All posts by Windell Oskay

About Windell Oskay

Co-founder of Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories.

Tales from the Auxiliary

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The Evil Mad Science Auxiliary is a public group on Flickr for anyone to add photos that are (at least marginally) related to posts and projects from Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories.
Lately some fantastic photos and projects have shown up in the group, so we thought that we should stop and round up a few– not all– of the great things that we’ve seen there.

The photos below were taken by their respective owners; click on the individual photos to get the full story.

DSC_2180

 

A dark detector built by cyenobite, using a tiny battery holder.

 

Joule Thief 1

 

 

 

Beautiful Joule Thief light by Jimmie Rodgers

 

 

 

Rewired 16seg POV display: Shift registers!   

Adam Greig has been having fun with AlphaPOV. (Results here.)

 

Macro shots with light ring   Bristlebot version IIBristlebot version II   Cheapest bot on Earth

Francesco (Flickr user fdecomite) made this amazing army of BristleBots, photographed with the help of his spiffy LED ring light. He even made some excellent videos of the little guys in action.

 

LED arrays   Homebrew toy blaster effects
progress

Steve Lodefink has been busy building up this set of electronics for an extra-spiffy handlheld blaster. Based on 555 and 4017 chips, it has some elements in common with our little cylon circuit. I can’t wait to see what it looks like when it’s done!

 

SP_A0133   SP_A0130SP_A0112

Channon (Flickr user plik the geek) is building up one of our interactive LED kits.

He also decorated his office printer with an overly honest label. (Coincidentally, we also did this to our own office printer.)

 

 

Finished circuits!

Speaking of interactive LED kits, A Oli Wood contributed this fabulous time exposure of his completed circuit.

So… If you’ve got pictures or projects that were in some way inspired by our projects, we would as always love to see them in the Auxiliary. And to everyone who has contributed, thanks for your cool pictures!

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Linkdump: January 2008

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One Hundred Percent EDIBLE Googly Eyes!

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Nilla is watching you.Googly FSM
After more than a year of painstaking directed research by our Experimental Foods Division, we have finally achieved one of our most important longstanding goals: the production of edible googly eyes. Like many other great inventions, it seems almost simple in retrospect, but in this write up we walk through the process and show you how to make your own.
Continue reading One Hundred Percent EDIBLE Googly Eyes! →

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How to organize your Lego bricks for efficient building

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Messy Lego

If you spend any time at all with Lego, then the sight above is probably a familiar one: a giant bin full of assorted Lego bricks and parts. As a kid, this was about the pinnacle of my organizational skills (hey, they’re in a box, right?) but I’m sure that in aggregate I wasted several years of my life pawing through boxes like this trying to find the next piece that I needed.

Twenty years later I have Lego again, but much less tolerance for digging through piles. So how can we make things better? In this article we show off some of the tricks that we use to keep our stacks organized, so that we can spend our Lego time building efficiently, not looking for bricks. (Warning: article is image heavy!)
Continue reading How to organize your Lego bricks for efficient building →

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Bristlebot: A tiny directional vibrobot

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Enterprise

The BristleBot is a simple and tiny robot with an agenda. The ingredients? One toothbrush, a battery, and a pager motor. The result? Serious fun.
(YouTube video here.)

The BristleBot is our take on the popular vibrobot, a simple category of robot that is controlled by a single vibrating (eccentric) motor. Some neat varieties include the mint-tin version as seen in Make Magazine (check the video), and the kid’s art bot: a vibrobot with pens for feet.
Continue reading Bristlebot: A tiny directional vibrobot →

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Last minute Evil Mad Shopping and Projects

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Lit up segments spell out the letter M   Segments visible

Time to make some LED Micro-Readerboards as ornaments for your tree this year? Watch the short video introduction to see what they do: display a message one character at a time.

This is one of the open-source holiday electronics projects that we released last year. Our up-to-date build instruction are here, including source code. We also have an FAQ about this project, a page of technical data about it, and a discussion forum if you need help with it. The version 2.0 kits (which are still available at the Make Store) use a seriously awesome ultra-high brightness, deep red 16-segment alphanumeric display for long battery life.

As of today, you can also buy the LED displays alone– just the thing for your own custom microcontroller project, alphapov display, name tag, or ornament.

[Product Page]

Jellybean versus the mechanical mouse
Next, the Interactive LED Panel Kits (as seen in the interactive LED coffee tables that we designed with Because We Can) now come with these beautiful black printed circuit boards. Pictured above, JellyBean combats a mechanical mouse on a table made with a special-order kit that has all green LEDs.

Quite a few of these tables have now been built and there’s even a new instructable from Deadly Computer about the process of building one. During the past month we’ve slowly caught up with the huge waiting list to get a kit, so it’s much easier to get one now. We have even made up some extras of the most popular kit combinations (8 panel with all blue LEDs or blue + white LEDs), which are available in stock to buy right now, shipped to arrive before Christmas to US addresses.

[Product Page]


bugStickers

Finally, we have some new multipurpose stickers for sale. Quite possibly the best gift in the world for the software developer in your life.

“These handy stickers will increase the visual appeal of many different items. If you happen to take them to any big box electronics stores, please bring your camera and post pictures in the Evil Mad Science Auxiliary.” We’re waiting for those action shots.

[Product Page]

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A Simple and Cheap Dark-Detecting LED Circuit

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Components   Complete

Stupidly bright.

Here’s a simple problem: “How do you make an LED turn on when it gets dark?” You might call it the “nightlight problem,” but the same sort of question comes up in a lot of familiar situations– emergency lights, street lights, silly computer keyboard backlights, and the list goes on.

Solutions? Lots. The time-honored tradition is to use a circuit with a CdS photoresistor, sometimes called a photocell or LDR, for “light-dependent resistor.” (Circuit Example 1, Example 2.) Photoresistors are reliable and cost about $1 each, but are going away because they contain cadmium, a toxic heavy metal whose use is increasingly regulated. There are many other solutions as well. Look here for some op-amp based photodetector circuits with LED output, and check out some of the tricks used in well-designed solar garden lights, which include gems like using the solar cell itself as the sensor. (Our own solar circuit collection is here.)

In this article we show how to build a very simple– perhaps even the simplest– darkness-activated LED circuit. To our LED and battery we add just three components, which cost less than thirty cents altogether (and much less if you buy in bulk). You can build it in less than five minutes or less (much less with practice).

What can you do with such an inexpensive light-controlled LED circuit? Almost anything really. But, one fun application is to make LED throwies that turn themselves off in the daytime to save power. Throwies normally can last up to two weeks. Adding a light-level switch like this can significantly extend their lifetime.

Continue reading A Simple and Cheap Dark-Detecting LED Circuit →

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December Quickie Linkdump

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Holiday gifts, some math fun, and the usual weirdness.

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