First of all I wish you an inspiring and creative 2009! The remainder of this post is about the Dot matrix LED display. This ‘game of life’ simulation is running in Processing, communicating via serial port to an ATmega32 controller which controls two LED dot matrixes. The displays were on sale at baco-army-goods, and hadRead more
Today this tiny crawler took his first steps! This robot uses 5 small-size RC servo’s and is controlled by a small custom microcontrollerboard using an Atmel ATmega8. This controller board is very minimalistic. No power supply regulator, no crystal, just the controller, some capacitors and pcb edge connectors for directly connecting the servo flat cables.Read more
More details on the mechanics. The frame has been made from the cover of a discarded CD-ROM drive. The frame had been cut using metal scissors. Bras tubes have been soldered to the frame in order to form the middle joint. The whiskers are made from guitar string, mounted to paper-detect switches that had aRead more
Listening to electromagnetic fields is easy and fun (you can actually listen if a wire is ‘live’ or not, provided AC current is running through). Especially laptop computers emit a lot of EM noise in audible range. Use the electronics of an old walkman. Perhaps you have the guts of a walkman lying around, perhapsRead more
I remembered reading once that manufacturers of electric candles had been using melody-card chips as LED drivers, causing these candles unseeingly to emit music. In order to ‘audify’ this optical sounds, I connected a BPW34 diode (with large Silicon cell, so it actually generates a voltage) to a jack chassis and hooked it up toRead more
I’m currently living in an apartment without the possibilities of building a permanent recording studio. (In one of the previous houses I lived in I had a room specially modified for recording and practicing) I still want to be able now and then to record instruments without the sound of my concrete square room, withoutRead more
I came across the drawdio at ladyada.net and drawdio.com. Again a wonderfully simple idea, but very imaginary and creative! I made one as Sinterklaas-present for my mother. I didn’t have time to buy a kit, so I had to use parts that were lying around. Using the schematic Limor posted on her site I madeRead more