After not having an FM radio to listen to NPR, electrical engineer Kevin Darrah decided to build his own from spare parts.

Like many electronics hackers, Darrah tends to buy random components off of eBay. After all, you may need them at some point, and while cheap, sometimes they take a very long time to arrive. Unlike many of us, however, he actually found a use for several of these items, turning them into an FM radio controlled by an Arduino.

His DIY device uses an ATmega328-based board to communicate with a TEA5767 FM radio module I²C., a 10-turn potentiometer to set the station, and a 15W amp to power the speakers. Although it mostly works like a normal radio, one fun trick he implemented is that the station display lighting flickers if the audio drops out.

Also, since it has a microcontroller inside, there are lots of possibilities for expansion, such as adding a Bluetooth module for remote control, or perhaps a “seek” function to help set the channel. You can check out the code for this project here, or follow Darrah on Twitter if you’d like to know what he’s up to!

From magic to science, man has long dreamed about being able to manipulate objects from a distance. People have been able to push something using air or even sound waves for a while, but University of Bristol researcher Asier Marzo and colleagues have come up with a 3D-printable device that can not only repel small items, but can also attract them to the source.

It does this using an array of sound transducers arranged in a dome shape at the end of a wand. The acoustic tractor beam is also equipped with an Arduino Nano, a motor controller board, a DC-DC converter, and a LiPo battery, among some other easily accessible components.

Basically, an Arduino will generate 4 half-square signals at 5Vpp 40kHz with different phases. These signals get amplified to 25Vpp by the motor driver and fed into the transducers. A button pad can be used to change the phases so that the particle moves up and down. A battery (7.3V) powers the Arduino and the logic part of the motor driver. A DC-DC converter steps-up the 7.3V to 25V for the motor driver.

Aside from entertaining friends by levitating small pieces of plastic, the DIY tractor beams have many possible use cases, particularly in biological research. However, there are some limitations. Given the challenge of suspending objects more than half the wavelength of sound, the gadget can only trap things around a few millimeters in size.

Marzo and his team have published their project in the journal Applied Physics Letters, and shared step-by-step instructions so you could get started on building your own beam. You can read more on Phys.org as well.

You may know that a neodymium magnet is more powerful than something you usually find on a refrigerator, but by how much?

Most people, even those willing to harvest magnets from disk drives, accept that some magnets are stronger than others. This, however, wasn’t quite good enough for Anthony Garofalo, who instead converted a prototype voltmeter he made using an Arduino Uno and a tiny OLED display into something that displays the magnetic, or Gauss level. It also shows whether it’s observing the north or south pole of the magnet, which certainly could be useful in some situations.

Though full documentation isn’t available right now, Garofalo says that he’ll make it available once he repackages everything in a smaller format with an enclosure. If you’d like to see more of his work, including the voltmeter he based this off of, be sure to check out his Instructables page and some other neat stuff on his YouTube channel!

3D-printed appendages are, as one might suspect, generally meant for those that are missing a limb. Moreover, there are many other people that might retain partial functionality of a hand, but could still use assistance.

Youbionic’s beautifully 3D-printed, myoelectric prosthesis is envisioned for either application, capable of being controlled by muscle contraction as if it were a real body part.

As seen in the video below, the Youbionic hand can manipulate many different items, including a small box, a water bottle, and a set of keys. Functionality aside, the movement is extremely fluid and the smooth black finish really makes it look great.

The device is currently equipped with an Arduino Micro, servos, various sensors, a battery pack, and a few switches. Even the breadboard appears to be very neat, though one would suspect the final version will use some sort of PCB.

You can learn more and order yours on Youbionic’s website.

Aldric Negrier, a Portuguese Maker and owner of RepRap Algarve, has created an SLA 3D printer named RooBee One.

Most desktop 3D printers that you’ll see in Makerspaces or advertised for home use drop material onto a bed using a hot extrusion head. The open-source RooBee One, however, employs a DLP projector along with an Arduino Mega to light up each layer in a vat of resin. This causes each layer to solidify, thus making a complete object. You can see this process at around 0:30 in the video below.

RooBee One features an aluminum frame with an adjustable print area of 80x60x200 mm, with up to a 150x105x200mm build volume. Aside from the Arduino, additional electronics consist of a RAMPS 1.4 shield, a NEMA 17 stepper motor, a microstepping driver, an endstop, and a 12V transformer. Negrier also installed a fan on top of the printer to help guide the toxic vapors outside and away from the machine’s operator.

This process may be unfamiliar to those used to “normal” 3D printers, as it “magically” pulls a complete part out of a bath. The project is fairly involved, but the resulting ruby-red machine looks quite impressive. You can find out how to build one on its Instructables page.

Hey guys,

I'm starting out a project in which I want to build a Raspberry Pi Self Driving Robot. The basic tasks the robot will perform are:

• Lane tracking using RPi Camera and OpenCV3 + Python
• Obstacle detection with Ultrasonic sensor + input from RPi Camera(if possible)

The materials I currently plan to use in this project are:

read more

Hey guys,

I'm starting out a project in which I want to build a Raspberry Pi Self Driving Robot. The basic tasks the robot will perform are:

• Lane tracking using RPi Camera and OpenCV3 + Python
• Obstacle detection with Ultrasonic sensor + input from RPi Camera(if possible)

The materials I currently plan to use in this project are:

read more

Hey guys,

I'm starting out a project in which I want to build a Raspberry Pi Self Driving Robot. The basic tasks the robot will perform are:

• Lane tracking using RPi Camera and OpenCV3 + Python
• Obstacle detection with Ultrasonic sensor + input from RPi Camera(if possible)

The materials I currently plan to use in this project are:

read more

Hey guys,

I'm starting out a project in which I want to build a Raspberry Pi Self Driving Robot. The basic tasks the robot will perform are:

• Lane tracking using RPi Camera and OpenCV3 + Python
• Obstacle detection with Ultrasonic sensor + input from RPi Camera(if possible)

The materials I currently plan to use in this project are:

read more

Ring in 2017 with some DIY projects made in the spirit of New Year's Eve.

Read more on MAKE

The post 8 Festive Projects to Ring in the New Year appeared first on Make: DIY Projects and Ideas for Makers.