Hasta La Gadget!

Sure, Red Bull may have gotten a lot of attention by sponsoring Felix Baumgartner’s space dive, but it’s not the only beverage-maker that has made some great accomplishments possible. The Prague-based brewery Staropramen was a sponsor at the recent Webstock 2012 conference, where the folks from Robofun Create showed off this so-called Beer Keyboard built with the brewer’s backing. As you can see, it’s more beer than keyboard, with 40 cans of Staropramen serving as “keys” that just need to be gently pressed to input a letter. To make that actually work, Robofun paired an Arduino board with some capacitive controllers for the base, and connected that to a Raspberry Pi that linked the keyboard to the TV. Unconfirmed reports suggest that the keyboard has since gone missing. Head on past the break for a video.

Continue reading Beer Keyboard combines Arduino and Raspberry Pi… and beer

Filed under: Peripherals

Beer Keyboard combines Arduino and Raspberry Pi… and beer originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 16 Oct 2012 20:36:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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In July this year, we covered a story on how security researcher Cody Brocious managed to unlock the doors of some 4 million hotel rooms using an Arduino microcontroller and some programming magic, affecting Onity’s range of electronic locks. Well, it has taken just two months after this apparent flaw had gone public for other hackers to continue where Brocious left off, improving not only the success rate, but also shrunk down the unlocker into parts that are small enough to fit into your regular dry erase marker.

Watch the video above and be afraid – be very afraid. It has been refined to such a state where there are no dangling bits that come out of the marker, with a tip that looks totally normal sans any wires. All you need to do is touch the tip of the market to the door port, and you would have gained entry without mentioning a secret password.

It is rather discouraging to see Onity’s rather underwhelming response to this particular issue to date. One thing’s for sure, the name Onity will no longer be at the top of the list for hotel security worldwide. Well, since people did comment on the earlier story in July, asking for a video as proof, perhaps the video above might quell one’s doubts once and for all.

By Ubergizmo. Related articles: Self-watering plants make holiday planning easier, Arduino motion-activated sprinkler makes one good heck of a yard defense system,

If you really enjoy making your own projects using Arduino, EarthMake has a new product that you may appreciate. The device is called the ArduinoLCD and as the name implies it is an LCD screen designed to use in your DIY Arduino projects. The device has an all-in-one modular design with a 3.5-inch color LCD that supports touch control.

It has an integrated 16-bit GPU and a mounting bracket as well. The display uses the EarthSEMPL programming language to allow users to design custom macros, graphical objects, fonts, and images. That easy-to-use programming language makes designing the user interface quick and easy.

The 3.5-inch LCD has a resolution of 320 x 240 and supports 65,000 colors. The screen has a brightness rating of 250 nit and supports resistive touch technology. The 16-bit GPU has 4 MB of flash memory and offers USB 2.0 and Arduino Shield interfaces.

The display operates on 6 to 9 volts of power and draws less than 200 mA. The display operates the temperature range of -20 to 60°C. For a limited time, the display is available for $79 it should make for an easy-to-use integrated display for many DIY projects.

ArduinoLCD for DIY mods breaks cover is written by Shane McGlaun & originally posted on SlashGear.
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We’ve featured some mechanical versions of arcade games in the past, but I think this is my new favorite. That’s because this real-world version of Donkey Kong is actually controlled by an NES gamepad. That just makes it that much more awesome.

Builder Martin Raynsford built this Arduino-controlled analog version of the arcade classic using a bunch of laser-cut wood parts, and a mechanism that fires a barrage of ball bearings down the ramps in lieu of tiny flaming barrels. And since the balls are magnetic, they stop Jumpman in his tracks if he fails to jump over them.

As you can see in the video clip below, the game is still a work-in-progress, as Jumpman is just hanging out in the middle of the game field and can’t really move around yet. But Raynford’s goal is to make the game fully-functional with time, and I’m looking forward to seeing the finished product, which he plans on showing off at next year’s UK Maker Faire. I’m curious to know how he’ll pull off the barrel-smashing sledgehammer.

You can check out more details of the build and mechanism over on Martin’s blog.

[via Kotaku via Engadget]

Have you played Minecraft so much that sometimes you see the world in voxels? This isn’t one of those times. The blocks below are real and even react to being hit by a pickaxe, thanks to the clever work of creative technologist Ben Purdy.

Purdy installed piezoelectric sensors on the cardboard boxes to detect force, i.e. when the boxes are hit. An Arduino microcontroller sends input from the sensors to a computer, which then uses a program written by Purdy to produce the appropriate animation. Finally, the animation is beamed to the paper-covered boxes via two projectors.

You can check out a cleaner video of the Minecraft block on Purdy’s website. I wonder if its possible to use this tech to create an interactive Punch Out! game this way.

[via Kotaku]