The Current Buzz

R/C Car VR System

This home made VR R/C car is quit well done, it seem to be quite responsive.
“A gyroscope is mount on the video headset. the movement of the head control the movement of the onboard cam”

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Sony Hyper Dragging Desktop

Sony’s new invention. Drag&Drop anwhere you want.
read more | digg story

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Simmons Hall Two-Story LED Display

Using a PIC16F877A microcontroller and some high current electronics a grid of windows was turned into a huge LED display. Seems like students at MIT have lots of tech fun!
“The Simmons LED Display is a home-made two-story high 6×6 array of windows outfitted with ultra-cool Luxeon LXHL-LR3C Royal Blue LEDs. It is located in the exercise room of the architecturally infamous Simmons Hall, a residence hall designed by Steven Holl that opened in 2002 for MIT’s undergraduates. (Each floor is three windows high and the overall design of the building is inspired by a sponge.) It can be seen from most of Briggs Field and Dorm Row at MIT, thus making for a convenient announcement board. It follows from a vision that many Simmons Hall residents have had in the past: to turn the waffle-like arrangement of windows into working pixels.”

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iButton Electronic Lock

This project uses a Dallas iButton to operate an electronic lock. Have a look at the full article for lots of detail and project source code to build your own.
“This electronic lock can be used with any type of iButtons you may already have, since the only thing needed is the internal serial number, that’s different for every iButton. The command used to read the serial number is the same for all iButtons. The iButton family code that goes with every iButton, can be anything and is calculated as part of the whole serial number. We must also notice that DS1990A series iButtons are the cheapest.
This electronic lock designed to work stand-alone and it’s easy to construct. What the user sees (outside of the door for example) is a iButton socket and a led. From inside the door, we can open it using a simple push […]

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RFID Front Door Lock

The Digital Dawg Pound has a created a RFID Front Door Lock that uses inexpensive off the shelf electronics. There is a full listing of all the parts required on their site.
“The project works as follows: When a card is placed in front of the RFID reader it outputs a TTL serial signal representing the card’s unique ID. This is sent to the ‘TTL serial to Ethernet server’ module, which converts the serial data stream from the reader into TCP packets which are forwarded to a specified IP address / port. A custom C# application is listening on the specified port for a tag ID’s and once received will check if they are valid, and if so signal the NET-IOM to turn on a relay wait 2 seconds then turn it off again. The relay is connected to a buzzer, and electronic strike which is mounted on the door frame, […]

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Contour Crafting

Thanks to Nick Hardman for pointing out this site in the form. Contour Crafting is working on some interesting machines that will someday automate home buildings. See some video simulations here.
“Q:What will the buildings cost?
A:If you were to have your clothes, shoes, or cars made manually you would have to pay 4-5 times more. These products are available at the current prices because they are made automatically. Our houses are now made manually. If automated by CC we expect the cost of construction to drop to 1/5-1/4 of current cost.

Q:What will the machine cost?
A:There will be several variations of the machine to suit the needs for emergency housing, low income housing, single residence detached
housing, multi unit structures, condominium complexes, public buildings (schools, hospitals, etc.), and high rise structures. The machine will cost between $500K to $700K for average size (2000 sq ft — 200 m2) detached houses. This is […]

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How the Scuderi Air Hybrid Engine works

Andrew McCaskey from Slashdot Review posted an interesting video of a motor that could develop into a common method of increasing efficiency.
“Scuderi’s cycle is much like the Miller cycle in that it attempts to delay the opening of the exhaust valve as much as possible to take full advantage of the expanding combustion gases. Traditionally, the Miller cycle -completely unrelated to Miller Time, by the way - uses a mechanical supercharger to prevent reversion of the exhaust gases into the intake tract. Scuderi uses the compression cylinder and a poppet valve and check valve arrangement in the crossover passage to the same effect.”

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Homemade Flight Simulator

When thinking of new projects it is a good idea to think big, not sure I would have ever thought of building a Flight Simulator though.
“In 1998 I began the design and constuction of my 747-400 simulator. The approximate size of the simulator is 13ft wide x 11ft long and 9ft high. It will include every switch and panel in the 747-400. The Simulator has been built to accept full motion and visuals at a later date.”
Via: Make

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PIC18F2550 Oscilloscope

You too can build a small very functional PIC scope! Steven from Semifluid.com has gone all out with this creation. Check out his site for the project source code.
“Using the PIC18F2550 GLCD Text Test as a basis for further experimentation, I put together a simple and accurate graphical oscilloscope using a PIC18F2550 microcontroller and a AGM1264F graphical LCD. The oscilloscope measures the average voltage, the maximum voltage, the minimum voltage, the peak-to-peak voltage, and the zero-crossing frequency for a DC signal over 100 samples”

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