Chris writes: “I recently read this interesting article in Wired magazine about “Light-Graffiti Hackers“. The problem with light graffiti is that you need a power source to make them permanent, so you usually can’t put them everywhere you like. So, I built myself a Solar Powered Light-Graffiti Projector out of a cheap solar garden light.” Link.
Amazing video of an RCX robot using vision command (or a derrivative) to play pong on a real screen. Jmarco writes: “I have designed a Mindstorm Robot who plays Pong game. It have a Webcam, and it’s controled through Infrared with the laptop computer. There is not trick. It truely plays itself!” [via] Link.
Kkassing writes “After setting up two webcams and the new Skype beta to watch my dog while I’m out, I decided to give him some incentive to obey my commands over the internet. So I built an internet powered dog feeder with a Basic Stamp kit and two servos (one to drop the food, one to knock the funnel if it gets stuck). Full source included.” Link.
Mike Smyth makes these incredible compressed air engines. On his site, he has photos and information on the V-twin and radial air engines he designed and constructed. The videos give you a good idea of how they work. His homepage also has his walking robots project to check out. Thanks B45man! Link.
Turn your optical mouse in to a scanner! Erik writes: “A Maker posted his project on a very large Dutch forum, after he read some datasheets of the sensor in his optical mouse. He wrote a application in VB for reading the sensors outputs, so he can use the sensor like a hand scanner. The software is available on the site and works on mice which use an ADNS-2610 optical sensor, recognisable by the eight pins, the sun-like mark and the text ‘A2610’.” Link.
Peter writes “Here’s a Haile, a robotic drummer that responds intelligently to your playing with an expressive performance on a Native American Pow-wow drum. They’re set to create a Jewish-Arab drum circle composition featuring the robot commissioned for performance in Jerusalem.” Here’s how they did it. Link.
Here’s a fairly old how to, but a good one that could be handy for new projects. If you have a Cisco Aironet card, or want to score a cheap one on eBay to hack up to add an external antenna here’s how. Link.
