Author Archives: James Hobson

DIY Electric Pennyboard Can Hit 40Km/h!!

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Home-made transportation is a thriving area for makers to flex their skills. Looking to shorten their university commute, [doublecloverleaf] modded his penny board by adding a motor that can have him zipping along at 40 Km/h!

The electric motor is mounted to the rear truck and delivers power to the wheel gear using a HTD 5 m pulley belt. Finding the deck too flexible to mount the battery pack under, [doublecloverleaf] strengthened it with a pair of carbon-fiber tubes bracketed on the underside. A few custom PCB boards connect ten 5 Ah LiPo battery cells in series to create two, …read more

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Musical Proximity Detection Pet Bowls

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An essential skill for a maker is the ability to improvise or re-purpose existing materials into new parts. Sometimes, one needn’t make many modifications to create something new, as is the case with [Robin Sterling] and his musical pet bowl.

Originally, it was a sealed pet bowl that opened when the proximity sensors detected an approaching pet. Having helped design the bowl, [Sterling] had a bit of an advantage when he decided to convert it into a theremin/light harp-esque instrument for the company BBQ. He routed the PWM outputs from each of the three proximity sensors (in each of the …read more

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Exoskeleton Designed for Children

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Exoskeletons are demonstrably awesome, allowing humans to accomplish feats of strength beyond their normal capacity. The future is bright for the technology — not just for industrial and military applications, but especially in therapy and rehabilitation. Normally, one thinks of adults who have lost function in their limbs, but in the case of this exoskeleton, developed by The Spanish National Research Council (CSIC), children with spinal muscular atrophy are given a chance to lead an active life.

Designing prosthetics for children can be difficult since they are constantly growing, and CSIC’s is designed to be telescopic to accommodate patients between …read more

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Hoverchair For Your Hoverboard Turns Your Segway into a Go-Kart

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Want to get somewhere safely, but all you have is a Segway? An afternoon spent tinkering can turn your Segway into a lounging cruiser with this hoverseat attachment, just like YouTuber [Inflatable Boats]’s hot new ride.

The backbone of the cart is the Segway Mini Pro. An aluminium frame attaches to the Segway via an eye-bolt and two carabiners, the larger of which has some tape wrapped around it to reduce wear. A swivel caster is attached with u-bolts to support the weight  of the rider along the middle of this makeshift go-cart. Pushing on a t-handle made of pvc …read more

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Compact ePaper Business Card

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Is your business card flashy? Is it useful in a pinch? Do they cost $32 each and come with an ePaper display? No? Well, then feast your eyes on this over-the-top business card with an ePaper display by [Paul Schow]. Looking to keep busy and challenge himself with a low-power circuit in a small package, he set about making a business card that can be updated every couple of months instead of buying a new stack whenever he updated his information.

Having worked with ePaper before, it seemed to be the go-to option for [Schow] in fulfilling the …read more

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Multi Sensor Security Camera Has You Covered

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Security in the home — especially a new home — is a primary concern for many. There are many options for security systems on the market, but for those will the skills, taking matters into your own hands can add peace of mind when protected by a system of one’s own design. [Armagan C.] has created  their near-ideal multi-sensor security module to keep a watchful eye out for would-be burglars.

Upgrading from their previous Arduino + Ethernet camera — which loved to trigger false alarms — [Armagan] opted for a used Raspberry Pi model B+ camera module and WiFi connection …read more

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Arduino + Software Defined Radio = Millions of Vulnerable Volkswagens

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As we’ve mentioned previously, the integrity of your vehicle in an era where even your car can have a data connection could be a dubious bet at best. Speaking to these concerns, a soon-to-be published paper out of the University of Birmingham in the UK, states that virtually every Volkswagen sold since 1995 can be hacked and unlocked by cloning the vehicle’s keyfob via an Arduino and software defined radio (SDR).

The research team, led by [Flavio Garcia], have described two main vulnerabilities: the first requires combining a cyrptographic key from the vehicle with the signal from the owner’s fob …read more

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Etching a PCB In Ten Minutes.

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Most circuit boards any maker could need for their projects can be acquired online at modest cost, but what if you need something specific? [Giorgos Lazaridis] of pcbheaven.com has designed his own etching bath complete with a heater and agitator to sped up the process of creating your own custom circuit boards.

[Lazaridis] started by building a circuit to control — in a display of resourcefulness — a fish tank heater he would later modify. The circuit uses a PIC 16F526 microcontroller and two thermristors to keep the temperature of the etching bath between 38 and 41 degrees Celsius. The …read more

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HardWino Takes The Effort Out of Happy Hour

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A personal bartender is hard to come by these days. What has the world come to when a maker has to build their own? [Pierre Charlier] can lend you a helping hand vis-à-vis with HardWino, an open-source cocktail maker.

The auto-bar is housed on a six-slot, rotating beverage holder, controlled by an Arduino Mega and accepts drink orders via a TFT screen. Stepper motors and L298 driver boards are supported on 3D printed parts and powered by a standard 12V DC jack. Assembling HardWino is a little involved, so [Charlier]  has provided a thorough step-by-step process in the video after …read more

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Tattoos by Robotic Arm With Pinpoint Accuracy

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Tattoos are an ancient art, and as with most art, is usually the domain of human expertise. The delicate touch required takes years to master, but with the capacity for perfect accuracy and precision movements, enlisting a robotic arm and some clever software to tattoo a willing canvas is one step closer thanks to the efforts of [Pierre Emm] and [Johan da Silveira].

They began by using a 3D printer modified to ‘print’ with a tattoo needle. Catching the interest of the Applied Research Lab at Autodesk, the next logical step was to use an industrial robot arm get a …read more

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