Jason Dorweiler has built an Autonomous Car that is based on a simply off the shelf $100 RC car. The car is loaded up with a bunch of sensors and visual technology. An Arduino is being used to tie everything together. The video below demonstrates a parking lot test that seems to have worked very well.

Thanks for the email Paul.

“For the localization of the car I’ll be using a GPS sensor and accelerometer. First, the GPS will find the starting coordinates of the car. Then the car will start moving, somewhat blindly at first. Once the car is moving, data from the accelerometer and elapsed time can be used to calculate the velocity of the car. These two measurements are then passed into a Kalman filter to improve the accuracy of the car’s position.

At the same time, heading data from the GPS and gyroscope are passed into another Kalman filter to get an accurate heading on the car. The position and heading data from the Kalman filters is then compared to a GPS waypoint given to the sensor and motor control. Next, a heading toward the desired GPS waypoint is calculated, and the appropriate signal is sent to the steering servo in order to point the car in that direction.”

Check out the Skot 9000 DigitGrid. It is a huge grid of 7 segment displays that can be used to display a picture or even a video in a crude way. The result is beautiful!

Thanks for the tip Stan.

“The DigitGrid is an array of seven-segment displays. There are 4096 LEDs, forming 512 7-segment digits (they are actually 8 leds each if you count the decimal point). Every 16 digits is grouped together into a “module” with a Texas Instruments TLC5920 LED Driver/Controller. Each module has it’s own PCB with input and output headers. The modules connect together end-to-end to form rows of 32 x 2 digits. There are 8 of these rows. All of the rows are controlled by a Spartan 3E FPGA that also receives frames over serial. The various animations are written in Processing and then sent out frame by frame to the FPGA over 230kbps serial. The TLC5920 has a current limiting setting and as a result, the whole display draws less than 1 amp.”

This DIY Vacuum Fluorescent Display Driver uses a 555 Timer to drive it. Most of us have used a 7 segment display before and they are very simply to power since they are just LEDs and it is very simply to power LEDs. Kerry Wong had a VFD but no driver, he built one using a 555 timer, a hand wound transformer and a hand full of other components.

“One of the key design considerations for the filament driver is the need to “float” the filament potential above the ground. This offset voltage is necessary to prevent ghosting (see this app note for more detailed explanation). Also in order for the illumination to be uniform, an AC drive current waveform from a center-tapped transformer is desired.”

There are a ton of sensors available for the Arduino. These days indoor air quality is on the mind of many people wanting to improve the quality of life and health. What could be better than a home made system that uses and Arduino and a bunch of sensors to monitor everything around you. This project also interfaces with Thing Speak to allow the data to be viewed online.

Want to make a tiny scope? This Arduino LCD Oscilloscope project would be a fun weekend project.

 ”I used an Arduino Fio board that I picked up from SparkFun.com (available at Amazon.com) and a small SPI graphical LCD board that I picked up for a few bucks at dx.com (SKU 153821, also apparently available at Amazon.com).”

When I think of a 7 Segment Display I think of a small display plugged into my breadboard with some wires plugged into it. This clock uses 7 segment displays that are nothing like that!. In fact these 7 segment displays are all mechanical and are actuated using tiny servo motors. Just think of the noise it would make if the time wasn’t set and it was flashing 12:00.

Via: HackNMod

This project demonstrates how to use a voltage divider to read in analog voltages with an Arduino. Since we are using a voltage divider the voltage that the chip sees is within it’s range even though in this case the voltage measured can be up to 50 volts. The Arduino then calculates the actual 4 analog volages and outputs them on an LCD. Have a look at the code provided to implement this in your next project.

Via: Electronics Lab

The prize this week is an Arduino Mini Clone. This contest will run for one week (June 8 – 14, 2013). Ending time is based on central standard time. To enter, identify the item above and what it can be used for. Please note the image above is a side view of the thing.

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.

I have never tried this technique so you might want to give it a try on a record you don’t like much before doing it on a record you would hate to destroy. Unlike the Green Marker Trick for improving the sound of CDs I think this technique would work quite well. All you need to do is goop some wood glue onto the record, wait for it to dry and peel it off. In the demonstration a small tab is used to start the peel. The glue adheres to the dirt and grime in the tracks but does not bond well to the vinyl itself. I am thinking that the Computer Cleaning Goo might work well in a pinch also.

If you want to be notified whenever the Space Station is flying overhead this Space Station Lamp project by Nathan from Mechanical Integrator is sure to help out. A number of LEDs edge light a piece of frosted plexiglass and a Teensy microcontroller does the work. Some Python code is used to check to see when the Space Station is over head. If you are interested in making something similar Nathan has provided all of the details. He also had a successful Kickstarter raising over 18 thousand back in 2011 so there is a good chance you could still buy one of these! 

Via: EEWeb