Zombie Slap Results In Glorious Selfie

[Donnie Plumly] likes to spice things up at the office around holidays. This Halloween he decided to make an office photo booth — with a bit of a twist. He calls it the Zombie Selfie.

He cast his arm in silicone to make a gruesome zombie hand, which he set up with a vibration sensor. If you touch the arm (he encourages you to slap it), an Arduino picks up the vibration which initiates the picture taking sequence!

He’s using an IR LED with the Arduino to trigger the camera, and then an Eye-Fi card in it automatically transfers it to a computer in a DropBox. An IFTTT script then publishes it to Twitter for all to see under the account @ZombieSelfie! There are some pretty amusing ones already!

And so you can preview your Zombie Selfie, he also threw a monitor up — there’s no going back after the picture is taken though! It’ll be posted straight to Twitter.

When it comes to custom photo booths though, its hard to top this robotic artist who will actually paint your picture for you!

Filed under: digital cameras hacks, Holiday Hacks

Mass Effect Rubber Band Gun a Beauty to Be-holster

This Halloween, crafting most of your props and replicas wont be as easy as hitting “print.” This Mass Effect M-6 Carnifex Rubber Band Gun is the exception, though, and it’s all thanks to the detailed efforts of [eggfooyoung]. Like many others in childhood, [eggfooyoung] dreamed of sporting his own rubber-band gun. Year’s later, he’s made that dream a reality, and one for many others as well.

Mechanically, rubber-band guns, especially semi-automatic ones, are a finely tuned escapade into complex levers and joints. [eggfooyoung] took it upon himself to learn from the best in the craft, in this case, YouTube user [RBGuns] who has posted designes for numerous rubber band weapons. Overall, the M-6 Carnifex is a triumph of shared knowledge, as it’s an iteration of [RBGun’s] M9 build. [eggfooyoung’s] documentation is also everything we’d love to see in a weekend project: design files [PDF], detailed pictures documenting the step-by-step gluing process, and resources to dig more deeply into building your own rubber band guns.

Filed under: laser hacks

Photographer Whimsically Augments Reality with Papercuts | Make:

British photographer Paperboyo uses papercuts and forced perspective to make humorous and whimsical comments on the world's landmarks.

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The post Photographer Whimsically Augments Reality with Papercuts | Make: appeared first on Make: DIY Projects, How-Tos, Electronics, Crafts and Ideas for Makers.

Skull-like asteroid makes ‘frightening’ flyby on Halloween

A radar image of the Halloween asteroid, left, resembles a human skull. (credit: NAIC-Arecibo/NSF (left) and Sebastian Dooris/Flickr (right))

As the “Halloween” asteroid approached its flyby of Earth on Saturday, the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico captured images of the space rock using its large radio telescope. The rock, likely a dead comet, was due to come within 486,000 kilometers of Earth, or about 1.3 times the distance to the Moon at 1pm ET. In radar images it resembled a human skull.

The 1,000-foot Arecibo instrument, managed by the National Science Foundation, is the largest single-aperture telescope in the world and is used primarily for radio astronomy. By looking in the radio portion of the spectrum, astronomers were able to better characterize the size and roughness of the asteroid, formally known as 2015 TB145.

Astronomers found that the Halloween asteroid reflects only about six percent of the light from the Sun. "That is similar to fresh asphalt, and while here on Earth we think that is pretty dark, it is brighter than a typical comet which reflects only 3 to 5 percent of the light,” said Vishnu Reddy, a research scientist at the Planetary Science Institute, Tucson, Ariz. “That suggests it could be cometary in origin—but as there is no coma evident, the conclusion is it is a dead comet."

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Hacklet 82 – Halloween Hacks 2015

Halloween is when the ghouls start haunting and the hackers start hacking. All hallows eve is the perfect holiday for eerie blinking LEDs, spooky audio oscillators, and wild animatronics. We had a double dose of Halloween hacks last year on the Hacklet. This year we’re bringing you even more of the best Halloween hacks on hackaday.io!

We start with [dougal] and Halloween Blinky Eyes. [Dougal] wanted to create the effect of creatures peeking at you from the dark corners of the room, and he’s certainly nailed it. A strip of WS2812 LEDs is the trick here. Pairs of LEDs light up, blink, and fade away like spooky eyes. The Strip is controlled by a Particle Core using Adafruit’s NeoPixel Library, though [Dougal] plans to move to the FastLed library. Everything is powered by a USB power pack. This hack isn’t much to look at with the lights on, so check out the video to see these eyes really shine!

 

Next up is [controlmypad] with Blair the Witch Project. A normal trip to Home Depot turned paranormal when [controlmypad] spotted an awesome witch decoration. The free-standing mannequin had some basic animatronics and the all important manual trigger. [controlmypad] already had a discarded electric wheelchair. After replacing the chair batteries he modified it with a Sabertooth 2×32 Motor Controller and a standard radio control receiver. A spare channel was connected to Blair’s manual trigger. An aluminum tube joins the witch and the scooter. The hardest part of this hack was keeping Blair’s skirt out of the scooter wheels. Home Depot to the rescue! A simple hoop made of lawn edging plastic keeps the fabric and wheels apart.

 

[Alex Cordonnier] and his team participated in Boilermake 2015, a 24 hour Hackathon at Purdue University. The fruit of their labor is Trick or Tweet, the tweeting Jack-o’-lantern. Yes folks, we now have the internet of gourds. Hiding inside Trick or Tweet is a Raspberry Pi and a Pi Camera. The pumpkin itself is also a giant capacitive touch switch. Touching the pumpkin triggers a count down after which Trick or Tweet snaps a photo. It then adds some spooky Halloween overlays, a pun or two, and throws the whole thing up on twitter @PumpkinPiPics. [Alex] hasn’t uploaded the code yet, but we’re guessing it consists of a few Python scripts. Pretty awesome for 24 hours of work!

 

Sometimes Halloween hacks take on a life of their own. That’s exactly what happened when [Hari Wiguna] sat down with a few parts he ordered from China. Happy Halloween 2015 is the result. [Hari’s] order included some potentiometers, a two color OLED display, and some Arduino clones. In no time [Hari] had three pots wired up to the Arduino’s analog inputs. The OLED quickly followed, displaying graphics via the Arduino’s I2C bus. He really wanted a Jack-o’-lantern though. It took a bit more tweaking, but eventually [Hari] was successful. The first pot sets eye size.  The second controls eye rotation. The third pot changes the width of Jack’s mouth. [Hari] has all the code for this hack up on his most recent project log.

Not spooked enough? If you want to see more Halloween projects, check out our newly updated Halloween hacks list! Did I miss your project? Don’t be shy, just drop me a message on Hackaday.io. That’s it for this week’s Hacklet; As always, see you next week. Same hack time, same hack channel, bringing you the best of Hackaday.io!

Filed under: Hackaday Columns, Holiday Hacks

Portland Retro Gaming Expo: Hacked carts, Tetris battles, and Atari legends

Video filmed by Sam Machkovech, edited by Jennifer Hahn (video link)

Everything old was new again at October's annual Portland Retro Gaming Expo, which overtook the city's major convention center for two full days of arcade play, retro tournaments, and presentations from some of gaming's biggest legends.

If you've never attended a retro-themed expo—as opposed to more modern gaming expos such as PAX—it can be a little harder to come away with something to describe at length, but not for lack of content. Retro gaming shows feel both enormous and small because they distill down to a seemingly endless number of micro-niches. Love the Atari Jaguar console? You and maybe 50 other people will find a few booths full of merch and rarities to make your heart swell. How about old light gun games? You'll find a range of gun-mounted arcade games that you can play without a single quarter, from later-gen gems like Area 51 to early delights like Cheyenne.

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A Peek Under the Hood of the 741 Op-Amp

First introduced as an IC back in 1968, but with roots that go back to 1941, the 741 has been tweaked and optimized over the years and is arguably the canonical op-amp. [Ken Shirriff] decided to take a look inside everybody’s favorite op-amp, and ended up with some good-looking photomicrographs and a lot of background on the chip.

Rather than risk the boiling acid method commonly used to decap epoxy-potted ICs, [Ken] wisely chose a TO-99 can format to attack with a hacksaw. With the die laid bare for his microscope, he was able to locate all the major components and show how each is implemented in silicon. Particularly fascinating is the difference between the construction of NPN and PNP transistors, and the concept of “current mirrors” as constant current sources. And he even whipped up a handy interactive chip viewer – click on something in the die image and find out which component it is on the 741 schematic. Very nice.

We’ve seen lots of chip decappings before, including this reveal of TTL and CMOS logic chips. It’s nice to see the guts of the venerable 741 on display, though, and [Ken]’s tour is both a great primer for the newbie and a solid review for the older hands. Don’t miss the little slice of history he included at the end of the post.

Filed under: misc hacks, parts

How to use Tor Messenger, the most secure chat program around

(credit: Samuel Huron)

On Thursday, the Tor Project released its first public beta of Tor Messenger, an easy-to-use, unified chat app that has security and cryptography baked in. If you care about digital security, you should ditch whatever chat program you're using and switch to it right now.

The app is specifically designed to protect location and routing information (by using Tor) and chat data in transit (by using the open source Off-The-Record, or OTR, protocol). For anyone who has used a similar app (like Pidgin or Adium), Tor Messenger’s interface will be fairly self-explanatory, but there are two notable quirks.

First, by default, it will not allow you to send messages to someone who doesn’t support OTR—but there is an option to disable that feature. (We’ll get to that in a minute.) Second, unlike Pidgin or Adium, Tor Messenger cannot log chats, which is handy if you’re privacy-minded.

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Need For Speed reboots successfully for the stanced generation

Need For Speed is one of the longest running game franchises in the industry—and quite possibly the most veteran in the racing genre. The first NFS appeared back in 1994 and was as close as console gamers had ever gotten to a sim racer, featuring realistic (for the time) handling and real-world cars. Over the years sequels came and went, as did NFS's reputation among gamers. Now, NFS is old enough to buy itself a beer, but is this latest version—a reboot developed by Ghost Games and the series' 22nd entry—any good?

NFS is an open world racing game, a subgenre we first saw with games such as Test Drive Unlimited back in 2006. The action takes place in Ventura Bay, where no one ever sleeps and the sun never shines, because the entire game takes place at night. You play an unnamed driver who meets up with Spike, a trustafarian and young Brad Pitt lookalike (played by Adam Long) who introduces you to his rather engaging crew of underground racers, drifters, and tuners.

As with most games of this sort, you start out off with a rather cheap and underpowered car—in this case either a Honda Civic Type-R (the EK9 version), Ford Mustang (Fox body), or Subaru BRZ. You'll be able to supe your car up with prize money from races and drifting competitions, or you can save your winnings and upgrade to something faster and more exotic, including bona fide icons like the 1973 Porsche 911 RSR, Ferrari's legendary F40, or even the just-released McLaren 570S. Choose wisely; your garage will only hold up to five cars, so you'll have to sell one if you fill it up and want to drive something else.

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Fossil Q wearables reviewed: Smartwatches that actually look good

(credit: Valentina Palladino)

Until recently, wearables had an image problem. If the very first fitness trackers and smartwatches didn't look like a random piece of silicone with a honking module on top wrapped around your wrist, they were considered a fashionable success. Within the past year or so, companies like LG and Huawei have gotten a bit more style-savvy with their wearables, making smartwatches that closely resemble analog timepieces.

Now Fossil, the fashion company well known for its focus on American vintage styles, is coming out with its own line of wearables. The Q range consists of the Q Reveler and Q Dreamer smart bands, the Q Grant non-display smartwatch, and the upcoming Q Founder Android Wear watch. Fossil has experimented with wearables in the past, but it was nothing like this—the Q devices aim to be both fashionable accessory and smart device, pieces you can wear all day long that say something about your personal style while keeping you in touch with your digital life.

While the Q Founder isn't quite ready for us to test yet, we did get our hands on a Q Grant and a Q Reveler. Compared to other smart bands available now, both of these Q devices have fewer bells and whistles than most. They focus on tracking activity, delivering you notifications from your smartphone, and encouraging you to stay curious about the world around you. However, when we would normally consider that compromising, these devices don't make you feel like you're compromising at all. The Q range certainly provides a different type of wearable experience—but possibly a better one.

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Add a Simple Circuit Breathing LED Effect to Your Pumpkin

Create a cool, breathing LED lighting effect for your Halloween pumpkin using an analog circuit. No microcontroller required!

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The post Add a Simple Circuit Breathing LED Effect to Your Pumpkin appeared first on Make: DIY Projects, How-Tos, Electronics, Crafts and Ideas for Makers.

A recipe for an affordable, safe, and scalable flow battery

Whether we are willing to admit it or not, we are all rather dependent on batteries. We mostly think about small batteries at the individual level—in our cell phones, watches, or laptops. But batteries can be used in technologies that support multiple people, like the hybrid car. As scientists develop batteries with larger energy storage capacity, we can begin to expand our outlook to even grander applications.

If batteries could be designed to safely store large amounts of energy, they could be integrated into the existing power grid. This type of integration could be used to store energy harvested from renewable sources such as solar and wind, and to smooth out sudden surges in demand. Recent advancements in a technology called redox-flow batteries (RFB) hold out a promise for scalable energy storage.

RFBs are composed of organic materials that are able to transport electrons (redox-active). Almost all RFBs are composed of two pools of liquid electrolyte separated by a membrane, which allows some ions to cross between the two liquids. In these systems, electrons then flow from the negatively charged liquid (anolyte) through to the positive charged liquid (catholyte). These electrons can either charge the system or be extracted for use. Since the key components of the batteries are liquid, things can be scaled up simply by making the holding tanks larger.

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3D Scanned, CNC-Milled, Pumpkin Selfie

When you have a CNC mill sitting around, it almost seems anachronistic to pull out a kitchen knife to carve a pumpkin. You can hardly blame [Nathan Bentall] for choosing an endmill instead. If you’re feeling the same, check out his blog post where [Nathan] works through all the steps involved in going from a raw pumpkin to a 3D RGB LED bust of himself. To put his head on the pumpkin’s shoulders he captured a depth map using a Kinect and then got down to some unorthodox milling.

If you’d like to watch the CNC in action, [Nathan] has also posted up a time-lapse video of the work getting done. Watch the intro, and then jump ahead to 12:40 when the CNC work starts up for real.

One of our first questions was “how do you hold that thing in the mill?” Pumpkins are big and round, not flat and thin. Amazingly, the answer is just what you’d expect: it’s all held together with tape. Specifically, a saucepan stuck to the bed with double-stick tape cradles the pumpkin which is taped down into the saucepan with gaffer tape.

And it all looks fairly clean, too. We would have expected pumpkin mush all over everything, but it seems to have stayed quasi-contained. Who knew? Kudos for the great work and great documentation!

Filed under: cnc hacks

Is it a Haunted House or a Video Game?

[Rich Fiore] didn’t want just another set of spooky decorations for his house. He wanted something interactive. By combining a projector and some IR sensing, he turned his whole house into a Halloween-themed shooter.

Technical details are sparse, although some other sites are reporting that a projector and a camera take care of the graphics, while a modified Wii remote and an IR gun handle the crosshairs and the targeting.

Sometimes it’s the little things that make all the difference. If you shoot a window, you’ll hear (and see) the glass breaking. Shooting the side of the house makes the (virtual) siding blow off, revealing the insulation beneath.

It wasn’t clear if the graphics are a simple projection or if there is some Pepper’s Ghost magic going on. [Rich] says he plans to add more (and smarter) characters soon. Maybe he could even add a Kinect to put a ghostly version of the player up on the wall.

Filed under: Holiday Hacks, video hacks

Delightfully Horrible Idea: Twitch Installs Linux

Linux is a delightful OS. There are an amazing range of built-in tools, and innumerable others that can be installed from publicly available repositories using just a single line of commands. You can also hose your entire system with just a handful of characters; something that was en vogue as a method of trolling many years ago. Who knows if either of those will get used when Twitch Installs Arch Linux.

Beginning on Saturday morning, a single keyboard will be controlled by thousands of people whose collective goal is to install a Linux distro in a virtual box. There will undoubtedly be thousands of others trying to thwart the process. We were enthralled with Twitch Plays Pokemon last year. Live viewers’ keystrokes were translated to the Game Boy controls and the majority consensus decided the next move. This was insane with just a few controls, but now we’re talking about an entire keyboard.

Every 10 seconds, the most popular keystroke will be chosen. To put this in perspective, the previous sentence would have taken exactly 10 minutes to type, and only if the majority constantly agreed on what the next letter should be. We can’t tell if it’s going to be interesting or boring to participate. But either way, we can’t wait to see what unforeseen happenings shake out of the process.

Filed under: linux hacks