gain familarity with interfacing to the optical mouse sensor in a Forth environment. This webpage describes the hack I did to a BTC optical mouse to enable direct control of the Agilent (now Avago, see below) ADNS-2610 Optical Mouse Sensor and the Forth code written to control it.” [via] Link.

HOW TO – Make a Flat-Panel Display

CoolstuffbeingmadeHere’s this week’s “cool stuff being made!” – “…animation of the making of a flat panel display. In fact, you’re probably looking at one now. This shows you how once again you are surrounded by manufactured products: cars, food, clothing, flat panel displays. Without manufactured products, the world would be a quiet and empty (and hungry) place.” [via] Link.

HOW TO – Make a robot from an old computer mouse

A1A5A5D2F12465Ccc76Fb700.ThumbJake posted up an Instructable for our mousebot “Mousebot from Make vol 2 is a fun introduction to robotics. So fun that I’ve created this expanded documentation of a Mousey build from start to finish, with a few extra little tips you won’t find in the mag. This how-to is best understood after reading the original article from page 100 of Make vol 2 however it is probably not required. Mousebot is a simple bot that uses two “eyes” to sense light and then turns towards the light. A single large “whisker” is mounted on the front of the mouse to detect collisions.” Link.

How to build an amplifier in less than 2$?

How to build an amplifier in less than 2$?

AmplcRefik writes “Why do we need Amplifiers? How to build a simple one? LM 741 – You have some output source (for example an analog sensor) where the voltage is very low, just few mV (millivolts), and you would like to measure the output with your ADC (Analog to Digital converter) and with the results do some calculations with your MCU (Microcontroller) or some other device. The values the ADC gives you are all almost the same because its bit resolution is too small to show you any differences between the different states of the sensor.” Link.

DIY RFID-Zapper…

DIY RFID-Zapper…

180Px-22C3 Mahajivana Img 0430 360X240More on the RFID zapping project “The RFID-Zapper is a gadget to deactivate (i.e. destroy) passive RFID-Tags permanently…Goals are a proof-of-concept and the construction of at least one functioning and appealing prototype, as well as a documentation of the project, so that everyone can build an own RFID-Zapper. Since the project found so much positive resonance, we probably are going to work on some other realizations of the concept, e.g. building an RFID-Zapper from scratch, without a single-use-camera.” [via] Link.

NAMM Oddities 2006

NAMM Oddities 2006

Funk-A-DuckBarry writes “After attending the Winter NAMM show for a number of years I’ve noticed that the exhibitors seem to fall into two categories: the established company showing their new (and sometimes vaporous) products; and the independent start-up company looking to be noticed by distributors, music stores, potential investors and the music press. It seems that every year I spent more of my NAMM cruising time checking out the various small companies that all get stashed off in some side room. Many of the products from these companies are never seen the by the mainstream either because their potential market is too small, or most people simply can’t figure out what the hell to do with it.” Link. Yay, MIDI trumpet!