The ticking clock on the bomb is a Hollywood trope that simply refuses to die. Adding to the stress levels of the bomb squad and creating great suspense for the watcher, it’s always interesting to wonder why the average bomb maker is so courteous as to supply this information to law enforcement. Regardless, if you’d like to build a dramatic prop and are mature enough to do so responsibly, [Giorgio] has the guide you need.

The build is a straightforward one, relying on an Arduino to run the show. This is hooked up to a classic 7-segment LED display, upon which the countdown is displayed. For extra flair, an MP3 player is fitted to play the Mission Impossible theme. It all adds to the tension as you wipe the sweat from your brow, trying to decide if you’re cutting the right wire.

It’s a build that would be an excellent prop for a film production or a fun game at a holiday party. However, it’s also a build that could easily be mistaken for the real thing by those less technically inclined. Even the most innocuous homebrew projects have caused problems for innocent hackers in the past. Fake bombs can be incredibly dangerous, just like the real thing, so it’s important to be careful.

We’ve seen other takes on this kind of build before, too. As always, build responsibly.

[Bokononestly] found a lil’ music box that plays Stairway to Heaven and decided those were just the kinds of dulcet tones he’d like to wake up to every morning. To each his own; I once woke up to Blind Melon’s “No Rain” every day for about six months. [Bokononestly] is still in the middle of this alarm clock project right now. One day soon, it will use a *duino to keep track of the music box’s revolutions and limit the alarm sound to one cycle of the melody.

[Bokononestly] decided to drive the crank of the music box with a geared DC motor from an electric screwdriver. After making some nice engineering drawings of the dimensions of both and mocking them up in CAD, he designed and printed a base plate to mount them on. A pair of custom pulleys mounted to the motor shaft and the crank arm transfer motion using the exact right rubber band for the job. You can’t discount the need for a hig bag ‘o rubber bands.
In order to count the revolutions, he put a wire in the path of the metal music box crank and used the body of the box as a switch. Check out the build video after the break and watch him prove it with the continuity function of a multimeter. A clever function that should at some point be substituted out for a leaf switch.

We’ve covered a lot of cool clock builds over the years, including one or two that run Linux. And say what you will about Stairway; it’s better than waking up to repeated slaps in the face.

[via r/engineering]

In the past weeks we explored how to make a gsm-controlled star light, a touch-screen controlled marionette, and how to learn more about Linux on Intel Galileo Gen 2.

In today’s tutorial  you’ll learn how to create a “Wake up clock” which will turn on and illuminate the room slowly, simulating a morning sunrise. And hopefully, it will make waking up on Mondays a bit easier!

This is the bill of materials:

Intel® Galileo Gen 2 power supply
Arduino Protoshield
LED power supply
1 High power white LED(3v 700mA)
1 1000 ?F Capacitor
1 2.1 mm DC jack-to-screw terminal adaptor
1 10k potentiometer
1 1.8Ohm 2w resistor
1 LM317t voltage regulator
2 10kOhm resistor
1 2n7000 transistor
1 Coin battery holder
Jumper wires
Colored wire
Pin header
1 8 mm magnet
Stiff wire (that is attracted to magnets)
Wood glue
Hot glue sticks
4 mm MDF components – lasercut according to drawing
Plexiglas components – lasercut according to drawing
Nuts and bolts
Rubberband

Download the files and learn how to assemble electronics at this link

Inspired by science fiction movies, this DIYer created a doomsday device prop complete with pull-pin, epic LED lighting, and countdown timer.  When his microwave broke, he salvaged its innards to build this device.  Overall, this project is a great way to improve your electrical, mechanical, and creative design skills.

Inside the device is an Arduino which coordinates the communication between the push buttons, clock timer and lighting effects.  The bulky mass of electronics seen at the bottom of the device are high power hardware from the guts of the microwave.

Additionally, an old garden light was used for the “core” of the device and ancient tape recorder buttons were resurrected for pushbuttons.  When you’re ready to build your own apocalypse device (or perhaps just an epic looking alarm clock), check out the project guide to get started.

Popular Related Projects:

• Incredible Fallout 3 Replica Plasma Rifle
• Amazing Return of the Jedi Light Saber Replica
• Unique LED Clock made from Old Hard Drive

This is an original way to hack a dvd-player and integrate it with an allarm-clock. Well, building up a new Digital Alarm Clock with Arduino is the real project, the integration with the DVD-Player is the Hack. Thanks [razrbhr] to send us your project.

Arduino led clock driven directly using an Arduino Mega 2560 board.. Has an in built alarm function and triggers a DVD player via optocouplers to start playing songs when alarm time is reached so you wake up with a smile…

You will find more and the full description of the project, included pictures on his [blog]

This clock radio plays tunes from Minecraft and it’s decorated to look just like a creeper head. In the game mob heads are available as decoration and [Young_Maker] liked to spice up his virtual bedside table with a creeper head. But we think it looks just as good in its physical form.

The main part of the clock is an Arduino with a character LCD screen. A DS1307 real-time clock makes sure the device is accurate. We called this a clock radio in the title of the post, but it’s more of a clock MP3 player. The uMp3 board is used to play random music from the game. We would categorize the soundtrack as minimalism, which is a reasonable way to gently wake in the morning. But if time runs out the boom of an exploding creeper is played to make sure you’re not late for work.

We’ve embedded [Young_Maker's] demo video after the jump.

[via Reddit]