Thing a Day 28: Loud Noises

As somewhat of an iteration of the 555 servo, I decided to make loud noises.

By adding an adjustable sound impact sensor and another 555 timer in bistable mode, I was able to make the fancy cardboard arm of the servo move clockwise when the sensor heard a loud noise and move counterclockwise when I pressed the reset button.

That's really all there is to it. =) I've never worked with a microphone in an analog circuit, so this was very new -- and fortunately quite easy. It turns out that dividing your circuit into independent manageable chunks (like code!) is a Good Thing.

Thing a Day 27: A Little Pushback

Usually I have a clear idea of what I could do with a Thing that I build. Not so much with this one.

It's still cool, though.

What I accomplished, though, is attaching a flex sensor to a motor. When you flex the sensor, the motor reacts by jamming itself toward your hand -- usually bending the sensor some more, which makes the motor shove forward even more.

Fortunately for my hand, the entire setup is pretty shaky. Cardboard arm attached to a nylon motor arm with a piece of crimped wire, gently held in a vice so I don't crush the entire thing.. Also, the motor stops pushing if you stop flexing the sensor. Maybe that means that the sensor should be called a flexing sensor.

Anyway, I like it. If you poke the sensor just right, it flips out. If you poke it gently or too roughly, it'll twitch a little. Just like -- wait, what?

Thing a Day 26: Violence and Robotics

For today's thing, I decided to get a motor to whack paper out of the way of a light sensor.

First off, I should give credit to the source. Over on the YouTubes, roboanalogtom put together a wonderful video on analog electronics, which includes a ton of rapid fire schematics and projects that can be done. I ended up sticking with the first one, which is simply making a servo motor responsive to light.

In the first part of the video, you can see me waving my hand and finger over a small light sensor on the breadboard. Each time I do that, shadow falls on the sensor, and the fancy pants cardboard arm of the servo moves.

When I move the cardboard arm over the light sensor, I get a nifty feedback loop: shadow falls over the sensor, which triggers the movement of the arm, which removes the shadow, so the arm moves back, so shadow falls over the sensor, which... If I put an intermediary between the cardboard arm and the light, I get a niftier effect: the cardboard arm will whack things out of the way when they cast a shadow over the sensor.

Violence and robotics -- what could ever go wrong?

Thing a Day 25: Homemade Lockpick Part 2

And so it continues.

As soon as I got home, I busted out the tungsten carbide bit and Dremel and started shaping the pick. I figured that if I could the loud noises out of the way earlier on in the day, I'd be less of an inconvenience to my neighbor.

Of course, I've never even seen the person in the apartment above me, so I have no idea if they're raging about my noisiness or completely ignorant of it. What I do know is that the pick is coming along nicely. I managed to get the inner curve of the pick well shaped with the carbide bit in a short amount of time, which gave me a comfortable amount of time to try polishing the sharp and rough edges. A bit of high speed sanding and some polishing with 600-grit sandpaper gave it quite the smooth finish.

One problem: Metal. Bits. Everywhere. None of the material I removed came off in a clean chunk; it sprayed off as tiny bits of sharp metal. I had to scrub my arms as soon as I was done, else the metal dust between my fingers would've driven me crazy.

Thing a Day 24: Homemade Lockpicks

We've got a rude one!

After yesterday's fun picking that horridly cheap lock, I decided that I wanted to try something I never had the chance to: make my own pick. I'm not really at the point where I need more picks, but it's an interesting challenge -- and one that create pretty sparks.

After a trip to Lowe's, the first step was to heat treat the hacksaw blade so it'd be more workable. In order to do this, I needed to heat the blade quite a bit, and then let it cool slowly to room temperature. In letting the blade cool slowly (the slower the better,) you end up with a larger crystal grain in the metal -- which means the metal is softer and more workable. All of that meant that I was crouching on my porch with a propane torch, repeatedly heating the blade until it glowed red. This had the side effect of burning the paint off, which was convenient, given that I'm not sure how it would've interacted with the Dremel.

Speaking of Dremel, I next had to cut the 12" blade into two 6" blades. Unfortunately, as soon as I spun the tungsten carbide cutting bit up to 20,000 RPM, I realized that this wasn't going to be quiet.. And my worries were confirmed.

Cutting metal in my spare bedroom probably isn't too nice to the neighbors, which is why I only progressed to gently shaping the pick end. When I next work on this project, I'm going to have to pick a very polite time of day and restrict the amount of shaping I do. Sooner or later, though, I'm going to have a new lockpick.

Thing a Day 23: Quick (Very Quick) and Dirty Lockpicking

For today's trick, I will pick a cheap lock three times in 45 seconds. No, really.

It's been almost half a year since I've held a lockpick in my hands, so it feels good to use them again. Unfortunately, I was a beginner half a year ago, so I'm nearly retarded today. Fortunately, half a year ago, I bought a horrendously cheap lock that will at least boost my confidence.

As evidenced by the fact that I picked it three times in 45 seconds.

It's worth mentioning, however, that the technique I'm using to pick this lock is called raking. Raking is somewhat like the brute forcing of lock picking. You might accomplish something, but you won't learn as much, and it definitely won't be that easy on a better lock. It is a skill that's useful, though -- and I've noticed that my raking skills improved on the cheapy lock as I practiced.

Thing a Day 22: A Wikipedia Article

Articles for Creation: Limor Fried

Given that I play with electronics a lot, I follow a few sources online for information. One of them, adafruit.com, has been a great resource for tutorials, kits, and a handy Saturday night Ask an Engineer show.

When I found out today that she received the award of being one of Fast Company's 2011 Most Influential Women in Tech, I popped over to her Wikipedia article, and found.. Nothing. There were a couple of references on other Wikipedia pages, but no real bio.

So I created one. I've done minor editing on Wikipedia before, but I've never been bold. After some research, I was able to whip together a framework with some references and a brief outline. Hopefully it's a good template that it can be expanded and turned into an article. And if not, hopefully I'll get enough feedback from Wikipedia that I'll know more next time I need to create a Wikipedia article.