ArduinoMania

We suppose it’s a bit early to call it just yet, but we definitely have a solid contender for Father of the Year. [DIY_Maxwell] made a light-up hockey game for his young son that looks like fun for all ages. Whenever the puck is hit with the accompanying DIY hockey stick (or anything else), it lights up and produces different sounds based on its acceleration.

Inside the printed puck is an Arduino Nano running an MPU6050 accelerometer, a 12-NeoPixel ring, and a piezo buzzer. [DIY_Maxell] reused a power bank charging circuit to charge up the small LiPo battery.

The original circuit used a pair of coin cells, but the Arduino was randomly freezing up, probably because of the LEDs’ current draw. Be sure to check out the video after the break, which begins with a little stop motion and features a solder stand in the shape of a 3D printer.

Got a house full of carpet or breakables? You could always build an air hockey table instead.

What’s the use of waiting around for something to break in order to hack into something else? As long as it’s just sitting around not being used, who cares? [OmniSaiRen] had a  Behringer MIDI controller just taking up space. Instead of selling it, they decided to build it into something they would definitely use — a multi-volume controller with mute keys and other useful macros.

After gutting the case, [OmniSaiRen] gave it a couple coats of glossy white paint that looks really nice with the black keycaps and knobs. The plan was to use the original encoders, but [OmniSaiRen] replaced them with potentiometers when they couldn’t get the encoders working with the Arduino Nano. We are sad to report that Cherry Blues only made it to the build because they have all black housings and were also lying around taking up space, but maybe [OmniSaiRen] will grow to love them.

If you’re tired of all the mousing and clicking it takes to turn down this or that volume, you need to build one of these things. It runs on deej, an open source volume mixer that works with Linux and Windows, so what are you waiting for? If you only want a single hardware volume knob, you can’t go wrong dialing it in rotary style.

Via r/duino

User [mircemk] presents his “MiliOhm Meter” project which you can build with an Arduino, a handful of common parts from your lab, and a cigar box.  It doesn’t get much simpler than this, folks.  While this is something you won’t be getting calibrated with NIST traceability, it looks like a fun and quick project that’s more than suited for hobbyist measurements.  It’s not only easy to build, the Arduino sketch is less than thirty lines of code.  This is a great learning project, plus you get something useful for your lab when its finished.

We like the creative use of colored tape instead of paint on the project’s box.  If this style suits you, [mircemk] has published several other similar lab instrument projects on his Hackaday.io page, including a frequency meter, an audio spectrum analyzer, and an auto-ranging capacitance meter to name a few.  You might recognize him from some other projects we’ve featured, such as the crazy kinematic arms that set a clock’s hands every minute.

What is it about useless machines that makes them so attractive to build? After all, they’re meant to be low-key enraging. At this point, the name of the game is more about giving that faceless enemy inside the machine a personality more than anything else. How about making it more of a bully with laughter and teasing? That’s the idea behind [alexpikkert]’s useless machine with attitude — every time you flip a switch, the creature of uselessness inside gets a little more annoyed.

In this case the creature is Arduino-based and features two sound boards that hold the giggles and other sounds. There are three servos total: one for each of the two switch-flipping fingers, and a third that flaps the box lid at you. This build is wide open, and [alexpikkert] even explains how to repurpose a key holder box for the enclosure. Check out the demo after the break.

We love a good useless machine around here, especially when they take a new tack. This one looks like any other useless machine, but what’s happening inside may surprise you.

Do you ever wonder just how many punches you have thrown? The answer is going to be different if you happen to use a punching bag as part of your exercise routine. So is the case with the [DuctTapeMechanic] and while restoring an old speed ball punching bag, he decided to combine his passions for sports and electronics by adding a punch counter.

Perhaps most interesting in this build is the method used to monitor the bag. A capacitance proximity sensor most often used for industrial automation is mounted in the wooden base. He just calls it “an NPN capacitive sensor” without mentioning part number but these are rather easy to find from the usual places. It has no problem sensing each punch — assuming you swing strong enough so that the bag comes near the sensor. Two battery packs, an Arduino, and an optocoupler round out the bill of materials. We were a little disappointed not to see any duct tape in the construction of this project, but since the electronics are outside and exposed to the elements, maybe duct tape will be used to install a roof in a future episode.

The [DuctTapeMechanic] likes to repurpose items which would otherwise be thrown away, which is something to be applauded. The frame of this punching bag was welded from a discarded metal bed frame (a regular occupant of crawl spaces and self storage places), and you might remember he repurposed the electric motor from a discarded clothes dryer last month, changing it into a disk sander.

What could be more terrifying than ghosts, goblins, or clowns? How about a shapeless pile of fright on your bedroom floor that only moves when you’re not looking at it? That’s the idea behind [Sciencish]’s nightmare robot, which is lurking after the break. The Minecraft spider outfit is just a Halloween costume.

In this case, “looking at it” equates to you shining a flashlight on it, trying to figure out what’s under the pile of clothes. But here’s the thing — it never moves when light is shining on it. It quickly figures out the direction of the light source and lies in wait. After you give up and turn out the flashlight, it spins around to where the light was and starts moving in that direction.

The brains of this operation is an Arduino Uno, four light-dependent resistors, and a little bit of trigonometry to find the direction of the light source. The robot itself uses two steppers and printed herringbone gears for locomotion. Its chassis has holes in it that accept filament or wire to make a cage that serves two purposes — it makes the robot into more of an amorphous blob under the clothes, and it helps keep clothes from getting twisted up in the wheels. Check out the demo and build video after the break, because this thing is freaky fast and completely creepy.

While we usually see a candy-dispensing machine or two every Halloween, this year has been more about remote delivery systems. Don’t just leave sandwich bags full of fun size candy bars all over your porch, build a candy cannon or a spooky slide instead.

Via r/duino

Electric utilities across the world have been transitioning their meters from the induction analog style with a distinctive spinning disc to digital “smart” meters which aren’t as aesthetically pleasing but do have a lot of benefits for utilities and customers alike. For one, meter readers don’t need to visit each meter every month because they are all networked together and can download usage data remotely. For another, it means a lot of analog meters are now available for projects such as this clock from [Monta].

The analog meters worked by passing any electricity used through a small induction motor which spun at a rate proportional to the amount of energy passing through it. This small motor spun a set of dials via gearing in order to keep track of the energy usage in the home or business. To run the clock, [Monta] connected a stepper motor with a custom transmission to those dials for the clock face because it wasn’t possible to spin the induction motor fast enough to drive the dials. An Arduino controls that stepper motor, but can’t simply drive the system in a linear fashion because it needs to skip a large portion of the “minutes” dials every hour. A similar problem arises for the “hours” dials, but a little bit of extra code solves this problem as well.

Once the actual clock is finished, [Monta] put some finishing touches on it such as backlighting in the glass cover and a second motor to spin the induction motor wheel to make the meter look like it’s running. It’s a well-polished build that makes excellent use of some antique hardware, much like one of his other builds we’ve seen which draws its power from a Stirling engine.