Category Archives: adafruit

Cheap Dual Mirror Laser Projector

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[Stanley] wanted to make a laser projector but all he could find online were one’s using expensive galvanometer scanners. So instead he came up with his own solution that is to be admired for its simplicity and its adaptation of what he could find.

At its heart is an Arduino Uno and an Adafruit Motor Shield v2. The green laser is turned on and off by the Arduino through a transistor. But the part that makes this really a fun machine to watch at work are the two stepper motors and two mirrors that reflect the laser in the X …read more

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Put an Honest Face On Alexa With This HAL 9000 Build

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Amazon put out a version of Alexa’s software that  could run on Raspberry Pi. Adafruit sold a big scary red button. For, [Keith Elliott] the project ahead was an obvious conclusion.

The Raspberry Pi version of Alexa’s software was lagging behind the release version. You had to press a button to input a command, which really steals a lot of the joy out of a creepy voice controlled robot listening to you putz around the house. Now, it can wake on command.

Since this sold him on finally adding Amazon’s ever watching witch eye to his home, he decided he …read more

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Easy UFO Lights on your Drone for Halloween

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Sometimes it’s not so much what you put together, it’s how you use it. The folks at Adafruit have put up a project on how to dress up your drone with ‘UFO lights’ just in time for Halloween. The project is a ring of RGB LEDs and a small microcontroller to give any quadcopter a spinning ‘tractor beam light’ effect. A 3D printed fixture handles attachment. If you’re using a DJI Phantom 4 like they are, you can power everything directly from the drone using a short USB cable, which means hardly any wiring work at all, and no permanent …read more

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Hackaday Prize Entry: $50 Foot Controlled Mouse

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ALS robbed one of [C. Niggel]’s relative’s of the use of their upper body. This effectively imprisoned them in their house; ALS is bad stuff. Unfortunately too, the loss of upper body mobility meant that they couldn’t even use the computer to interact with people and the outside world. However, one day [C. Niggel] noted that the relative’s new electric wheelchair was foot controlled. Could this be adapted to a computer mouse?

He looked up commercial solutions and found them not only prohibitively expensive, but also fraught with proprietary drivers and all sorts of bad design nonsense. With all of …read more

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Conductive Paint Turns Pizza Box Into DJ Mixing Station

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Conductive paints and inks have been around for quite sometime, and the internet abounds with examples of cool projects you can use them for. They’re well suited to quick and fun prototypes, educational workshops, and temporary toys. But, as cool as conductive paint is, it’s not usually the kind of thing that gets people excited at parties.

Well, until now that is. Adafruit has published a dope guide for building a bomb-diggity DJ mixing station out of a pizza box, conductive paint, and a Circuit Playground board. The guide walks you through how to properly apply the conductive paint (in …read more

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Chewbacca Mask Hack Cheers Up The Whining Wookie

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Once tried, even grown-ups just can’t let go of that hilariously funny Chewbacca mask. Also, the speaking toy literally cries out to be hacked. Weary of the whining Wookie, [John Park] set out to bring variety into Chewie’s mode of expression, expanding the mask’s memory and vocabulary to unprecedented levels.

For his hack, [John] keeps the original jaw limit switches and speaker of the mask in place, but replaces the sound generating electronics with an Adafruit Audio FX Mini Sound Board. This sweet piece from [Ada’s] bag of tricks plays back samples from an onboard 16 MB flash memory …read more

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Electroshock Timer Will Speed Up Every Game of Settlers of Catan

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The fun of playing Settlers of Catan is only matched by the desire to punch your friend when their turn drags on with endless deliberating. [Alpha Phoenix] has solved that quandary of inefficient play by building the Settlers of Catan: Electroshock Therapy Expansion.

[Alpha Phoenix] is holding back on the details of the device to forestall someone trying this at home and injuring themselves or others, but there’s plenty to glean from his breakdown of how the device works. An Adafruit Trinket microcontroller connects to a single pole 12 throw switch — modified from a double pole six throw rotary …read more

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Beware Of Tall Grass: Pokemon Go on the Gameboy Pocket

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[Pepijn de Vos] was excited to interact with the world’s most popular augmented reality pedometer, Pokemon Go, and was extremely disappointed to find that his Blackberry couldn’t run it. Still, as far as he could tell from behind his wall of obsolete technology, Pokemon Go is all about walking distractedly, being suspicious, and occasionally catching a Pokemon. That should be possible.

Not a stranger to hacking Pokemon on the Gameboy, [Pepijn] put together a plan. Using his TCPoke module, he took it a step further. Rather than just emulating the original gameboy trade signals over the internet, he hacked a …read more

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Raspberry Pi Zero Becomes Mighty Miniature Minecraft Machine

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In a clever bit of  miniaturization, [JediJeremy] has nearly completed a gyro-mouse controller for a Raspberry Pi Zero! Ultimately this will be a wearable Linux-watch but along the way he had some fun with the interface.

Using the MPU6040 gyroscope/accelerometer card from a quadcopter, [JediJeremy] spent a week writing the driver to allow it to function as a mouse. Strapping an Adafruit 1.5″ PAL/NSTC LCD screen and its driver board to the Zero with rubber bands makes this one of the smallest functional computer and screen combos we’ve seen. Simply tilt the whole thing about to direct the cursor.

It …read more

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