Super Simple Sensor Makes DSLR Camera Motion Sensitive

Do you have a need to photographically document the doings of warm-blooded animals? If so, a game camera from the nearest hunting supplier is probably your best bet. But if you don’t need the value-added features such as a weather-resistant housing that can be chained to a tree, this DIY motion trigger for a DSLR is a quick and easy build, and probably loads more fun.

The BOM on [Jeremy S Cook]’s build is extremely short – just a PIR sensor and an optoisolator, with a battery, a plug for the camera’s remote jack, and a 3D-printed bracket. The PIR …read more

Continue reading Super Simple Sensor Makes DSLR Camera Motion Sensitive

A Super Simple ESP8266 IOT Motion Sensor

It’s really hard to overstate how awesome ESP8266 development boards like the Wemos D1 Mini really are. For literally a couple of dollars you can get a decently powerful Wi-Fi enabled microcontroller that has enough free digital pins to do some useful work. Like the Arduino and Raspberry Pi before it, the ESP8266 is a device that’s opening up whole new areas of hacking and development that simply weren’t as practical or cost-effective as previously.

As a perfect example, take a look at this stupendously simple Internet-connected motion detector that [Eric William] has come up with. With just a Wemos …read more

Continue reading A Super Simple ESP8266 IOT Motion Sensor

A Wireless Webcam Without A Cumbersome Cloud Service

After a friend bought a nannycam that required the use of a cloud service to make the device useful,  [Martin Caarels] thought to himself — as he puts it — ”I can probably do this with a Raspberry Pi!”

Altogether, [Caarels] gathered together a 4000mAh battery, a Raspberry Pi 3 with a micro SD card for storage, a Logitech c270 webcam, and the critical component to bind this project together: an elastic band. Once he had downloaded and set up Raspbian Stretch Lite on the SD card, he popped it into the Pi and connected it to the network via …read more

Continue reading A Wireless Webcam Without A Cumbersome Cloud Service

Hackaday Prize Entry: Automated Wildlife Recognition

Trail and wildlife cameras are commonly available nowadays, but the Wild Eye project aims to go beyond simply taking digital snapshots of critters. [Brenda Armour] uses a Raspberry Pi to not only take photos of wildlife who wander into the camera’s field of view, but to also automatically identify and categorize the animals seen using a visual recognition API from IBM via the Node-RED infrastructure. The result is a system that captures an image when motion is detected, sends the image to the visual recognition API, and attempts to identify any wildlife based on the returned data.

The visual recognition …read more

Continue reading Hackaday Prize Entry: Automated Wildlife Recognition

Want Gesture-Tracking? All You Have To Do Is Lift Your Finger.

Watching Tony Stark wave his hands to manipulate projected constructs is an ever-approaching reality — at least in terms of gesture-tracking. Lift — a prototype built by a team from UC Irvine and FX Palo Alto Laboratory — is able to track up to ten fingers with 1.7 mm accuracy!

Lift’s gesture-tracking is achieved by using a DLP projector, two Arduino MKR1000s, and a light sensor for each digit. Lift’s design allows it to work on virtually any flat surface; the projected image acts as a grid and work area for the user. As their fingers move across the projected …read more

Continue reading Want Gesture-Tracking? All You Have To Do Is Lift Your Finger.

Turn that Pi Zero into a Streaming Camera, Step-by-Step

What makes [mwagner1]’s Raspberry Pi Zero-based WiFi camera project noteworthy isn’t so much the fact that he’s used the hardware to make a streaming camera, but that he’s taken care to document every step in the process from soldering to software installation. Having everything in one place makes it easier for curious hobbyists to get those Pi units out of a drawer and into a project. In fact, with the release of the Pi Zero W, [mwagner1]’s guide has become even simpler since the Pi Zero W now includes WiFi.

Using a Raspberry Pi as the basis for a WiFi …read more

Continue reading Turn that Pi Zero into a Streaming Camera, Step-by-Step

Your Arm Is The Ideal Controller

With interest and accessibility to both wearable tech and virtual reality approaching an all-time high, three students from Cornell University — [Daryl Sew, Emma Wang, and Zachary Zimmerman] — seek to turn your body into the perfect controller.

That is the end goal, at least. Their prototype consists of three Kionix tri-axis accelerometer, gyroscope and magnetometer sensors (at the hand, elbow, and shoulder) to trace the arm’s movement. Relying on a PC to do most of the computational heavy lifting, a PIC32 in a t-shirt canister — hey, it’s a prototype! — receives data from the three joint positions, transmitting …read more

Continue reading Your Arm Is The Ideal Controller

Ikea Desk Lamp That Will Defend Your Lungs

While some people may enjoy the occasional whiff of noxious smells — gasoline, axe body spray, etc — prolonged exposure to fumes is not good for your health. This goes for soldering too, isn’t it about time you added some abatement to your bench tools?

Inspired by some of the fume hoods we’ve featured before — take note, ye who art lacking projects — [Georg Sluyterman] put together his own Ikea lamp fume extractor.

The most striking feature is that it’s mounted on an Ikea desk lamp making for convenient positioning and minimal clutter. A NeoPixels strip lights …read more

Continue reading Ikea Desk Lamp That Will Defend Your Lungs

Slow Dance Appears to Make Time Run In Slow Motion

Rendering something in slow-motion is an often-used technique that attempts to add some ‘wow’ or ‘cool’ factor. Seeing something out in the world move in slow motion is marginally rarer — rarer still if it’s in your own home. But do it right and that kind of novelty turns a lot of heads. Enough to go 8x on a Kickstarter goal.

Slow Dance, a picture frame ringed with strobe lights, generates the surreal effect of turning small, everyday objects into languid kinetic sculptures. It’s an intriguing example of kinetic art done in a novel way.

[Jeff Lieberman], a veteran of …read more

Continue reading Slow Dance Appears to Make Time Run In Slow Motion

Multi Sensor Security Camera Has You Covered

Security in the home — especially a new home — is a primary concern for many. There are many options for security systems on the market, but for those will the skills, taking matters into your own hands can add peace of mind when protected by a system of one’s own design. [Armagan C.] has created  their near-ideal multi-sensor security module to keep a watchful eye out for would-be burglars.

Upgrading from their previous Arduino + Ethernet camera — which loved to trigger false alarms — [Armagan] opted for a used Raspberry Pi model B+ camera module and WiFi connection …read more

Continue reading Multi Sensor Security Camera Has You Covered