Ben Heck has just finished his latest hack which is version 5 of the XBox 360 Laptop. This time it looks even more polished than the previous versions. Unfortunately the laptop is spoken for so if you want one of these special units you may have to shell out some big bucks.

Via: Techeblog

 "A few months ago I announced that I would be building a few more Xbox 360 portables, and well, here’s one now! While it looks similar to the previous model it’s once again a from-scratch redesign and has the following features:

• Built-in Ethernet port, finally.
• Built in WIFI adapter, as usual.
• Digital pushbutton volume control rather than a clunky knob. I used a different audio amp as well, and it sounds a lot better.
• Flush-mount DVD door and side panels (such as the memory card slots)
• IR sensor for the remote control.
• Two user USB ports.
• More air holes!
• Jasper motherboard."

Fireworks are lots of fun and around this time of year there are in abundance. Instead of purchasing them next time why not try your hand at making some fireworks yourself. It goes without saying that fireworks are very dangerous and great precaution must be taken if you decide to roll your own. If you are going to make your own fireworks you might want to build your own ignition system for your fireworks show. This behind the scenes peek at some large fireworks shows is quite amazing also.

"Stars
A batch of 75 grams of 10 mm pumped "Tiger tail" stars were made for this shell, however only 70 grams were used. Remember always to make more than you need. It’s better to have a bit more, than be needing. The stars were primed in meal black powder to ensure ignition. Since Tiger tail stars ignite easy, you might find that this might be unnecessary. If a ‘rising comet’ is desired, a 20 mm or 3/4" comet is pumped with the compostion. Make sure that the comet has a burn time equal to the time fuse or spolette (3 seconds).

Tiger tail stars:
Potassium nitrate………………44
Charcoal (Pine airfloat)……..44
Sulphur………………………………6
SGRS or Dextrin…………………6"

This is a very cool Automatic Cat Food Dispenser project. Who wouldn’t want to feed their cats automatically. The project could have stopped at about 10 percent of where it is at and still accomplished the goal of automatic feeding but that would be no fun. If the project is worth doing it is worth over doing, and this is exactly what happened here. Andres Leon built this automatic cat food dispenser using an Arduino as the main automation brain, it controls a rotating drum of food that funnels food into two cat food bowls as it rotates. It is of course able to accept wireless commands from a computer and there is of course a web-cam pointed at the apparatus to watch the live action. Did I mention that a laser is used to monitor the position of the food drum? This is one total geek project!

"When the motor runs, it makes the cylinder rotate a certain amount of times. However, since the cylinder may provide varying resistance due to its weight (due to the amount of food in it) then a laser-driven sensor is also put in place to make sure the cylinder is repositioned in the right place to prevent premature spillage."

The prize this week is a loupe magnifier. This contest will run for one week (July 4 - 9, 2009) . Ending time is based on central standard time. To enter, identify the item pictured above and give an example of what can be done with it.

Please do not give the answer in the comments. 

Send an email to contest @ hackedgadgets.com with "Name the Thing Contest" as the subject, and the message body consisting of:

• The name of the item in the above picture
• An example of what the item pictured above can be used for

The winner will be chosen at random from all of the correct entries.

Below is a picture of the prize.

Who says our youth are out of shape because of all the video game playing they do? These guys were probably influenced by a video game but have probably taken it a bit farther than is healthy. With a camcorder strapped to his head the guy does some Spider-Man like moves. I don’t see any camera trickery but who knows…

If you live in a house that has more people than washrooms you have probably come across the situation where you are waiting for one to free up. Sven has come up with a solution, use a microcontroller to capture usage information and graph it so that you can see what the typical usage patten is like! Have a look at the recent graphs for some additional details.

"This project is about nearly daily statistical analysis and reporting of loo usage. Ever wanted to know when is the best time to go to the bathroom? The goal of this project is to get an overview of the bathroom usage and to get an idea of the loo usage patterns. With the help of statistical analysis it should be possible to get the desired information on a mathematical foundation. For that purpose an electrical switch is attached to the bathroom’s door’s lock. When the door is locked the switch is closed thus closing a circuit and igniting "occupied" lights in the rooms. This information also flows to a microcontroller that registers the status change and writes this information together with a timestamp that comes from a radio controlled DCF77 clock module into a file on a USB storage. This file is being read into a database a web application server is connected with. A CherryPy web application server contains all the the logic to evaluate and report the desired information as flash charts."

Driving motors from a microcontroller will be required for a project eventually. This video by NerdKits will go over some of the basics that are needed.

Thanks Humberto.

"Electric motors are a key way of converting electrical power (voltage and current) into mechanical power (torque and speed), and because electric motors are simple and reliable machines, they can be found all over, in many different shapes and sizes. In this video tutorial we’re just going to address the electrical side of the system. This includes some experiments you should try with a DC motor, a model of the system from an electrical perspective, building a MOSFET-based switching circuit, and finally two demos of a microcontroller-operated motor. This video and webpage specifically addresses a brushed DC motor, and although the specifics are not fully applicable to brushless (BLDC) motors, stepper motors, or AC motors, the big ideas about motor modeling and control will be useful in those areas as well."

If you have some top secret into that needs to hide in plain sight have a look at this USB Cigar. When the cigar is together there is no sign that it has been hacked!

"Materials:

• A thick cigar
• An USB flash disk of small dimensions
• Some wire, 2 x LEDs (red!), 1 x 10K resistor
• Wood primer
• Some tape
• A short USB extension cable
• Very thin paper, the size of a stamp"

Computer generated special effects seem to be getting better and better by leaps and bounds these days. I have watched the first video at least 6 times and can’t seem to find any flaws in it. I am still a pushover for real innovation thought like this video of the Sony QRIO Baseball Pitcher.

Maxi Huber sent in this HD projector build that he documented in a Youtube video. He purchased the kit from a German company. Looks like a cool project.

"The benefits from this projector are: The price is very cheap (499€) for an HD projector with DVI, HDMI (Playstation3 is working via HDMI!), S-VHS and many other conectors! The fans are very silent and the lamp costs just 20€ so the projector can run 24/7 without ever getting poor! I had a lot of fun assembling this product and painting it according to the colour of my home cinema! And the result is just amazing: it has a great, great HD picture and the assembling is really easy and can be done by everybody! Even if the manual at the website is not english, it is not a problem to understand it because it consists mainly out of pictures…!"