PWM Fan Controller

Used Adafruit’s M0 feather proto board and their OLED feather wing to build a quick PWM fan contoller.  The M0 version was needed for the faster CPU to be able to drive the required PWM frequencies.  To be fair you can probably find a cheaper solution already built on the internet, but where’s the fun…read more

Hawk DIY Chassis v0.5

This project is do-it-yourself 3D printable chassis.  It is built around standard 2020 frame construction used in DIY 3D printers and CNCs.  The design files are available online at Thingaverse, thing:4297391.   Note, this is a derivative work, the 2020 beams are based on other designs.  The new parts were the brackets and panels.  Where possible…read more

Digital Scoreboard, Revisited

After almost a year sitting on the bench, we did some more work on the digital scoreboard.  After some paint, a bit of mechanical hacks and software bug fixes we have a working scoreboard.  It can be controlled from smartphone or even smartwatch using BluetoothLE.  It runs off 4 D-cell batteries, DC adapter or USB…read more

Water Meter 1.1

There was an Arduino Yun sitting around that needed a home so we adapted our water meter to this powerful little network board.  It’s unfortunatel that the Yun is discontinued as it’s really a good fit for this type of project.  It can be powered from ethernet, PoE.  And being able to get to the…read more

Cubic Revisited

WORK IN PROGRESS Cubic is a robot project that is making slow progress.  It’s been an experiment putting some different projects together.  It has two robot arms built with a mix of Dynamixel AX-12A and XL-320 servos and controlled with a OpenCM board.  The base is a Sainsmart robot tracks kit.  The motors are currently…read more

Pocket PiGRRL

We made one of the Adafruit’s Pocket PiGRRL kits.  It’s a really rewarding project, however it does involve a significant  amount of soldering.  When done you are treated to having an awesome handheld game platform. For more information see Adafruit’s website. Pocket PiGRRL (https://learn.adafruit.com/pocket-pigrrl/overview)  

AIY Vision Kit

Had a good unboxing experience with Google’s AIY Vision Kit. https://aiyprojects.withgoogle.com/ The project uses a board with the Movius artificial intelligence coprocessor connected to a Raspberry Pi Zero W. The camera images are processor using their TensorFlow framework to recognize the emotions on faces. Very simple kit to get going with a lot of amazing…read more

Wall-E Display

Used Adafruit’s Feather TFT to create a replica WALL-E display module.  

Labnation’s Smartscope

Doing some I2C debug on an Arduino and OpenCM9.04c boards. Loving Labnation’s smartscope that plugs into a PC/tablet https://www.lab-nation.com/  

Digital Scoreboard

This is a prototype of a digital scoreboard. It’s uses several 8×5 NeoPixel matrixes from Adafruit.  The Arduino Uno is used to provide a game time and scores which is controlled by phone via Bluetooth.  It’s definitely an early version which needs polish and cost reduction, but good for the backyard basketball hoop.    

Water Meter

The project displays the water usage for a lawn irrigation system.  Our new landscaping uses a Rachio Pro smart irrigation system (http://rachio.com/pro).  The system is very useful and has a smart phone interface that includes a display of the water usage.  This water usage is an estimate based on the time the sprinklers are on and…read more

URC#3 – Sumobot Contest

Thanks for all those that attended the third sumo bot contest, aka Ultimate Robot Competition. For the second time in three events Team Half Moon Bay is the overall winner. Round 1: Stickers def. Skullcrusher Discord def. Ultra Robo Robro def. Wall-E Blue def. Dance Goldilocks def. Green Screen Round 2: Discord def. Stickers Robro def….read more

Pololu Zumobot Overview

We’ve had several people ask us about our favorite sumobot by the folks at Pololu.  Although they sell models that are fully assembled we prefer to build ours from their kit.  Here’s an overview of what we use. What is a Zumobot: Pololu makes kit, called Zumobot, that combines an Arduino shield with a small…read more

Stickers Gets a New Display

The zumobot we call stickers, seen below on the left, used to have a little OLED display on it. However that got re-purposed for another project. So it’s been driving around with four wires hanging out the back. After the latest upgrade the wires are now connected to a 0.96″ 128×64 monochorme OLED.  The display from…read more

RC controlled WALL-E zumobot

This is a combination of two 3D projects from thingiverse to create a WALL-E skin for Pololu’s zumobot.   The RCControl code from Pololu worked without any code modification.  The servo for WALL-E head is connected directly to the RC receiver so no code is required.  The SR04 sensor is not hooked up but just…read more

RC controlling robot arm and Arduino Uno

Connecting a RC controller to a robot arm can make controlling it easy and fun.   For this project I used a Ironnik KA-6 transmitter and receiver combo.  There are other combos that are significantly less expense, but this is a nice quality unit that was available at my local hobby shop. https://www.hobbytown.com/ka6-6channel-transmitter-receiver-hitec-red-mode-2-by-ikonnik-knna1000/p501569 This is a…read more

Meet the Sumo bots!

COMMENT DOWN BELOW WHICH ROBOT IS YOUR FAVORITERobot name: The winner                  Robot maker: Kate Robot name: Darthvader          Robot maker: Jeff Robot name: Stickers         Robot maker: Jeff and Lily Robot name: Champion         Robot maker: Lily Robot…read more

URC#2 – Sumo Bot Contest

Thanks for all those that attended the sumo bot contest.  The new champion is the robot “The Fastest” from Team Mountain View. Round 1: The Fastest def. Stickers MicroRobot def. Champion Lightning(1) def. Flames Lightning(2) def. The Winner Round 2: The Fastest def. MicroRobot Lightning(1) def. Lightning(2) Finals: The Fastest def. Lightning(1)   End of…read more

SumoBot Clinic

We ran a small SumoBot clinic for some elementary kids.  In Silicon Valley style it was out of our garage.  In the course of two hours they assembled their robots, which included some soldering.  The pizza and other fun distractions limited the amount of hands on programming time.  We did get all the Arduino software…read more

URC#1 – Sumo Bot Contest

The first SumoBot contest was held over the weekend, aka URC#1 (ulitmate robot championship).  It was a strong showing from Team Half Moon Bay which had only one loss all day and won the tournament.  Much was learned by the contestants which promises to make an even more competitive event in July. Thanks for those…read more