Collaborate Disseminate
Everything’s internet connected these days, garage doors, baby monitors, and the kitchen sink are all hooked up. There are benefits to having everything online, but also several pitfalls. Maintaining security on a home network is an ongoing job, made more difficult by the number of devices that must be kept …read more
Some plants react quickly enough for our senses to notice, such as a Venus flytrap or mimosa pudica. Most of the time, we need time-lapse photography at a minimum to notice while more exotic sensors can measure things like microscopic pores opening and closing. As with any sensor reading, those measurements can be turned into action through a little trick we call automation. [Harpreet Sareen] and [Pattie Maes] at MIT brought these two ideas together in a way which we haven’t seen before where a plant has taken the driver’s seat in a project called Elowan. Details are sparse but …read more
Researchers from Clemson University used almost a decade of gamma ray data to map the entire observable universe for the very first time. Continue reading This is How Many Photons Are in the Entire Observable Universe
When auditory cells are modified to receive light, do you see sound, or hear light? To some trained gerbils at University Medical Center Göttingen, Germany under the care of [Tobias Moser], the question is moot. The gerbils were instructed to move to a different part of their cage when administrators played a sound, and when cochlear lights were activated on their modified cells, the gerbils obeyed their conditioning and went where they were supposed to go.
In the linked article, there is software which allows you to simulate what it is like to hear through a cochlear implant, or you …read more
While “The Clapper” probably first conjures images of low-budget commercials, it was still a useful way to remotely switch lights and other things around the house. But if the lights you want to switch weren’t plugged into the wall, like a ceiling fan, for example, The Clapper was not going to help you. To add some functionality to this infamous device, [Robin] built one from scratch that has all the extra features built in that you could ever want.
First, the new Clapper attaches to the light switch directly, favoring mechanical action of the switch itself rather than an electromechanical …read more
With its vintage sound, there’s no mistaking the unique 8-bit sound of video games from the 80s and 90s. It became so popular that eventually sparked its own genre of music known as “chiptune” for which musicians are still composing today. The music has some other qualities though, namely that it’s relatively simple from a digital standpoint. [Robots Everywhere] found that this simplicity made it perfect as a carrier for wireless power transmission.
The project acts more like a radio transmitter and receiver than it does a true wireless power transmitter, but the principle is the same. It uses a …read more
In this day and age of the Internet of Things and controlling appliances over the internet, the idea of using an old-fashioned television remote to do anything feels distinctly 2005. That doesn’t mean it’s not a valid way to control the lights at home, and [Atakan] is here to show us how it’s done.
To the experienced electronics maker, this is yesterday’s jam, but [Atakan] goes to great lengths to hash out the whole process from start to finish, from building the circuitry to switch the lights through to the code necessary to make a PIC do your bidding. It’s …read more
Gardening is a rewarding endeavour, and easily automated for the maker with a green thumb. With simplicity at its focus, Hackaday.io user [MEGA DAS] has whipped up a automated planter to provide the things plants crave: water, air, and light.
[MEGA DAS] is using a TE215 moisture sensor to keep an eye on how thirsty the plant may be, a DHT11 temperature and humidity sensor to check the airflow around the plant, and a BH1750FVI light sensor for its obvious purpose. To deliver on these needs, a 12V DC water pump and a small reservoir will keep things right as …read more
Via the scientific cogitations of Randall Munroe at XKCD.
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We didn’t include a “Most Ornate” category in this year’s Coin Cell Challenge, but if we had, the environmentally reactive jewelry created by [Maxim Krentovskiy] would certainly be the one to beat. Combining traditional jewelry materials with an Arduino-compatible microcontroller, RGB LEDs, and environmental sensors; the pieces are able to glow and change color based on environmental factors. Sort of like a “mood ring” for the microcontroller generation.
[Maxim] originally looked for a turn-key solution for his reactive jewelry project, but found that everything out there wasn’t quite what he was looking for. It was all either too big or …read more
Continue reading Environmentally Aware Jewelry Gets Attention