Building a ‘magic magnetic theater’ from a 1979 HP pen plotter driven by an RPi3. The pen here replaced by an electromagnet. Can track and move various objects that are placed on the (eventual) stage
n0st4lgix
We built a box so our dog could talk to us. Not so sure it was the best idea, but we’ll see…
My profile pic is yours truly next to an LED traffic arrow I bought surplus, and built an enclosure for. I gave it to a friend so he could put it on top of his office book case, he turns it on when people his way go to lunch, which saves me the useless 20 second walk to his empty office.
Could we text, sure, but why let a perfectly good traffic arrow go to waste? Also turns out a traffic light in an open office is very bright, so the eat-at-your-desk people are bathed in a soothing green glow.
Fun fact, these are surplus because they were installed in cold weather areas, and they neglected to take into account that the efficient LED here (only 5 watts or so) does not melt snow that blows onto them in a storm.
Building some bristle bots for the family to race after Thanksgiving. Cats are helping with the test process.
Project 001/7: Button Down Minds
I did some checking of the (hacked) button board, and to my relief, the electrical connections from the buttons to the pin header holes on the top of the board were not compromised by my amputation of the CPU section. The resulting board fits nice on the bottom half of the case.
The audio jack remains as well, although there will be work to enable audio from a Raspberry-Pi Zero (no audio circuit). I plan to add one using yet another small PCB that hopefully will fit underneath the button board. (more on that when I get to audio)
Next to the audio jack at the bottom, I plan to have a micro-USB jack. The small charger/converter board fit perfectly on top of the button PCB, next to the audio jack! (insulating tape will be needed here). The only gotcha I see is that the small speaker (which is in the top half of the case) will collide with the USB board. I am not sure what I will do. For now, dismount it from the top I suppose, then maybe it can go on the bottom of the case in that little hole on the left. Sound may not be as direct/clear, but audio quality is not a big goal for the project..
Next: I plan to wire up the button board to the GPIO pins on the Pi, and see if I can convince the emulation SW to use them as inputs! The Pi-GRRL Zero tutorial should be a great place for info on doing this.