Limor has posted another installment of her exceedingly excellent sensor tutorials, this one on that most marvelous of switches, the tilt sensor. When you just have to know which end is up, you need to strap on one of these puppies. Here's how.

Sensor tutorials - Tilt sensors!

More:
Force Sensitive Resistor (FSR) tutorial
Ladyada's temp sensor tutorial
Adafruit's CdS tutorial

CDM points out this very sweet beat manipulator interface by Luca De Rosso. The project, better known as OTTO, makes use of an Arduino board, MAX/MSP software, and an array of LEDs + switches to create a very intuitive and approachable experience for musicians. -

OTTO is a new musical instrument for beat-slicing, the technique that allows to create complex and variegated rhythm sections by using just one rhythmic audio sample, cutting it into little pieces and rearranging them in time. OTTO provides a hardware solution with a strong visual feedback, to allow the musician to control the audio sample as if it was in his hands.

In this clip from FMCG, Ken responds to Jeri's capacitor deconstruction with his own very visual (and very mechanical) demonstration of how voltage is generated and how you can build a simple capacitor, with aluminum foil and plastic, to generate charge mechanically and dump it into the cap (analogous to how a Wimshurst machine works).

I love how this was inspired by Jeri's demo and how the two of them are having a Net-carried, seemingly casual conversation, marveling over the miracles of science. I don't know about you, but this sort of thing makes me strangely happy.

BTW: Jeri's capacitor demo is cool too, but unfortunately, the sound craps out at the end.

FMCG

Rachel @ CRAFT points us to this rad circuit board latch hook rug by Red Tarts. I think I just realized Ineed a new bath mat.

The "LED Light Brick" project in MAKE, Volume 18 has generated lots of good feedback for us, so we went back and asked Alden to explore a few variations on the theme of the brick casting itself, how you might be creative with it. This article is the result. Be sure to check out the original piece in MAKE, Volume 18, and also the on-line supplement containing specific casting instructions. --SMR

From the pages of MAKE

Some Experiments in Mold Making

A lot of the fun of the Light Brick is trying out different molds. Some very different effects can be achieved depending on the mold you make. This post explores some mold making options and experiments.

The Great Internet Migratory Box Of Electronics Junk (Tig-Ihm-Boh-Edge) project is gettting a bit of a facelift. From Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories, this "pay-it-forward style hardware sharing program for electronics" system has had its successes and pitfalls this year, and some adjustments to the system come now after learning what works and what doesn't. New standardized documents to be included in the boxes means everyone who gets one will know what to do with it, and recipients are encouraged to track their boxes even after they send them off to the next lucky hackers. EMSL is also launching new boxes this week, so check out the new and improved project wiki if you're interested in participating.

James' sweetie fabbed a nice piece of edible circuitry for him -

My girlfriend Sarah made this candy circuit board birthday cake topper. Originally she wanted to make a gingerbread MakerBot, but didn't have the time or space.

Instead she was inspired by the iPhone motherboard and went from there. The base is dark chocolate covered with green frosting. The resistors are Tic Tacs!

Our pal Jeri Ellsworth and her crew of restless USTREAM-ing hackers are at it again, exploring light polarization, sparking ions, and reversing time.

The Fat Man and Circuit Girl

More about the ArduPilot

More about the Arduino Projects Pack

Continuing with their fine series of tutorial videos, Humberto from NerdKits shows a number of basic experiments you can do with a DC motor, how EMF, resistance, and inductance influence the design of a motor control circuit, and finally, how to use toggled digital output and pulse-width modulation in driving the motor via a microcontroller.

NerdKits video tutorials [via Hack a Day]

Elena Corchero designed this solar vintage-looking hand fan that functions as a portable light at night. Are we seeing a new niche in luxury goods emerging here? In her newly launched online boutique she also sells electronic toy construction kits and reflective lace (for safely biking in your fancy socks). Via Fashioning Technology.

Uber-bender Pete Edwards of Casper Electronics shares his recipe for cooking up some tasty mods for Casio 'SA' series keyboards -

This is an engineered modification which works on most of the Casio SA series ( SA-1, SA-5, SA-7, SA-8 etc). There will be an Amplifier chip ( No AN8053 ) common across the SA series and a mask programmed CPU which will be made by OKI and have the part No M6387-xx where xx is the variant for the specific keyboard it is installed in, in the case of the SA-5 it is M6387-16. The different variant number accommodates different key / button layouts of the keyboard it is fitted into, the PCM sounds however remain the same. There are 5 interesting modifications that can be easily fitted:

1) Pitch Shifting
2) Power Crash
3) 5th's Switch
4) Glitch Randomizer
5) Filter/ Feedback Adjustment

More about the ARMmite PRO

Because one can never have enough access to power.

Idea: The Outlet Wall [Thanks, Alden!]

More about the ScrewShield for Arduino

Unfortunately, the artist behind these cool component-sculptures goes unnamed. Anybody know who it is?

These cool component-sculptures are the work of Ann P. Smith of Providence, RI. Thanks to Lithium Rain for providing us with her name and homepage.

More:

• Animals made from e-waste are still your best friend
• Charming components
• Made in Japan - Vollume 28
• Transforming e-waste into art

I recently got it in my head that I wanted to take some time-lapse photos showing the oxidation of various bright-polished metals over the course of a week or so. Investigating the possibility of setting up an intervalometer for my elderly Coolpix 4300 quickly became frustrating, however, as I realized that I was facing a nightmare of proprietary connectors, unpublished protocols, and exotic cables. Nikon manufactured a time-lapse controller compatible with my camera (the MC-EU1), but all the reviews I've seen are unfavorable, and I can't find one for sale for less than $85.

To make matters worse, it turns out the proprietary 8-pin connector used on the 4300 and other older Coolpix cameras is dual-function: Four of the pins provide for normal USB connectivity, while the other four provide the serial interface used, for instance, by the MC-EU1 to remotely control the camera. My camera was supplied with a cable to access the USB half of the connector, but of course getting to the serial pins requires the purchase of a completely different cable (the SC-EW3), which can't be had for less than $30 plus shipping.

Fortunately, I then stumbled across this excellent tutorial by David Holmes about how to convert the connector on the bundled USB cable into a dual-use USB/serial cable that lets you swap out the proprietary end with two different harnesses that access the USB or the serial pins as needed. Thanks, David!

P.S. I've found a promising piece of freeware called Snappixx that claims to control the Coolpix cameras through the serial interface. I can't vouch for it yet, however, other than to report that it downloads, installs, and starts up without any apparent hitches.

Those of you who attended Maker Faire 2008 in Austin may recall the performance of local circuit-benders Furby Youth Choir. I recently had a chance to attend one of their live performances at the United States Art Authority, next to Spider House on Fruth St. in the UT Campus area.

A Furby, for those who were living in a bunker preparing for Y2K during their vogue, is a robot toy that looks a lot like Gizmo from The Gremlins. They talk and sing and move their mouths and eyes and other neat stuff, including reacting to their environment and, to an extent, "learning" certain patterns of behavior. The large feature set makes them popular with hackers, especially circuit benders.

Anyhoo, as one can imagine, a small army of them singing on-stage is fairly unsettling. What's more, FYC's music is decidedly avant-garde, dissonant, and ominous. Two performers stand over a table covered with circuit boards and wires and bend the aforesaid circuits in real time. Add to that mix a video projector beaming twisted animations and other visual psychedalia upstage, and the whole experience becomes a bit....overwhelming. US Art Authority is a small venue, and to my 25-to-34-year-old ear, they were rather too loud for it, but they still get huge points for originality. If you get a chance to see them, you should. Just be sure to pack a pair of earplugs.

I am just starting to learn Morse code and got a brand new key from American Morse Equipment. Most keys need to be mounted to hold them in place while the operator is dah-dit-ing. Keys are mounted on a heavy platform, or fastened to a radio. And some keys are worn on a leg strap. As a lady operator, and fashion designer, I wanted something cuter to keep my key on my leg, so here it is -- how to turn a standard leg strap into a cute Morse code key leg strap.

Materials:
* 1 yd 2" wide satin ribbon
* 1 yd 3/8" wide patterned ribbon
* 1 yd 3" wide lace
* 2 spools of thread (to match patterned ribbon and lace)
* scissors
* a small amount of tulle (an 8" x 8" square will work just fine)
* a small amount of organza
* pins
* screw driver
* measuring tape

* key
* leg strap

1. Using the measuring tape, measure around your leg where you'd like to wear the strap. Subtract ½" from this measurement and cut the lace and patterned ribbon to this length.

2. Using a sewing machine, straight stitch the edge of the ribbon 1 1/8" in from the edge of the lace.

More about the Fiber Optics Kit

Lorin Parker of Electric Western (creator of the Phantastron) puts fire to work controlling sound -

The THERMATRON is essentially a voltage controlled oscillator and wave shaper controlled by the action of a flame. This is possible because electricity can be conducted through a flame. This is not a new discovery, in fact the electrical properties of flame have been known for hundreds of years and well studied. For example, many hot water heaters have a sensor that detects flame by sensing the current inserted through the gas flame (if the gas flame goes out, the current does not reach the sensor and the heater knows that the flame is out).

The folks over at Hack a Day have gone into the electronic components biz. Teaming up with Seeed Studio, they're producing the Bus Pirate. The Bus Pirate is a universal serial bus tool. Use it for understanding how components work before you build a full prototype. Their parts posts page shows many example uses. Here's more about the board:

The Bus Pirate is a universal bus interface that talks to most chips from a PC serial terminal, eliminating a ton of early prototyping effort when working with new or unknown chips. Many serial protocols are supported at 0.6-5.5volts, more can be added.

* 1-Wire
* I2C
* SPI
* JTAG
* Asynchronous serial
* MIDI
* PC keyboard
* 2- and 3-wire libraries with bitwise pin control

We added other stuff we need, like,

* 0-6volt measurement probe
* 1hz-40MHz frequency measurement
* 1kHz - 4MHz pulse-width modulator, frequency generator
* On-board multi-voltage pull-up resistors
* On-board 3.3volt and 5volt power supplies with software reset
* Macros for common operations
* Bus traffic sniffer (SPI)
* A bootloader for easy firmware updates

Since this has been such a useful tool for us, we cleaned up the code, documented the design, and released it here with specs, schematic, and source code.

The Bus is available for pre-orders and sells for $27.15.

Bus Pirate preorders open
How-to: The Bus Pirate V2 with USB
The Bus Pirate universal serial interface

Flickr member planetwrite created these rather unique solar night light art pieces - check out his etching process in the project photoset.

Dave posted this vid along with a write-up, covering the ins-and-outs of the unbalanced diode mixer circuit -

This circuit uses the small non-linear response area of a single diode to create combinations of sum and difference frequencies of two input signals (or one input signal containing multiple overtones). Radio designers use this type of circuit to "downconvert" received RF signals to a lower intermediate frequency, which makes it a lot easier to design the radio's signal processing circuitry. We can use the same circuit for electronic music to generate non-harmonic overtones. (In the RF circuitry literature, there is a class of related circuits that all use diodes to do frequency mixing functions. What we call a "ring modulator" originated as a more sophisticated version of the circuit presented here.)

64 synchronizing fireflies. It sounds like a line from some overly-clever children's book or a Christmas carol. But it was instead a little week-long project for Alex at Tinkerlog. He writes:

Last week, I invested some time to solder 64 Firefly boards. Only 2.432 solder joints later, I was ready for some videos.

Every firefly acts completely autonomously, it has its own tiny controller, eye and luminary. They are all connected for power supply only.

And a partridge in a pear tree.

64 Synchronizing Fireflies

I love this video that Andres Leon did with parts he got from adafruit. Limore writes:

Sometimes we wonder what folks do with the Xbees and kits we sell, and sometimes we get to see the fantastic project, like this one! Arduino-based laser controlled wireless automatic cat food dispenser.

Arduino-based laser controlled wireless automatic cat food dispenser

Our friends at Sparkle Labs sent us news of their new business cards and their forthcoming micro kits. Ariel writes:

Check out our new business cards. They are actually little micro kits. Put it together and the LEDs light up in the dark. It uses one of the circuits included in the Discover Electronics Kit. Just print it out onto heavy weight paper, punch holes, place your parts, and twist the leads together as shown. See the PDF for instructions and a parts list. We are busy working on a bunch of paper micro kits, so stay tuned!

Printed Circuit Business Cards

In the Maker Shed:

Based on the Twitter LED Scroller by David Nichols, Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories built out this RGB Twitter scroller on a Meggy Jr.

In this video (embedded above), we start out scrolling slowly and then advance to a faster rate by pressing buttons on the arrow keys on the laptop's keyboard-- interesting that you can still read it when it's much faster, but it does take a moment to adjust to the faster speed. (We've posted a second video as well, that's a little more "ambient.")

As we have it configured here, the Meggy Jr scrolls through the 5 most recent tweets of folks that we follow, and then repeats. Between repeat cycles, if enough time has elapsed, it also checks to see if there are new updates. The history length (number of tweets to repeat) and time delay are adjustable, subject to Twitter query rate limits.

In the Maker Shed:

Meggy Jr. RGB Kit

MAKE subscriber Mike Cook built a Monome-style controller interface from only spare parts! (granted he seems to have some very nice spare parts lying around) Behold the Econo Monome -

The official Monomes have always had a nod towards eco friendliness by incorporating renewable wood in their construction. Well I wanted to go at least one better and use parts that I already had in my junk box. Let's kick off by saying that 40 years of working, and playing, with electronics has given me a junk box that is perhaps deeper than most people's, your mileage may vary.

More:

Open-source grid controller - the monome