Came across a very neat article that I had to share. Some researchers at the university of washington ubicomp lab along with microsoft have come up with a system using microphones and sound along with the doppler effect to sense gestures and use for computer control.
its certainly worth a look
Spring is here and it’s a perfect time to construct a compost bin to help out you and the environment. This compost bin is a basic container - a box, round container, or some sort of container that does not come apart nor is it meant to move. It doesn’t have a bottom so you can turn the pile manually.
Benefits of composting
- Less trash.
- Make your own soil amendments.
- Improve the environment.
Examples of some activators
- Coffee grounds.
- Tea leaves.
- Manure (make sure it is sterilized in some manner.)
- Green yard waste.
- Some types of kitchen scraps (peels, cooked vegetables, spoiled fruite, etc.)
- Different types of bone meals.
- Finished compost.
Here are the steps for building your own compost from scrap wood.
Items needed:
scrap wood
circular saw
screws
tape measure
pencil
drill
2 hinges (if desired)
1. Measure the pieces of wood and scraps that you have and divide it by 4. This will give you the size of each side of your bin that you can build with your supplies. Keep in mind, you need a flat sheet of wood to make a lid. If you have wire, this can also be used for the walls, however we did not have any.
2. Our compost bin is going to be 28″ L x 28″ W x 48″ H. (Each side with 6 boards will be 168″(14′ of scrap wood). To build 4 compost walls, it wil take 672″(56′ of scrap wood)) The entire compost will take 1052″ (88′ of scrap wood). See our drawing below to see how this is calculated. You can always use less or more slats of wood for your compost, but be sure animals cannot get into it. The aroma and food scraps can lure in unwanted creatures. (wire can be used for wide slats).
Once you have the size of your compost ready to go, it’s time to begin measuring and cutting. Remember the rule, “Measure twice, cut once.” The first and second images show our 48″ corner posts assembled. The third image shows where we placed our screws.
3. We then measured our boards and cut 24 pieces at 28″ long. It doesn’t really matter what width the boards are because you can make any pattern or design you like. Ours are different widths.
4. Once you have your boards cut, now it’s time to lay out two corner posts (we did this on the ground) and create a pattern with your slats.
Do this to 2 sides, because you will then have to attached those two sides to the same corner post to make your bin come to life.
5. Once you are done attaching all 4 sides and creating your bin, we need to attach a lid. You can simply lay a piece of plywood on the top or you can attach it with hinges as we did. We just used old door hinges we had.
Once you make your decision on lid style you are ready to start composting! Here is our final bin.
DIY Upcycled Snow Globe Tutorial by iamthemandy.com
Making snow globes at home with old pickle, jam or mayonnaise jars is simple. No need to throw them away – you can make a holiday, or any day snow globe with items that can all be found in your home.
Here is what you need:
• Empty jar
• Super glue / epoxy
• Distilled water
• Glitter
• Knickknacks / figurines (I used dominoes, dice, scrabble tiles, stone and wooden beads) Try to get something that won’t rust.
• Glycerin
• Sandpaper (any grain size)
• Spray paint
• Newspaper / paper bag / cardboard
• Scissors
STEP 1:
Fill your choose jar with water and make sure it DOESN’T leak. (We learned from experience.)
STEP 2:
Select a jar and remove the lid. Grab your can of lid, spray paint, and newspaper scrap. Lay the lid on the newspaper (outdoors) and spray paint the outside of the lid. Let it dry. Once dry, flip the lid over. We do not want to get spray paint on the inside of the lid, so cut a circle (approximately) the size of the inner lid. Place the paper inside the lid, and spray paint the lip of the lid.
Find the rest of this tutorial at www.iamthemandy.com.
Upcycled Pillowcase Tote Tutorial by iamthemandy.com
This is the perfect DIY if you have tons of old, outdated or extra pillowcases laying around doing nothing in you linen closet. You can now turn them into totes for groceries, gift bags and the beach.
Here is what you will need:
• 1 Clean pillowcase ( over 27″ long if possible)
• Iron
• Thread
• Scissors
• Pins • Sewing machine
• Ruler or tape measure
• Pencil / pen / sharpie
• 1” Snap
STEP 1
Lay the pillowcase out flat on your work surface and/or cutting mat. Using your scissors, cut the hemmed end (the open one) off. You’ll want to cut as close to the stitching as possible without running into it. Set this long loop of fabric aside; it will be used to make your handles.
STEP 2
Trim the rest of the pillowcase so that it measures roughly 27” x 15 “. DON’T CUT FABRIC FROM ALL FOUR SIDES OF THE PILLOWCASE! If you need to trim the length, just cut more off from the side you already trimmed when cutting off the hem, and if you need to trim the width, make sure you only cut one side. When finished, you should have two open sides and two closed sides. If desired, fold both of the two smaller end in 1” and pin them. Stitch across the 15”. This will help your edges not ravel and these seems will be hidden inside the bag.
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View the rest of this tutorial online at www.iamthemandy.com.
$17.99 CYBER MONDAY ONLY!!!!!!!!!!
Yesterday Nest labs amazing new thermostat really blew up the web. Why shouldn’t it, its as simple and clean looking as an Ipod, I can’t remember anyone ever saying “wow cool thermostat” until yesterday. The fact is…it is cool and I’d like to hope its part of a new movement towards home automation thats going to take off in the near future. That 50′s house of the future is finally going to become a practical reality. I see this as one o the best ways for members of the DIY community to not only make products that help save energy but perhaps something that turns into a viable product.
The Nest labs thermostat looks good, its got a full color lcd, metal enclosure and a well designed user interface, but at heart its not too far off from many arduino based systems I’ve seen throughout the web. Sure they dont’ have the same user interface, fancy enclosure and the web interface doesn’t look as fancy, but nothing is stopping the DIY community from getting investors and taking their rough DIY concepts to the next level. A functional prototype and a proposed rendering go a long way when it comes to getting investors and a product that will save you enough money to eventually pay itself off is usually an easy sell, who can say no to…this looks cool, will make your life easier, and after a few years save you enough that it was free?
Sure this doesn’t look as nice, but there’s nothing stopping this from having a nice LCD screen and 3d printed housing. So I urge everyone to keep working on DIY projects, especially those that help others save money and energy and who knows maybe someday you’ll be able to take it to the next level like nest labs thermostat. Another product I’ve had my eye on was an arduino controlled hot water heater timer. This project uses a servo to turn down the gas on your hot water heater when you’re not home and really reduces the amount of gas used in a typical week. LINK
Got linked to this video by a friend. Traditional milling operations do not allow a squared hole to be drilled. you can get close but there will still be a radius the size of the bit’s radius. This machine however uses some sort of….well to be honest I don’t fully understand it yet. If i can figure it out exactly i’ll try to elaborate more on it
If you’re at all like me you enjoy listening to music while you work on projects, clean, pretty much while you do everything. Problem is that often leads to the amplifier getting left on for a lot longer than it needs to be. I found this great project on instructables showing how to make an arduino controller idle power sensor that will turn off your amplifier if no sound is detected for 5 mintues. This particular one uses IR and basically does the on/off command that the remote would normally send. Another option would be using a programmed relay setup as well.
Check out the full project link here
Sparkfun has a lot of cool parts for DIY electronics. I have picked up several things for arduino projects there and they always arrive quickly and in good shape. Thursday they posted a great project for a face tracking camera using arduino, a servo, a webcam and a few other parts. Check out the full build link here which is complete with code and step by step instructions
Parts List
I’m sure you saw the ads for the Phillips tv’s had with ambilight. If you aren’t familiar its basically a feature that has a small amount of colored light around the tv to correspond with whats on the tv. An example if there is a lot of red fire on your tv then it will have red lighting projecting onto your wall from behind the tv. Adafruit has a great tutorial of how to rig up a similar system for your computer using an Arduino, A strand of digital RGB pixels and a few other items. The system really works well and is even directional (blue light on the top right corner signals blue lights at the top right (when viewed from front) of the back of your screen. Please check out the full build link here
ADAlight demo from adafruit industries on Vimeo.