This full-size replica blaster from Star Wars, most iconically used by Han Solo and Princess Leia, has everything. Flashing LEDs, blaster noises, LEGO, and yes, even an Arduino. Not bad for [Baron von Brunk]‘s first project to use an Arduino!

The blaster was based on electronics and LEGO that were lying around and was intended for use for Star Wars Day 2014. (May the Fourth be with you.) “Lying around” in this sense might be a bit of an understatement for [Baron von Brunk], as the design of the blaster required the use of the LEGO Digital Designer and 400 blocks, some of which are quite rare.

The electronics for the project are tied to a moving trigger mechanism (also made from LEGO). The trigger mechanism hits a momentary pushbutton which tells the Arduino to activate the LEDs and a separate 555 timer and sound recording/playback device which handles the classic blaster sounds. The whole thing is powered by a 9V battery and housed in the front of the blaster, and all of the code (and the LEGO schematics) are available on the project’s site.

This is quite an impressive replica, and the craftsmanship that went into the build shows, especially in the LEGO parts. We think Han Solo would indeed be proud! If you’re ready to go even further with Star Wars and LEGO, you might want to check out this barrel organ that plays the Star Wars theme.

About a year ago, [Anthony] decided to embark on his biggest project to date. He wanted something with a ton of LEDs, so when the idea of recreating the classic electronic Lights Out game came to mind, he knew he had the makings of a killer project. The finished Lights Out arcade box is a wonderful piece of work with sixteen 17-segment displays and just as many LED illuminated arcade buttons.

By far the most impressive feature of [Anthony]‘s project are the two rows of 17-segment displays. These are controlled by two MAX6954 LED display drivers on a beautiful wire wrapped board. The 16 buttons for the game are translucent arcade buttons that compliment the RGB LED strip very nicely.

A great display and a whole bunch of LEDs don’t make a game, though. [Anthony] came across this article on JSTOR that told him how to create new 4×4 games of Lights Out and solve them algorithmically to get the total number of moves required to solve the puzzle. As you can see in this video, it’s a little hard to solve the puzzle in the minimum amount of moves. Still, we have to commend [Anthony] for a great project.

That blur on the right is a car racing into the frame. But look around the rest of the image and you’ll see the area is littered with extra hardware. [Matthew], [Doug], and [Barry] have been hard at work adding extra functionality and replacing the original controllers on this Scalextric slot car setup. So far it looks like their build log has not caught up with all the work they’ve done. We’re hoping to learn more details as they have time to write about them (this is coursework at University so we’re sure there’s a lot on their plates). But for now there are several videos and a gallery of images to drool over.

The cars are controlled by the voltage level in the track. The team replaced the stock controllers with a Raspberry Pi. It manages that voltage using Pulse-Width Modulation via MOSFETs. This allows the races to be automated but also makes it simple for a human operator to use just about any input device imaginable to control the cars. For good measure they also added a lap counter that uses an IR LED and detector to sense when a car passes the finish line.

After viewing several of their videos we think the goal of the project is to log the fasts times without sending the cars flying off the tracks during the turns.

Head to head video game action can’t even compare to this use of a coin-op Sega Rally game to race actual RC vehicles. Take a close look at those screens and you’ll see there are no computer graphics, just a feed for a camera on each of the toy cars.

The project was conceived for the Sapo Codebits VI conference in Portugal. The arcade cabinets had their controls connected to an Arduino, but getting video up and running wasn’t nearly as easy. After fruitless attempts to get the original CRTs to work the team ended up replacing them with functioning CRT units of the same size. The cars themselves have two camera, one on top of the vehicle’s cab and one mounted on a boom for a perspective that was above and behind the vehicle. The drivers can switch between either view. The cars were set loose in the room serving as the event’s retro gaming area and players were free to race each other wherever they pleased. Don’t miss the video clip after the break which shows off all of the fun.

Here’s an automatic parking gate for toy cars. There’s no need to press a button, the electronics detect the presence of a vehicle on either side of the gate, raising it after verifying that the lot is not already full. It’s the same idea as counting how many people enter a room in order to switch the lights but the hardware is just a bit different.

The system is controlled by a pair of sensors in the paper which serves as the parking lot. There are three sheets of heavy stock, the top and bottom both have aluminum foil on them, with the center layer  as a separator. There are holes cut in the separator where the hash marks are seen above. By adding a little pressure to the car when you drive it up to the gate this completes a circuit instructing the Arduino that there’s a vehicle in position.

You can see a demonstration, as well as the guts of the build, in two videos after the break.

[via Reddit via Freetronics]

[Jon] wrote in to tell us about his programmable RC car, and the Howto guide that he’s made. According to him, this project can be constructed with $9 worth of parts plus an Arduino and a small toy car. So around $50 if you’re starting from scratch.

At it’s core, this project is about using the Arduino to allow your computer to send signals to the toy car. For this, [Jon] has included JAVA code that should be able to run on Mac, Linux, and PC operating systems. The Arduino code is also included.

Most small RC cars like those used in this project switch on at full speed or turn off, but this project allows the PC/Arduino to give the car PWM signals to control the speed. As pointed out in the video after the break, this can be a bit jerky at slow speed, but still a neat effect. A decent amount of soldering is required to get this project working, but it may be a good project especially if you have some of the parts already available!

Ahh, the Lite Brite.

What could be more fun than pushing dozens of little plastic pegs through a piece of black paper in order to create a pixelated, though colorful image? Well, I can think of quite a few things more engaging than that, and luckily so can [Lonnie Honeycutt] over at MeanPC.

While contemplating what to build with a pile of LEDs, his daughter came into the room with her portable Lite Brite. He thought that the pegs she was using looked awfully similar to the LEDs on his desk, so he did some test fitting and was surprised to see that they fit almost perfectly.

[Lonnie] thought that the toy would make an excellent clock, and his daughter happily agreed to let Dad do some tinkering. A few hours, an Arduino, and some Charlieplexing later, he had a nice looking clock that his kids were sure to enjoy.

If you’re interested in seeing more about how constructed, be sure to check out his YouTube channel and Instructable, where he happily provides all of the build details.

As part of a class at University, [Emacheen22] and his teammates turned an old Connect 4 game into a binary clock. This image shows the device nearing completion, but the final build includes the game tokens which diffuse the LED light. We enjoy the concept, but think there are a few ways to improve on it for the next iteration. If you’re interested in making your own we’d bet you can find Connect 4 at the thrift store.

Instead of using the free-standing game frame the team decided to use the box to host the LEDs and hide away the electronics. Since they’re using a breadboard and an Arduino this is a pretty good option. But it means that the game frame needs to be on its side as the tokens won’t stay in place without the plastic base attached. They used a panel mount bracket for each LED and chose super glue to hold all of the parts together.

We think this would be a lot of fun if the frame was upright. The LEDs could be free-floating by hot glueing the leads to either side of the opening. Using a small box under the base, all of the electronics can be hidden from view. After all, if you solder directly and use just a bare AVR chip there won’t be all that much to hide. Or you could get fancy and go with logic chips instead of a uC.