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The latest DIY ideas, techniques and tools for the kitchen, garage and backyard from food to furniture to fun & games for your family.

DIY Headcam…

DIY Headcam…

BackpakcamHere’s a how to on making a head mounted camera from a Neuros MPEG4 Recorder…“The AdventureCAM project started because we needed a way to hike and shoot video footage at the same time. We are constantly reworking this setup, but the basic configuration is pretty much the same (digital storage, remote camera, remote trigger, backpack). Our most recent update to this setup is to replace the tape-based DV Camcorder with a solid state recording mechanism.” [via] Link. I found a Tony Hawk low res camera on sale for $30 at Gamespot in Seattle, it’s not freat quality but I took it apart for a project, worked ok…

HOW TO – Fix your old NES

HOW TO – Fix your old NES

Nes FixDIY live has some good tips on fixing that old NES “I took apart my nintendo, and found the 72 pin connector. I took my smallest flat head screw-driver and pried every pin up a little. Over time, they had lost their springiness (I don’t know if that is a word, but it describes what I am talking about). This is a pretty good fix. It may not be the best, but it works. Another thing to help out is to clean the pins of your old cartridge. You can take a wooden pencil with the red eraser, and rub it on the pins of the cartridge. Make sure you get all of the eraser off of the cartridge.” Thanks Star! Link.

Bluetooth Accelerometer

Bluetooth Accelerometer

S TopA few folks emailed about this, so here’s one I spotted – “This is a small wireless sensor platform providing a bluetooth SPP link to three axes of accelerometer data. The accelerometers are sampled by a PIC microcontroller (onboard ADC) at roughly 100Hz (rate can be changed via firmware). Data from the ADC conversion is sent to a remote computer using the PIC’s UART in conjunction with a drop-in bluetooth serial part. Even with two dual-axis accelerometers onboard there are up to 17 free I/O lines and two additional ADC channels depending on the device configuration. Three sockets provide access to all PIC signals. Over-the-air programming allows for easy firmware updates and rapid prototyping without the need to have a PIC programmer or special cable. Schematics, parts lists, and firmware sources are available online.” Link.

Snagging Textures with GLIntercept in the virtual world…

Snagging Textures with GLIntercept in the virtual world…

SlhacksSecond Life hacks is moving along, but here’s a nice hack that just popped up to check out – “If you want to grab textures out of Second Life to see how people have made those neat trees, the stunning clothes, or maybe an old texture you lost, GLIntercept is the tool for the job. GLIntercept is a program that grabs OpenGL information directly from memory. It does a lot more than just capturing textures; with it you can extract prim information, avatars, and textures. This information can be exported into other 3D programs, such as Maya. This hack, however, is just about the images.” Thanks Brian! Link.