While you may not give dry cleaning conveyors much thought, Andrew Quitmeyer and Madeline Schwartzman’s “Replantment” exhibition at the Pratt Manhattan Gallery uses them in an entirely new way, along with glowing silicone molds of leaves from all over the world.

The machine detects when an RFID tag attached to a laundry ticket is nearby, then moves over a lighting arrangement to display the multitude of glowing leaves.

An Arduino and a SparkFun Simultaneous RFID Reader are used for control, with relays taking the place of a foot switch to start and stop the conveyor motors.

You can check it out in action below, or if you are in the New York area, you can see the artwork in person until February 17^th.

Ruben, aka “Ruubz0r,” a mechanical engineering student, was tasked with building a smart object. As he enjoys card games, he decided to make a playing card distributor.

The resulting device uses a single servo to slide cards off of a deck, along with a stepper motor and ultrasonic sensor to aim it at the human recipient. An Arduino Uno provides the brains of the operation.

The system is made out of wood and cardboard, and while it may not be ready for casino use, it’s a great example of what can be done with readily available materials. Check it out in action in the video seen here!

Tired of doing the mundane task of opening your door? This hack from Sieuwe Elferink takes care of that for you, using an Arduino Uno for control.

When someone comes within 50 cm of an ultrasonic sensor attached to the door, the Arduino uses an H-bridge relay to power a windshield wiper motor, which opens and closes it via a linkage setup. Another sensor is implemented on the opposite side of the door, allowing hands-free travel both ways!

Want to build your own? You can find instructions here, while code is available on GitHub.

What do you do when faced with measuring and cutting a bunch of cables? If you’re Edward Carlson, you “simply” build a machine to do it for you!

While it may not save time on this run, at least on the next occasion that he needs a few cables cut, he can just program his device to snip everything to size!

His setup uses an Arduino Mega with an LCD/button shield to tell the machine how long to snip each wire, then employs a stepper motor to move the cable between two rollers to the correct length. When in position, a high-torque servo actuates a (normally) manual pair of clippers to cut it to size.

Be sure to check out the project explanation in the video seen here, or skip to around 5:30 to see it in action!

Just when you thought you’d seen every possible hacked clock design, creator Ekaggrat Singh Kalsi has come up with something new: a faceless clock that is able to tell time with two hands that never make a full rotation.

Instead, an Arduino Nano powers a novel mechanical gear assembly via two motors, which causes the two hands to physically switch positions between the second arm being mounted on the base and on the tip of the first arm. This strange representation of time changes form every fifteen minutes.

The Edgytokei which literally means edge clock is inspired from the Japanese nunchucks. Just like the nunchucks the clock is just a pair of two arms displaying time by balancing themselves on the edge. The clock consists of two arms and the base on which the arms are anchored. Both the arms are of equal length as the role of the arms changes with different hours of the day.

The fulcrum of the clock flips from the center to the left or right of the clock every quarter hour so that the clock can stand on the edge to represent the time between quarter past and quarter to hour. This flipping of the arms keeps the clock dancing on the edge throughout the day. The base which contains the electronics of the clock provides a anchor for the clock and prevents the arms from falling over.

If that sounds unique, then wait until you see it in action below. More details on the build can be found via this Hackaday write-up.

Nearly 50 years ago, mankind made the giant leap of being able to travel to the moon. To celebrate, ST-Geotronics has come of with a replica of the Apollo Guidance Computer Display/Keyboard, or AGC DSKY as it’s abbreviated.

The display was prototyped on a huge breadboard assembly, along with an Arduino Mega, then finished using a custom PCB and Arduino Nano.

3D-printed parts are used to form the housing, in addition to a variety of electronics. These include an actual GPS unit, along with a custom three-segment LED assemblies to display “+” and “-” as needed.

Be sure to check it out in the video seen here, showing off its interface, as well as an MP3 unit that plays back a 1962 JFK speech about going to the moon.

If you’re tired of classic tower building games like Jenga or stacking cards and would like a new challenge, “mr_fid” has come up with a game where you balance blocks on a tree assembly. The nicely crafted device then moves around to throw the blocks off using three servos and push rods.

Everything is controlled by an Arduino Nano that randomly selects the intensity of the movement and which color of block to be stacked, displayed on a circular arrangement of programmable LEDs.

Once a block has been added, a button in the middle of the LEDs is pushed and tree movement starts, potentially destabilizing the player’s work.

Nice Arduino project. Featuring an Arduino Nano controlling 3 servos to move the tree. Firstly the “Roll” button is pressed to give you a colour and amplitude once the correct bit has been placed on the tree the “Shake” button is pressed and the tree moves around. Any bits which fall off are given to the person whos go it was! the idea of the game is to get rid of all your bits first. If when you press the “Roll” button you don’t have the correct colour OR the strength is to high then if you wish you can miss your go.

You can check the game out in the first video below, or see the second video for information on how to avoid jittery servos in this type of setup.

While ’80s-style boomboxes have their own unique character, per hacker “Dancorp’s” excellent mod, it’s clear that they could be improved dramatically with programmable LEDs.

This build uses a capacitive filtering arrangement to feed line out signals from the boombox into an Arduino Uno, which then controls three LED strips.

Two of these strips are arranged around the speaker cones, emitting beautiful LED effects to go along with the music playing, while the third can be used to light up the built-in VU meters.

A schematic along with Arduino code are available on Dancorp’s write-up. It looks like a fairly accessible project, especially given the extra space available in electronics from that era.

Up until the present day, if you need butter, you simply ask another human to “pass the butter,” leading to minor inconvenience and awkwardness. Engineering students in Brussels have come up with a novel solution: a robot that brings the butter to you!

The robot, inspired by Rick and Morty’s Butter Bot, is powered by an Arduino Uno and summoned to hungry humans via an infrared remote control.

When the signal detected by onboard IR sensors, the robot moves over using continuous-rotation modded servos, then flips its cap-like lid to reveal the butter inside.

Want a Butbot of your own? You can find the build process and code in the student team’s write-up here.

In order to create the ultimate off-road RC rig, “asrebro” designed his own six-wheeled vehicle, operated with the help of Arduino.

To give it decent range and reliability, the hacker turned to a stock transmitter and receiver, but routed the PWM signals onboard to a Mega. The Arduino uses a pair of H-bridge boards to drive all six motors/wheels for tank-like movement.

Since an Arduino is used, this opens up a wide range of manual and automatic control options, and could even be used to power robotic accessories like a gripper or gimbal with a camera.

I decided to build a bigger robot that will easily overcome various obstacles on its way and will be able to move with a load of at least a dozen kilos. I also assumed that the robot should be able to cope in difficult terrain such as sand, snow and rubble. To make it possible, I built a 6-wheel [aluminum and duralumin] chassis equipped with 6 motors of sufficient high power and suitable motor driver and power supply. I also wanted my robot to be controlled from a long distance (at least 200 meters) so I used a good quality 2.4GHz transmitter and receiver.

You can see it in action below, traversing through a forest near Warsaw, Poland.