Category Archives: pir

Clock Plays a Game of Pong with Itself to Pass the Time

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Would you play a game of Pong where each set lasts exactly one minute and the right player is guaranteed to win 60 times more than the left player? Of course not, but if you were designing a clock that displays the time using a Pong motif, then perhaps it would make sense.

There are some neat design tips in [oliverb]’s Pong Clock that are worth taking a look at. Foremost is the case, which is a retasked jewelry box with a glass lid, procured on the cheap from eBay. It’s a good size for a clock meant to be …read more

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Sense All the Things with a Synthetic Sensor

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What will it take to make your house smarter than you? Judging from the price of smart appliances we see in the home centers these days, it’ll take buckets of cash. But what if you could make your home smarter — or at least more observant — with a few cheap, general purpose “supersensors” that watch your every move?

Sounds creepy, right? That’s what [Gierad Laput] and his team at the Carnegie Mellon Human-Computer Interaction Institute thought when they designed their broadband “synthetic sensor,” and it’s why they purposely omitted a camera from their design. But just about every other …read more

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Stairwell Lights Keep Toddler with Night-Blindness Safe

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A devastating diagnosis for a young child is every parent’s worst nightmare. All too often there’s nothing that can be done, but occasionally there’s a window of opportunity to make things better for the child, even if we can’t offer a cure. In that case even a simple hack, like a rapid response stairwell light to help deal with night-blindness, can make a real difference.

[Becca] isn’t yet a year old, but she and her parents carry a heavy burden. She was born with Usher Syndrome, an extremely rare genetic disease that affects hearing and vision to different degrees. In …read more

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Evaluating the Unusual and Innovative Perf+ Protoboard

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Back in 2015 [Ben Wang] attempted to re-invent the protoboard with the Perf+. Not long afterward, some improvements (more convenient hole size and better solder mask among others) yielded an updated version which I purchased. It’s an interesting concept and after making my first board with it here are my thoughts on what it does well, what it’s like to use, and what place it might have in a workshop.

Perf+ Overview

The Perf+ is two-sided perfboard with a twist. In the image to the left, each column of individual holes has a bus running alongside. Each hole can selectively …read more

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