Category Archives: arduino nano

Building A Pocket Sized Arduino Oscilloscope

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There’s little question that an oscilloscope is pretty much a must-have piece of equipment for the electronics hacker. It’s a critical piece of gear for reverse engineering devices and protocols, and luckily for us they’re as cheap as they’ve ever been. Even a fairly feature rich four channel scope such as the Rigol DS1054Z only costs about as much as a mid-range smartphone. But if that’s still a little too rich for your taste, and you’re willing to skimp on the features a bit, you can get a functional digital oscilloscope for little more than pocket change.

While there are …read more

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Arduino Powered Portable Function Generator

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It’s probably not much of a stretch to say that many of us have taken on a project or two that were little more than thinly veiled excuses to add a new tool or piece of gear to our arsenal. There’s something to be said for a bench full of button-festooned test equipment blinking away, it’s like bling for nerds. But just like getting your name written out in diamonds, it can get expensive quick.

Luckily, the hacker has enough technology at their disposal these days that DIY test equipment can help fill your bench without emptying your wallet. [Faransky] …read more

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Bucky Glow: Have a Ball While You Practice Coding

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About a year ago, [Jonathan Bumstead] built a giant, touch-sensitive, interactive RGB LED geodesic dome that somehow escaped our attention entirely. For this year’s Hackaday Prize, he’s designed a smaller version that’s just as awesome, but a lot faster and easier to build.

The Bucky Glow is great way for hackers of all ages to expand their coding and problem solving skills. This interactive dodecahedron consists of 11 RGB LEDs and a Nano inside 12-sided laser-cut MDF sculpture. The breakout header means you’re free to add interactive bits like a DIY capacitive touch keyboard, IR sensor/emitter pairs, motors, or whatever …read more

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Driftwood Binary Clock Is No Hollow Achievement

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It’s about time we had another awesome clock post around here. [Mattaw] has liked binary clocks since he was 0 and decided to make one in stunning fashion by using driftwood, nature’s drillable, fillable enclosure.

That beautiful wiring job on the RGB LEDs was done in 18g copper. To keep the LEDs aligned during soldering, he drilled a a grid of holes just deep enough to hold ’em face down. There’s an IR remote to set the time, the color, and choice of alarm file, which is currently set to modem_sound.mp3.

Under the wood, there are a pair of Arduino …read more

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R/C Rocket-Beest Burns Up Fuses Out There Alone

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We’re beginning to think the “S” in [Jeremy S Cook] stands for strandbeest. He’ll be the talk of the 4th of July picnic once he brings out his latest build—a weaponized, remote-controlled strandbeest that shoots bottle rockets. There are a bank of money shots up on Imgur.

This ‘beest is the natural next step after his remote-controlled walker, which we featured a month or so ago. Like that one, the locomotion comes from a pair of micro gear motors that are controlled by an Arduino Nano over Bluetooth. The pyrotechnics begin when nitinol wire cleverly strung across two lever nuts …read more

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Arduino Watchdog Sniffs Out Hot 3D Printers

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We know we’ve told you this already, but you should really keep a close eye on your 3D printer. The cheaper import machines are starting to display a worrying tendency to go up in flames, either due to cheap components or design flaws. The fact that it happens is, sadly, no longer up for debate. The best thing we can do now is figure out ways to mitigate the risk for all the printers that are already deployed in the field.

At the risk of making a generalization, most 3D printer fires seem to be due to overheating components. Not …read more

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Robot Dances to the Beat of New YouTube Subs

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Sure, you could build some kind of numerical counter to keep track of new YouTube subscribers. But does an increasing digit display truly convey the importance of such an event? Of course not. What you need is something that recognizes this achievement for what it is and celebrates it with you. Something like Subby, the Interactive YouTube Subscriber Robot.

Whenever [brian brocken] gets a new subscriber, Subby’s little TV screen face lights up, and he either dances, salutes, or does another move within his impressive range of motion. [brian] wrote a Visual Basic app that searches his channel’s page for …read more

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Gaming System Built With Kite, The DIY Android Kit

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As a gamer, [Lexie Dostal] dreamed of a smartphone that was a viable gaming platform: something with enough power to run the games and emulators he was interested in, with the controls to make playing them feel natural. So when he got his hands on an early version of Kite, the modular open hardware platform designed to be hacked and customized, that’s exactly what he decided to build. The Kite kit would provide the touch screen and Android-equipped motherboard, he just needed to design a case and integrate controls to make it a real gaming device.

The case design [Lexie] …read more

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Animated Bluetooth Bike Turn Signals

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Tired of risking his life every time he had to signal a turn using his hands while riding his bicycle in rainy Vancouver, [Simon Wong] decided he needed something a bit higher tech. But rather than buy something off the shelf, he decided to make it into his first serious Arduino project. Given the final results and the laundry list of features, we’d say he really knocked this one out of the park. If this is him getting started, we’re very keen to see where he goes from here.

So what makes these turn signals so special? Well for one, …read more

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Programmable Air Makes Robotics A Breeze

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[Amitabh] was frustrated by the lack of options for controlling air pressure in soft robotics. The most promising initiative, Pneuduino, seemed to be this close to a Shenzhen production run, but the creators have gone radio silent. Faced with only expensive alternatives, he decided to take one for Team Hacker and created Programmable Air, a modular system for inflatable and vacuum-based robotics.

The idea is to build the cheapest, most hacker-friendly system he can by evaluating and experimenting with all sorts of off-the-shelf pumps, sensors, and valves. From the looks of it, he’s pretty much got it dialed in. Programmable …read more

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