Technology

Gateways to the Soul — EyeWriter

In 2003, my friend Tony, aka graffiti artist Tempt1, was diagnosed with ALS, a progressive disease that left him almost completely paralyzed except for his eyes. In order to help him continue to make his art, I collaborated with a group of software developers and hardware hackers to create a low-cost, open source, eye-tracking system that would allow Tempt1 and other ALS patients to draw and control a computer using just their eyes.

Detecting Dirty Dishes with OpenCV

Detecting Dirty Dishes with OpenCV

What happens in a shared space like a hackerspace, where you could have as many as fifty people passing through the communal kitchen in a given day? All those cups start to pile up quickly, I’m sure. Not one to let things get out of hand, London Hackspace member Tom created a solution to combat the problem. True to hackerspace form, he combined different open source technologies to alert the members in the space when a dish has been left in the sink for more than a few minutes.

NXT-Based Brick Sorting Robot

NXT-Based Brick Sorting Robot

This monster Lego sorting robot, built by Kenneth and Lasse of BrickIt, organizes bricks by size as well as color. It uses 28 motors, 7 NXT microcontroller bricks, 7 muxes, 22 sensors, and 37,500 Lego elements total. The NXT bricks communicate with each other via bluetooth and are programmed in leJOS, a Java-based firmware replacement […]