BTC Optical Mouse Hack
Mac 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.
Here’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.” [
Matthew writes “A project I’m finishing off involves a simple little front end that I’ve decided to implement using some DHTML. As I was reading up on JavaScript’s setTimeout method as part of my DHTML research, an interesting thought crossed my mind: would it be possible to make a strobe light out of that old archaic CRT monitor sitting on my closet floor and such a weak (as in weakly typed) language as JavaScript? Well, I decided to give it a try and it actually worked out pretty well — although it did give me a mild headache after I had the not so keen idea to stare directly at it for a few seconds. Here’s the code you need to make use of that old dust magnet.” 
DIY satellite of sorts…A Russian Orlan spacesuit with three batteries, a radio transmitter, and internal sensors to measure temperature and battery power – “One of the strangest satellites in the history of the space age is about to go into orbit. Launch date: Feb. 3rd. That’s when astronauts onboard the International Space Station (ISS) will hurl an empty spacesuit overboard. The spacesuit is the satellite — “SuitSat” for short.” [
AntonOlsen writes “This is an easy to build dc-dc switcher that can drive quite a few LEDs at 3.3V with a single AA battery. Version 1 is going in a mini mag light and I’m thinking version two will make a very light weight bike light.” [