Johnathan Hottell wanted a way to monitor and display the temperature readings at various points around the engine on his LB7 Duramax diesel truck. He developed this project for a six channel temperature monitor employing a bank of thermistors to … Read more
Here’s an easy open source motion sensing project by Matt Williamson which sends you an SMS message when motion is detected. The hardware consists of an Arduino and Parallax PIR sensor (Part No. 555-28027). This arrangement communicates via serial with … Read more
Manuel Garbe and Drone both wrote in to draw our attention to this new “Lightning Detector” chip from Austriamicrosystems. According to the manufacturer’s press release, “[t]he AS3935 is a programmable Lightning Sensor IC that detects the presence and approach of … Read more
Kevin Mehall got his RTL-SDR dongle and wasted no time in developing a decoder using GNU Radio for the 433MHz transmissions of Oregon Scientific remote temperature sensors (v1 protocol). These devices transmit on 433.9 MHz sending data packets containing the … Read more
This webcast by Greg Borenstein presented by O’Reilly offers a solid introduction to building your own applications with the Microsoft Kinect. Beginners will find a wealth of information about the Kinect’s theory of operation and how to use the data … Read more
At CES 2012 Chaotic Moon Labs debuted the Board of Awesomeness, a motorized skateboard which was controlled based upon readings from a Kinect. Now the CML crew has taken the concept one step further with their Board of Imagination. The … Read more
The folks over at MAKE have a pulse sensor which attaches to your fingertip or earlobe and measures minute changes in light from expansion of the capillary blood vessels to sense your heartbeat. Technical information is available here, including design … Read more
Jonathan of LVL1 Hackerspace informs us of their latest project. “MOTHER is LVL1′s attempt to create the ultimate hackerspace A.I. and automation system. The MOTHER project is still in it’s early stages yet MOTHER has already gained the ability to … Read more
In this short video, Jeri and company answer the age old question: what’s inside one of those anti-theft sensor alarm devices used by the big box stores? You could call this destructive reverse engineering, or literal brute forcing. It looks … Read more
Tronixstuff has posted a tutorial explaining how to use the Parallax Ping sensor with Arduino. The Ping is an ultrasonic distance sensor from Parallax which retails or about $30. This segment is the latest in a series of Arduino tutorials … Read more
Oscar has written an article describing a technique he’s used for reading multiple analog sensors with one MCU ADC pin. He was designing a line-following robot and wanted to read several infrared sensors without having to dedicate an analog read … Read more
Nimbits 3.3 is live! With Nimbits, you can record data into “Data Points” hosted on a public or private cloud that can be connected to sensors, social networks, devices, software or anything else. The Nimbits team reports: This version of … Read more
Joe Grand, developer of the Parallax Laser Range Finder (LRF) presents this hack interfacing the LRF with a vintage Game Boy printer. The project uses the LRF’s onboard camera, along with a few circuit and firmware mods, to allow the … Read more
Arhi continues his quest for soldering iron driver perfection. In the latest development, he attached a temperature sensor to the tip of his Hakko soldering iron, and compared the temperature between the tip and the sensor inside the heater. The … Read more
Boris presents this project just in time for Halloween. It’s a simple Halloween skull which employs an Arduino to read the level from sound sensors and controls a servo connected to the skull’s mandible. You can see more project details … Read more
TI Deals is again offering the eZ430-Chronos at half price. This deal lasts for two weeks or until the supply is exhausted. Check out the TI eZ430 Chronos page or their wiki for more tech details.
This jacket just might save you from a DUI. Matt Leggett of New Zealand has designed a jacket which incorporates an Arduino based alcohol sensor. A series of LEDs, stitched into the forearm, glow with an intensity varying with the … Read more
Carl Nobile has developed and released an Arduino library covering the HC-SR04 ultrasonic sensor. He writes: “It features timing, metric conversion, and standard deviation methods, plus a few support methods. It is written in C++ to conserve the namespace. The … Read more
The Hoz sent in a link to this Instructables by alinke detailing the build of a talking breathalyzer. The main components are a Seeeduino and the Seeed Music Shield, Twig Alcohol Sensor, and Twig Serial LCD all available from Seeedstudio. … Read more
Parallax has introduced the Laser Range Finder. “Designed in conjunction with Grand Idea Studio, the Parallax Laser Range Finder (LRF) Module is a distance-measuring instrument that uses laser technology to calculate the distance to a targeted object. The design uses … Read more
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