Ray has written a detailed article about his OpenSprinkler 2.0 Arduino-based irrigation controller:

OpenSprinkler is an open-source Internet / Ethernet sprinkler timer / controller based on the Arduino platform. It works with standard 24VAC sprinkler valves commonly found in household watering and irrigation systems. You may be planning to buy or have already purchased a commercial sprinkler timer / controller, but chances are that these systems provide a limited set of fixed functionality, and have no web scheduling and monitoring capability. These limitations are the main motivations for this open-source project.

Ihsan informs us of Digitstump’s inexpensive, powerful Arduino-compatible board with WiFi – the DigiX:

Have you seen this DigiX board by Digistump? They are the ones who created the Digisparks as well. As a difference from Digispark, this time they are aiming high end region of the devboards.

Trandi made this simple  DIY Servo tester based on ATTiny85:

I had to test a RC speed controller that I wanted to use to control an electric car window motor, and for the 100th time I was facing the same dilemma: find 8 batteries for my remote control, dismount the RX part from the quadcopter and use that, OR grab the Arduino and write quickly some code to generate the corresponding signals? Neither of which was actually particularly handy…  So I finally decided to build a small stand alone servo tester.

BotQueue lets you control multiple 3D printers through the Internet and turn them into your own manufacturing center. Think cloud-based computing, but for making things in the real world. Now you can build the robot army you’ve always dreamed of! Oh yeah, and its 100% open source because that’s how I roll.

Project details, code downloads and more information can be found at Hoektronics.

The RoboRoach: Control a living insect from your smartphone! by Backyard Brains

This is one of the most incredible kickstarter campaign ever

Control the movements of a live cockroach from your own mobile device! This is the world’s first commercially available cyborg!

Via Open Electronics.

MobileWill shows off his USB Tester in a Sick of Beige (DP5031) case :

From the beginning I designed the USB Tester to use the Dangerous Prototype Sick of Beige (SOB) standard PCB sizes. 50x31mm being the smallest rectangle and most ideal for the USB Tester. One of these reasons was that in doing so it would fit their standard acrylic cases which can be found at Seeedstudio.com for $3.

Sick of Beige basic case v1 (DP5031)  is available at Seeed for $3.

Jason Dorweiler blogged about his autonomous car build:

For the localization of the car I’ll be using a GPS sensor and accelerometer. First, the GPS will find the starting coordinates of the car. Then the car will start moving, somewhat blindly at first. Once the car is moving, data from the accelerometer and elapsed time can be used to calculate the velocity of the car. These two measurements are then passed into a Kalman filter to improve the accuracy of the car’s position.

At the same time, heading data from the GPS and gyroscope are passed into another Kalman filter to get an accurate heading on the car. The position and heading data from the Kalman filters is then compared to a GPS waypoint given to the sensor and motor control. Next, a heading toward the desired GPS waypoint is calculated, and the appropriate signal is sent to the steering servo in order to point the car in that direction.

Via Hacked Gadgets.

Check out the video after the break.

Every Tuesday we give away two coupons for the free PCB drawer via Twitter. This post was announced on Twitter, and in 24 hours we’ll send coupon codes to two random retweeters.

Don’t forget there’s free PCBs three times a every week:

• Hate Twitter and Facebook? Free PCB Sunday is the classic PCB giveaway. Catch it every Sunday, right here on the blog
• Tweet-a-PCB Tuesday. Follow us and get boards in 144 characters or less
• Facebook PCB Friday. Free PCBs will be your friend for the weekend

Some stuff:

• Yes, we’ll mail it anywhere in the world!
• Check out how we mail PCBs worldwide video.
• We’ll contact you via Twitter with a coupon code for the PCB drawer.
• Limit one PCB per address per month please.
• Like everything else on this site, PCBs are offered without warranty.

We try to stagger free PCB posts so every time zone has a chance to participate, but the best way to see it first is to subscribe to the RSS feed, follow us on Twitter, or like us on Facebook.

Kevin Rye built this E-Paper clock and wrote a detailed explanation on his blog describing the build:

I still have to put the finishing touches on the code. Instead of having the display constantly update, I’d like to set an alarm on the DS3231 RTC to go off once a minute, and only update the display on alarm. Hopefully I’ll save some battery power that way. As of now, the battery only lasts a couple of days.   I built in a USB battery charger to make it easier to charge it.   I got my PCBs in from OSHPark and put it all together in an 80mm x 80mm Sick of Beige case. Check it out!

Via the forum.

Sick of Beige project case is available at Seeed for $3.

I designed a headband with a motion detector that is sensitive enough to pick up the heartbeat and can easily detect rapid eye movements. And I wrote a program that records my sleep and plays an audio track when it detects that I am dreaming. I can sometimes hear the songs in my dreams and act on that knowledge – by flying, for example.

The software he uses is known as Lucid Scribe.

There are volumes of information regarding the hardware, software and techniques utilized in this project available at LSDBase. A very interesting project.