#Sensor
34 postsGlitch in the CounterProductive Button – June 28 to July 4
The CounterProductive button went offline June 28 to July 4, 2025 after a WiFi and MQTT failure, and version 5 adds a backup server.
Read postIdea 079 - Gorilla water quality monitoring device
A $10-20 citizen science sensor for streams that logs several data points to flag unusual water quality.
Read postIdea 075 - Birdnet festival mesh network
A festival mesh network of birdhouses that pass messages to each other with ultrasonic bird chirps.
Read postIdea 072 - Reminders for basic body needs
A sensor that reminds you to eat, drink and move when deep focus makes you forget your body.
Read postIdea 071 - Levitating 3D Mouse
A 3D mouse for CAD that is a magnetically levitated cube with a 9-axis motion sensor inside.
Read postIdea 069 - One Liners
A dump of 36 throwaway one-line ideas, posted on idea day 69 to clear the backlog.
Read postIdea 066 - Tilt Pacman
A one-pixel Pac-Man on an RGB LED matrix, steered by tilting an accelerometer.
Read postIdea 062 - Music festival dancing painting robotic marionettes in a million parts
A robotic marionette that listens to a music festival and turns the sound into generative artworks, one per slice of time.
Read postIdea 050 - Tessellating Illuminated Origami Wall Sculpture
An interactive origami tessellation wall sculpture with an individually addressable RGB LED in each cell.
Read postIdea 048 - The beat of the crowd - badge
A small six-LED badge that broadcasts a Bluetooth beacon every second and pulses faster as more badges come near.
Read postIdea 044 - Bio Punk Conference badge
A conference badge with an animated electronic pet whose DNA mixes with another badge's pet when the two are connected.
Read postIdea 043 - BACnet MSTP Testing conference Badge
A sub-$10 conference badge for BACnet plugfest that works as both a BACnet server and client for testing equipment.
Read postIdea 029 - SproutSwipe
Idea: an app that uses phone sensors to list plants suited to a space, then shows them in augmented reality, like a dating app for plants.
Read postIdea 023 - Light painting rod
Idea: a programmable strip of LEDs mounted on a rod for light painting photos.
Read postIdea 004 - Universal Serial breakout board
Idea: a USB to serial board that supports TTL 3.3V and 5V, RS232, and RS485 2-wire and 4-wire, with DB9, DB25 and screw terminals.
Read postIdea 002 - Keyboard Flute
Idea: an electronic flute PCB the size of a ruler with hot-swappable keyboard switches, a MEMS mic for breath control, and an ESP32.
Read postTrip to Shenzhen 2018
Two days at the Huaqiang Road markets in Shenzhen and the pile of LED strips, switches, and Pi cases brought home.
Read postNotes from May 2017
May 2017 links: ESP32 sniffers, a giant laser-cut Bulbasaur, an 8-bit computer from scratch, Big Poop Data, and the BLACK 2.0 paint.
Read postMushroom growing kit and automation
Growing an oyster mushroom kit and over-engineering it with an ESP8266, DS18B20 sensors, MQTT, and Twilio alerts.
Read postDay 96 - This is a not bomb
A sous vide PID temperature controller box with LEDs, seven-segment displays, and a relay. Not a bomb.
Read postLife tracking Dec 2013
December 2013 life-tracking dump: app usage, Vancouver movement map, steps, sleep, house temperature, and BC Hydro use.
Read postIntroduction to Home automation with the Raspberry Pi - Sunday November 24th 2013
VHS workshop on Raspberry Pi home automation: read temperature, motion, and door sensors, log them, and switch relays.
Read postGeoGramOne - GPS tracker to Google maps
Reflashed a GeoGramOne GPS tracker board to POST coordinates to a web server and plot them on a Google Map.
Read postReporting the system stats of a Raspberry PI to COSM with python
Python script that pushes Raspberry Pi CPU, RAM and disk stats plus an Arduino light reading up to COSM.
Read postRaspberry PI and the GPIO pins
Setting up a Raspberry Pi headless, wiring the GPIO pins to an LED and a magnetic door switch, and pushing readings to COSM.
Read postRGB LED POV Globe - Software
Software progress on the POV globe with a frame buffer class, bluetooth serial loading, and an ADXL345 accelerometer.
Read postStatus update Feb 15
Mid-February update: Ray Gun Revival launched, a Maker Faire spin-art rig in planning, and the outdoor sensor logging sunrises.
Read postWhat I did in 2010, Year end review
Year-end review of 2010: lockpicking, QR tags, GPS tracking, wheatpaste Marios around Vancouver, time-lapse videos, and SkyZoo.
Read postPlaying with app inventor for android
Building a simple sensor-reading Android app with Google App Inventor, and the features I wish it had.
Read postArduino Infrared, Blue Robot challenge, Burning man and superman
Working on the VHS Blue Robot IR beacon challenge with an Arduino, plus WordPress 3.0, Burning Man, and Vancouver event links.
Read postInteresting Friday
Friday roundup of Vancouver events, science talks, an Arduino-Android toolkit, and other links from the week.
Read postArduino + Maxsonar EZ1 + Processing
Processing sketch that draws Arduino MaxSonar EZ1 distance data as coloured arcs whose hue changes with range.
Read postARDUINO and MaxSonar EZ1
Hooking a MaxSonar EZ1 ultrasonic rangefinder to an Arduino, debugging noisy readings, and finding the wiring mistake.
Read postFlower plug
A bathtub plug shaped like a flower that shifts from pink to deep purple once the water hits a safe temperature.
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