DIY Projects

The Electronic Peasant’s LED Color Organ…

The Electronic Peasant’s LED Color Organ…

Ledcorg8Francisco writes – “Amazing electronic DIY projects and absolutely incredible craftmanship. The Peasant is dedicated to inexpensive, easy, and fun Do-It-Yourself electronics projects, particularly those which involve music production and reproduction as well as alternative energy. The color organ stars shown are built point to point, using a technique that I had never seen before. A MUST to check out if you’ve ever soldered anything!” Link.

HOW TO – Make a LED tank top

HOW TO – Make a LED tank top

Img413 08Make your own LED tank top “84 LEDs, a microcontroller and battery were sewn onto a tank top with conductive thread to create a wearable LED matrix display…the shirt is initialized with a glider on the back of the shirt and a blinker on the front. Periodically, a new glider is added to the back of the shirt. The tank top “board” for the Game of Life is a torus; the cells on the top row of the tank top are neighbors to the cells on the bottom row and vice versa.” Link.

Interfacing the PC’s Keyboard…

Interfacing the PC’s Keyboard…

5PindinCraig guide on PC keyboard interfacing… “Why would you want to interface the Keyboard? The IBM keyboard can be a cheap alternative to a keyboard on a Microprocessor development system. Or maybe you want a remote terminal, just couple it with a LCD Module. Maybe you have a RS-232 Barcode Scanner or other input devices, which you want to use with existing software which only allows you to key in numbers or letters. You could design yourself a little box to convert RS-232 into a Keyboard Transmission, making it transparent to the software.” Link.

Dino-robot is latest toy from Furby creator

Dino-robot is latest toy from Furby creator

190588294920This is on the top of my take apart & tinker list! “When Caleb Chung has a big idea, the toy world pays attention. The co-inventor of the Furby doll created a sensation in 1998 that sold 40 million of the talking furry creatures. Now at a Bay Area start-up, he is launching a new dinosaur robot for kids that he hopes will build upon his dream of creating lifelike, emotionally responsive mechanical animals. Chung’s new brainstorm is called Pleo and it will debut this fall. He is unveiling it today at the Demo conference in Scottsdale, Ariz., and has also taken the wraps off his Emeryville-based company, Ugobe, which is making Pleo.” [via] Link.