It’s one thing to be able to transcribe music from a flute, and it’s another to be able to make a flute play pre-written music. The latter is what [Abhilash Patel] decided to pursue in the flute player machine, an Arduino-based project that uses an air flow mechanism and PVC pipes to control the notes produced […]
AN ARDUINO-BASED FLUTE PLAYING MACHINE Continue Reading
In times like these, we all need to look beyond ourselves. This project might help: OnStep is an open-source telescope controller, a device that controls a telescope to point at something interesting in the sky. Want to take a look at M31? Use an app on a PC or smartphone, select the object and the
OPEN SOURCE TELESCOPE CONTROLLER PUTS SMART FEATURES IN OLD TELESCOPES Continue Reading
Building a robot arm is fun, but no longer the challenge it once was. You can find lots of plans and kits, and driving the motors is a solved problem. However, there is always one decision you have to make that can be a challenge: what effector to put on the end of it. If
ROBOT ARM SUCKS IN A GOOD WAY Continue Reading
One of the biggest dreams anyone has is to make a living doing what they love. For all hackers, makers, and DIYers with a passion for embedded systems, it may make sense initially to pursue embedded systems design as a possible career, but without so much information on the types of qualifications or steps needed
HOW TO MAKE A LIVING WITH EMBEDDED SYSTEMS Continue Reading
Ever wished for some robotic enhancements for your next nerf war? Well, it’s time to dig through the parts bin and build yourself a nerf gun with aimbot built right in, courtesy of [3Dprintedlife]. (Video, embedded below.) The gun started with a design borrowed from [Captain Slug]’s awesome catalog of open source nerf guns. [3Dprintedlife] modified the
AUTO-AIMING NERF GUN TO GIVE YOU THE EDGE IN BATTLE Continue Reading
In this instructables I will show you how I made my own DIY laser engraver for very cheap. Also most of the parts are either salvaged from old things or are very cheap. This is a very interesting project for any electronics hobbyist. This engraver will be able to engrave wood, cardboard, vinyl stickers etc.
DIY Cheap and Sturdy Laser Engraver. Continue Reading
Hackers love a good clock build, but its longer term cousin, the calendar, is more seldom seen in the wild. Regardless, they can be just as useful and elegant a project, as this cryptic design from [Wolfspaw] demonstrates. The project consists of a series of rotating wheels, displaying a series of arcane symbols. When the markings
CRYPTIC CALENDAR MAKES FOR A USEFUL WALL ORNAMENT Continue Reading
It would be great if you could create your own filament. On the face of it, it seems easy to do, but as [Thomas Sanladerer] found out when he was a student, there are a lot of details that can bedevil your design. His extruder sort of works, but he wouldn’t suggest duplicating his effort. In fact,
FAIL OF THE WEEK: HOW NOT TO BUILD A FILAMENT EXTRUDER Continue Reading
I got a relatively inexpensive 6040 CNC machine, and have been spending most weekends making the thing work, and then cutting stuff, learning the toolchain, and making subsequent improvements. Probably 90% of my machine time has been on making improvements. It’s not that the machine was bad — I got the version with ballscrews and a decently
BALANCED DESIGN AND HOW TO KNOW WHEN TO QUIT OPTIMIZING Continue Reading
Tracked robots usually require at least two wheels inside to work properly. However, [James Bruton] discovered a curious tractor design from the 1940s, the Fordson Rotaped, which only uses a single sprocket wheel inside each track. Being [James], he built a self-balancing robot around the rotaped concept. Instead of a lot of short track sections, the
ROVER USES DIFFERENT KIND OF TRACKS Continue Reading
