Stack of Plant Saucers, Transformed Into Low Cost Solar Shield

For serious data collection with weather sensors, a solar shield is crucial. The shield protects temperature and humidity sensors from direct sunlight, as well as rain and other inclement weather, without interfering with their operation. [Mare] managed to create an economical and effective shield for under three euros in materials. …read more

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FiberGrid: An Inexpensive Optical Sensor Framework

When building robots, or indeed other complex mechanical systems, it’s often the case that more and more limit switches, light gates and sensors are amassed as the project evolves. Each addition brings more IO pin usage, cost, potentially new interfacing requirements and accompanying microcontrollers or ADCs. If you don’t have …read more

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Undersea sensor is powered by sound waves from the surface

For continuously gathering information on ocean conditions, one thing that’s been proposed is a network of sensors that would transmit data from the sea floor. Changing their batteries, however, could be quite challenging. That’s where a new … Continue reading Undersea sensor is powered by sound waves from the surface

Bringing Pro-Level Data Recording to RC Racing

We’re all familiar with the “Black Box” used on commercial aircraft, the flight data recorder which captures the minutia of each and every flight on the off-chance that it’s needed in the event of an accident. But even in less dire circumstances, the complete record of the aircraft’s performance versus …read more

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Animated expressions help plant lovers keep potted greenery healthy

House plants can be a great way to add splashes of color to an otherwise drab interior, but they can also help to purify the air and may even fill a room with pleasant odors. But looking after them can be a guessing game. Lua is designed to h… Continue reading Animated expressions help plant lovers keep potted greenery healthy

A Solar-Powered Box of Sensors to Last 100 Years

It’s a simple goal: build a waterproof box full of environmental sensors that can run continuously for the next century. OK, so maybe it’s not exactly “simple”. But whatever you want to call this epic quest to study and record the planet we call home, [sciencedude1990] has decided to make …read more

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Sensors transform bridge into living laboratory

The Memorial Bridge doesn’t just allow folks to cross over the Piscataqua River from Portsmouth, New Hampshire, to Kittery in Maine, it also serves as a living laboratory. Now home to a host of sensors, the so-called living bridge provides re… Continue reading Sensors transform bridge into living laboratory

Fingerprinting iPhones

This clever attack allows someone to uniquely identify a phone when you visit a website, based on data from the accelerometer, gyroscope, and magnetometer sensors. We have developed a new type of fingerprinting attack, the calibration fingerprinting attack. Our attack uses data gathered from the accelerometer, gyroscope and magnetometer sensors found in smartphones to construct a globally unique fingerprint. Overall,… Continue reading Fingerprinting iPhones

Picking the Right Sensors for Home Automation

Imagine that you’re starting a project where you need to measure temperature and humidity. That sounds easy in the abstract, but choosing a real device out of many involves digging into seemingly infinite details and trade-offs that come with them. If it’s a low-stakes monitoring project, picking the first sensor …read more

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New Contest: Flexible PCBs

The now-humble PCB was revolutionary when it came along, and the whole ecosystem that evolved around it has been a game changer in electronic design. But the PCB is just so… flat. Planar. Two-dimensional. As useful as it is, it gets a little dull sometimes.

Here’s your chance to break …read more

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