Category Archives: Electronics

Multi-turret water cannon

Posted on July 26, 2012 by joat

I’ve been holding off on posting about this until I got some time to finish it up, but now seems like a good time since it was mentioned in a community blog post. I didn’t capture a proper video of … Continue reading →

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Speeding up LPD8806 show() without hardware SPI

Posted on January 17, 2012 by joat

If you’re using LPD8806 LED strips and you can’t use the hardware SPI port (e.g., when using an Ethernet board), there are two other options in the Adafruit library: the default mode and ‘slowmo’ mode. The default mode is decent, … Continue reading →

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Reducing code size on Arduino Ethernet boards

Posted on January 16, 2012 by joat

The Ethernet library grew in size several KB from 0022 to 1.0, which is a big deal when you only have 32 KB to play with. You can save about 2 KB by compiling out DNS support: Wrap the following … Continue reading →

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Faster Arduino development

Posted on January 16, 2012 by joat

I’ve been using Arduino boards for a bunch of random projects lately. They may not be as inexpensive or as small as throwing together a microcontroller and a resonator on a piece of perf board, but they’re a lot faster … Continue reading →

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Robotender Mk3

Posted on October 30, 2011 by joat

Finished Robotender Mk3 just in time for my halloween party (with literally minutes to spare). This one is a pretty radical departure from the previous designs, using a robotic arm instead of pressurized dispensing. I managed to pick up a … Continue reading →

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Infected Omen Light Box

Posted on September 20, 2011 by joat

I pulled an all-nighter and designed/fabricated a LED edge lighting box plus etched plate in advance of the Gears 3 launch. The original plan was to slide an unused junk android tablet in and show some numbers from the stats … Continue reading →

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555 compo results

Posted on April 29, 2011 by joat

I took 3rd place in the minimalist category of the 555 timer compo for my persistence of vision display. I’d also like to thank Allerta and CafeLogic for sponsoring the compo and the cool prizes (an iPulse watch and a … Continue reading →

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Glitchovision 3000

Posted on March 1, 2011 by joat

This is an audiovisual instrument that I created for the 555 timer contest. The Glitchovision 3000 is a 4 step sequencer controlling an ‘Atari Punk‘ synth with a greyscale NTSC video visualization of the output audio, built using two 558 … Continue reading →

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Persistence of vision display using only 555 timers

Posted on March 1, 2011 by joat

I created this display for the 555 timer contest, a compact art piece that cries out in appreciation of the venerable 555 timer. It’s a persistence of vision display formed by 7 blue leds and 3 NE555 timers, which spells … Continue reading →

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Robotender Mk. 1

Posted on September 8, 2009 by joat

Robotender is a robotic bartender. It can mix any quantity of 9 different liquids together to make a wide range of drinks. The touch screen allows a recipe and drink size to be selected and it will then be poured. … Continue reading →

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