Blog Posts

Thomas Hudson and a group of people at the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry (OMSI) have gotten into the Halloween spirit early with this freaky shaking haunted mansion.  The house is made of cardboard with some miniature skulls, bats, and cats laser cut out of plastic.  Thomas added lightning and sound effects as well as making the house shake.  This spooky house is an awesome prop to kick off the Halloween season.

This video shows the mansion in action

 

Thomas has made the code available on GitHub.

Leif Oddson built a MIDI controller that allows for up to 3 foot-switches and 2 expression pedals.  This is a nice DIY MIDI project.

Using FlowStone, a graphical programming language based on Ruby, he created a program to control the MIDI controller.

There is a good write up of the project, including the code, here.

 

 

 

 

Wolfgang Höhne submitted his video wall project that he recently made.  The field where his football club plays it can be difficult to know the score and time remaining.  Wolfgang created a video wall to display this information.  It’s remotely updated by the announcer to keep spectators informed on the game.  Not every field is equipped with large signboards to display match information.  This project is a great way to solve that problem.

There’s a good write up of the project, including the code, over on Hackster.io.

Sam Kristoff created an interactive tic-tac-toe game using and off the shelf game board.  

He has an excellent write up on the build process and also included the code.  The use of LEDs and the interactivity are great improvements to a standard game.

Ray Kampmeier designed a DMX shield. DMX is used for controlling lights.  The whole thing is the size of a DMX connector making for a compact shield.

Adrian Godwin submitted the Phantom Limb, a robotic prostetic arm created by The Alternative Limb Project and game company Konami.

The design for the arm was inspired by the world of Metal Gear Solid.  The arm is a elegant and beautiful design and is a far cry from many of the common prosthetic designs we are used to seeing. Adrian let us know that a Teensy 3.2 is used in the arm to handle lights, comms, and power control.

This video tells the story of how the arm came to be and an interview with James Young, the gentlemen wearing the arm.

Marcel Boonman created a thinking dodecahedron he describes as a metaphor to simulate the dyslexic way of information processing: ‘conceptual thinking’. The environment serves as input to create an ‘imaginary object’.  This is a very interesting project and it’s well worth watching the video.

The project uses a Teensy 2.0 and sensors to measure color, illumination, sound, temperature, humidity, and atmospheric pressure.  The measurements from these elements are used to produce a color. The Dodecaeder refers to the fifth element the ether, which is also seen as the mind or in this case the imaginary; A mental representation of multiple ideas (including experiences) that are summarized in an imaginary object.

Ken Horner submitted his Semi-Autonomous Robot Beach Wagon on the forum.  This beauty can haul a 200 pound load over a large sand dune.  It’s great for hauling gear and giving rides.

This video gives a great over view of the build process.  My favorite part is seeing a wagon, loaded with beach gear, cruise easily up and over a sand dune.