Author Archives: John Baichtal

Behind the Scenes at a Professional Fireworks Show

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Have you ever wondered what goes on behind the scenes at a big fireworks show? Last year [Kenneth] was asked to help manually ignite a fireworks show, and this consisted of him running down a row of shells with a road flare, lighting each one in turn. He apparently did so well that this year worked another show, this one with a more complicated setup.

The show [Kenneth] helped run consisted of 950 three-inch shells, wired in series into small groups, plus another 150 in 25-shell clusters used for the finale. The fireworks were organized in racks consisting of five …read more

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Fabricate Your Own Tabletop Gaming Props

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Delve into the mysterious world of tabletop roleplaying games. Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, Shadowrun, Pathfinder, Ars Magica, Vampire, whatever gets your dice rollin’ — metaphorically in the case of a diceless system. This might very well be your daddy’s D&D. If you’re not a gamer, you’re certainly familiar with the concept. People sit around a table pretending to have an epic adventure, often adding a random element with the help of dice. A map is often displayed on the table, sized for figures that show the various heroes and villains.

As a person with access to a variety of CNC machines …read more

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Mindstorms Morse Key Writes to Drawbot

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[Jason Allemann] built a Mindstorms Telegraph Machine that packs so many cool details that HaD is about to have a fit.

First off, It’s a drawbot able to write letters, a difficult feat given a lack of native stepper motors and the limited gear options for Mindstorms.  Trying to draw letters with servos typically makes for some ugly letters. And how does the drawbot know what to write? You code them in with Morse code. The second video after the break shows [Jason]’s setup. He has a Mindstorms touch sensor with a LEGO Morse key attached to it. He simply …read more

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ESP8266 Dev Board Sports Flying Squirrel PCB Art

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[Jarrett] has a box of Nokia phone batteries and decided to use them in a project. He designed and built WiFi throwies— these consist of ESP8266 WiFi chips attached to custom PCBs and powered by Nokia phone batteries. The board charges LiPoly/Li-Ion batteries over USB with the help of a MCP73831 charger chip and has USB-serial on-board. It’s much more of a powered ESP8266 dev board than a throwie, but we’ll give [Jarrett] the benefit of the doubt.

The PCB ended up larger than [Jarrett] would have liked, because of the size requirements of the phone battery connected to it. …read more

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Making Synths out of Audio Cassettes

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8bit Mixtapes are simple Arduino-based sound and beat generators based on ATtiny 84s and 85s and designed fit inside old audio cassettes, or at least be about that size. Founded by [Dusjagr], [Ucok] and [Lyok], and including participants from around the globe, 8bit Mixtapes are small synthesizers that play one-line algorithmic symphonies, simple sound generators that work off of a single line of code.

The project has been going on for a number of years, with several different iterations released over the years–the most recent is the Mixtape NEO, released about a month ago that features audio bootloading and a …read more

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Making Synths out of Audio Cassettes

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8bit Mixtapes are simple Arduino-based sound and beat generators based on ATtiny 84s and 85s and designed fit inside old audio cassettes, or at least be about that size. Founded by [Dusjagr], [Ucok] and [Lyok], and including participants from around the globe, 8bit Mixtapes are small synthesizers that play one-line algorithmic symphonies, simple sound generators that work off of a single line of code.

The project has been going on for a number of years, with several different iterations released over the years–the most recent is the Mixtape NEO, released about a month ago that features audio bootloading and a …read more

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Automating Plant Care

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[Daniyal]’s goal is to build an automated garden that allows him to grow plants in any environment he chooses. He’s got a good start with this rig, which is controlled by a Pi Zero connected via serial to an Arduino Mega clone, which  in turn controls a bank of relays and sensors.

Monitoring the environment is a temperature and humidity sensor as well as a series of  six soil moisture sensor spikes. The relays control the water pump(s?) and lights, allowing [Daniyal] to maintain specific conditions depending on what he’s growing.

[Daniyal] has ambitious goals for the project. The Pi …read more

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Building a Smart Airsoft Gun with Open Source Hardware

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[matt8588] designed a smartgun rig for his Airsoft shotgun (YouTube, embedded below). He has a Rasperry Pi 3 mounted inside a PEQ box connected to an infrared camera with an IR tac light helping with illumination. A series of buttons control a crosshair pattern superimposed on the camera image, which is displayed on a tablet. You can also reposition the crosshairs to shoot further away. One of the buttons triggers a signal on the transmitter, for setting off Airsoft claymores during battle. A second Pi, a Zero, connects to an BerryIMU sensor that controls a “traffic light” arrangement of 12mm …read more

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