This DIY boombox was made by Matt Keeter using laser-cut plywood. It plays MP3 files from an SD card, plugged into a small custom circuit board powered by an Atmega328 chip. As a bonus, it looks like a bit like a wooden TIE Fighter with a handle.

The boombox features five touch controls and is powered by just a single 9V battery. This thing will be light as a feather compared to it’s predecessors. I don’t think it will run very long on a 9-volt though. It’s a pretty good looking boombox if you ask me.

If you’d like to build your own, full build instructions, source code and schematics are available here, and it should cost about $100 in parts.

[via Designbuzz]

Similarly to the Arduino Mega ADK board, the Electric Sheep board will connect to your Android device using the Open Accessory protocol and that gives you access to the phone’s functions. You can use the board to tie the phone to just about anything electronic or mechanical you can dream up, then control it from your phone. The board has an ATMEGA2560-16AU microcontroller on it and a pre-loaded Mega 2560 bootloader. It has an onboard USB host header for connecting your Android gadgets, and can control devices without having to write any Java code – when used in concert with HandBag for Android.

The Electric Sheep board is available now for $79.95 (USD) over at SparkFun.

The picture doesn’t come shooting out the front of Roy’s creation as soon as you hit the shutter. His camera prints the photo line-by-line, and takes three minutes to finish. To make the wait even more agonizing, the camera has no memory, so the subject has to stand still for three minutes for the shot to work. Three minutes is an eternity when you have to be still.

The camera was made using an old black-and-white video camera. The camera is attached via an ATmega8 microcontroller to a dot-matrix roll printer like you would normally find printing receipts at the store. The prints are then output onto the cheap receipt paper.

It’s a cool concept and all, but give the thing some storage and I’ll like it better.

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

[via Make: via Petapixel]

Cooked up by Randy Sarafan, the Lunchtime Clock is designed to automatically speed up by 20% at 11:00am every day, then slow down by another 20% at 11:48am. It then gradually rights itself up until 1:00pm. All told, you end up with an extra 12 minutes of quality time for yourself – isn’t that nice? With a 5 day work week, and 2 weeks vacation, that’s 50 hours of your life back every year.

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

The hack uses an Adafruit real-time clock kit, and an ATMEGA168/Arduino controller to work its magic. You can grab the full plans for making your own Lunchtime Clock over at Instructables. If you boss finds out, just invite him/her to enjoy an extra lunchtime martini for themselves.

[via Hack A Day via The Daily What]

Developed by CreateDigitalMusic and Reflex, the open-source MeeBlip comes in kit form, but since all the parts are pre-soldered onto the board, it only takes a few minutes to assemble. Once put together, you can connect it to a MIDI keyboard or other controller, and crank out bleeps, beeps and beats.

The synthesizer is digital and supports virtual analog modeling too. But it is monophonic, meaning you can only play one note at a time. While that might be a limitation for using it as a stand-alone instrument, you certainly can create some interesting sounds for use in backing tracks and basslines if you’re creative. And the guys have open sourced the entire thing, so you’re encouraged to rip it apart, make modifications, and even release your own version if you want (assuming you give credit to the original project, of course).

Here are a couple of demo clips produced with the MeeBlip:

From those sounds, if DEVO is working on a new album, they might want to pick up a few of these for the studio. If you’re interested in grabbing a MeeBlip for yourself, head on over to their website where you can order one for $129 (USD). Full specs can be found here.

Dotklok is Arduino-powered, and has a bright 24×16 pixel LED screen that allows you to see the time clearly behind its laser-cut acrylic face. In its random mode, the clock switches to different animations each day at midnight.

Out-of-the-box animations include percentage of the day that has passed, random dots, and a PONG clock among others. A fill list of animations can be found here.

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

DOTKLOK can be purchased as a kit or fully assembled. You can find it over at Andrew O’Malley’s Etsy shop in the following configurations:

• Dotklok Red / Kit ($150)
• Dotklok Red / Assembled ($200)
• Dotklok Green / Kit ($150)
• Dotklok Green / Assembled ($200)

[via Geek Alerts]

Priced at just $89.99 (USD), the DFRobotShop Rover is an Arduino-compatible (ATMEga 328-based) robot that runs on treads like a tank. The compact kit gives your everything your need to get started, including the assembled circuit board, robot frame hardware, and a Tamiya motor gear box and tread and wheel set. The robot is powerful enough to carry a payload of 2kg (appx. 4.4 pounds) without any problem.

All you need is to grab the Arduino programming software, hook up a MiniB USB cable, and some AA batteries, and you’ll be able to build your own robot tank army on a budget. Maybe the government should buy some of these to do menial tasks.

You can get your hands on the DFRobotShop Rover kit as well as a variety of accessories over at RobotShop now.

[via GoRobotics]

Created by Linus Akesson, the Chipophone has the looks of an old organ, but the brains needed to crank out awesome 8-bit sounds for live chiptune performances. Linus ripped out all of the original tone-generators and wired up keys via a bunch of 74HC165 chips, daisy-chained together to an Atmega88 controller chip. He also wired up the knob potentiometers to the microcontroller’s analog inputs.

In turn, the microcontroller generates MIDI signals which are sent to another Atmega88 chip which produces 8-bit sounds. Here’s Linus showing off his wondrous musical creation:

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

What chiptune video would be complete without a performance of the Super Mario Bros. theme?

[via Synthopia]

The Humane Reader is designed to provide computer technology to homes or schools without internet access or the budget for traditional PCs or Macs. The 8-bit computer can turn any television into an e-Book/Wikipedia reader. As a matter of fact, its makers say you could store 5,000 books or more on a single 2GB SD card (included in the $20 cost). The creators of the Humane Reader state their value proposition simply: “The Humane Reader can provide a virtual library to any developing world school or individual with electrical power for less than the cost of a single textbook.”

Based on the Atmega328p microcontroller (there are actually three of them in there), the open source Humane Reader can be loaded up with educational content via USB, and it can display output on any video display with composite input. Basic control can be achieved through buttons on the face of the device, but a keyboard can be connected with an optional USB or PS/2 port. As an added bonus, its creators are hoping the computing platform will become an easily extensible and hackable general platform for developing low-cost applications and systems.

Sure, the television and keyboard will add a little bit to the cost of this system, but it’s still a pretty amazing feat to pull this off for just $20 bucks. In fact, they estimate that in quantities of 10,000 or more, they could get the cost down to under $15 per system.

You can find out more about the Humane Reader here.

[via Make:]

By default, the Monochron can not only display the time – and a game of Pong that will literally go on until the end of time –  but the date and year as well. It can also be used as an alarm clock, and the contrast of the LCD is adjustable. If your modding and hacking skills go way beyond basic soldering, you’ll be happy to know that it’s made to be “easily hackable”.

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

You can get the Monochron kit at Adafruit Industries’ online store for $80 (USD).

[via Retro Thing]

Codeninja built this device using a Nerf N-Strike Recon CS-6 loaded up with a 0.6 kilojoule camera flash driving a 50-turn copper spool. Now I have no idea how that works, but it sure sounds nasty. Also under the hood is an MP3 player with a 2-watt amplifier and speaker to crank out some good destructo sounds when the RFID eraser is engaged. As an added bonus, the Rfiddler momentarily blinds those who stand in front of it with a bright flash.

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

Apparently, it’s also strong enough to kill many USB flash drives. Given the way this thing works, I wouldn’t aim it at your credit cards, hard drives (or the cat) either.

[via Hack A Day]

Polish modder mb1988 built this hard drive clock uses the old persistence-of-vision (POV) illusion, which display phantom “hands” on the face of the spinning drive platter. A set of colorful LEDs encircle the platter, blinking rapidly to illuminate the current time on a slot cut into the face of the platter. An ATMEGA128 microcontroller under the hood that makes the lights blink at precisely the right moment to create the illusion. There’s even a remote control that lets mb change the colors and effects on demand. But what makes this clock design really special is the incredibly detailed and evocative etching under the clock’s Plexiglas face.

You can check out the entire build log and schematics (Polish/machine translated) over on Elektroda. Don’t understand how it works? Check out the video below to see the clock in action:

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

[via Hacked Gadgets]

Kokes used “a reference design board containing a Nemerix GPS with an Atmel ATMEGA324 micro-controller” for his hack. He said that the hardware part of his project “is not at all that complex”, but then again he’s an engineer. The software portion, on the other hand, turned out to be a beast of a challenge, as he had to write a screen driver to display the information on the iPod.

Kokes also said that the device he’s working on will not work with touchscreen iPods – and Shuffles of course, because they have no screen at all.

I’ll stop here and direct you to Kokes’ website for more details, because honestly this is all nosebleeding-wizardry to me.

P.S. if you want to post about Kokes’ project or link to his site, he requests that you email him as well, just so he knows.

[via Navigadget]

The AREXX YT-3000 (aka “YETi Walker”) is a bi-pedal robot which can be programmed using your PC or an remote-controlled via an IR interface. It’s powered by an ATMEGA8 microcontrolller, which can be easily programmed in C to do your bidding.

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

In its basic configuration, the YETi is a simple walking machine, but can be expanded with additional sensors and modules such as an ultrasonic obstacle detector and an external LED display.

The basic YETi Walker kit is available from TheRobotShop for £69.99 (appx. $114 USD).