Cooking Hacks Blog

 

Hanting Lu and Kedari Elety, students in Cornell University’s Electrical and Computer Engineering, have written a detailed explanation of their Hand tracking pong project, a pong game which was controlled by tracking the player’s hand:

"The NTSC video signal from the camera is stored in the SDRAM at the rate of the TV Decoder Line clock (TD_CLK). Data is read from the SDRAM each time the VGA requests data. The data from the SDRAM is in YUV format which needs to be converted to RGB before sending it to the VGA. For skin detection, we added a filter at this converting module level such that in addition to the R,G and B values, the module also outputs a one bit binary 1 if it corresponds to a skin pixel. Else, zero. By doing this, the output on the VGA is now white corresponding to skin pixels and black otherwise"

Via: Dangerous Prototypes, Source: Cornell University

 

 

Dimitri, Frank, Kevin and Robin from Eectronique have sent in some details of a project that they have been working on. They had an old early 90′s LED matrix sign and wanted to make it work with a Raspberry Pi. The circuit layout is what you would expect from that era.

They retreived an old (1992 !) bus display (the thing that says the next stops on the buses). It was old: unknown protocol, unknown wiring, not fast at all...

Via: Dangerous Prototypes, Source: Electronique

 

Our friends from ICTP, including Marco Zennaro (from WSNBlog), have launched an Open Book: "Low-cost 3D Printing for Science, Education and Sustainable Development"

The Science Dissemination Unit (SDU) of the Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics (ICTP) has organized the 1^st International Workshop, to be held at the ICTP (Trieste, Italy) from May 6 to 8, 2013.

They introduce this Open Book, downloadable in low and high-resolution, as follows:

"Low-cost, three-dimensional (3D) desktop printing, although still in its infancy, is rapidly maturing, with seemingly unlimited potential. The hope is that this cutting-edge 3D technology will open new dimensions to science and education, and will make a marked impact in developing countries. This book gives a reasonable, first overview of current research on 3D printing. It aims to inspire curiosity and understanding in young scholars and new generations of scientists to motivate them to start building up their own 3D printing experiences and to explore the huge potential this technology provides –with the final goal of putting learning literally in their hands."

If you are looking for a 3D Printer, take a look on our Step-by-Step Guide.

Via and Source: ICTP

 

This wooden box is a wireless pinball controller and tablet stand. The idea is to set it on a workbench to give you some of the thrill of standing and playing the real thing. [Jeff] has been rather addicted to playing a pinball app on Android lately, and started the journey because he needed a way to give his thumbs some relief.

An Arduino monitors buttons on either side of this wooden controller. [Jeff] is new to working with hardware (he’s a Linux Kernel developer by trade) and was immediately struck with button debouncing issues. Rather than handle this in software (we’ve got a super-messy thread on that issue with our favorite at the bottom) he chose a hardware solution by building an SR latch out of two NAND gates.

With the inputs sorted out he added a BlueSMiRF board to the project which allowed him to connect a Nexus 7 tablet via Bluetooth. At this point he ran into some problems getting the device to respond to his control as if it were an external keyboard. His stop-gap solution was to switch to a Galaxy Tab 10.1 which wasn’t throwing cryptic errors. Hopefully he’ll fix this in the next iteration which will also include adding a plunger to launch the pinball, a part which just arrived in the mail as he was writing up this success.

Via: Hack a Day, Source: Fun with DC Circuits

 

 

Knock Knock is a clever Arduino-controlled calculator toy, designed for small children. The user knocks out a calculation on the surface — addition, multiplication, subtraction, or division — and Knock Knock will spit back the solution, in the form of knocks, of course. Created by Switzerland designer Khalil Klouche, Knock Knock is brought to life with an Arduino, contact microphones, and solenoids. It’s a fun idea for a toy, but good luck trying to use this in secret during a “no calculators” test at school!

Via: Make, Source: Makeshift

 

The new 3D Printer Kit includes all the hardware components needed to mount a 3D printer device from scratch, a step-by-step instruction guide and access to hands-on Build-It Workshops.

Destined for makers, hobbyists and DIY enthusiasts, the Cooking Hacks 3D Printer Kit includes professional online customer support for assembly and calibration.

The Cooking Hacks 3D Printer Kit is based on the latest Prusa iT3 open hardware design with components tested in the Libelium lab. With multi-voltage/frequency (220v/110v, 50/60Hz) capabilities, the, Kit has worldwide operability and includes:
- Electronics: motors, drivers, RAMPS to allow printing from an SD card, heated bed, end stop, Arduino Mega, thermistor (thermal resistor)
- Mechanics: standard hotend (extruder), bearings, fasteners, rods, belts, pulleys
- Structure: frame, plastic parts
- Tools for mounting

You can find the complete information in our Step by Step Guide.

Imagine, Print, Go!

Photographer and Instructables user Alexander Morris created a giant Instagram inspired photo-booth and published all the steps to make one yourself.

It’s the perfect solution to pimp-up your parties!

What’s inside of the box? An Arduino DUE coded to start the photo-booth sequence once the big red button is pressed and some other stuff.

You can start exploring the tutorial on Instructables and hopefully Alexander will soon share the code on github.

Via: Arduino Blog, Source: Alexander Morris

After several weeks, we have the e-Health Complete Kit ready to ship. When we launched our last release, e-Health Sensor Shield, we know the feedback of medical devices in the market, but the high demand of them forced us to work hard on this, hacking the e-Health sensors. Now it has come in stock and it is ready to be used with Arduino and the sensors you can find in the e-Health Complete Kit.

From its release, we have received several awards and we have been in the media like Wired or Postscapes. We have given several exhibitions and workshops, like the last one in TechShop Menlo Park, where you can purchase it in their local store (CA, USA).

Don't forget to read our full guide if you need more information about e-Health Sensor Platform. Learn how to use all sensors and our apps for iPhone and Android to monitor the patient easily.

Cooking Hacks will be in San Francisco, CA (USA) in May. In this case, we will attend the Maker Faire Bay Area (May 18 & 19) and we are preparing a great Hacking Week in TechShop to show how our platforms are used in the Internet of Things. From 17th to 23rd May, we will give workshops in TechShop Menlo Park, where many people know us already, and we will extend our visit with a Hack Weekend in TechShop San Jose. As the previous workshops, they will be attended by a high community of makers in the West Coast. Arduino, Waspmote, e-Health, GPRS and... many surprises!!! Take the opportunity to talk to Jorge and David, from Cooking Hacks Team, to know more about us.

Libelium's technology has been featured in Wired.com as one of ten mind-blowing, skill-building Raspberry Pi projects.

We must remind that you can buy some products from Cooking Hacks in TechShop Menlo Park and TechShop San Jose, including the Waspmote Starter Kit or even the e-Health Complete Sensor Kit

Calendar:

TechShop Menlo Park.

Click here to register for 3D Printer Cooking Hacks Presentation (May 17)

Click here to register for Waspmote Agriculture Kit Workshop (May 21)

Click here to register for Cooking Hacks 3D Printer Workshop (May 22-23)

TechShop San Jose.

Click here to register for Arduino & GPRS Workshop (May 25)

Click here to register for e-Health Sensor Platform for Arduino (exhibition) (May 25)

Click here to register for Waspmote: Open Source Sensor Platform for Developers (May 26)

Remember. We will attend

 

Via and Source: TechShop

 

One of the teams participating to the MIT Media Labs Design Innovation workshop at PESIT Bangalore last January built something called Beat Feet using Arduino Uno:

"We designed a system which will allow musicians, guitarists and keyboardists to set the beats according to the music they play, without getting up from their place or even without lifting their hands off the instrument! Yes, simply by tapping foot at a constant rate. Don’t believe it?"

Beat Feet allows musicians to add drum and guitar effects using only feet gestures and wearable sensors. Check the details of the project on this website and watch the video to see it in action!

Via: Arduino Blog, Source: Priyans Murarka