When you need to get some tasks done and are short on attention, it’s hard to beat a timer. But whenever you do, it feels pretty darn good. The problem is that when you don’t finish in time, what’s the punishment? There are no consequences baked into the Pomodoro Technique other than good ol’ guilt. […]
FOCUS FLOWER MOTIVATES BY SQUIRTING WATER IN YOUR FACE Continue Reading
There are probably almost as many DIY CNC designs as there are DIY CNCs. And there’s nothing wrong with that! We really liked [maxvfischer’s] documentation on GitHub for a machine he made based on a design by [Ivan Miranada]. In addition to a complete bill of materials, there are Fusion 360 files and very good instructions. There
DIY CNC USES LOTS OF 3D-PRINTED PARTS Continue Reading
Something like 99% of the people on the road at any given moment will consider themselves an above-average driver, something that’s as statistically impossible as it is easily disproven by casual observation. Drivers make all kinds of mistakes, but perhaps none as annoying and avoidable as failure to use their turn signal. This turn signal
ANNOY YOURSELF INTO BETTER DRIVING WITH THIS TURN SIGNAL MONITOR Continue Reading
We all love seeing data represented in pretty ways — whether it’s necessary or not. Take VU meters for example. They’re a super useful tool for audio editors to balance signals, but they also look really cool, even if you’re only listening to music. Who didn’t use a Winamp skin with a built-in VU meter back in
VISUALIZING AUDIO WITH AN LCD VU METER Continue Reading
Oscilloscope displays have come a long way since the round phosphor-coated CRTs that adorned laboratories of old. Most modern scopes ship with huge, high-definition touch screens that, while beautiful, certainly lack a bit of the character that classic scopes brought to the bench. It’s a good thing that hackers like [bitluni] are around to help
FLIP-DOT OSCILLOSCOPE IS FLIPPIN’ AWESOME Continue Reading
[JanHerman] knows that tuning musical instruments is all about precision and that precision is measured in a logarithmic unit called a cent. A cheap tuner unit might be accurate to 1.5 cents which sounds good until you look at one for ten times the price and find it is accurate to 0.1 cents. So you
ARDUINO PIANO TUNER IS PITCH PERFECT Continue Reading
Back in the 1970s, there were a few LED-based games on the market that were quickly superseded by the rise of LCDs and other fancier technologies. However, [grossofabian] wanted to recreate that classic style of game but with more modern hardware. The result is the LEDBOY, a colorful handheld game built in tribute to that era.
LEDBOY IS A RETRO-MODERN HANDHELD GAME Continue Reading
Controlling your computer with a wave of the hand seems like something from science fiction, and for good reason. From Minority Report to Iron Man, we’ve seen plenty of famous actors controlling their high-tech computer systems by wildly gesticulating in the air. Meanwhile, we’re all stuck using keyboards and mice like a bunch of chumps. But it doesn’t
LOW-COST COMPUTER GESTURE CONTROL WITH AN I2C SENSOR Continue Reading
Constructing your very own IoT weather monitoring station can be a complicated ordeal, as getting values from the embedded device to some kind of web server in a secure manner takes a lot of effort and time to complete. For his system, Clem Mayer from element14 Presents was able to use a MKR WiFi 1010 that sends relevant
This MKR WiFi 1010-based weather station sends readings to the Arduino Cloud Continue Reading
It seems like most narrative games have some kind of drudgery built in. You know, some tedious and repetitious task that you absolutely must do if you want to succeed. In Stardew Valley, that thing is gift giving, which earns you friendship points just like in real life. More important than the giving itself is that
STARDEW VALLEY PREFERENCES BOT IS A GIFT TO THE PLAYER Continue Reading
