In progress: I have a big spider, and I want to rig it up on 2 spools so it can “crawl” all over the side of my garage or something.\u00a0 Kind of like this plotter<\/a>.\u00a0 And this one<\/a>. This one<\/a> too. Also this<\/a>. I probably need to know a bit about PID control<\/a> to do it, too. Maybe it should crawl around on a big EL-wire<\/a> web?\u00a0 And, of course, the spider will have glowing red LED eyes…8 of them!<\/p>\n Last year, I bought a motorized ghost thing that makes sounds & “flies” along a rope.\u00a0 Unfortunately, it’s sound activated, and has a pretty high threshold.\u00a0 I should modify this to either always be on, or to have a lower noise threshold.<\/p>\n I also got a cheap fog machine.\u00a0 The fog wouldn’t stay put very well, though.\u00a0 I should try to enclose my porch a little more to keep the fog in, and maybe run the fog over some ice (or dry ice) to see if it can be more like ground-clinging fog instead of haze.<\/p>\n Someday, I’d like to make some sort of Pepper’s Ghost illusion, and Jacob’s ladders are always cool!\u00a0 And this laser tornado thing<\/a> would be cool for a Mad Scientist lab!\u00a0 Eventually, my garage will probably turn into a haunted house type thing.<\/p>\n When we attach an iPod to the stereo, the “next” and “previous” buttons on the remote that would be used with the CD do nothing.\u00a0 I could build an iPod dock with an IR receiver that sends the appropriate commands to the iPod from the remote.\u00a0 And, you know, provide power & line-out for the iPod.\u00a0 Depending on the characteristics of the line-out, I might want some sort of preamp thing, too.<\/p>\n We always forget to turn off the stereo when the iPod finishes its playlist.\u00a0 I should make something so that the stereo turns off after some amount of time without any sound.<\/p>\n Similar to above, when the car’s radio is set to AUX input, the CH+\/- buttons do nothing. This post<\/a> shows someone listening in on the CAN bus of their car to determine when steering wheel buttons are pressed. (and maybe this one<\/a>, too, or this<\/a>…maybe info here too<\/a>)\u00a0 Then, I could control previous track & next track from the steering wheel!\u00a0 Of course, like above I’d also do line-out, power in & maybe preamp.<\/p>\n My city recently installed a “smart” power meter on my house.\u00a0 It looks like it has an IR data port on the front, so I’d like to figure out how to gather usage data from that.<\/p>\n It’d be really cool to put a current transformer on each circuit in my breaker box to gather per-circuit usage data.\u00a0 Really, some company needs to get their act together & make “smart” breakers.<\/p>\n So, I already have the PC set up with MythTV (need to update it, though) and XBMC…but it could be better.\u00a0 For instance, there’s a spare optical drive slot that I’m not using.\u00a0 I think it’s be cool to put an LCD in there that displays info about what’s playing…title, timestamp, time left, something like that. Inspiration here<\/a>.<\/p>\n I also have an IR remote for the PC that works decently well to control MythTV and XBMC, but every once in a while I need a real keyboard in XBMC.\u00a0 For instance, the remote doesn’t have a button for “C” to get a context menu, nor “W” to mark something watched.\u00a0 I don’t know if I can change this just by loading a new keymap or something…or if I need to roll-my-own IR receiver to decode the remote commands into custom keystrokes.\u00a0 If I do roll-my-own, this article about USB on AVR micro-controllers<\/a> might be useful.<\/p>\n This adapter<\/a> would be nice so I don’t drain batteries doing time-lapse photos.\u00a0 I also need to repair the wired remote shutter release that I have.\u00a0 Also, making an IR remote would be neat.<\/p>\n I’ve already done some, but more high-speed photography<\/a> would be fun, too.<\/p>\n I bought an old oscilloscope on eBay a while ago that needs some attention (the traces don’t center vertically).\u00a0 I might need to build a capacitance meter like this one<\/a>, or maybe an ESR meter to trace down the problem(s).<\/p>\n I have a bunch of NiMH batteries, but I don’t know what their capacities are any more.\u00a0 Something like this<\/a> could solve that!<\/p>\n I don’t know what I’d do with it, but this<\/a> would be pretty cool.<\/p>\n Again, no ideas for a project, yet, but it seems pretty neat<\/a>.<\/p>\niPod dock<\/h2>\n
Stereo Auto-off<\/h2>\n
Car iPod dock<\/h2>\n
Whole-home power monitor – easier<\/h2>\n
Whole-home power monitor – hard<\/h2>\n
Media Center PC<\/h2>\n
Camera<\/h2>\n
Oscilloscope<\/h2>\n
Rechargeable Batteries<\/h2>\n
Vacuum former<\/h2>\n
Electric Imp<\/h2>\n
Sterling Engine<\/h2>\n