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.

Jon Payne created his own MPC (Music Production Center).  He was inspired by an MPC and the DJ Tech Tools MIDI Fighter and decided to create and build a stand alone project that is a combination of the two.  This is a really impressive DIY project.  It sounds awesome and looks great.

While Jon describes it as a work in progress, it is functional with more features being planned.

Discussion of the project can be found on the forum.

Jon Watte (jwatte on the forum) built an autonomously navigating rover.  This awesome rover is built for the outdoors and has individual steering on the 4 corner wheels.  Not only can this impressive rover follow a track, but it can climb up stairs as well!

Jon took it to a race early this month and placed 2nd out of 20!  Way to go!

Here’s a training pass video showing the rover following a track.

And another video showing the rover climbing stairs.

The code for the project is available on GitHub

 

 

 

 

Brad Slattery created a build-it-yourself LED based kit for a classic PONG style video game using.  Retroball can be played with 2 to 4 players with levels ranging from easy to mayhem.

The project is open source and allows for users to run their own experiments.  This is a pretty awesome way to take a basic LED matrix and turn it into a fun game that’s also hackable.

Defragster, a frequent forum contributor, added Teensy support for the project.  His forum post includes the details of how he made this happen.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Patrick McFadden and the team at Iris Dynamics developed an affordable force feedback flight sim control yoke.

Force feedback yokes are about the realistic implementation of trim.   Trim adjustments, weight and balance changes, speed, and aircraft configuration all effect the natural resting position of the yoke. When you use a traditional yoke which does not allow this “neutral” position to shift throughout various states of flight, an unacceptable level of realism is lost.  This force feedback yoke gives a realistic feel to flight simulation.

The design is open architecture to allow users to customize and update every bit of the software and hardware.

Marcus Olsson built a sound reactive LED jar for a music hack weekend.

He named it “Don’t Look At Me LED” because when turned up to full brightness it’s really hard to look straight at it.  That’s what 576 LEDs glued around a 16cm jar will do for you.  I love the sound reactive nature of this project as well as the scrolling text feature.

Project details can be found at:

Website Demo: http://www.slickstreamer.info/2013/11/dont-look-at-me-led-jar-spotify-mmhw.html

Website Build: http://www.slickstreamer.info/2013/11/dont-look-at-me-led-jar-build-guide.html