HDD-Driven Chime Clock is Quite Striking

It seems that the more hectic life gets, the harder it is to consciously slow down and enjoy the experience. There’s always another bill to worry about, and a new deadline around the corner. The last thing we need are ultra-precise digital clocks everywhere we look. When it’s time to …read more

Continue reading HDD-Driven Chime Clock is Quite Striking

No Need to Watch Your Tea, This Robot Does It For You

For anyone who’s ever had to make their own tea, steeping it for the right amount of time can be a pain. That’s precisely the problem that the automatic tea brewing robot solves with its painless approach to brewing tea, built by Slovenian electrical engineering student [Kristjan Berce].

You can …read more

Continue reading No Need to Watch Your Tea, This Robot Does It For You

Arduino Star Tracker Raises the Bar

Proving that astrophotography doesn’t have to break the bank, [Gerald Gattringer] has recently documented his DIY “barn door” style star tracker which is built almost entirely from scratch. Short of the Arduino and stepper motor, all the components were either made by hand or are standard hardware store finds.

The build starts with three aluminum plates which [Gerald] cut by hand with an angle grinder. He then drilled all the necessary screw holes and a rectangular opening for the threaded rod to pass through. He even used epoxy to mount a nut to the bottom plate which would eventually attach …read more

Continue reading Arduino Star Tracker Raises the Bar

Touch-A-Sketch Gives an Old Toy a New Twist

After nearly 60 years and a lot of stairs and squares, there is finally an easier way to draw on an Etch A Sketch®. For their final project in embedded microcontroller class, [Serena, Francis, and Alejandro] implemented a motor-driven solution that takes input from a touch screen.

Curves are a breeze to draw with a stylus instead of joysticks, but it’s still a 2-D plotter and must be treated as such. The Touch-A-Sketch system relies on the toy’s stylus starting in the lower left hand corner, so all masterpieces must begin at (0,0) on the knobs and the touch screen. …read more

Continue reading Touch-A-Sketch Gives an Old Toy a New Twist